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The history of the world economy - Polyak GB

Agriculture and crafts

The main occupation was farming population of Rome, which is mountainous and arid areas supplemented cattle (especially ovtse- and pigs).

In Rome, there were almost all known types of crafts in stone processing, metal, leather, fur, manufacture of articles made of clay, weaving. The most advanced of crafts - pottery. In VII-VI centuries. BC. e. increased demand for pottery has led to specialization and the creation of large workshops. Produced utensils, building ceramics (plates for finishing friezes), as well as a spindle for the weaving machines, weights for nets, crucibles, molds for casting coins and statues. Pottery in ancient Rome was famous Arretsiya.

Craftsmen were united in college on a professional basis. College emerged back in the Imperial period and under the control of the state. In IV-III centuries. BC. e. proobrazovyvalis board in public corporations such as forced to provide the army and the regularity of the tax revenue.

Italy is intensively developing trade in both external and internal. A feature of trade was the predominance of imports over exports. So, from Sicily and Africa were imported grain from Spain - silver and glassware, from Gibraltar - dried fish, from Gaul - pottery, Syria - Glass, Egypt and Miletus - fabrics from Asia Minor - colored marble, Greece - antique sculptures. Imported statues adorned the buildings of Rome. Imported products were the basis of feasting nobles and clothes made for her. According to Pliny the Elder, the annual import absorb up to 550 million. Sesterces.

The import was dominated by agricultural products (at low prices from the provinces), luxury goods (from Greece and the Hellenistic East). In II. BC. e. after the capture of the Spanish silver mines silver occupies an important place. The export was dominated by wine, olive oil, metal products.

agricultural production

Agricultural production was based on the work of a large number of slaves. A special place is occupied by pasture management, working mainly on the market. There was a deepening of specialization of agricultural production. In Italy itself became profitable livestock production, viticulture, horticulture. Livestock and poultry are converted into high-independent branches. Agriculture Efficiency is enhanced by the concentration of land ownership.

The rise of agriculture and contribute to the establishment of permanent market linkages between the regions of the country, providing good roads. At the same time it reduced the role of grain farming, as Rome begins to feel the growing competition from the provinces, which supplied cheap bread here.

It uses a wide set of tools. There was a common plow (with VI. BC. E.), Which loosens but does not flip a layer. The soil was treated with harrowing or breaking up clods special hammers. For harvesting sickles were used in the I c. n. e. reaper was invented wheel, is a wooden platform on two wheels, which push themselves to continue ox or an ass. Stems are caught between the iron knives and remained on the platform.

Harvest

When processing the crop used presses (with a load klinevy, screw), winepress for the pomace of grapes, olives and vegetables, mill with millstones of volcanic rock or crushed basalt (came with a V in. BC. E.). At the beginning of a new era were water mills.

Cascade watermills

The development of handicrafts

II in the end. BC. e. It begins rapid development of crafts, where unlike Greece had more important work free.

High level reached metal processing, developed her specialization: there profession molders sheet metal, mineral mix, engravers, polishers, polishers, etc. The cold processing of metals used for sharpening, reel, engraving, milling, stamping and embossing or boring, heat treatment -.. in casting, in blacksmithing for various metal grades. The liquid metal (cast) little used in handicraft production, was mainly for the manufacture of hollow statues. By casting processed copper, silver, gold and tin less. Iron only forged. Articles of iron supplied from Puteoli; bronze, lead and copper - from Capua.

It should be noted that demand for raw materials and materials (metal, stone, wood) are beginning to be met through imports from the provinces. For example, for the construction of administrative and religious buildings in Rome marble columns delivered in finished form or on ships from Asia Minor or from Europe. For this purpose, the ends of each column inserted axle to which the wheel to sit down, and columns rolled for hundreds of kilometers on paved roads in the metropolis.

Transport communications

Particular attention is paid Romans trans tailor communications. Wherever trodden "foot the Roman", they built roads, organized the mound in the hollows, settled in entrances to harbors and ports on the coast.

Already the IV. BC. e. Romans began to build the road, covered with gravel and paved (paved). The total length of the transport network in the Roman Mediterranean amounted to 80 thousand km. Monument of such construction is Lppieva road laid in the IV. BC. e. between Rome and Capua (350 km) and currently in use. This is the first paved road, on the sidelines of which posts, indicates the distance to Rome were installed.

Alpieva road

Build bridges (the biggest, the Danube, the length of 1070 m has a width span 50-60 m), breaking through tunnels established milestones, opened inns, drawn up roadmaps and travel guides. Security is provided by a military post.

Up messages on European rivers by boats and rafts. With the III. n. e. traders were required to join unions of transport entrepreneurs. The Romans built the internal channels: between the rivers Po and Padua (II century BC...), To bypass the delta of the river Roma (I century BC...), Between the rivers Rhine and Meuse, a number of channels in the UK.

Construction and building machinery

Construction business became an important source of industry structure. When you need to run many kilometers of aqueducts, viaducts were built (construction of bridge type, being built at the intersection of a deep ravine, canyon, and so on. P.), Aqueducts (construction of a bridge or overpass to the water supply tube, tray, conduit).

Aqueduct over the river. Gard (49 m height of 272 m length)

The main figures in the industry were the architect and construction entrepreneur, who got the contract for the order. For the construction of residential buildings used wood, wicker design, adobe brick, limestone, for public buildings - stone (mostly marble). In the III. n. e. there was a pane of glass. In II. BC. e. concrete was invented. We used lifting devices (cranes, timber), solid formwork for floors and molded luggage.

Raw materials for crafts mined in various places. The main supplier of silver, lead and copper in Rome was Spain, iron and tin - Gaul and Britain. Most of the mines belonged to the emperor. Their design was also used mass slave labor.

Stone (marble) also brought in from the provinces. The slaves worked quarries (in the late Rome as criminals). For cutting saws were used up to 4 m in length with quartz emery coated. It is known that in IV. BC. e. in a quarry in the Moselle mechanical saw driven by a water wheel was used. Production of various building materials was carried out on the estates (villas).

The main method of mining - laying a large number of narrow tunnels (1.52 m) with short drifts. The depth of the mines reached 120 m. The main work tools are a pick, rock hammer, pickaxe. In later Rome used water-lifting machines, based on the Archimedes screw, winches, gate.

Slave economy in the agricultural sector

With the development of the Roman state intensified the concentration of agricultural production. There are villas (racpolagaemye near cities), with a diversified economy in the allocation of market crops and had exchanges with urban artisans. The villa is a medium-sized land ownership, usually up to 200-300 uger (50-60 acres). The marketability of the villa reached 70-90%. Descriptions villas come down to us in the writings of Cato Varro and Columella.

In terms of commodity-type farms used slave labor cooperation, which allows to process the meat Polev 200 uger 12-14 slaves. On each slave, respectively, accounted for 14-16 uger land, while the free peasant with his family cultivated from 4 to 14 uger.

Suffice it provided high yield and agricultural sector, although the data are different.

There is evidence of the prosperity of specialized farms that produced products for the upper classes of society. Growing flowers and exotic fruits, breeding peacocks and partridges brought income to thousands of percent per year. However, it was rather an exception to the general rule.

The slave-owning villa was based on the exploitation of labor, not only slaves, but also on the part of workers. They were recruited from the peasants, especially in those areas where the ruin of small producers took quite wide dimensions. According to the observations of Varro, the villas are sometimes to be found as much free labor, how much and slaves.

Slave houses due to good organization gave a stable annual income, which, however, was less than the income generated by usury, pay off taxes or financial speculation.

Managed villa Vilik - appointed slaveholder slave.

There were also samoudovletvoryaetsya economy, called latifundia. They originated in the II. BC. e. and they were mainly pastoral, based on slave labor. In I a. BC. e. - I c. n. e. in agriculture Rome latifundia became prominent element of the production structure. On the one hand, the emergence and development of large estates can be represented as a natural process of development of the slave houses. One of the major goals of the major tycoons have been investing in the expansion of the land and their possessions due to the slave medium villas, especially in Italy, as the Italic lands were exempted from taxes. This led to the emergence of big business. Thus, the condition of the majority of Roman senators were not lower than 8 million sesterces, equivalent to the cost of 14-29 thousand. Tons of grain, and rich aristocrats were up 400 million. Sesterces.

On the other hand, since the reign of Emperor Augustus, when the Roman state as a result of wars of conquest received significant territorial increment originated the practice of rewarding, mainly in the provinces, government officials and military leaders vast land holdings, which also contributed to the development of large estates.

In parallel with this process accelerated the ruin of small landowners who sold their plots, they find themselves landless, forced to rent land from the owners of large estates. Free Peasants achieved greater efficiency of production than the individual slaves, but the tenants can not use the benefits of co-operation, which was based on the economic prosperity of the middle of villas. Therefore, the growth of these houses could not be accompanied by changes in their internal structure, associated with the development of the rental.

Thus, although the overall marketability of the Roman production significantly and has not changed, it has shifted from a centralized economy to a villa rented land estates. This has important implications, since this is where all of the major trends that emerged in the course of further development of forms of organization of the Roman agricultural production were laid.

New estates structure was more advanced than the old slaveholding villa type. On the one hand, it has developed a system that allows the lessee to use the personal interest in the outcome of his work, which has brought significant revenues; while the actual slaveholder needs are fully satisfied that part of the economy, which worked directly with the home owner. On the other hand, the market orientation of the economy deepened significantly, because now the tenants were interested in the cash receipts and the slave owner was able to take some of their slaves craft labor and to reduce purchases of craft products. Handicraft production, including the creation of luxury goods are becoming increasingly common in the slave-holding estates of this type.

Consequently, monetary incomes grew slaveholder and effectiveness of the slave economy, taking into account its orientation to the value of surplus product increased.

Each had a large estate manager and his assistant with a staff of supervisors and foremen in charge of the workers were.

The agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus

In society, intensified social tensions. Trying to regain the old land-use guidelines on communal lands was undertaken brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. The elected tribune Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC. e. He won approval of the law, according to which every citizen can have in their use no more than 500 uger Public lands, the rest of the land was divided between the poor citizens (about 7.5 hectares in the farmhouse) under the conditions of a hereditary lease. After the murder of Tiberius Gracchus Gaius managed to resume the activities of the commission and a piece of land about 75 thousand families. But he was forced to admit defeat after the armed clashes, which killed nearly three thousand people - ordered his servant to kill him. The law does not give the expected results, since the small peasant holdings were unable to secure the profitability of farms.

The concentration of land ownership continued to grow simultaneously with the increase in social contradictions that led to a massive slave revolt (138-132 BC, 104 -100 BC, 73 -.... 71 BC -. Revolt of Spartacus). Bnachale 80s. BC. e. in Rome, the civil war began.