The Reputation of the Roman Merchant

Jane Sancinito (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

272 Seiten

2024
The University of Michigan Press (Verlag)
978-0-472-13348-2 (ISBN)

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Roman merchants, artisans, and service providers faced substantial prejudice. Contemporary authors labeled them greedy, while the man on the street accused merchants of lying and cheating. Legally and socially, merchants were kept at arm’s length from respectable society. Yet merchants were common figures in daily life, populating densely packed cities and traveling around the Mediterranean. The Reputation of the Roman Merchant focuses on the strategies retailers, craftsmen, and many other workers used to succeed, examining how they developed good reputations despite the stigma associated with their work. In a novel approach, blending social and economic history, The Reputation of the Roman Merchant considers how reputation worked as an informal institution, establishing and reinforcing traditional Roman norms while lowering the cost of doing business for individual workers. From histories and novels to inscriptions and art, this volume identifies common reputation strategies, explores how points of pride and personal accomplishments were shared with others, and explains responses to merchant activities on the small-scale. The book concludes that merchants invested heavily in their reputations as a way to set themselves apart from common, negative stereotypes without admitting that there was anything shameful about the work they did.

Jane Sancinito is Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts-Lowell.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Roman Reputation
Reputation and New Institutional Economics
Sources
Roman Perceptions of Trade
Chapter One: Merchants and the Roman Empire
The Pluralism of Roman Law
Legal Enforcement and Corruption
Controlling Roman Merchants
Conclusion
Chapter Two: The Nature of Reputation
Regularity, Consistency, and Predictability: The Foundations of Reputation
A Comparative Endeavor
Audience
Conclusion
Chapter Three: Developing a Reputation, Managing a Good Name
Making a Name for Yourself
Living Reputation
Reputation of the Dead
Conclusion
Chapter Four: Defying the Stereotype and Using Reputation
Stereotyping the Roman Merchant
Trust, Honesty, and New Institutional Economics
Social Capital and the Benefit of the Doubt
Conclusion
Chapter Five: Institutionalizing Reputation, or Information and What to Do with It
The Spread of Reputation
Prevention, Policing, and Punishment
Conclusion
Conclusion
Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum	30.01.2024
Reihe/Serie	Law And Society In The Ancient World
Zusatzinfo	7 images
Verlagsort	Ann Arbor
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	272 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-472-13348-9 / 0472133489
ISBN-13	978-0-472-13348-2 / 9780472133482
Zustand	Neuware