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AJA
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Given the long-standing discussion of social em-
beddedness in the ancient economy, it seems only
natural that studies addressing Mediterranean eco-
nomic institutions and change should consider the
impact of another socially constructed phenomenon:
technology. While Greek and Roman technology was
once viewed as generally static and unproductive, a
growing corpus of studies has now demonstrated the
socioeconomic effects of innovations in elds ranging
from hydraulic engineering to mining and manufac-
turing. Yet within discussions of maritime trade, it is
startling that the technologies associated with ship-
ping have prompted little critical economic analysis,
particularly in light of widespread acknowledgment
that certain obvious technological changes related to
seafaring did occurin methods of ship construction
as well as types of sails and rigging. The corollary
question is obvious but hardly straightforward: what,
if any, economic impact can we attribute to changes
in maritime technology?
This unique volume, edited by Harris and Iara,
collects a range of perspectives on this question.
It represents the outcome of a conference, held in
Rome in 2009, that brought together ship experts
and economic historians. The event and proceedings
pose a formidable query, asking whether advances
in either ship-construction or navigation are likely to
have lowered the costs of maritime trade at any time
during the longue dure of the Graeco-Roman Mediter-
ranean (9). Integration of these often disparate elds
presents a daunting challenge but follows admirably
in the tradition of Casson and DArms, to whom the
volume is appropriately dedicated. To this end, several
papers represent new looks at old problems of naval
carpentry, ship size, and the technologies associated
with seafaring knowledge. Others tackle topics related
to purpose-built boats, specialized environments, and
seasonality, which lead the volume happily beyond
the connes of ship construction and navigation.
The 14 contributions8 in English, 4 in Italian, and
2 in Frenchsurvey broadly while maintaining their
common focus on the fundamental socioeconomic
question. Many readers will be inclined to turn im-
mediately to those chapters that most directly address
their particular chronological or material interests.
Yet a common bibliography and index invite readers
to wander through broader themes and to explore
more widely.
Three contributions frame the book and dene a
recurrent theme throughout its pages: the compara-
tive roles of institutions and technology in economic
performance. Harris introduction establishes the
parameters for the discussion by laying bare many
shortcomings of the evidence, weaving together
several major focuses of the contributions and pro-
viding a broad outline of some of the more secure
developments in maritime technology that may
have inuenced economics. Scheidel then turns to
the New Institutional Economics for explanations of
Romes ourishing maritime trade, suggesting that
any major gains at sea were the result not so much of
technological improvements but of the imperial state,
whose stability lowered impediments and costs to
commerce. In the concluding chapter, Wilson posits
a somewhat stronger role within this institutional
framework for technological developments in facilitat-
ing economic gains. He characterizes improvements in
ship construction, equipment, and harbor facilities as
technological prerequisites that allowed larger ships,
safer journeys, and new routes. These contributions
from three prominent Romanists underscore the vol-
umes decidedly Roman avor, even if discussions
by Harris and others routinely reach back to archaic
and classical Greece for the origins of key technologies
under analysis.
Eleven papers at the core of the volume explore
an impressive (but by no means exhaustive) range
of technologies; some authors evaluations highlight
Maritime Technology in the Ancient
Economy: Ship-Design and Navigation
Edited by William V. Harris and Kristine Iara ( JRA Suppl. 84). Pp. 264, gs. 67. Journal of
Roman Archaeology, Portsmouth, R.I. 2011. $99. ISBN 978-1-887829-84-7 (cloth).
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innovation and adaption, while others offer a largely
static view. The complex interplay of economy and
technology, however, is not always afforded the same
detail. For example, while the broad impact of tech-
nology on economy is naturally the common theme,
comparatively few explore the extent to which economic
demand actually drove technological development.
Reading the Stadiasmus as a more practical handbook
than most earlier periploi, Medas reasonably concludes
that commercial organizations may have played a role
in compiling documents for training and logistics (176).
In other contributions, economic drivers are more often
intimated than demonstrated. Likewise, the economic
gain of certain innovations is sometimes less clear, and
the explicit nature of an improvement is occasionally
left ambiguous or framed simply as linear evolution. In
part, this may be a result of our limited evidence, which
at present makes it difcult enough to understand when
and how certain technologies functioned, leaving aside
the more probing questions of who chose what technol-
ogy, in what circumstances, and to what practical effect.
Even so, there are reassuring signs among a number
of contributions that the wider socioeconomic context
is becoming all the more central as we map maritime
technologys inuence in a nonlinear way. Tchernias ty-
pology of commercial ventures stresses the remarkably
heterogeneous nature of Roman shipping (88), which
surely reects not only the diverse interests and tech-
nological choices of mariners themselves but also the
various socioeconomic contexts behind this exchange.
Politics appear routinely in these pages. It was political
as much as economic interest that prompted Boettos
specialized caudicariae to lug cargoes up the Tiber and
determined the placement of Red Sea ports analyzed
by Cooper. Yet other factors are likewise beginning to
emerge from the shadows. Here I note Whitewrights
cogent reevaluation of one important (and apparently
long-misunderstood) technology whose development
did not represent a simple march of progress. He argues
that the lateen sail, whose popularity grew from the Ro-
man period into late antiquity, offered neither greater
speed nor better performance into the wind (92). If
correct, this surprising realization necessitates an alter-
native explanation for its use within some circles, but it
also allows us to understand its adoption or rejection as
an active and socially constructed choice. How might
a new sail and rigging conguration have changed
the organization of labor on a vessel? To what degree
did the shapes of sails alongside their markings signal
geographical, ethnic, or other cultural associations?
One particularly well-known change bridges vari-
ous chapters and illustrates the dynamic interaction of
technology, economy, and other factors with which the
authors must wrestle: the adoption of mortise-and-tenon
joinery. While this technology was known from at least
the Bronze Age, it was probably only around the sixth
century B.C.E. that Greek shipwrights employed it in the
construction of sturdier hulls and, by extension, larger
ships capable of handling bigger cargoes than their
earlier sewn/laced vessels. If we apply Harris yardstick
for measuring a technologys economic impactits
relatively rapid widespread adoption (15)we arrive
at a dilemma, for mortise-and-tenon construction was
neither quickly nor completely adopted. The continued
success of sewn/laced boat knowledge is evident both in
the centuries of repairs to otherwise mortise-and-tenon
built vessels and in its survival among some groups of
mariners into the Roman era and beyond. Despite some
obvious advantages, this new technique was also more
labor and material intensive, and hence more expen-
sive. Its economic impact depended on the agency of
different merchant mariners across the Mediterranean,
who would have chosen or rejected it according to its
utility, price, and adaptability, as well as their specic
circumstances, environment, traditions, knowledge
base, interests, and resources. The exibility of a sewn/
laced vessel may have offered a distinct advantage for
mariners who needed to beach their hulls outside the
larger harbors. If the innovative spark hypothesized by
Pomey (and others previously) has meritthat a need
for stronger warship hulls able to ram and absorb the
impact of enemy rams led to mortise-and-tenon con-
struction (523)then economic necessity was not the
mother of this invention. Any economic benets from
stronger mortise-and-tenon joinery were a by-product of
innovation driven not by price-conscious merchants but
by the states military interests and ability to mobilize
resources and personnel.
If none of the technologies investigated here revolu-
tionized the protability of maritime commerce, to what
extent might the cumulative weight of incremental
changes have produced growth (15)? The overall im-
pression is that small innovations yielded some measure
of economic gain among certain merchants, but this
growth was probably neither sustained nor necessarily
even perceptible in the short run. Nonetheless, if later
Hellenistic and earlier Roman maritime economic pro-
ductivity saw even a gentle growth curveon the scale
of what Saller has reasonably suggested (Framing the
Debate over Growth in the Ancient Economy, in J.G.
Manning and I. Morris, eds., The Ancient Economy: Evi-
dence and Models [Stanford, Calif. 2005])then seafaring
technology could have returned a long-term dividend
that was signicant by preindustrial standards. It is
hard to believe that there is no relationship between
the maritime boom suggested by studies of shipwreck
numbers and the concentration of innovations around
the rst centuries B.C.E. and C.E., even if these technolo-
gies would have had little impact on a maritime world
lacking the Roman states stability and security.
Quantifying these factors will require continued
attention to the chronologies of maritime technologies
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and their specic utilization or rejection among differ-
ent groups and in different circumstances. Regardless
of whether an innovation was universally adopted, if it
gave some merchant mariners a wider range of choices
in solving technical problems, then its economic impact
may have been more substantial than straightforward
cost-benet analysis might predict (e.g., a vessels added
cost vs. increased speed). With sufcient attention to
detail and context, intensive programs of comparative
and experimental modeling could reveal specic gures
for individual vessel types, their lading and sailing
capabilities, their investment and maintenance costs,
and the like. Will we ever be able to distinguish one
maritime innovations economic impact from another, or
measure smaller geographical or chronological contours
of change? If scholars of maritime technology and the
ancient economy invest in this common goal by follow-
ing the signicant steps taken in this well-considered
and well-structured (not to mention well-edited) vol-
ume, their efforts, too, will surely yield long-term gains.
JUSTIN LEIDWANGER
AEGEAN MATERIAL CULTURE LAB
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
TORONTO, ONTARIO M5S 2G2
CANADA
JLEIDWA@STANFORD.EDU