L’Asia Minore e l’approvvigionamento in grano di Roma

Abstract

Asia Minor has never played a significant role in the grain supply of Rome, neither in the Republican nor in the Imperial age. On the contrary, epigraphic evidence indicates difficult times for the province, attributed, in the modern literature, in part to the scarcity of local production, in part to the failure of excternal supplies, especially Egyptian, as a result of the policy of Rome. The archaeological data available today — few as they are - together with a re-reading of the texts, suggest vice versa the picture of a relatively self-sufficient country, in which the crises noted would depend not on the diminution of the production, but on the increase of consumption.