Abstract
After Rome had conquered much of temperate Europe, the administration directed the establishment of industries important to the maintenance of military and economic control of the new provinces. These included stone quarries, pottery manufactures, and metal industries. Recent research shows that much production was not as centralized as has been believed; diverse industrial sites throughout the provincial landscapes indicate a variety of arrangements for supplying the needs of the empire. In many instances, Roman production systems relied upon indigenous traditions of manufacturing. The provincial economies depended also upon materials collected and processed beyond the imperial frontiers. Analysis of Roman imports in Germany, Scandinavia, and eastern Europe, and of the contexts in which they occur, suggesta that goods produced outside of the empire played a major role in the imperial economy. These commercial links, over which Roman authorities had no effective control, contributed to substantial changes in economics and in social and political configurations in societies beyond the Roman frontier.
Highlights
Most of what we know, and think we know, about emp ires in world history concerns the actions, moti vations, and institutions of the imperial societies; we know relati vely littl e about the peoples who arc drawn into imperial contexts, through conqu est or other means
Most empir es JournaI of World-Sys temsResearch have been develop ed by societies that possessed wr iting, and the written accounts up on which understanding ha
I distinguish here between the more established research question - what impact did the conquering society have on the indigenous peoples?; and a newer concern - in what ways did the indigenous peoples a
Summary
Most of what we know, and think we know, about emp ires in world history concerns the actions, moti vations, and institutions of the imperial societies; we know relati vely littl e about the peoples who arc drawn into imperial contexts, through conqu est or other means. If each Roman military base needed to arrange the supply of all, or most, of the se goods from indigenous producers - and the evidence suggests that supply worked this way the Roman occupying forces were very much dependent upon the local groups.
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