Neil Coffee's book ‘examines the exchange culture of ancient Rome’ (3). Its theoretical background lies in a long tradition of anthropological studies on gift-giving, a strict social obligation in which ‘parties do not give simultaneously, … but in turn, … [and] convey a sense of generosity, without specifying the type, amount, or time of any return’ (8). (Bizarrely, C.’s bibliography includes David Graeber's popular 2011 book Debt: The First 5,000 Years, but misses the more valuable Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value (2001).) C. is rightly aware that gift and commodity exchange can coexist. It is with precisely such a case that his narrative opens: wisely eschewing the ‘embeddedness’ trap, C. depicts the early Republic as a world in which trade, business and economic thought existed alongside the social obligation of generosity.

True to its title, though, the book advocates the thesis of a radical transformation. As trade and business boomed in the third and second centuries b.c., becoming a common presence in the Romans’ everyday life, the expectation that generous acts should be performed disappeared, thus marking the end of Roman gift culture. As the Romans became progressively aware of the risk of social disruption intrinsic in commodity culture, they repeatedly tried (or proposed) to revive traditional gift-giving. All their efforts proved ephemeral, however: in the new cultural milieu there was no room for reciprocal obligations. Gift-giving continued to be performed either for personal interests — in other words, it became a commodity — or out of selfless generosity. The narrative ends around the death of Nero (with occasional excursions on Fronto, Appian and Macrobius).

The choice to devote each chapter to a single author (or to contemporary authors) is a fortunate one, as C. is at his best in sketching individual medallions. The material is clearly presented, and some chapters, such as those on Caesar and Atticus, are highly original. At the end of the day, however, one is left unconvinced by C.’s overall reconstruction. That early Rome was a gift culture is stated, but not demonstrated, as the only evidence provided is Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ controversial belief that patronage as a structured institution entailing precise reciprocal duties existed ever since the foundation of the city (26). Bringing in some archaeological evidence would have proved fruitful here (for example, what happens to elite gift circulation in Thyrrenian Italy after the Orientalising period?), as all the literary data on early Rome present serious problems of reliability that C. does not even address.

In fact, C.’s view that early republican culture was radically different from the ‘new, more highly commercialised one’ (20) of the late Republic bears concerning similarities with the stories that the Romans told themselves on the decline of Roman customs. Polybius (31.25.6–7; cf. Diod. Sic. 31.26), Sallust (Cat. 5.8; Hist. fr. 11; cf. Plin., HN 33.150; Vell. 2.1.1) and Livy (39.6–7) believed that in the second century b.c. Roman traditional culture was being corrupted by the extravagance (luxus) and greed (avaritia) brought about by the flood of wealth generated by transmarine conquests. As Emilio Gabba proposed, in a seminal work oddly absent from C.’s bibliography (Annali dell'Istituto Italiano di Numismatica 36 (1989), 9–17), it is possible — though far from certain — that Fabius Pictor (Strab. 5.3.1 = FGrHist 809 F27 = FRHist 1 F24) had already voiced similar concerns regarding the conquest of Sabinum (see FRHist, vol. 3: 40–1). This is not to say, of course, that Roman economic culture remained identical throughout the centuries. Still, explaining change in terms of declining generosity under the spell of economic growth means repeating, in modern terms, the Roman tales on the greatness of the elders and the superiority of the mos maiorum. Early in the book, C. briefly concedes that, since ‘Roman historians and moralists lamented their society's moral decline, […] the very regularity of their complaints can suggest that there was no decline at all’ (16). One cannot help but wish that C. had given more credit to this possibility.

Equally unconvincing is C.’s reconstruction of Roman attitudes to economic activities. In C.’s view, even though early Romans practised trade and business, they were suspicious of economic growth and enrichment. This image, however, is yet again heavily indebted to the idealisation that late republican Romans operated on their ancestors. The reflection on the correct ways to make money, that is first visible to us in the sentence ‘magnam pecuniam bono modo invenire’ pronounced in 221 b.c. by Q. Caecilius Metellus in his funeral speech for his father (Plin., HN 7.139), involves both meanings of the term modus, ‘quantity’ as well as ‘manner’: one should ideally set a limit to legitimate gain, to prevent it from degenerating into greed. However, there is a tension, ubiquitous in our sources, between this moral principle and the importance placed on making profits, the magna pecunia of Metellus’ speech, or the quaestus praised in the Preface to Cato's De agri cultura. The behaviour of the ancestors, then, of the likes of Valerius Publicola and Curius Dentatus (28) — note that Dentatus was the protagonist of the episode of the Samnite ambassadors, not Cato as C. writes (48) — provides a solution to this conundrum that is as appealing and radical as unlikely: avoiding greed by rejecting quaestus altogether. The legendary ancestors have given up any form of growth and enrichment: as Sallust puts it, ‘vita hominum sine cupiditate agitabatur; sua cuique satis placebant’ (Cat. 2).

No less problematic is C.’s belief that ‘in the late republic and early Empire … plain money making’ came to be regarded as too immoral for ‘member[s] of the uppermost Roman elite … [to] … openly and proudly associate [themselves] or [their families]’ with it (34). In fact, that money-making was considered immoral is simply not true. In his memoirs, published sometime between 113 and 89 b.c. (FRHist, vol. 1: 268–70), the princeps senatus M. Aemilius Scaurus made no mystery of his initial poverty (FRHist 18 F1), and the story whereby he had considered a career in banking (FRHist 18 T5) appears to echo his involvement in financial activities. Pliny too believed that making money was a thing to celebrate: in his account of Remmius Palaemon's vineyard (HN 14.50), the virtus animi, at first absent, comes into play when a new manager starts reaping extraordinary profits. Even Seneca, who, in Pliny's words (ibid.), regarded money-making as a frivolity (inane), elsewhere praises the entrepreneurship of his deceased friend Cornelius Senecio, ‘qui divitiis imminebat’ (Sen., Ep. 101).

The theme of elite attitudes to money-making is much better served by the new translation of André Tchernia's Les Romains et le commerce (original version: 2011). T.’s treatment of the socio-cultural aspects of trade (16–37; 162–72) demonstrates that it was not money-making as such that the late republican and early imperial Roman elite found morally ambiguous. For example, against D'Arms’ classic ‘secrecy theory’, T. shows that their involvement in financial operations was in broad daylight. What the Roman nobility really abhorred was having a regular occupation (a sort of job). Senators and municipal decurions could only manage their own estates (including both money and land): although the notion was quite flexible — direct oversight of figlinae and tabernae was permitted (26) — this still ruled out direct involvement in seaborne transport (as navicularii, ‘ship-owners’) as well as in trade (as negotiatores); the new edition adds important updates on whether these two figures could coincide (138–9). But for those who were trying to climb the social ladder, there was no particular stigma attached to making money through trade, provided that it was only an intermediate stage on the way to proper respectability (39–42, commenting on Cic., Off. 1.150–1).

Deciding to investigate Roman exchange culture, C. has set himself a very ambitious task. And still, it does not look such a tall order when compared to T.’s book. Under the pretence of a collection of essays, T. has produced the most complete book on Roman trade to have appeared so far. Its original French version has already become a classic; this new translation — including bibliographical updates, and two extra chapters on Roman trade to India — makes the book easily accessible to students. It is a fantastic achievement for which the publisher should be warmly thanked.

The structure of the book is bipartite: Part I, ‘originally meant as an introduction […], has outgrown that intention’ (v); the single chapters of Part II function ‘as lengthy footnotes to Part I, linked to it by cross references’ (ibid.). The wealth of themes is such that any review can hardly do it justice. The topics covered can be roughly divided into two major spheres: the individual level, focusing on behaviours, beliefs and motivations of single economic operators; the macro-economic level, with wide-ranging discussions of the circulation of information, the formation of prices, the role of the State and the balance of payments both within the Empire, and between the Empire and the outer world (India). The two levels, however, are closely connected, and this is the real strength of the book: there is no generalisation, no broad-brush statement on economic phenomena that is not supported by the punctilious analysis of individual case-studies, based on an almost overwhelming amount of archaeological, epigraphical, papyrological and literary data. And yet, despite his attention to detail, T. is never pedantic, because he never loses sight of the broader picture. Thus, for example, his analysis of the poorly understood transaction called naulotike in TSulp. 78 — the acknowledgment by a Carian man called Menelaus of a payment received from the slave of P. Attius Severus — slowly and masterfully grows into an analysis of the role of the State in Roman trade. T. shows that P. Attius Severus was an importer of Baetican oil to Italy (possibly himself from Baetica), then argues that Menelaus was a captain delivering grain from Alexandria to Italy, whose ship had wintered in Puteoli, and concludes that Attius Severus’ slave must have used this opportunity to ‘dispatch Baetican produce to the far end of the Mediterranean’ (272). Then, with the support of two other case-studies, T. brings in the wider picture: ‘market laws do not of themselves explain’ trade between Italy and the East; rather, it ‘was a side effect of the huge trade in grain from Alexandria’. It was a ‘derivative’, a ‘side-effect’.

The final pages of Part I — which, given the particular structure of the book, can be considered as its conclusion — contain a powerful reflection on the factors generating redistribution. ‘This theory sees the development of new geographical balances and new needs as the prime mover of large-scale trade in the Empire’ (124). The army, the annona, the increased demand generated by the emperor's cash distribution to the urban population of Rome, colonial foundations, the fine living of the imperial court, of the local elites, of provincial governors and their staff, all these remind us of the intrinsic supremacy of politics over the economy. Roman long-distance redistribution, then, was yet another symptom of what P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (2000), 278 have aptly defined as ‘the unreason of far-flung power’.