Customer Reviews

The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World

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I am a retired professor of Classics. My speciality was ancient Greek and Latin poetry, not history. So, I can review this book with more knowledge than most, but not as much knowledge as some. Its contributors are among the world's leading ancient historians; and their contributions provide both a broad survey and an intensive analysis of a subject that is more interesting and important than many people realize.

Save your pounds, dollars, loonies, kiwis, aussies and even your declining euros! This tome isn't worth its price. Among the numerous errors of this poorly edited and poorly proofed text; one is geographical, locating Marseilles between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, another chronological, the Assyrians capturing Tyre in 578 when their empire had fallen by 608, and another demographic, Marseilles having 15-20,000 inhabitants before the Roman period, whenever that began and (always) larger than Palermo, Naples, Ostia and New Carthage. Then, the learned demographers who edited this collection estimate the average age of first marriage of Roman males at about 30 when it actually was under 20, and of females at 19 when it was actually14 to 15 (as if it were constant over centuries). In fact, no one has ever been able to cite even a single Roman pagan male who married for the first time after 30. They also misestimate the average age of first marriage for Greek males of all classes at 33 (over millennia) when it was actually raised around 630 BC from about 20 to about 30. As is increasingly noticeable these days in classical studies, grand theories, such as in this case of immutable life tables, are trumping actual evidence. Don't waste your money on this expensive book filled both with inaccuracies and cockeyed analysis. For a full review, see [...]