I posted this thread first on reddit and meant to post it here but forgot about it so here it is:
In the latest Imperator:Rome development diary it was repeated that most of the player's city taxes would come from slaves: "As mentioned in the chapter about pops, the tax income of a city is primarily based on how many slaves you have in that city".
The Ancient Mediterannean societies were slave cultures and societies: fundamental social division was that between slave and free. But actual "slave-economies" in which slave labor permeated all sectors of the economy and played a crucial role in creating the bulk of a society's economic value were rare in history and Rome is not of one of them. The fundamental economic division during the game's setting, was between educated and uneducated, skilled and unskilled, not between slave and free.
The slaves numerical importance, often conflated for politicial purposes, does not mean they did all the work. Most of the people working the land (which was the source of most of the GDP in an agrarian society) were free peasants integrated in a labor market. Slaves were part of the economic structure, especially urban labour markets, and crucial for the elites in their wealth accumulation competition. The countryside was not emptied of peasants after the huge influx of slaves from roman conquests, despite the claims of certain populist Roman politicians, as seen both from archaeological survey and from the fact that the villas relied on employing casual labour from the locality at harvest time, as a means of keeping the size of their permanent workforce to a minimum.
Slaves were for rich villa organized in efficient manner in productive land. There are clear indications that the villa mode of cultivation was intended to be highly profitable, and slaves were an essentiel part of this. The landed-elites bought up the most fertile land and pushed peasant farms towards the margins and inland. Intensive exploitation of slaves was sought in regions with low transaction cost and good market opportunities (the Mediterranean coast near cities and ports but not further inland).
Urban centers had a much greater ratio of slaves, but the cities were more centers of consumption, creating a demand of goods that could not be satisfied from local productions due to their administrative/military importance rather than vibrant centers of production.
Imperator:Rome, from the information shown so far and the known general design of its main designer is inauthentic by many metrics. The mechanics shown so far seem fairly standard and skinned for Antiquity.
This is not to say that the game cannot be fun, entertaining or engaging, simply that it is historically inauthentic when you have a certain knowledge of the Ancient world. I would love an authentic and immersive Roman GSG game, an accurate representation of the frame of mind and understanding of the world of Ancient Mediterannean societies but Imperator:Rome is not going to be that game.
SOURCES:
1. Temin, Peter. “The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 34, no. 4, 2004, pp. 513–538
2. Temin Peter. "The Economy of the Early Roman Empire". The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 1 Winter, 2006, pp. 133-151
3. Walter Scheidel. "The comparative economics of slavery in the Greco-Roman world". 2005 Stanford University
4. Morley, N. "Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy, 200 BC–AD 200". 1996 Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press
5. Rathbone, D. W. “The Development of Agriculture in the 'Ager Cosanus' during the Roman Republic: Problems of Evidence andInterpretation.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 71, 1981, pp. 10–23
6. Morley, Neville. "The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism". Pluto Press, 2010
7. Rosenstein, Nathan. “Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 98, 2008, pp.1–26.
In the latest Imperator:Rome development diary it was repeated that most of the player's city taxes would come from slaves: "As mentioned in the chapter about pops, the tax income of a city is primarily based on how many slaves you have in that city".
The Ancient Mediterannean societies were slave cultures and societies: fundamental social division was that between slave and free. But actual "slave-economies" in which slave labor permeated all sectors of the economy and played a crucial role in creating the bulk of a society's economic value were rare in history and Rome is not of one of them. The fundamental economic division during the game's setting, was between educated and uneducated, skilled and unskilled, not between slave and free.
The slaves numerical importance, often conflated for politicial purposes, does not mean they did all the work. Most of the people working the land (which was the source of most of the GDP in an agrarian society) were free peasants integrated in a labor market. Slaves were part of the economic structure, especially urban labour markets, and crucial for the elites in their wealth accumulation competition. The countryside was not emptied of peasants after the huge influx of slaves from roman conquests, despite the claims of certain populist Roman politicians, as seen both from archaeological survey and from the fact that the villas relied on employing casual labour from the locality at harvest time, as a means of keeping the size of their permanent workforce to a minimum.
Slaves were for rich villa organized in efficient manner in productive land. There are clear indications that the villa mode of cultivation was intended to be highly profitable, and slaves were an essentiel part of this. The landed-elites bought up the most fertile land and pushed peasant farms towards the margins and inland. Intensive exploitation of slaves was sought in regions with low transaction cost and good market opportunities (the Mediterranean coast near cities and ports but not further inland).
Urban centers had a much greater ratio of slaves, but the cities were more centers of consumption, creating a demand of goods that could not be satisfied from local productions due to their administrative/military importance rather than vibrant centers of production.
Imperator:Rome, from the information shown so far and the known general design of its main designer is inauthentic by many metrics. The mechanics shown so far seem fairly standard and skinned for Antiquity.
This is not to say that the game cannot be fun, entertaining or engaging, simply that it is historically inauthentic when you have a certain knowledge of the Ancient world. I would love an authentic and immersive Roman GSG game, an accurate representation of the frame of mind and understanding of the world of Ancient Mediterannean societies but Imperator:Rome is not going to be that game.
SOURCES:
1. Temin, Peter. “The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 34, no. 4, 2004, pp. 513–538
2. Temin Peter. "The Economy of the Early Roman Empire". The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 1 Winter, 2006, pp. 133-151
3. Walter Scheidel. "The comparative economics of slavery in the Greco-Roman world". 2005 Stanford University
4. Morley, N. "Metropolis and Hinterland: The City of Rome and the Italian Economy, 200 BC–AD 200". 1996 Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press
5. Rathbone, D. W. “The Development of Agriculture in the 'Ager Cosanus' during the Roman Republic: Problems of Evidence andInterpretation.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 71, 1981, pp. 10–23
6. Morley, Neville. "The Roman Empire: Roots of Imperialism". Pluto Press, 2010
7. Rosenstein, Nathan. “Aristocrats and Agriculture in the Middle and Late Republic.” The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 98, 2008, pp.1–26.
