ORCID
0000-0002-0871-4249 (Benton)
Document Type
Conference Paper
Publication Date
2023
DOI
10.11588/propylaeum.1035.c14119
Publication Title
Sessions 6-8, Single Contributions, Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2023 (Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World: Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Cologne/Bonn 2018, Volume 55)
Volume
55
Pages
635-648
Conference Name
19th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Cologne/Bonn, May 22-26, 2018
Abstract
[First paragraph] The study of Roman bakeries sometimes has a tendency to treat them as somewhat different from other crafts and trades in terms of the scale of their production. Helmuth Schneider, for example, posits that Roman workshops "were not elaborately fitted out and it was quite cheap to set up a workshop; a craftsman usually needed only a few tools for his craft and often practiced it in a shop connected with his living quarters. There were some crafts, however, which were dependent on bigger production sites with more expensive equipment: bakeries had their ovens and mills... Bakers and fullers in particular were sometimes quite well-off: the baker Eurysaces, for example, was able to have erected for himself a pretentious monument at the Porta Maggiore in Rome."¹ Commercial baking is often grouped with fulling as investment heavy industries with undifferentiated product and inelastic demand, allowing for a form of industrialization not evident crafts of other sorts.² This understanding of the baking industry has largely been grounded in the material remains of bakeries from central Italy, which are well outfitted with elaborate masonry ovens and large imported millstones. But the idea of the high-production bakery, unique among Roman crafts, is really grounded in the evidence from Ostia where massive installations were capable of milling vast sums of grain and of baking huge numbers of loaves. Pompeian or Ostian bakeries are sometimes even used as a template for commerial baking at other sites, where the evidence is less well preserved,³ but the bakeries elsewhere, even those at Pompeii, are much smaller installations often with much less infrastructure. Such myopia in our examinations has had the effect of placing undue emphasis on economic growth leading into the first few centuries of the common era and exagerating any collapse at the end of antiquity, giving the impression of a shift from near-industrialization and high product dependence to modest production hardly distinguishable from domestic activities.⁴ An expanded examination of the Roman baking industry from urban centers around the Mediterranean indicates that most bakeries were small workshops producing on a modest scale, rather than massive bread factories with close ties to the State. A reconceptualization of late antique bakeries, and workshops in general, as relatively small spaces grounded the Roman familia is consistent with observations about Roman bakeries in earlier periods,⁵ but also matches the types of commercial baking activities we see in the Middle Ages.⁶ Such consistency suggests that we should view the nature of commerical activity at the end of antiquity as an evolution, rather than an interruption or disastrous collapse. On the other hand, there is good evidence for a shift in the localization of bakeries, away from urban centers and centered instead on the grounds of churches and monasteries.
Rights
© 2023 The Author.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) License.
Original Publication Citation
Benton, J. (2023). Economies of scale: Late-antique bakeries outside large urban centers. In M. Bentz and M. Heinzelmann (Eds.) Sessions 6-8, Single Contributions, Heidelberg: Propylaeum, 2023 (Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World: Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Cologne/Bonn 2018, Volume 55) (pp. 635-648). Propylaeum. https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1035.c14119
Repository Citation
Benton, Jared, "Economies of Scale: Late-Antique Bakeries Outside Large Urban Centers" (2023). Art Faculty Publications. 23.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/art_pubs/23
Comments
This is a single contribution of a conference that took place in 2018 but was published in 2023. It took place as a part of Sessions 6-8, "Consumption - Economy of the cult - The role of the city".
Publisher landing page for the contributions: https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.1035