Antiquités africaines t. 17, 1981, p. 37-83
RURAL MARKETS IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
by Brent D. SHAW
It has long been recognized that the study of the pre-Roman social structures of the ancient Maghrib is a necessary pendant to the understanding of the long-term process of the economic and political changes that followed upon the integration of North Africa within the Roman 'world system'*. In contrast with this admission, however, the balance of ancient North African studies is still tilted towards the urban centre and the upper political echelons of the Roman-African governing and land-owning elite. It is the purpose of this article to contribute to the fuller comprehension of one pre-Roman institution that was crucial to the function of social life in the rural regions of North Africa, both before and after the Roman conquest, namely, the rural periodic market.
The study of this institution is greatly facilitated by the plethora of excellent analyses of pre-modern marketing institutions produced in the last two decades 1. The investigation seeks to extend the analysis beyond the institution itself into at least three major related areas of concern. First, it attempts to delineate the place of the rural periodic market within the broader economic and political development of North Africa in the Roman Empire, and especially its relationship to the dominant exploitative unit of the countryside, the large agricultural estate. Secondly, the relationship of this specific market form
* The author would like to thank Joyce M. Reynolds (Newnham College, Cambridge) and Mr. C.R. Whittaker (Churchill College, Cambridge) for their criticism of earlier drafts of this paper.
1 The bibliography for early work on periodic markets can be found in Fröhlich (W.), Das afrikanische Marktwesen. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 72, 1940, p. 234-328. There was a 'lull' in market studies until the publication by Bohannon (P.) and Dalton (G.), Markets in Africa. Evanston, 111., Northwestern University Press, 1962 (African Studies, no. 5), and the paperback edition, Markets in Africa : Eight Subsistence Economies in Transition, New York, Anchor Books, 1965. A survey of more recent work can be found in Lockwood (W.G.), Periodic Markets : Source Materials on Markets and Fairs in Peasant Society. Monticello, 111., Nov. 1972 (Council of Planning Librarians, Exchange Bibliography no. 341) ; Smith, (R.H.T.), Periodic Markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Monticello, 111., Sept. 1972 (Ibid., no. 318) ; and Bromley (R.J.), Periodic Markets, Daily Markets, and Fairs : A Bibliography. Melbourne, 1974 (Monash Publications in Geography, no. 10) ; cf Bromley (R.J.), Hodder (B.W.), and Smith (R.H.T.), Market-Place Studies : A World Bibliography up to 1972. London, S.O.A.S., 1974, and especially the valuable synoptic analysis of Smith (C.A.), Economics of Marketing Systems : Models from Economic Geography. Annual Review of Anthropology 3, 1974, p. 167-201, which concentrates on work since Bohànnon and Dalton (1965).
