Final Report Summary - EPNET (Production and distribution of food during the Roman Empire: Economics and political dynamics.)
The project started from a challenge: validate existing historical theories that explain the Roman economy using quantitative and formal methods.
Two opposing theories are explaining the roman economy: the first one assumes that the Roman world is not comparable with current economic principles and the other one that understood that the economic system of the Roman world was very similar to ours, although on a different scale.
Answering this scientific challenge involved the creation of a very interdisciplinary team, which, as a whole, has made it possible to plan and carry out the project.
After 5 years of research, thanks to the integration of new data, the analysis of specific case studies, and the use of complex simulation executed with a supercomputer, the project demonstrates that the Roman economic system was very similar to the present one, behaving under very similar rules.
Two opposing theories are explaining the roman economy: the first one assumes that the Roman world is not comparable with current economic principles and the other one that understood that the economic system of the Roman world was very similar to ours, although on a different scale.
Answering this scientific challenge involved the creation of a very interdisciplinary team, which, as a whole, has made it possible to plan and carry out the project.
After 5 years of research, thanks to the integration of new data, the analysis of specific case studies, and the use of complex simulation executed with a supercomputer, the project demonstrates that the Roman economic system was very similar to the present one, behaving under very similar rules.