Economy and Finance of the Classical Antiquity

• Main Author: Ludmila A. Muravyeva
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Government of Russian Federation, Financial University 2019-01-01
• Series: Учёт. Анализ. Аудит
• Subjects: банк; таблички; деньги; денежный эквивалент; казна; купец; система счисления; торговля; учет; инвентарная опись; раб; рабовладелец; bank; tablets; money; money’s worth; treasury; a merchant; notation; trade; the accounting; the inventory; slave; slaveholder
• Online Access: https://accounting.fa.ru/jour/article/view/105

The article considers the main directions and features of economic development of the classical Greek-Roman civilization. Agrarian society was based on the developed agriculture and cattle breeding. The soft Mediterranean climate allowed cultivating grain crops, grapes and olives. One part of the population was involved in the main occupation - craft. Public division of labor promoted the development of an exchange within the states and beyond their borders. Wine, olive oil and ceramics dominated in export. The development of monetary circulation made a subsistence economy morph he slowly into the commodity economy. Unlike east ingots and weight units the antiquity saw a wide spread of the use of silver, copper and, later, gold coins. Greeks and Romans made a noticeable contribution to the theory and practice of the accounting. Outstanding philosophers like Plato and Aristotle wrote about it. The antique society wasn’t socially uniform. It was divided into the poor and the rich, first by origin, and then - according to a property qualification. The fight of the people for their rights was long and rather successful in general. The slavery was an integral part of social life of the classical antiquity. The system of classical slaveholding which developed in Ancient Greece and Rome existed for some centuries. During this period it considerably evolved in the direction of the transformation of a slave into a serf who had the right to have property and a family. These changes led at first to a crisis, and then to the crash of the antique civilization and change of a way of production.