# Frontiers of the Roman Empire : AskHistorians <cite>by u/Steelcan909 (flaired user)</cite> ## Metadata - Author: [[Steelcan909]] - Full Title: Frontiers of the Roman Empire : AskHistorians - Link: https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pnfhp2/frontiers_of_the_roman_empire/hesjrcc?context=3 ###### Outline - [[control allows for trade infrastructure and job specialization]] ## Highlights ### centralized control allows for trade infrastructure and job specialization > So what I mean by this is that areas of the empire could no longer afford to maintain economies that were able to specialize in certain products and goods. The Roman Empire was nowhere near as specialized as our modern society, but a broad comparison can be made. > Today there are a lot of goods made in different portions of the world that make come together to make a final product, ie electronics from Taiwan, chassis from Detroit, assembled in Mexico, to make a car that's owned by a German company, etc... and the ancient world was not entirely different. Goods such as Greek wine, garum from Italy, olives from Sicily, and so on were carried around the Roman world, often in African pottery. This was only possible because of the interconnected nature of the Roman empire. Merchants could move goods relatively easily around the Empire because of the, relatively, centralized control. The end result was that certain parts of the empire became more specialized. > This all ended when the Roman empire's borders started to go through economic collapse. No longer able to access long distance trade goods and other specialized products different portions of the empire had to radically simplify their economies, until in most parts of the former western Empire, there was a return to essentially rural agrarian societies with extremely limited trade and urbanization. > This process was *relatively* quick too, within a few generations the frontiers of Britain and northern Gaul entered this economic collapse. In the rest of the empire, more connected to Mediterranean trade routes, this process took much longer and was not complete until the 7th century. > The average person may not have noticed a great deal in the early stages of this collapse, and indeed someone living in Africa or Sicily, assuming they survived the waves of warfare that hit these areas, would likely actually have a short term boost to trade before a gradual petering out over the course of the 5-7th centuries. - [View Highlight](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/pnfhp2/frontiers_of_the_roman_empire/hesjrcc?context=3&__readwiseLocation=0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F2%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F1%2F0%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A0%2C0%2F4%2F0%2F4%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F2%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F4%2F1%2F0%2F2%2F1%2F0%2F0%2F0%2F3%2F1%2F0%2F3%3A328#:~:text=So%20what%20I%20mean%20by%2Ccourse%20of%20the%205-7th%20centuries.)