I am examining an overlooked aspect of economic history, the origin and consequences of economic growth in Rome and the peoples it conquered during its first years of military expansion (218-100 BC). The study of market integration and economic growth in the Roman period has generally focused on demographic and production output increases in Italy. This has ignored to what extent an increase in wealth in Rome was a result of a domestic increase in productivity or—I argue—the peak extraction of raw materials in resource peripheries and the establishment of a large trade network that proved a stimulus for consumption and production in the provinces. My case study is Iberia (modern, Spain and Portugal), as it is the province often credited with having enabled Rome to achieve record levels of growth by the second century BC. I am interested in exploring if growth actually occurred in the provinces and, if it did, whether growth might be a good marker to measure prosperity in emerging markets or might be the reflection of a coerced economy.
My work involves a mixture of historical sources on trade and prices, together with the compilation, dating, and quantification of a large database of archaeological objects, mainly pottery, to understand the intensity of Italian imports and Iberian exports. I have extensive experience conducting fieldwork in more than 20 archaeological sites (including 15 excavations, surveys, and on-site pottery cataloguing) during more than 30 seasons in sites such as Pompeii, Fregellae, and the Quirinal in Italy, Isla del Fraile, and Pollentia in Spain, or Meninx in Tunisia. In 2025, I will co-direct the excavation of a possible Pompeian camp associated with Caesar's Civil War at Pocico Huertas (Águilas, Spain). Previously, my work was also interested in researching and consulting on modern and ancient history depictions in media, and I have worked as a digital restorer of historical photographs.
