Research Project

Commercial Portscapes: A Holistic Approach to Roman Trade

The Mediterranean sea was always a polyglot and plural legal domain, a site of alternative constructions of sovereignty, in which provincials and subaltern sailors and merchants resisted diverse efforts to impose hegemonic control. My project will place the focus on Roman trade as one clear example of legal pluralism in action, as it was part of a customary tradition; it constitutes a rich source of experience, and it implies a system of interaction among actors from different legal backgrounds and with differing access to justice. Viewing trade as legally plural leads to an examination of the cultural or ideological nature of law and systems of normative ordering. This will be the focus of this study, providing a clear contribution to the field of Roman law, but also offering ground-breaking input into legal history and especially the history of international law more broadly. The project will bring legal history into conversation with third world approaches to international law (TWAIL). The latter implies reconsidering the Mediterranean not as only governed by the law of the Empire, but as a site of legal plurality and multiple jurisdictions where subaltern actors also had an impact in legal practice.