Conclusion

The conclusion begins with a summary of the conclusions of the preceding chapters. Most generally, uses of Roman information technologies, even ones that are broadly similar to each other, manifest enough difference in detail to discourage their extension or combination. This is both a cause and an effect of the close focus of both users and designers on extremely specific use-contexts. It then goes on to suggest several contexts for the application and/or extension of its findings. First, a fine-grained understanding of information storage, use, and transfer lends itself to integration with modern theoretical understandings of the economy and of power. Information structures are important “institutions” that give shape to particular economies. Information technology may also have served as a brake on the conversion of the high intensity of absolute imperial rule to “a wide scope of actual mastery over the conduct of the subject population.” Second, there is evidence both that the use of information technology changed radically after the end point of this study (c. 300 CE) and for the roots of the difference in a variety of external historical circumstances.