While the political economy of the Roman empire is well understood, the nature of the economy as a whole is a matter of fierce debate. A range of competing hypotheses about the nature of the Roman economy are presented, and then distributions of amphorae and certain other artefact categories are used to suggest some broad patterns which successful theories of the Roman economy will have to address. In particular, it is argued that regional distributions of material usually constituted the highest level of integration achieved in the Roman world, and that larger‐scale patterning was only created during the period of imperial expansion during the last two centuries BC.