Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome by Carlà-Uhink, Filippo; Cecchet, Lucia; Machado, Carlos;

Short description:

Through a combination of archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence, this book offers a comprehensive overview of wealth and poverty in diverse contexts across the Graeco-Roman world. Suitable for students and scholars of ancient history, classical literature, and archaeology, as well as social scientists and social historians.

Long description:

This volume presents an innovative picture of the ancient Mediterranean world. Approaching poverty as a multifaceted condition, it examines how different groups were affected by the lack of access to symbolic, cultural and social – as well as economic – capital.

Collecting a wide range of studies by an international team of experts, it presents a diverse and complex analysis of life in antiquity, from the archaic to the late antique period. The sections on Greece, Rome, and Late Antiquity offer in-depth studies of ancient life, integrating analysis of socio-economic dynamics and cultural and discursive strategies that shaped this crucial element of ancient (and modern) societies. Themes like social cohesion and control, exclusion, gender, agency, and identity are explored through the combination of archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence, presenting a rich panorama of Greco-Roman societies and a stimulating collection of new approaches and methodologies for their understanding. The book offers a comprehensive view of the ancient world, analysing different social groups – from wealthy elites to poor peasants and the destitute – and their interactions, in contexts as diverse as Classical Athens and Sparta, imperial Rome, and the late antique towns of Egypt and North Africa.

Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome: Realities and Discourses is a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient history, classical literature, and archaeology. In addition, topics covered in the book are of interest to social scientists, scholars of religion, and historians working on poverty and social history in other periods.

"This volume is highly recommended for its dynamic and engaging elucidation of the political, social and moral dimensions informed ancient conceptions of poverty and wealth, and of how these conceptions evolved. It also provides a compelling reminder to the modern researcher of the need to approach ancient societies on their own terms, as far as possible shedding our own culturally determined notions." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This is a stimulating volume that shines light on the discourses of poverty in the ancient world writ large – and writ largely from above. It teaches us to embrace rather than resist the slippery nature of the category of poverty. It is recommended reading not only for literary scholars but also for macro-economic modellers, survey archaeologists, scholars of micro-history and anyone studying discourses or realities of poverty in the ancient world." - The Classical Review

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction – Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Lucia Cecchet, and Carlos Machado, Part I: Greece, 2. Poverty, Wealth and Social Mobility: The cases of Megara and Athens – Lucia Cecchet, 3. Processes of Impoverishment: Bau Z in the Kerameikos and Discourses about Poverty – Claire Taylor, 4. Poverty and Honour in Classical Sparta – Gabriel C. Bernardo, 5. Greedy Gods and Hungry Humans: Sacrifice and the Poor in Classical and Hellenistic Greece – Irene Berti, 6. Poverty and Truth in Ancient Greek Philosophy – Étienne Helmer, Part II: Rome, 7. Impoverished Senatorial Women in Mid-Republican Rome: Opima gloria and felix paupertas? – Lewis Webb, 8. The Dynamics of Shame: Elite Poverty in Late Republican and Early Imperial Discourse – Christian Rollinger, 9. Cicero, the Poor, and Roman Rhetoric – Filippo Carlà-Uhink, 10. Rich and Hungry, Poor and Full: Social and Cultural Food Poverty in the Roman World – Erica Rowan, Part III: Late Antiquity, 11. ‘Not all Poverty is to be Praised’: Defining the Poor in a Christian Roman Empire – Daniel Caner, 12. Looking for the Poor in Late Antique Rome – Carlos Machado, 13. The Poor Facing Late Antique Justice: the Cases from Papyri – Christel Freu, 14. Poverty, Charity and the Social Strategies of the "Poor" in Late Antiquity: the View from North Africa in the Age of Augustine – Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira.