Table Of ContentPoverty in Ancient Greece and Rome
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 Graeco-Roman societies and a
stimulating collection of new approaches and methodologies for their understanding.
The book offers a comprehensive view of the ancient world, analyzing 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: Discourses and Realities is a valuable resource
for students and scholars of ancient history, classical literature, and archaeology. In
addition, topics covered in the book will be of interest to social scientists, scholars of
religion, and historians working on poverty and social history in other periods.
Filippo Carlà-Uhink is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Potsdam,
Germany. Among his main research areas are the social and economic history of the
Roman world, and the history of the Roman Republic, with a special focus on segmen-
tary identities and their discursive construction. He is the author of various books and
articles, including The ‘Birth’ of Italy. The Institutionalization of Italy as a Region in
the Roman Republic (2017).
Lucia Cecchet is Senior Lecturer in Greek History at the University of Milan, Italy.
Her research interests focus on poverty and poverty discourses in Greek antiquity
and on Greek citizenship from the Classical to the Imperial Period. She is the author
of Poverty in Athenian Public Discourse (2015) and co-editor (with A. Busetto) of
Citizens in the Graeco-Roman World (2017) and (with Ch. Degelmann and M. Patzelt)
of The Ancient War’s Impact on the Home Front (2019).
Carlos Machado is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St
Andrews, Scotland, where he directs the Centre for Late Antique Studies. He has
published extensively on the social and cultural history of Late Antiquity, and is the
author of Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome (2019).
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Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome
Realities and Discourses
Edited by Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Lucia Cecchet, and Carlos Machado
For more information on this series, visit: https://www .routledge .com /Routledge
-Monographs- in -Classical- Studies /book -series /RMCS
Poverty in Ancient
Greece and Rome
Realities and Discourses
Edited by
Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Lucia Cecchet,
and Carlos Machado
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Lucia Cecchet,
and Carlos Machado; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Filippo Carlà-Uhink, Lucia Cecchet, and Carlos Machado to be
identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-22114-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-33004-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-22115-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780367221157
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
List of Figures vii
About the Editors viii
About the Contributors ix
1 Introduction 1
FILIPPO CARLÀ-UHINK, LUCIA CECCHET AND CARLOS MACHADO
PART I
Greece 15
2 Poverty, Wealth, and Social Mobility: The Cases of Megara
and Athens 17
LUCIA CECCHET
3 Processes of Impoverishment: Bau Z in the Kerameikos and
Discourses About Poverty 39
CLAIRE TAYLOR
4 Poverty and Honour in Classical Sparta 59
GABRIEL BERNARDO
5 Greedy Gods and Hungry Humans: Sacrifice and the Poor in
Classical and Hellenistic Greece 77
IRENE BERTI
6 Poverty and Truth in Ancient Greek Philosophy 98
ÉTIENNE HELMER
vi Contents
PART II
Rome 115
7 Impoverished Senatorial Women in Mid-Republican Rome:
Opima Gloria and Felix Paupertas? 117
LEWIS WEBB
8 The Dynamics of Shame: Elite Poverty in Late Republican
and Early Imperial Discourse 144
CHRISTIAN ROLLINGER
9 Cicero, the Poor, and Roman Rhetoric 166
FILIPPO CARLÀ-UHINK
10 Rich and Hungry, Poor and Full: Social and Cultural Food
Poverty in the Roman World 184
ERICA ROWAN
PART III
Late Antiquity 209
11 Not All Poverty Is to Be Praised: Defining the Poor in a
Christian Roman Empire 211
DANIEL F. CANER
12 Looking for the Poor in Late Antique Rome 232
CARLOS MACHADO
13 The “Poor” Facing Late Antique Justice: The Cases from the
Papyri 258
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 277
JULIO CESAR MAGALHÃES DE OLIVEIRA
Index 295
List of Figures
3.1 Phase plan of Buildings Z1 - Z5 (from Ault 2016, 76). Drawing
by Tina Ross based on Knigge 2005, suppl. I, plan I 46
10.1 Range of amphorae recovered from the Cardo V sewer.
Percentages are based on MNI. (From Camardo et alii 2018, with
permission from the Herculaneum Conservation Project) 197
10.2 Map showing the sites of Little Paxton (top) and Eaton Socon
(bottom). ©Roman Rural Settlement Project/Archaeology Data
Service, Open Access 198
About the Editors
Filippo Carlà-Uhink is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Potsdam,
Germany. Among his main research areas are the social and economic his-
tory of the Roman world, and the history of the Roman Republic, with a
special focus on segmentary identities and their discursive construction. He
is the author of various books and articles, including The ‘Birth’ of Italy. The
Institutionalization of Italy as a Region in the Roman Republic (2017).
Lucia Cecchet is Senior Lecturer in Greek History at the University of Milan,
Italy. Her research interests focus on poverty and poverty discourses in
Greek antiquity and on Greek citizenship from the Classical to the Imperial
Period. She is the author of Poverty in Athenian Public Discourse (2015) and
co-editor (with A. Busetto) of Citizens in the Graeco-Roman World (2017)
and (with Ch. Degelmann and M. Patzelt) of The Ancient War’s Impact on
the Home Front (2019).
Carlos Machado is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St
Andrews, UK, where he directs the Centre for Late Antique Studies. He has
published extensively on the social and cultural history of Late Antiquity, and
is the author of Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome
(2019).
About the Contributors
Gabriel C. Bernardo is a PhD student at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.
His main research interests include the history and archaeology of Sparta and
Laconia, from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period.
Irene Berti teaches Ancient History and Disability History at the Pädagogische
Hochschule in Heidelberg, Germany. Her main research interests include
Greek epigraphy and religion, ancient writing materials, the topography and
materiality of inscriptions, and reception studies.
Daniel Caner is Associate Professor and Director of the Program in Ancient Studies
at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. He is the author of Wandering,
Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late
Antiquity (2002) and The Rich and the Pure. Philanthropy and the Making of
Christian Society in Early Byzantium (2021).
Christel Freu is Maître de conférences at the University of Rouen, France. She is
the author of Les figures du pavre dans les sources italiennes dans l’Antiquité
tardive (2007) and of Les salariés de l’Égypte romano-byzantine. Essai
d’histoire économique (2022).
Étienne Helmer is Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University
of Puerto Rico. His recent publications include the edited volume Mendiants et
mendicité en Grèce ancienne (2020).
Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira is Professor of Ancient History at the
University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is the author of Potestas Populi:
Participation populaire et action collective dans les villes de l’Afrique romaine
tardive (2012) and Sociedade e Cultura na África Romana (2020).
Christian Rollinger is Reader of Ancient History at the University of Trier,
Germany. He is the author of Amicitia sanctissime colenda. Freundschaft und
soziale Netzwerke in der Späten Republik (2014).
Erica Rowan is Lecturer in Classical Archaeology at Royal Holloway, University
of London, UK. She is the author of various articles and book chapters on
nutrition and food in the Roman world and of the forthcoming monograph
Food and Diet in Republican and Imperial Roman Italy.
