Poverty in the Roman World

Examines how Romans thought about the poor and about the appropriate ways to relieve poverty.

Margaret Atkins (Edited by), Robin Osborne (Edited by)

9780521106573, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 September 2009

244 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.36 kg

'It is the emphasis on the political power of the poor in Rome emerging from this work that might, perhaps, offer encouragement to impoverished readers today.' Classical Ireland

If poor individuals have always been with us, societies have not always seen the poor as a distinct social group. But within the Roman world, from at least the Late Republic onwards, the poor were an important force in social and political life and how to treat the poor was a topic of philosophical as well as political discussion. This book explains what poverty meant in antiquity, and why the poor came to be an important group in the Roman world, and it explores the issues which poverty and the poor raised for Roman society and for Roman writers. In essays which range widely in space and time across the whole Roman Empire, the contributors address both the reality and the representation of poverty, and examine the impact which Christianity had upon attitudes towards and treatment of the poor.

1. Introduction: Roman poverty in context Robin Osborne
2. The poor in the city of Rome Neville Morley
3. Stratification, deprivation and quality of life Walter Scheidel
4. 'You do him no service': an exploration of pagan almsgiving Anneliese Parkin
5. Writing poverty in Rome Greg Woolf
6. Population and poverty in Roman Egypt Dominic Rathbone
7. A pragmatic approach to poverty and riches: Ambrosiaster's Quaestio CXXIV Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
8. Portraying the poor: descriptions of poverty in Christian texts from the Late Roman Empire Richard Finn
9. Throwing parties for the poor: poverty and splendour in the late antique Church Lucy Grig
10. Rhetoric and reality in Salvian of Marseille's portrayal of the poor Cam Grey
11. Poverty and Roman law Caroline Humfress
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: General & world history [HBG]