Wealth, Office and Rank in Roman Italy

Dismantles the simplistic equation of wealth, political power and social rank in the Roman Empire.

Bart Danon (Author)

9781009496964, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 July 2025

306 pages, 45 b/w illus. 1 map 20 tables
25.1 x 17.9 x 1.3 cm, 0.7 kg

Dismantling the simplistic equation of wealth, political power and social rank in the Roman empire, this study presents a new reconstruction of the distribution of elite wealth in Roman Italy based on an innovative combination of economic modelling and archaeological and epigraphic evidence. Bart Danon follows a quantitative approach to show that the Roman economic elite was in fact much larger than the political and social elites. The many wealthy households outside the socio-political orders fuelled intense competition for junior political offices, while paradoxically strengthening the resilience of the Roman political system. By challenging long-held assumptions, this book offers fresh perspectives on the complexities of wealth and power in ancient Rome. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Introduction
1. Wealthy Italy
2. Developments in the early-imperial Italian economy
3. Reconstructing historical wealth distributions
4. Wealth and political office at Pompeii
5. The heterogeneity of the Italian civitates
6. The Italian curial councils
7. Italian households with curial wealth
8. Wealth inequality among Italian elites
9. The Italian wealth distribution
10. Competition for senatorial positions
11. Timocracy, wealth and resiliance
Concluding remarks.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]