Poverty In The Roman World

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.

A preeminent classical scholar on the emergence of one of our most familiar social divisions.

This social history of earliest Christianity radically re-evaluates both the methods and models of other studies. Justin Meggitt draws on the most recent research in classical studies on the economy and society of the Roman Empire. He examines the economic experiences of the Pauline churches, and locates Paul and the members of his communities within the context of the first century Roman economy. He explores their experiences of employment, nutrition and housing. He uncovers and describes the unique responses that they made to such a harsh environment. And he questions whether, from the outset, Christianity included a number of affluent individuals.A thoroughly researched and ground-breaking study.

In 2002 the influential scholar of Late Antiquity, Peter Brown, published a series of lectures as a monograph titled Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Brown set out to explain a trend in the late Roman world observed in the 1970s by French social and economic historians, especially Paul Veyne and Evelyn Patlagean, namely that prior to the fourth century and the rise in dominance of Christianity, the poor in society went unrecognized as an economic category. This corresponded with the Greco-Roman understanding of patronage, whereby the state and private donors concentrated their largesse upon the citizen body. Non-citizens, for instance, were excluded from the dole system, in which grain was distributed to citizens of a city regardless of their economic status. By the end of the sixth century, rich and poor were not only recognized economic categories, but the largesse of private citizens was now focused on the poor. Brown proposed that the Christian bishop lay at the heart of this change. The authors set out to test Brown's thesis amid growing interest in the poor and their role in early Christianity and in Late Antique society. They find that the development and its causes were more subtle and complex than Brown proposed and that his account is inadequate on a number of crucial points including rhetorical distortion of the realities of poverty in episcopal letters, homilies and hagiography, the episcopal emphasis on discriminate giving and self-interested giving, and the degree to which existing civic patronage structures adhered in the Later Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries.

In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

Combining historical, exegetical, and theological interests, Bruce Longenecker here dispels the widespread notion that Paul had little or no concern for the poor. Longnecker s analysis of Greco-Roman poverty provides the backdrop for a compelling presentation of the importance of care for the poor within Paul s theology and the Jesus-groups he had established. Along the way, Longenecker calls into question a variety of interpretive paradigms such as Steven J. Friesen s 2004 poverty scale and offers a fresh vision in which Paul s theological resources are shown to be both historically significant and theologically challenging.

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: 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 are of interest to social scientists, scholars of religion, and historians working on poverty and social history in other periods.