Wealth, Office and Rank in Roman Italy

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.

• Uses an economic model to reconstruct the distribution of wealth in a pre-modern society, offering new perspectives on the complexities of wealth and power
• Formally incorporates spatial variation in a quantitative model of a pre-modern economy
• Presents four comprehensive datasets of Roman wealth proxy data, allowing for further research and reinterpretation
• This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core