Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 28 Jul 2025).

Wealthy Italy -- Developments in the early imperial Italian economy -- Reconstructing historical wealth distributions -- Wealth and political office at Pompeii -- The heterogeneity of the Italian Civitates -- The Italian curial councils -- Italian households with curial wealth -- Wealth inequality among Italian elites -- The Italian wealth distribution -- Competition for senatorial positions -- Timocracy, wealth and resilience -- Concluding remarks -- Appendix A: Dataset: Pompeian residences -- Appendix B: Dataset: Alimenta pledges -- Appendix C: Dataset: Ostian burial plots.

Open Access. Unrestricted online access star

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.