Poverty in the Roman World / Edited by Margaret Atkins, Robin Osborne.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Atkins, E. M. (E. Margaret)

Osborne, Robin, 1957-

Series:

Cambridge books online.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social problems--Rome--History.

Social problems.

Poverty--Rome--History.

Poverty.

Poverty--Political aspects--Rome.

Poverty--Moral and ethical aspects--Rome.

Poor--Rome--Social conditions.

Poor.

Rome--Social conditions.

Rome.

Rome (Empire).

Social conditions.

Rome--Economic conditions.

Economic conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (244 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

PDF

Summary:

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.

Contents:

1 Introduction: Roman poverty in context / Robin Osborne 1

2 The poor in the city of Rome / Neville Morley 21

3 Stratification, deprivation and quality of life / Walter Scheidel 40

4 'You do him no service': an exploration of pagan almsgiving / Anneliese Parkin 60

5 Writing poverty in Rome / Greg Woolf 83

6 Poverty and population in Roman Egypt / Dominic Rathbone 100

7 A pragmatic approach to poverty and riches: Ambrosiaster's quaestio 124 / Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe 115

8 Portraying the poor: descriptions of poverty in Christian texts from the late Roman empire / Richard Finn, O.P. 130

9 Thowing parties for the poor: poverty and splendour in the late antique church / Lucy Grig 145

10 Salvian, the ideal Christian community and the fate of the poor in fifth-century Gaul / Cam Grey 162

11 Poverty and Roman law / Caroline Humfress 183.

Notes:

Title from publishers bibliographic system (viewed on 30 Apr 2012).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9780511482700

9780521862110

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.