Kim Bowes on Ancient Romans’ Economic Lives

Among ancient civilizations, Rome inspires a special kind of fascination in the Western World. While the parallels between society now versus then are often overstated, we nevertheless can better understand ourselves by endeavoring to understand those who lived 2,000 years ago. Our guest’s work explores one facet of Roman life that reverberates in the way we live today: the surprisingly sophisticated financial affairs of average Romans.

Kim Bowes is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her latest book is Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent. The book draws on her own archeological work to chronicle Romans’ struggles with work, affordability, credit markets, and more. In this conversation with host Steven Durlauf, she discusses the ways consumerism defined plebeian life, the challenges of collecting data about the ancient world, and what the skeletons of Roman farmers can tell us about the economic lives they lived.