New Books Network Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)
Mar 12, 2026
Kim Bowes, archaeologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, studies the lives of ordinary Romans. She explores everyday writing and new archaeology. She traces mixed household incomes, women’s labor, child work, and fragile savings. She uncovers consumer habits, rural smallholders, and the physical toll of survival in a precarious economy.
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Everyday Writing Rewrites Roman Economy
- Everyday writing and archaeology let historians hear ordinary Romans, not just elites, changing the picture of Roman economy.
- Kim Bowes uses accounting tablets, wage lists, and new digs to show farmers and artisans were far more productive than assumed.
Roman Economic Behavior Feels Modern
- Many Roman economic behaviors feel familiar: credit, small loans, interest, and consumer pressures mirror modern precarity.
- Bowes argues households used informal credit and futures backed by bureaucracy to manage volatility, much like today's gig workers.
Multiple Incomes Kept Families Afloat
- Wages rarely provided a full living; families combined farming, craft, and multiple incomes to survive.
- Bowes shows women's textile work often supplied the break-even income for the poorest households.
