Summary
The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome unearths another history, one of ordinary Romans, who worked with their hands and survived through a combination of grit and grinding labour.
Focusing on the working majority, Kim Bowes tells the stories of people like the tenant farmer Epimachus, Faustilla the moneylender, and the pimp Philokles. She reveals how the economic changes of the period created a set of bitter challenges…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691273334 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0691273332 |
| Author: | Kim Bowes |
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Imprint: | Princeton University Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 512 |
| Release Date: | 28 February 2026 |
| Weight: | 896g |
| Dimensions: | 42mm x 243mm x 167mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
“Dispensing with marble-clad elites and imperial triumphs, this eye-opening study brings ancient Rome down to street level—into the fields, workshops, and crowded tenements where real economic life unfolded… . [Bowes] challenges long-held myths about Roman prosperity and instead reveals a gritty, improvisational economy that resonates uncannily with our own.”—Ghalib Dhalla, Indulge Magazine“A revolution in our understanding of the economic lives of the ancient Romans that [Bowes] masterfully summarises…The result is thrilling, because it overturns so many earlier assumptions.”—Felix Martin, Financial Times
About The Author
Kim Bowes
Kim Bowes is professor of archaeology and ancient history at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire and Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity.
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