Capital in Classical Antiquity

Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction: Capital and Classical Antiquity
	1 Wealth, Poverty and Inequality
	2 Thomas Piketty and Classical Antiquity
	3 About This Volume
	Bibliography
2 Problems in the Long-Term Accumulation of Commercial and Financial Capital in Ancient Greece
	1 Introduction
	2 Kinship Institutions: Partible Inheritance, Dowry, Uninterested Heirs
	3 Guardians of Orphans’ Estates
	4 Reneging Borrowers and Business Partners
	5 Bank Failures
	6 The Estate Owner’s Lifecycle and the Attractions of Land
	7 Capital Accumulation and Investment Patterns in the Premodern Economy
	8 Conclusions
	Bibliography
3 Inequality in the Peloponnesian War
	1 Economics and Finance
	2 Evidence and the Limits to Quantification
	3 Labour Market Shocks
	4 Wage Shock
	5 Capital Market Shocks
	6 Tragedy of the Delian Commons
	7 Strategic Behaviour
	8 Negative Capital Shock
	9 Inequality as a Reason for Revolts
	10 Conclusion
	Bibliography
4 Framing Capital: Xenophon’s Economic Model and Social System
	1 Introduction
	2 Aligning Private and Public Household Management: Oeconomicus and Vectigalia
	3 Commonwealth first—Xenophon’s Perfect System and Capital
	4 A Risky Business? Abuse of Capital in Xenophon
	5 Conclusion
	Bibliography
5 Piketty’s Dilemma: Taxes in Fourth-Century Athens
	1 Piketty’s Thesis
	2 Critique of Capital in the 21st Century
	3 The Case of Athens
	4 Conclusion
	Bibliography
6 Status as a Brake and Accelerant on Wealth Inequality in the Late Roman Republic
	1 Introduction
	2 Inequality and Status Competition
	3 Status and Wealth in the Late Republic
	4 The Bubble Grows: Financing Status Competition
	5 The Consequences of Debt
	6 Conclusion
	Bibliography
7 Rent Control Measures in the 40s BCE: Housing Costs, Public Intervention and Inequality in the Roman World
	1 Introduction
	2 Housing in Rome
	3 Public Intervention in Housing in Rome: Rent Cancellations and Rent Control Measures in 40s BCE
	4 Could Rent Controls Have Been Enforced in Ancient Rome?
	5 What Impact Do Rent Control Measures Have on Inequality?
	6 Conclusions
	Bibliography
8 Capital in the Roman Empire: The Scope for Pikettian Dynamics in an Ancient Agrarian Economy
	1 Introduction
	2 The Wealth Stock
	3 The Dynamics of the Wealth Stock
	4 The Capital:Income Ratio in the Roman Empire
	5 The Distribution of Wealth
	6 The Dynamics of the Wealth Distribution
	7 “Pikettian” Concentration in Ancient History
	8 The Special Case of Julio-Claudian Ultra-Large Fortunes
	9 Munificence and the Permeability of Large Fortunes
	10 Non-Private Wealth in the Roman World
	11 Conclusion
	Bibliography
9 Money, Capital and Inequality in the Age of Augustus
	1 Inflation and Inequality: A Brief Theoretical Explanation
	2 Post-Actium Monetary Expansion and the Capital Structure
	3 Conclusions
	Bibliography
10 Was r Greater Than g? Evidence from Roman Egypt
	1 Introduction
	2 Growth Rates
	3 Rates of Return
	4 Methodology
	5 The Housing Market
	6 The Markets for Land and Credit
	7 Analysis and Conclusions
	Appendix: Methodology and Assumptions
	Bibliography
11 Wealth, Inequality and Political Culture in the Cities of Roman Asia Minor, First to Third Centuries CE
	1 Introduction
	2 Changing Elite Behaviour
	3 Elites and Middling Groups
	4 Explaining Elite Behaviour
	5 Third-Century Developments
	6 Concluding Remarks
	Bibliography
12 Oligarchy Ancient and Modern
	1 Introduction
	2 Two Concepts of Oligarchy
	3 Ancient Oligarchia
	4 Modern Oligarchy
	5 Ancient Oligarchia and Modern Oligarchy
	6 Oligarchy and Democracy
	Bibliography
13 Reflection: Beyond Capital
	1 Piketty on His Own Terms: Further Thoughts
	2 More Elites? Rawls vs. Piketty
	3 Beyond Capital
	4 Conclusion
	Bibliography
14 Reflection: Piketty Among the Ancients—Capital and Beyond
	1 Capital
	2 Ideology
	3 Technology
	Bibliography
15 Afterword: Capital, from Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century
	Bibliography
Index