Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent

A radical revision—and worker’s-eye view—of everything we thought we knew about the ancient Roman economy

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 labor.

Focusing on the working majority, Kim Bowes tells the stories of people like the tenant farmer Epimachus, Faustilla the moneylender, and the pimp Philokle...