Inequality

Abstract

AbstractAt Rome, a stark economic gap separated the very few wealthy individuals from all others. A free elite—minuscule in number—lived palatially; the mass of unenslaved people survived at a level of bare subsistence. Slaves, in their masses, of course were impoverished denizens of the lowest rung of society. Yet, a disparity similar to that afflicting free persons also was found among the unfree population: a few slaves possessed significant wealth and power, sometimes even owning their own subordinate slaves. This financial inequality—wealthy slaves, impoverished free persons—was exasperated by a legal inequality: the counterintuitive juridical privileging of servile over free enterprise. The legal structure of Roman business was originally highly inhospitable to profit-seeking enterprises of scale and complexity. In adaptive response, Roman law came to develop elaborate mechanisms to facilitate such businesses, and to mitigate investors’ economic exposure—modalities that in practice favored servile enterprise, and discriminated against free businesspeople.