Kim Bowes on the Economic Lives of Rome's Ninety Percent

Archaeologist Kim Bowes challenges conventional perceptions of the Roman Empire by focusing on the economic and daily lives of the 90% rather than elite narratives. Roman households functioned as centers of production and social status, characterized by vibrant, often kitschy decoration and a lack of modern privacy or zoning. Despite the absence of formal economic treatises, Romans utilized sophisticated systems of credit, trade, and standardized goods, maintaining faith in state-issued coinage even during periods of debasement. The empire’s cohesion relied less on central control and more on a vast, interconnected consumer network of friends and family. Demographic shifts and persistent sanitation challenges, rather than singular events like the Justinianic plague, ultimately destabilized this complex feedback loop between consumption and production, leading to the empire's long-term transformation.