Stratification, Deprivation, and Quality of Life

Measuring 'Poverty': Two Approaches

Poverty is often equated with destitution, but broader interpretations are possible.
Poverty gains historical significance when loosely applied to assess if entire societies were 'impoverished.'
Two methods to explore this issue:
- Analyze asset and income distribution to see if resource concentration at the top led to general population deprivation.
- Focus on quality of life/human development as an indicator of overall well-being.
Quality of life approach considers non-economic factors like health, literacy, gender roles, and legal rights.
This approach enables cross-cultural comparisons and relates research to modern development studies.
Both approaches should enhance the relevance of findings across disciplines.

Stratification and Inequality in the Roman Empire

Conventional imperial structure: a small elite ruling over a vast plebeian population.
Imperial legislation favored three orders: senators, knights, and municipal decurions.
Later distinctions were made between honestiores (the three orders plus army veterans) and humiliores (everyone else who was a Roman citizen).
Modern accounts often use these legal categories as structuring principles.
Geza Alfoldy’s Stände-Schichten pyramid is a prime example.
Critiques haven't significantly altered this framework.
Models derived from the ordo system or honestiores/humiliores are binary, separating an elite from commoners.
This binary ordering wasn't unique to Rome; the Islamic world had a similar divide between khassa wa’umma (elite and general public) and the Ottoman division of askeri (political class) and re’ayya (common people).
In contrast, the Han empire in China had a complex 20-rank system, extending formal stratification to the village level, with ranks conferring exemptions and privileges.
The key question is whether social rankings reflected economic inequality.
In Rome, the three orders were generally wealthier, but wealth alone wasn't enough for formal preferment.
The honestiores were a small group, about 1% of the empire's population.
The inclusion of veterans among the honestiores indicates the group wasn't a homogeneous economic class.
The later separation of potentiores from tenuiores was an even less meaningful economic indicator.
Alfoldy argues that Roman society lacked a 'genuine middle class,' consisting only of 'upper' and 'lower' strata.
He admits this divide didn't strictly represent economic conditions, as status categories didn't capture the nuances between affluent and poor plebeians.
Abramenko's attempt to identify seviri and augustales as a 'municipal middle class' is problematic as these collegia were designed to accommodate wealthy individuals unable to join the ordo decurionum.
These collegia represent a lateral extension of the third order, not a middle group.
Scholars identify imperial ordines as 'political classes' defined by civic function.
Runciman terms them 'systacts' sharing a common endowment of power.
'Rulers' and 'ruled' can be seen as alternatives to ordines and plebs.
Garnsey notes the honestiores/humiliores dichotomy was a theoretical construct mainly confined to criminal law administration.
The honestior category was more functional, grouping agents of the imperial center, rather than an economic or social class.
Christ warns against viewing dichotomous models as socio-economic reality, stressing a middle stratum.
Vittinghoff considers classifying all humiliores as 'lower classes' absurd, suggesting an economic middle class existed.

The Absence of a Middle Class? Challenging the Conventional Wisdom

Despite objections, current views tend to paint a binary picture of Roman society.
One survey asserts that while a