T. Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013) argued that market forces inevitably increase wealth and income inequality. At the core of his model lies the formula r > g: in economies based on private wealth and markets, the total income from rents (r), as a percentage of capital stock value, surpasses economic growth (g). Since part of this income is reinvested, the ratio of wealth to national income increases, leading to greater wealth and income inequality.
This book, based on a 2018 workshop, asks whether Pikettian dynamics also existed in the Graeco-Roman world. While Piketty believed his formula was intrinsic to market economies, he limited his empirical study to Western economies from approximately 1800 onwards. Consequently, this book's relevance extends beyond ancient history.
Following the editors’ introduction, eleven chapters examine different aspects of economic inequality, followed by two reflection papers and a brief afterword by Piketty. The chapters are arranged chronologically, but readers may find it useful to start with M. Lavan and J. Weisweiler's contribution, ‘Capital in the Roman Empire’, which provides an overview of possible Pikettian dynamics in the Roman world. More significant than the equation r > g, the authors argue, is the ratio of wealth stock to national income and its distribution. While Pikettian dynamics may have existed, the institutional framework of the Roman world suggests that outcomes diverged significantly from those of the nineteenth-century West. Archaeological evidence indicates rising wealth until around 200/225 ce. Imperial property, however, expanded exponentially, and many monumental buildings belonged to public authorities and collectives. Consequently, private income inequality need not have increased much.
Empirical data are scarce. P. Kelly argues, in ‘Was r Greater than g?’, that papyrological evidence supports the validity of r > g for land and credit markets in Roman Egypt. Using Monte Carlo simulations, he estimates r at approximately 5%. While his approach is innovative, its assumptions are questionable. The presumed 8% chance of default is based on average Nile flood failures. These, however, were more frequent in the mid to late second century than before or after. Even if correct as an average over three centuries, this estimate does not clarify how inequality evolved during that period. In fact, ceteris paribus, Kelly's model would suggest that rental income declined in the later second century.
Piketty has been criticised for failing to distinguish between gross and net rent incomes. Taxes redistribute capital gains, mitigating income inequality through social benefits and salaried employment. D. Rohde, in ‘Piketty's Dilemma’, argues that classical Athens maintained low inequality levels partly due to the liturgical obligations imposed on wealthy citizens, which significantly reduced their net rental income. However, unlike modern taxation, these liturgies also reinforced Athens’ oligarchic structure by enhancing the social status of those who performed them.
A. Zuiderhoek, in ‘Wealth, Inequality, and Political Culture in the Cities of Roman Asia Minor’, makes a similar argument regarding public munificence in Roman Asia Minor during the early Principate. While both professional middling groups and elites grew more prosperous, elites were compelled to spend much of their rental income on public affairs to maintain their status and influence. By the late second century, wars, political unrest and epidemics impoverished middling groups. At the same time, imperial interventions reduced incentives for public generosity. As a result, elites withdrew from civic life and redirected their resources towards imperial careers.
As Piketty emphasises in the afterword, inequality does not necessarily increase because rent incomes exceed economic growth. Rather, it rises when rent income is reinvested. If all rental income is spent on politics, status or consumption, inequality may even decrease. Koedijk examines this dynamic for the late Roman Republic (‘Status as a Brake and Accelerant on Wealth Inequality’). The financial demands of electioneering and bribery depleted rental incomes, leaving politicians deeply indebted. This process intensified inequality within the elite, concentrating wealth in fewer hands. However, the primary drivers of this concentration were not market mechanisms but war and political predation, since the wealthiest 1% derived their fortunes primarily from military victories and lucrative governorships. Koedijk's chapter would have benefited from a subsequent discussion of the businessmen and tax farmers, who amassed wealth by lending to politicians and profiting from imperial spoils. Despite their precarious financial and commercial assets, some reinvested in land, urban real estate and mining. Thus, imperialism and political predation indirectly fuelled market expansion, capital accumulation and inequality.
Several chapters explore how different forms of capital influenced economic outcomes. M. Leese, in ‘Problems in the Long-Term Accumulation of Commercial and Financial Capital’, argues that Greek poleis discouraged investment in financial and commercial assets. The lack of legal safeguards and high mortality rates rendered such assets unsustainable across generations. As in late medieval and early modern Europe, transgenerational wealth was primarily consolidated through land and largely via non-market mechanisms such as adoption and marriage.
M. Dal Borgo, in ‘Inequality in the Peloponnesian War’, aims to assess whether increasing capital accumulation led to widening inequality in Athens and Sparta and whether inequality influenced the war's outcome. However, these central questions fade as the chapter progresses. While Dal Borgo provides valuable insights into how war-induced economic shocks affected labour and capital markets, she later shifts to a game-theoretical analysis of Athenian allies as a form of state capital. Remarkably, the analysis ignores negative incentives, such as mass slaughter and enslavement following rebellions. The omission of the Laurion mines and private capital is also puzzling.
S. Günther, in ‘Framing Capital: Xenophon's Economic Model and Social System’, argues, using frame theory, that Greek concepts of capital align with P. Bourdieu's notion of multiple convertible forms of capital – economic, social, cultural and symbolic. According to Xenophon, economic capital was most effectively utilised when reinvested into social networks. Günther thus highlights ideology's role in economic outcomes, complementing Leese's focus on institutions.
C. Rosillo López examines state interventions in the urban real estate market (‘Rent Control Measures in the 40s bce’). As in modern societies, housing rents significantly contributed to economic inequality. Elite ownership of urban properties concentrated wealth at the top. The civil wars of the 40s bce triggered a rental crisis, leaving tenants deeply indebted. Eventually, Caesar and later Octavian remitted rent arrears, preventing a sudden surge in inequality. However, the cost fell not on elites but on middlemen, who leased entire buildings and sublet individual units. Maybe so, but one wonders whether middlemen would have continued renting from elites in subsequent years (or at least if they did at the same prices).
Rosillo-López's chapter underscores the importance of stochastic shocks, which Piketty identifies as crucial accelerants of inequality. C.P. Elliott analyses another such shock (‘Money, Capital and Inequality in the Age of Augustus’). When Octavian returned to Rome after defeating Antony, the vast quantity of captured booty caused interest rates to plummet and land prices to soar. This monetary influx disproportionately benefited Octavian's close allies, who could acquire land before prices adjusted. Meanwhile, wages and lower-class incomes lagged, exacerbating inequality.
D.S. Grewal, in ‘Oligarchy Ancient and Modern’, questions the validity for classical antiquity of Piketty's assertion that rising inequality leads to political oligarchisation. He argues that ancient oligarchies operated on formalised criteria, meaning wealth alone was insufficient for elite status. Consequently, economic inequality did not necessarily translate into political inequality.
Piketty's definition of ‘capital’ includes all assets that potentially generate income, even if they are not ‘factors of production’. The editors encouraged contributors to adopt this broad definition and to include enslaved people, whom Piketty had excluded. However, the definition is contested for obscuring critical distinctions. K. Bowes's reflection paper, ‘Beyond Capital’, reviews critique by J. Stiglitz and S. Homburg, noting that, while, for instance, wealth inequality rises when real estate prices increase, ‘capital’ in the sense of production factors driving economic growth does not. Bowes is sceptical of Piketty's model, arguing that its focus on the ‘1%’ neglects the experience of the 99%. She endorses J. Rawls's view, who suggests that some economic inequality benefits the non-wealthy. She argues that archaeological evidence supports this for classical antiquity, showing a proliferation of high-quality consumer goods that improved living standards for non-elites.
The editors invited contributors to engage with Piketty's ideas. Most, however, focus on political and institutional factors, often making only cursory references to Piketty's model. This approach echoes W. Scheidel's The Great Leveller (2017), which argues that state institutions primarily serve elite interests and tend to exacerbate economic inequality. According to Scheidel, the only forces capable of significantly reducing inequality are violent upheavals and catastrophic events that dismantle existing institutional frameworks. In his reflection paper, ‘Piketty Among the Ancients’, Scheidel questions whether Pikettian dynamics can be meaningfully isolated from other factors: ‘[i]n as much as a consensus view emerges (from the contributions in this volume) …, it is that institutions were of critical importance in mediating distributional outcomes’ (p. 357). He draws attention to Piketty's subsequent work, Capitalism and Ideology (2019), in which the author revises his earlier emphasis on market dynamics, instead highlighting ideology and institutions as primary determinants of wealth and income inequality. Piketty himself echoes this institutional perspective in the afterword.
To conclude: this book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of economic inequality in classical antiquity. It demonstrates that, even if ancient markets fostered inequality, as Piketty argues for modern ones, political institutions and dynamics played an even greater role in shaping economic disparities.
