This is a collection of essays in the social and economic history of Greece and Rome by a leading historian of classical antiquity.

Sixteen essays in the social and economic history of the ancient world, by a leading historian of classical antiquity, are here brought conveniently together. Three overlapping parts deal with the urban economy and society, peasants and the rural economy, and food-supply and food-crisis. While focusing on eleven centuries of antiquity from archaic Greece to late imperial Rome, the essays include theoretical and comparative analyses of food-crisis and pastoralism, and an interdisciplinary study of the health status of the people of Rome using physical anthropology and nutritional science. A variety of subjects are treated, from the misconduct of a builders' association in late antique Sardis, to a survey of the cultural associations and physiological effects of the broad bean.

Part I. Cities: 1. Aspects of the decline of the urban aristocracy in the empire
2. Independent freedmen and the economy of Roman Italy under the Principate
3. Economy and society of Mediolanum under the Principate
4. Urban property investment in Roman society
5. An association of builders in late antique Sardis
Part II. Peasants: 6. Peasants in ancient Roman society
7. Where did Italian peasants live?
8. Non-slave labour in the Roman world
9. Prolegomenon to a study of the land in the later Roman empire
10. Mountain economies in southern Europe
Part III. Food: 11. Grain for Athens
12. The yield of the land in ancient Greece
13. The bean: substance and symbol
14. Mass diet and nutrition in the city of Rome
15. Child rearing in ancient Italy
16. Famine in history.