Addressing Poverty in the Ancient Greek World: A Contribution from the Social Sciences

Fernández Prieto, Aida ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5894-0869 (2024) Addressing Poverty in the Ancient Greek World: A Contribution from the Social Sciences. Past and Present. ISSN 0031-2746 (Submitted)

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Abstract

The study of poverty in ancient Greece has been relatively neglected until recent times, and there remain few works that deal comprehensively with the phenomenon. This is partly due to the difficulties arising from the scarcity and nature of ancient sources, which tend to present a picture of poverty that differs from its modern understandings. Poverty is a long-standing topic in the social sciences. However, very little work has considered the potential of these disciplines in studying poverty in ancient Greece. This article aims to reverse this trend and show how historical research on poverty can benefit from the contributions made to this field by the social sciences, especially sociology and socio-cultural anthropology.