A conversation with Kim Bowes (University of Pennsylvania) about production and consumption in the Roman world, especially by the 90% of the population who are less represented in our literary sources. How did they get by from day to day? What alternatives does the evidence suggest to the "subsistence" model that many ancient historians have used? The conversation is based on a paper on "Household Economics in the Roman Empire and Early Christianity," forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Biblical Households, and earlier publications, including The Roman Peasant Project 2009-2014: Excavating the Roman Rural Poor (Penn Museum/University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021); “Tracking Liquid Savings at Pompeii: The Coin Hoard Data," Journal of Roman Archaeology 35 (2022) 1-27; and “Tracking Consumption at Pompeii: The Graffiti Lists,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 34 (2021) 552-584.
98. Egyptian hieroglyphs in late antiquity, with Jennifer Westerfeld
97. The remarkable world of hospitals, orphanages, and leprosaria, with Tim Miller
96. Pre-Islamic Arabia, with Valentina Grasso
95. Rome and Byzantium in Heavy Metal music, with Jeremy Swist
94. What academic tenure does for you (yes, you!), with Jacques Berlinerblau
93. The afterlife of pagan inscriptions in Byzantium, with Anna Sitz
92. An insider’s guide to academic publishing, with Byzantine studies in mind, featuring Anna Henderson
91. Scavenging in the ruins of empire, with Robin Fleming
90. At the dawn of Byzantine Studies: Martin Crusius (1526-1607), with Richard Calis
89. The resilience and agency of rural communities, with Fotini Kondyli
88. Women’s labor, with Anna Kelley
87. Dragons! with Scott Bruce
86. How to organize a museum exhibition – and bring the Holy Land home, with Amanda Luyster
85. Lead mining and lead pollution in the Roman world, with Paul Stephenson
84. On writing narrative history, with guest-host Marion Kruse
83. Blinding as punishment and enforced disability, with Jake Ransohoff
82. What was First Iconoclasm about?, with Leslie Brubaker
81. Surviving the Mongol storm, with Nicholas Morton
80. Diagrams: from sundials to the schematics of the Trinity, with Linda Safran
79. The enduring power of ancient statues in Constantinople, with Paroma Chatterjee
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