Did they earn a lot in Ancient Rome: impressive figures in dollar terms

One of the largest and richest states of its time was the Roman Empire: the only state that could challenge it was the Chinese Han Empire. UNN reports on how much the inhabitants of ancient Rome could earn and how much it costs in modern money, citing a publication in the journal Nature Communications.

Details

Scientists compared Rome in 165 AD and the Han Empire in 2 AD - for both states, these were periods of prosperity. The level of earnings depended on the stratum of the population, but most residents received the same money.

Researchers took 333 kg of wheat as a basic benchmark. At that time, the amount of wheat needed for survival was 250 kg - this includes the amount of wheat in the equivalent of the cost of non-food goods.

Researchers found that, according to the documents of the time, the gross domestic product per capita in ancient Rome was equivalent to 750 kg of wheat. This is 2.25 times higher than the conditional subsistence minimum.

In the Han Empire, the level of GDP per capita was a conditional 626 kg of wheat per year - this exceeded the subsistence minimum by 1.88 times. However, GDP is only an indicator of the efficiency of the economy as a whole: the researchers indicated separately the incomes of individual segments of the population, which were estimated at the "subsistence minimum".

The bulk of the population of Rome (about 70%) earned approximately 1.34-1.88 "subsistence minimum", which is equivalent to 446-626 kg of wheat per year. In the Han Empire, most of the population (approximately 75%) received approximately 1.03-1.44 "subsistence minimum" - this is equivalent to 342-479 kg of wheat per year.

The authors of the study translated the figures of two thousand years ago into modern money. They equated them to the cost of physical survival of a US resident in 1990 prices - about $400 per month.

That is, the average resident of ancient Rome earned $536-752 per month, while the resident of the Han Empire earned $412-576 per month.

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