ABSTRACT
This study of ‘poor’ and ‘poverty’ brings to the discussion a cultural and social element. Stated most baldly, ‘poor’ implies not simply scant economic resources, that is, little land or money, but has a decidedly cultural component as well. Most people in antiquity would qualify as ‘poor’ according to economic standards. But the ancients did not automatically classify the economically deprived as ‘poor’. If peasants had what sufficed, Plutarch did not call them ‘poor’: ‘In what suffices, no one is poor’ (On Love of Wealth 523F). Seneca echoed this:
Let us return to the law of nature; for then riches are laid up for us. The things which we actually need are free for all, or else cheap; nature craves only bread and water. No one is poor according to this standard; when a man has limited his desires within these bounds, he can challenge the happiness of Jove himself.
