ABSTRACT
Understanding the mechanisms of social mobility is important for understanding the socio-economic dynamics of any given society or state. It is perhaps particularly important for the later Roman Empire which today is usually studied under the paradigms of transformation and transition. Research on social mobility in later Roman Empire has also concerned itself with question of how fourth-century senators once again became a part of imperial government and thus created a new elite group which combined wealth, social prestige and political power. The study of poor is an integral part of current paradigm of Christian late antiquity, which in modern scholarship reflects one of other important dynamics of the period, a shift in contemporary discourse away from the exclusive focus on the elites to new group, decreed as relevant by Christian doctrine. Indeed, the ideal-type poor according to the late antique Christian value system are not the one who owns nothing, but the one who renounces his worldly goods.
