ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the emergence of those categories, their constituents and some of the practical consequences for the poor in the eastern empire before the Arab Conquests. The Roman Empire of Late Antiquity was a very different place from that of the Principate. Massively restructured to confront a host of third-century challenges, it was now a highly centralized empire, whose stability was thought to depend on a regimented social order and tax structure. One consequence of their rhetoric, Brown observed, was that anyone forced to ask mercy from the powerful, whether rich or poor, might be described as poor. Brown indeed does not discuss how late Roman authorities discriminated between poor people. My purpose here is to clarify how Christian authorities did so in the late Roman East, and to show how their theoretical distinctions guided institutional practices for distributing aid. It is a truism that “wealth”, “poverty”, rich, and poor are always relative terms and social constructs.
