ABSTRACT
How do we explain the appearance of billionaires in the archaeological and historical record? In this chapter, we argue that developments in the Iron Age fostered a dramatic increase in the levels of inequality that could be achieved. A confluence of coinage and real estate speculation—both innovations of the Iron Age—removed the biophysical constraints that largely limited many forms of wealth disparities in the Bronze Age. We use historical records to compare the largest possible fortunes achievable in these periods, focusing on the latter days of the Roman Republic as a particularly illustrative case study. These records reveal that the elites of the Iron Age were able to claim the labor of effectively limitless numbers of people, accumulating wealth that not only made them the world’s first billionaires but also allowed them to invest in areas that had previously been the purview of states, like military campaigns and academies. It is, thus, among the Iron Age billionaires that we find evidence for the world’s first true oligarchies.
