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aus: Zeitschrift fr Papyrologie und Epigraphik 179 (2011) 129138

Dr. Rudolf Habelt GmbH, Bonn

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AT H ENS

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Very little quantitative work has been done by historians on the social structure and distribution of wealth
in Classical Greece, and much of the work, which has been done, has relied heavily upon speculation.1 Most
scholars no doubt assume that we have insufficient source evidence to allow any conclusions to be drawn,
and until relatively recently classicists have tended to be indifferent to many of the methods of research in
social history and sociology used to good effect by historians of better documented eras.
J. K. Davies, however, made an extremely important contribution,2 sketching a wealth distribution
graph for Fourth century Athens, based primarily on three considerations. 1) That there were approximately 300 Athenians with estates worth between 3 and 4 talents, liable for the and the most
expensive liturgies3; 2) that there were 1,200 individuals with estates of more than a talent (I estimate 1 T.
3,000 dr.)4 liable for or for minor liturgies,5 or for membership in a trierarchic symmory between
Perianders reform in 357/6 and Demosthenes in 3406; and 3) that 9,000 Athenian citizens met the 2,000
dr. requirement for citizenship imposed by Antipater in 322/1, following the Lamian war, when he established an oligarchy at Athens.7 There are a few minor points of detail in which I differ from Davies reconstruction, however, nor did he analyze his results any further or compare them with other pre-industrial
societies. An important source of information on the social and economic history of Classical Athens has
therefore remained largely unexploited ever since.

1 Most notably L. Foxhall, The Control of the Attic Landscape, in B. Wells (ed.), Agriculture in ncient Greece (Stock-

holm, 1992) 155159, which, while perhaps plausible enough, is almost entirely conjectural, followed by R. Osborne, Is it a
Farm? The Definition of Agricultural Sites and Settlements in Ancient Greece, in Agriculture in Ancient Greece, 227. See
also A. Bresson, Lconomie de la Grce des cits: I. Les structures de la production (Paris, 2007) 150; L. Foxhall, Access to
Resources in Classical Greece: The Egalitarianism of the polis in Practice, in P. Cartledge et al. (eds.), Money, Labour and
Land: Approaches to the Economies of Ancient Greece (London and New York, 2002), 20920, and the comments thereon by
I. Morris, Archaeology as a Kind of Anthropology (A Response to David Small), in I. Morris, K. A. Raaflaub (eds.), Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges (Dubuque, Iowa, 1998), 22939. See also E. Ruschenbusch, Die Sozialstruktur der Brgerschaft Athens im 4. Jh. v. Chr., ZPE 59 (1985) 249251, and, for a broader discussion of ancient Greek income inequality,
which I will not discuss here, see now J. Ober, Wealthy Hellas, TAPA 140 (2010) 24186. More work has been done, particularly
recently, on suggesting the possible income distribution in the Roman Empire, see W. Scheidel, S. Friesen, The Size of the
Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire, JRS 99 (2009) 6191, with references. Heretofore, most of the
hard data analyzed for its implications for ancient social inequality have been records for private landholding (which excludes
much public land), rather than wealth, from Greco-Roman Egypt. See R. S. Bagnall, Landholding in Late Roman Egypt. The
Distribution of Wealth, JRS 82 (1992) 128140; idem, Village Landholding at Aphrodito in Comparative Perspective, in J.-L.
Fournet (ed.), Les archives de Dioscore dAphrodit cent ans aprs leur dcouverte. Histoire et culture dans lgypte byzantine (Paris, 2008) 18190; P. Schubert, A Yale Papyrus (P. Yale III 137) in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
III (Oakville, CT, 2001) 1630.
2 J. K. Davies, Wealth and the Power of Wealth at Classical Athens (New York, 1981) 347. See also, on the interpretation
of the evidence for Athenian taxation and liturgies, J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600300 B.C. (Oxford, 1971)
xxiiixxiv.
3 Davies, Wealth (n. 2) 267.
4 The exact wealth value is uncertain. Nine thousand drachmae produces a better fit than one talent and is more likely to
be sufficient to support the syntrierarchy, , and lesser liturgies. One talent is surely the minimum possible, based on
the argument of Davies, Wealth (n. 2) 345, and given that a fortune of between 1 T. and 1 T. 4000 dr. has been attested for
individuals of doubtful liability for and liturgies. See E. Ruschenbusch, Die athenischen Symmorien des 4. Jh. v. Chr.,
ZPE 31 (1978) 275284, 2778; Davies, Propertied Families (n. 2) xxiiiiv. The possible 6,000 dr. property qualification for
the may also offer some corroboration. See Pollux 8, 30; Davies, Wealth (n. 2) 36.
5 Isoc. 15.145.
6 Dem. 21, 154; Dem. 14, 16.
7 Diod. 18, 18, 45; Plut. Phoc. 28, 7; Ktesikles ap. Athen. 6, 272C.

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Davies graph does have to be modified in one important respect, however. I believe that Hansen has
demonstrated,8 despite Ruschenbuschs objections,9 that the population of Fourth century Athens after
the Lamian war will have been 31,000 adult male citizens rather than 21,000, and my analysis of possible
wealth distribution curves effectively rules out the smaller figure.

Fig. 1. Athenian Wealth Distribution Curve

At the highest wealth values, the curve is so steep that it is extremely difficult to determine the proper
slope or to calculate the area under the curve. Fortunately, as Ruschenbusch and Moss have shown to a
reasonable degree of certainty,10 only the wealthiest 1200 Athenians were liable for (or for the
trierarchy under Perianders system), and since we know that the wealth of those liable for these obligations
was between 6,000 and 5,750 talents,11 we can estimate the wealth of the richest 300 or 1% indirectly by
8 See, among others, M. H. Hansen, Demography and Democracy: The Number of Athenian Citizens in the Fourth Cen-

tury B.C. (Herning, 1986); idem, Demography and Democracy Once Again, ZPE 75 (1988) 189193; idem, Demography and
Democracy. A Reply to Eberhard Ruschenbusch, Ancient History Bulletin 3 (1989) 4044.
9 E. Ruschenbusch, Epheben, Buleuten und die Brgerzahl von Athen um 330 v. Chr., ZPE 41 (1981) 103105; idem, Noch
einmal die Brgerzahl Athens um 330 v. Chr., ZPE 44 (1981) 110112; idem, Zum letzten Mal. Die Brgerzahl Athens im
4. Jh. v. Chr., ZPE 54 (1984) 253269, idem, Demography and democracy. Doch noch einmal die Brgerzahl Athens im 4. Jh.
v. Chr., ZPE 72 (1988) 139140.
10 Ruschenbusch, Athenische Symmorien (n. 4); C. Moss, Les symmories athniennes, in Points de vue sur la fiscalit
antique (Paris, 1979) 3142. The objections of P. J. Rhodes, Problems in Athenian Eisphora and Liturgies, AJAH 7 (1982)
119, and D. M. MacDowell, The Law of Periandros about Symmories, CQ 36 (1986) 438449 are convincingly addressed by
E. Ruschenbusch, Symmorienprobleme, ZPE 69 (1987) 7581. For more recent literature, see also M. Christ, The Evolution of
the Eisphora in Classical Athens, CQ 57 (2007) 5369, but note that his own argument is dubious, based on a very hazardous
argument from silence.
11 Dem. 14 (Symm.), 19; 27; Philoch. 328F 46 (6,000 T.); Poly. 2, 62, 7 (5,750 T.). These sources suggest that the of
Athens was presumably the capital subject to taxation, rather than the total wealth of the society, as Demosthenes 14.267 also
seems to make clear, since one can directly calculate the yield of an tax as a proportion of it. The Florentine catasto,
which exempted any estates worth less than 200 florins from the forced loans or prestanze, and allowed all taxpayers to deduct
that sum from their taxable wealth, offers a useful parallel.

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subtracting the wealth of the next wealthiest 900 from the 6,000 talent figure. Nonetheless, it is comforting
to observe that we can achieve the same result by a more direct calculation, which is consistent with our
source evidence.
There were a number of estates rumoured to have been about 60 to 100 talents by various Fourth century sources.12 Although, as the speaker of Lysias On the Property of Aristophanes points out, there was
a common tendency to inflate large fortunes,13 we would probably not be far wrong in positing 2 individuals with 360,000 dr. or just under 60 talents. Demosthenes claims that his inheritance of an estate worth
just over 14 talents placed him as of his symmory,14 and therefore either among the wealthiest
Athenians in the 20 symmories, or, more likely, among the wealthiest in the 100 into which these 20
symmories were in turn divided. Positing 30 individuals with 15 T. or 90,000 dr. is consistent with these
sources, and produces a good fit with our other evidence. For the cut-off for the 300 , I
have chosen 21,000 dr. or 3 T. 3,000 dr.15 These conjectures fit reasonably well when plotted on our wealth
distribution curve, but even more importantly, they imply a total wealth for the 1,200 individuals liable for
of 35 million 165 thousand . This compares very closely with the of 6,000 talents
or 36 million given by Demosthenes for liturgists and payers (5,750 T. according to Polybius, presumably for a different period). This close correspondence, incidentally, provides further corroboration for the claim of Ruschenbusch and Moss that those liable for were also 1200 in number.
At the lower end of the wealth scale, we have much less evidence. The natural slope of the curve,
which is relatively flat, means that the adjustment will be rather subtle, but it is useful to refine the slope of
the curve as much as possible. I have taken into account Lysias speech 34 (Against the Subversion of the
Ancestral Constitution) delivered in 403 BC against the motion of Phormisius, which proposed disenfranchising Athenians without any land (which I interpret to include garden or house plots, and certainly not
just agricultural land). Dionysius of Halicarnassus informs us that this motion would have disenfranchised
about 5,000 citizens.16 This figure is probably only a rough estimate, and the population in the late Fourth
century may have increased somewhat since 403. Nevertheless, Hansen is probably right to assume a relatively stable population, and the proportion of landless Athenian citizens is also likely to have declined as
Athens recovered, so I will assume that we can take 5,000 as a tentative estimate of the number of adult
male citizens with no landed wealth in the mid-4th century as well.17
The question remains just what level of wealth is likely to mark this transition from small house- or
land-owners to those who possessed only movable property. For these calculations, I have chosen the very
conservative figure of 100 dr. Our attested evidence for house prices suggests that few indeed could be
purchased for less than about 100 dr. and most of the least expensive houses seem to have been 200 to 300

12 See Davies, Wealth (n. 2) 35 note 25 and fuller analysis in Davies, Propertied Families (n. 2).
13 Lys. 19. 4553. We must also be aware of the possibility, if not likelihood, that the assets of some wealthy Athenians
may have been concealed in order to minimize their tax burden, as argued by M. R. Christ, Liturgy Avoidance and Antidosis in Classical Athens, TAPA 120 (1990) 147169 and E. E. Cohen, Athenian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective
(Princeton, 1992) 194201.
14 Dem. 27.7.
15 See Ruschenbuschs brilliant analysis of the implications of IG II2 1622, which suggests, arguing from independent
considerations, a cut-off of 20,000 drachmae. See E. Ruschenbusch, Ein Beitrag zur Leiturgie und zur Eisphora: Die Hhe des
Vermgens, das die Pflicht zur Leistung einer Leiturgie und zur Zahlung der Eisphora begrndete, ZPE 59 (1985) 237240; id.,
Die trierarchischen Syntelien und das Vermgen der Synteliemitglieder. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum vorhergehenden Aufsatz,
ZPE 59 (1985) 2409, p. 2423. For ancient evidence supporting the threshold of 3 to 4 T. for and liturgists,
see Davies, Propertied Families (n. 2) xxiiixxiv; Davies, Wealth (n. 2) 267. For the number of , see R. W.
Wallace, The Athenian proeispherontes, Hesperia 58 (1989) 473490.
16 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, de Lys. 32; cf. Th. Lenschau, Phormisios (1), RE XX (1941) 5414.
17 On this assumption, this would have represented around 16% of the Athenian adult male population, a figure not dissimilar to the 14% of the Florentine population who had no net assets in the Catasto of 1427. See D. Herlihy, C. Klapisch-Zuber,
Tuscans and their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven, 1985) 251.

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dr. in value.18 Tiny parcels of land worth 50 dr. or less are attested,19 but may not have represented the
entire holding of their owners, if the fragmentation of holdings by poorer peasants attested in modern ethnographic studies is relevant, and it is uncertain if ownership of such small plots would have exempted the
very poor from the workings of Phormisius proposal. As far as movable property is concerned, Pritchett
estimates, based upon his detailed study of the confiscated property of the Hermocopidae, that the furniture
of a Greek household would rarely exceed 500 dr. in total value.20 Possession of personal effects of a fifth
of this value is not unlikely for some of the better off of the landless. Interestingly, the Roman figure of 375
sesterces for the proletarii or capite censi is equivalent to about 94 denarii or .21 I strongly suspect
that the Roman proletarii were significantly worse off than these landless Athenians, but at least it should
be clear that this 100 dr. figure is certainly not unrealistically high.
The resulting wealth estimate for mid to late 4th century Athens is 75,967,000 drachmae or 12,661
talents. When divided by the estimated 31,000 adult male citizens, this represents a mean wealth per adult
male of 2,451 dr. One can also calculate the median wealth graphically as approximately 925 dr. Although
the Athenian wealth figures most likely exclude the significant but unquantifiable metic population, and
therefore under-estimate the total wealth of Attica,22 it is comforting to find that this result is comparable
to the much more securely attested mean wealth for adult males in Florence and its contado (countryside)
produced by the records of the Catasto property tax levied by the Florentine government in 1427. These
records provide a great wealth of demographic information about a pre-industrial city-state at the height of
its prosperity and influence in international trade and banking, and have been studied in depth by Herlihy
and Klapisch-Zuber.23 They offer a figure of 15,085,331 florins as the total net wealth of Florence and its
contado, which, when divided by the 75,056 adult males in its population, yields a net wealth per adult male
of 201.0 florins.24 Two hundred florins had a purchasing power, in terms of wheat, the principal means of
subsistence for both populations, of approximately 3,088 dr.25 About 17% of the Florentine wealth total,
however, consisted of shares in the Monte, or the Florentine Government debt.26 Whereas Athenian
18 House prices: : 105 dr. Attic Stelai X, 16; 300 dr. Isaios 2,35; house, land, garden: 205 dr. Attic Stelai X, 17;

house: 105 dr. Attic Stelai X, 15; 60 dr. Attic Stelai VI, 1123; 350 dr.; Attic Stelai VI, 1123; 575 dr. Hesperia 10 (1941) 1430,
ll.139; 215 dr. Hesperia 51 (1982) 7498, stele II, ll.17; 145 dr. loc. cit., ll.1621.
19 Low prices for land: 50 dr.; IG II2 1596, 234; 100 dr.; IG II2 1597 (A), ll.1718; over 150 dr.; IG II2 1598 A, ll.45;
: 50 dr. found in 6 examples: IG II2 1594, ll.2730; 3132; 334; 378; 3943.
20 W. K. Pritchett, A. Pippin, The Attic Stelai: Part II, Hesperia 25 (1956) 178328, 180.
21 For the Roman census ratings, see D. W. Rathbone, The Census Qualifications of the assidui and the prima classis, in
H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg et al. (eds.), De Agricultura: In Memoriam Pieter Willem de Neeve (19451990) (Amsterdam, 1993)
121152.
22 No attempt has been made to estimate wealth owned or controlled by metics, for whom we have little direct evidence,
but who surely represented a significant proportion of the population of Attica, nor have we addressed the question of the number of slaves in Athenian households, significant questions, which deserve in-depth study. While the proportion of foreigners at
Florence was decidedly lower than at Athens, up to 42% of Florentine households had one or more domestic servants in 1552,
many of whom were likely chattel slaves. See R. A. Goldthwaite, The Painting Industry in Early Modern Italy, in R. E. Spear,
P. Sohm (eds.), Painting for Profit: The Economic Lives of Seventeenth-century Italian Painters (New Haven, 2010) 279. For
the prevalence of slavery at Florence, see Iris Origo, The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Centuries, Speculum 30 (1955) 321366; R. A. Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore,
2009) 3767.
23 Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans (n. 17).
24 See Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans (n. 17) 94 Table 4.1; 184 Table 6.5.
25 One florin therefore has approximately the same purchasing power as 15.3657 dr. R. Goldthwaite, The Building of
Renaissance Florence (Baltimore, 1980) xv; 429; 436; 439 gives the following figures: 1 staio = 24.7 L; in 1427, 1 florin = 83
soldi; daily wage = .70 staia wheat = 9.8 soldi. Therefore 1 florin = 8.47 (83/9.8) days wages and buys 5.93 (8.47 .70) staia
of wheat = 146.4 (5.93 24.7) litres of wheat. At Athens, according to M. L. Lang, Weights, Measures, and Tokens (Princeton,
1964) 44: 1 = 0.273 L and one = 192 = 192 0.273 L = 52.416 L. Since 5.5 drachmae is a typical
price for one of wheat in the fourth century (see Pritchett and Pippin (n. 20) 1968), 1 drachma buys 9.53 L wheat.
26 In 1427, 2.58 million florins of Florentine wealth consisted of public debt. See Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans
(n. 17) 94 Table 4.1. For the origins and rising importance of the Monte in the Trecento, see M. B. Becker, Florence in Transition: Vol. 2. Studies in the Rise of the Territorial State (Baltimore, 1968) 151200.

The Distribution of Wealth at Athens in Comparative Perspective

133

were direct taxes, the Florentine equivalent, the Prestanze, were forced loans, which were credited to the lender, could be bought and sold (at a market price well below their original value), and paid interest at a low rate, which was financed using indirect sales taxes, the gabelle.27 If we exclude this public debt
from the wealth calculations, the wealth per adult male is 166.8 florins, equivalent to 2,563 dr., extremely
close to our Athenian figures. Economic comparisons between societies, even contemporary ones, raise a
whole host of methodological problems. Nevertheless, wealth per capita does seem to have been of the same
order of magnitude in both societies. This does tend to support the impression of Beloch and Meyer (and
most of our ancient sources) of Athens as a wealthy commercial city and trading and manufacturing centre,
not unlike Quattrocento Florence, rather the primitive agrarian society portrayed by Bcher or Finley.28
Our primary interest here is in the distribution of wealth, though. In order to allow direct comparisons
between wealth-distribution curves for different societies, most researchers create a standard Lorenz curve.
It graphs the share of the total wealth possessed by all individuals at or below each point of the wealth
distribution curve, and plots them against the percentile of the total population, which these individuals
represent. For a perfectly egalitarian wealth distribution, the result is a straight line along the diagonal, and
as the level of inequality increases the curve dips away from the diagonal and towards the axes. The distribution curves for several societies can then be mapped on the same graph and directly compared. One can
also create a simple numerical measure of inequality, called the Gini co-efficient, by calculating the area
between the Lorenz curve and the diagonal, which varies between a value of 0 for perfect equality up to a
value of 1 for absolute inequality.

Fig. 2. Lorenz Wealth Distribution Curves

The result for 4th century Attica is illustrated in figure 2, above, alongside specific points on the Lorenz
curves calculated for Florence in 1427, the United States in 1953, as well as the entire Lorenz curve for
England in 191113. As one can see, the points on the American curve for 19534 provides the closest fit
to the Athenian Lorenz curve. This is important evidence that the Athenian wealth distribution, as we have
estimated it, reveals no striking inconsistencies, which would suggest that any of our assumptions or source
27 Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans (n. 17) 24.
28 For the economy of Renaissance Florence and its relatively broad distribution of wealth, as compared to contemporary
European cities, see R. A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 13001600 (Baltimore, 1993); idem, Economy
(n. 22).

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evidence must be discarded or radically changed. The Lorenz curve for the city of Florence is more inegalitarian, but not radically different, and had we mapped the Lorenz curve for the six lesser cities in Florences
sphere of influence (Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Prato, Cortona, and Volterra), the curve would just about bisect
the difference between Athens and Florence. The curve for England prior to World War I shows the sort of
profound inequality, which marked truly aristocratic societies.29
The same results can be summed up more simply, if a little more crudely, by calculating the corresponding Gini coefficients, as one can see from the second column in table 1, below.
Table 1: Wealth Distribution Statistics30
Region

Date

Gini coefficient

Top 1% own

Top 10% own

Attica

ca. 321 BC

0.708

30.9

60.2

Florence

1427

0.788

(29)

68

Tuscan cities

1427

0.747

(33)

63

England

19113

0.95

66

92

England

19534

0.83

43

79

USA

1912

0.93

56.4

90

USA

19534

0.71

27

55

USA

1998

0.794

36.4

67.8

Canada

1998

0.69

(21)

53

The closer the Gini coefficient is to 1, the greater the level of inequality. Our Gini coefficient for Attica is
0.708, which when rounded off is effectively identical to the value of 0.71 for the USA in 19534. It is striking that the Athenian wealth distribution is not dissimilar to that of a modern representative democracy and
welfare state (in a period of fairly high social equality, at least compared to the United States today), and an
extremely important corrective to the common assumption that Athenian political democracy co-existed
with a basically aristocratic and inegalitarian social structure. Of course, in absolute terms all of these
societies, including modern representative democracies, are unequal, particularly when one concentrates
on wealth distribution, which tends always to be significantly more unequal than income distribution.31 It is
only when wealth distribution curves, which seem so strikingly unequal to the casual observer, are studied,
quantified, and placed into an historical context, that one can interpret them effectively.
Our Athenian evidence is rather tenuous, of course, based on inferences from a few literary and epigraphic sources, but the wealth distribution evidence from Florence is very fully documented, and gives a
29 English social inequality was documented in some depth by 19th and early 20th century social reformers. See, for

example, C. Booth, Life and Labour of the London Poor First Series: Poverty 2, Streets and Population Classified (London,
1902, repr. New York, 1970); G. E. Fussell and J. H. Treble, Urban Poverty in Britain 18301914 (London, 1979); J. Burnett,
Plenty and Want (London, 1979); J. Burnett, A Social History of Housing (London, 1986).
30 Sources: A. B. Atkinson, A. J. Harrison, Distribution of Personal Wealth in Britain (Cambridge, 1978) 165; A. B.
Atkinson, Unequal Shares (London, 1972) 201; Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans (n. 17) 99 Fig. 4.1; A. B. Kennickell, An
Examination of Changes in the Distribution of Wealth From 1989 to 1998: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances,
Jerome Levy Economics Institute, Bard College Working Paper no. 307 (Annandale-on Hudson, 2000); J. G. Williamson,
P. H. Lindert, American Inequality A Macroeconomic History (New York, 1980) 50 Table 3.6; E. W. Wolff, Recent Trends in
Wealth Ownership, 19831998, Jerome Levy Economics Institute, Bard College Working Paper no. 300 (Annandale-on Hudson, 2000); L. Soltow and J. L. Van Zanden, Income and Wealth Inequality in the Netherlands, 16th20th century (Amsterdam, 1998) 191; Statistics Canada, Assets of Canadians An Overview of the Results of the Survey of Financial Security
(Ottawa, 2000). For slightly different comparative figures, looking at household net worth and excluding business equity, see
R. Hill, T. Myatt, The Economics Anti-textbook: A Critical Thinkers Guide to Microeconomics (London, 2010) 200, table 9.3.
31 See J. B. Davies, A. F. Shorrocks, The Distribution of Wealth, in A. B. Atkinson, F. Bourguignon (eds.), Handbook of
Income Distribution, vol. I. (Amsterdam, 2000) 60575.

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135

Gini coefficient of 0.79 for the city of Florence itself, almost identical to the Gini coefficient for England in
1970 and for the USA in 1998 of 0.794. Moreover, the Gini coefficient for the six smaller cities in Florences
territory, is 0.75, only very slightly more unequal than Attica. The Florentine results tend to show that the
Athenian wealth distribution curve is credible for a pre-industrial city-state. We would naturally expect a
higher degree of inequality at Florence, since, with the exception of a brief interlude following the Ciompi
revolution of 1378, the Florentine government was controlled alternately by an oligarchy (albeit a relatively
broad-based one for this period) or by the Medici,32 whereas Athens was one of Greeces first and likely
one of its most stable democracies.
The highly inegalitarian wealth distribution of England in 19113, which is obvious from the Lorenz
curve, is equally clear from the Gini coefficient of 0.95. England was not unique in its high social inequality, however. Many other European and North American nations were very nearly as inegalitarian in the
early 20th century. For the USA in 1912, for example, Williamson and Lindert have estimated a Gini coefficient of 0.925.
Another, arguably more immediate and intuitive, measure for illustrating the degree of inequality in
a society is to estimate the proportion of total wealth possessed by the richest 1%, 5%, and 10% of the
population. For 4th century Attica, the wealth distribution curve allows one to easily calculate that the
wealthiest 300 , essentially the richest 1%, owned 30.9% of the total wealth; the richest 5%
owned 49.8%; and the richest 10% owned 60.2% of the total. These figures clearly indicate a high degree of
wealth concentration, but they are actually about midway between contemporary figures for Canada, which
is generally a more egalitarian society than most industrial democracies, although it lags behind the Scandinavian social democracies, and the United States, which has had a significantly higher degree of wealth
inequality than Canada, at least. For example, the wealthiest 10% in Canada now hold 53% of the total
wealth, about 7% less than the same segment of the Athenian population, whereas the wealthiest 10% in the
USA held 67.8% of the total wealth as of 1995, about 8% more than at Athens. The Gini coefficient of wealth
inequality for the US at the same date was 0.794, closer to Renaissance Florence than to Attica. Moreover,
while these figures fluctuate, estimates for 2007 have put the share of the national non-home wealth held by
the richest 1% at about 43% of the total wealth in the United States, significantly higher than at Athens.33
The degree of inequality in truly hierarchical societies is even more striking. By 19113 England had
experienced more than 30 years of democratic reform and several successful challenges to dominance of
the landed aristocracy, first gathering momentum with the Third Reform Bill of 1883, which gave the vote
to the majority, but not all, of the (male) working classes.34 Nevertheless, the richest 1% still held 66% of the
total wealth of the nation, and the richest 5% a full 86%. Nor was the United States of the so-called gilded
age much more egalitarian. The top 1% in the USA in 1912 owned 56.4% of the total wealth of the nation;
the richest 5% 79.8%; and the richest 10% owned 90% of the national wealth according to Federal Trade
Commission probate statistics analyzed by Williamson and Lindert.35
32 For the Ciompi revolution, see G. Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society, 13431378 (Princeton, 1968) and for the

development of the Florentine state through its domination by the Medici, see G. Brucker, Renaissance Florence (Berkeley,
1983).
33 E. W. Wolff, Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze an
Update to 2007, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Working paper no. 589 (Annandale on Hudson, 2010) 10. For the
trends in the United States since the early 1980s, see E. W. Wolff, Top eavy: A Study of the Increasing Inequality of Wealth in
America (New York, 1995). For further international comparisons, see E. W. Wolff, International Perspectives on Household
Wealth (Cheltenham, 2006). For an extremely timely analysis of the effects of income inequality on health and other measures
of social well-being, see R. Wilkinson, K. Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (London, 2009). For the post-Reagan era neoliberal approach to poverty and social injustice, and the social effects of attempts to
scale back or dismantle the welfare state in the United States, see J. Goode and J. Maskovsky (eds.), The New Poverty Studies:
The Ethnography of Power, Politics, and Impoverished People in the United States (New York, 2001).
34 See, for example, C. Seymour, Electoral Reform in England and Wales: The Development and Operation of the Parliamentary Franchise, 18321885 (New Haven, 1915); D. Read, The Age of Urban Democracy: England 18681914 (London, 1994).
35 Williamson and Lindert, American Inequality (n. 30) 50 Table 3.6.

136

G. Kron
Table 2: Share of Total Wealth possessed by richest 1%/5% of population36
Year

U.K.

19113

66/86

Sweden

Germany U.S.

1915

55/79

19202

50/77

1925

61/82

1935

54/77

193839

55/77

1945

34/-

50/76
48/73

42/70

33/-

42/68
33/-

45/71

38/66

26/-

33/60

23/-

34/60

27/-

35/61

194951

47/71

195355

44/71

26/-

1960

34/60

30/-

196566

33/59

24/48

196970

30/54

23/46

1972

32/57

197475

Holland

28/-

37/64
29/-

33/59

25/-

31/56

26/21/44

28/54

Appendix Calculation of Wealth Distribution and Lorenz Curve

In order to fully quantify the results of the Athenian wealth distribution curve, I have made use of computer graphing software, specifically Curvus Pro 2.5 for Power Macintosh, to fit a smooth continuous
curve through the plot points reconstructed from the ancient evidence and our estimates of the wealth of
Athenians without a house plot or land, plotting wealth in on the y-axis and the number of adult
male citizens on the x-axis. This software has the advantage of not only fitting curves, but of determining the coordinates of points on or near an existing curve. One is therefore able to calculate and input the
co-ordinates of a series of additional hypothetical plot-points linking the few discreet points provided by
our sources. All of these points are then plotted and fitted by the program so as to create a smoother and
more continuous curve. Further hypothetical points can then be added and the existing hypothetical points
adjusted to remove obvious discontinuities. After several iterations of this process, the wealth distribution
curve (figure 1, above) was created. The few plot-points provided by the sources effectively determine the
shape of this curve to a relatively high degree since significant adjustments of the hypothetical plot points
disrupts the smoothness of the curve and creates discontinuities or sudden changes in slope which are readily visible to the naked eye.
Once we have the co-ordinates of a series of closely spaced plot-points along this curve, one can calculate the wealth possessed by the entire Athenian population, or by segments of it, by calculating the area
under the graph, which can be done by a simple arithmetic method using any spreadsheet program. One
simply breaks the area under the curve into a series of rectilinear polygons defined by our final set of coordinates, and makes a cumulative total of their areas. This involves a slight approximation as each segment
of the curve is modeled with a straight line, but the inaccuracy can be minimized by using a large number
of polygons and by increasing the number of segments into which the curve is divided, wherever the slope
changes most rapidly.
The inaccuracy resulting from this approximation using polygons should be little more than 1 or 2%,
as shown by Atkinson and Harrisons study of the accuracy of linear interpolation when modeling points
36 Source: Soltow and Van Zanden, Wealth Inequality (n. 30) 191.

The Distribution of Wealth at Athens in Comparative Perspective

137

on continuous Lorenz curves.37 Certainly, even the crudest area calculation, one made by simply connecting the original plot points by straight lines rather than a continuous curve, yields an estimate which is still
within 17% of our refined estimate breaking the area under the curve into 30 polygons. This method of
calculation should not introduce a significant error into our estimates.
The formulae for the calculation of the wealth represented by the area under each segment of our
wealth distribution curve, approximated by a polygon fitted closely to the curve is expressed by the following formula and tables.
Spreadsheet for calculation of wealth distribution
Number of adult males
= pi

Wealth (dr.)
= wi

Mean wealth
= Dpi,i+1

Number
= mean (wi,i+1)

Aggregate wealth of polygon

= area (i, i+1)
720000

360 000

225000

28

6300000

30

90 000

55500

270

14985000

300

21 000

18500

250

4625000

550

16 000

14000

410

5740000

960

12 000

10500

240

2520000

1 200

9 000

8250

220

1815000

1 420

7 500

6745

280

1888600

1 700

5 990

5645

174

982230

1 874

5 300

4990

288

1437120

2 162

4 680

4390

601

2638390

2 763

4 100

3875

645

2499375

3 408

3 650

3410

1 018

3471380

4 426

3 170

2910

1 560

4539600

5 986

2 650

2386,5

897

2140690,5

7 230

2 288

2205,5

897

1978333,5

8 127

2 123

2061,5

873

1799689,5

9 000

2 000

1850

1 680

3108000

10 680

1 700

1577,5

1 340

2113850

12 020

1 455

1325

2 030

2689750

14 050

1 195

1080

1 930

2084400

15 980

965

862,5

2 020

1742250

18 000

760

605

3 000

1815000

21 000

450

337,5

2 000

675000

24 000

225

162,5

2 000

325000

26 000

100

75

2 000

150000

28 000

50

25

3 000

75000

31 000

37 A. B. Atkinson, A. J. Harrison, Distribution of Personal Wealth in Britain (Cambridge, 1978) 1326.

138

G. Kron

Where:
Dpi,i+1= pi+1-pi
mean (wi,i+1) = wi+(wi+1-wi)/2
area (i, i+1) = Dpi,i+1*mean (wi,i+1)

Speadsheet for Lorenz curve calculations

Cumulative
Wealth

Cumulative
Population

Normalized
Wealth

Normalized
Population

23475000

300

0.309009011

0.009677419

26620000

470

0.350407662

0.01516129

33480000

960

0.440708059

0.030967742

36000000

1,200

0.473879633

0.038709677

37815000

1,420

0.497771064

0.045806452

39703600

1,700

0.522631316

0.05483871

40685830

1,874

0.535560727

0.060451613

42122950

2,162

0.554478002

0.069741935

44761340

2,763

0.589207982

0.089129032

47260715

3,408

0.622108063

0.109935484

50732095

4,426

0.66780296

0.142774194

55271695

5,986

0.727559182

0.193096774

57412385.5

7,230

0.755737782

0.233225806

59390719

8,127

0.781779225

0.26216129

61190408.5

9,000

0.80546912

0.290322581

64298408.5

10,680

0.846380728

0.344516129

66412258.5

12,020

0.874206019

0.387741935

69102008.5

14,050

0.909612067

0.453225806

71186408.5

15,980

0.937049698

0.515483871

72928658.5

18,000

0.959983498

0.580645161

74743658.5

21,000

0.983874929

0.677419355

75418658.5

24,000

0.992760172

0.774193548

75743658.5

26,000

0.997038252

0.838709677

75893658.5

28,000

0.999012751

0.903225806

75968658.5

31,000

Geoffrey Kron, Department of Greek an Roman Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria B.C., Canada
gkron@uvic.ca