Classical Antiquity Studies

Classical antiquity studies in the social sciences applies anthropological and historical methods to the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, examining how Mediterranean societies organized labor, distributed wealth, structured households, and produced the literary and religious cultures that still shape Western thought. Scholars draw on archaeological evidence, papyri, epigraphy, and surviving texts — from epic poetry to census records — to reconstruct population dynamics, economic patterns, and everyday social life across a world that left fragmentary but remarkably rich documentation. Central open questions include how far premodern economic growth in the Roman Empire can be meaningfully measured and compared to later periods, and how demographic collapse during Late Antiquity reshaped the social fabric of the Mediterranean world. Recent work increasingly integrates computational methods and cross-regional comparison to move beyond elite literary sources and recover the experiences of ordinary inhabitants across a vast, diverse empire.

Works

566,787

Total citations

1,806,248

Keywords

Ancient RomeGreek LiteratureEconomic HistoryRoman EmpireMediterranean SocietyClassical Antiquity