A Point of View: Why the rich look down on the poor

[DanaC]

This week's A Point of View comes from Professor Mary Beard:

In the ancient world, the rich held themselves to very different standards from the poor. Not much has changed, argues classical historian Mary Beard.

Low life in ancient Rome could be very low indeed.

There were gangs of ne'er-do-wells and down-and-outs who spent all night in cheap bars, drowning their sorrows. Apart from talk about the top chariot racers (the ancient equivalent of footballers), the only entertainment on offer was brawling and gambling.

They would sit hunched over their gaming tables, making horrible snorting sounds through their quivering nostrils.

(The Greeks and Romans seem to have been particularly sensitive to odd nasal noises. One pundit in the early 2nd Century - the aptly named Dio the Golden Mouth - gave a whole lecture to the people of the city of Tarsus, urging them to control their snorting. It must count as one of the most curious works of ancient literature to have come down to us.)

Needless to say, this picture of the life of the Roman poor as one of wall-to-wall boozing and gambling does not come from the poor themselves.

I've been quoting, more or less word for word, the description of social conditions in the capital city of the Roman Empire given by a decidedly upmarket historian of the 4th Century, Ammianus Marcellinus

This bit I found really interesting:

But whatever slurs and nicknames were used, the misdemeanours attributed to the ancient Roman poor by their rich critics are strikingly similar to those we still hear now.

For a start, the poor were often said to be guilty of abusing the services offered to them - not by the welfare state but by rich benefactors.

Read the rest here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20235692