Salaried Rural Work in the Ancient Mediterranean
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2177-4218.v10i2p165-186Keywords:
Wage Labour, Rural Economy, Ancient MediterraneanAbstract
Pre-capitalist economies do not have wide free markets of free labour. The ancient Mediterranean was no exception to this. In its rural world, above all, the importance of peasant and slave economies diminished, even more, the space for the free market of free labour. However, ancient texts show numerous examples of wage labour. The aims of this article are: to identify how rural wage labour was organized; and to explain its dynamics within a pre-capitalist economy. Cato’s treatise on agriculture is my most important source, but I will seek information in other ancient sources from different regions of the Mediterranean. Therefore, I will present a basic framework of rural wage labour. Finally, I will identify the social relations established with the neighbourhood as the structuring element of these relations of wage labour.
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