In 2013, Barack Obama called rising inequality “the defining challenge of our time”. Since the Financial Crisis and Great Recession of 2007-9, the gap between the haves and have-nots has attracted unprecedented attention in politics, the media and academia.1 Students of the more distant past have also begun to embrace this trend. Economists are once again looking back in time, inspired in no small measure by the broad impact of the work of Thomas Piketty.2 Historians are laboring hard to unearth and publish relevant data. Thanks to their efforts, we are now able to glimpse the contours of changes in the concentration of income and wealth over the very long run, at least in some parts of the world.3 Archaeologists have been joining the fray, gathering and analyzing plausible proxies of inequality such as house sizes.4

中文翻译：

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比较视角下的罗马财富和财富不平等

2013 年，巴拉克·奥巴马 (Barack Obama) 称日益加剧的不平等是“我们这个时代的决定性挑战”。自 2007-9 年金融危机和大衰退以来，贫富差距在政界、媒体和学术界引起了前所未有的关注。1更远的过去的学生也开始接受这一趋势。经济学家们再次回顾过去，这在很大程度上受到了托马斯·皮凯蒂（Thomas Piketty）工作的广泛影响的启发。2历史学家正在努力挖掘和发布相关数据。由于他们的努力，我们现在能够瞥见收入和财富集中度在很长一段时间内的变化轮廓，至少在世界某些地区是这样。3考古学家一直在加入战斗，收集和分析房屋大小等不平等的合理代表。4