*Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent*

By Kim Bowes, this is an excellent book, the best I know of on ordinary economic life in the Roman empire.  It also shows a very good understanding of economics, unlike some forays by archeologists.  Here is one excerpt:

On the income side, we’ve seen that unskilled wages, which were very low indeed, were also a very bad proxy for income.  Wages were usually part of a portfolio of income, a portfolio that all family members contributed to, but one still centered on own production — either farming or textile/artisanal work.  Unskilled wages supplemented own-production; they mostly weren’t equivalent to it.  Roman wagges, unlike modern wages, can’t be used as a proxy for income.

Gross income from own-production, particularly farming, appears to have been much higher than previously supposed.  Rotation strategies practiced by Italian and Egyptian farmers meant that per-hectare outputs were many times greater than alternate fallow models predicted, since outputs included not only wheat but also significant quantities of fodder and animals.  In the northwest provinces, where rotation was less common, outputs per hectare were lower but still included some hay and larger animal herds.  And every, high settlement densities and shrinking amounts of land would have urged farmers to achieve higher yields — in some places three or more times greater than previously supposed.  We can’t be sure they managed this, only that low yields would have been mostly unteanble and that farmers had the tools — rotation, manuring, weeding — to achieve higher ones.

Most working class Romans, by the way, bought their clothing rather than having to make it themselves.

Recommended, you can pre-order it here.