Like Gaul, Rome began with a highly disproportionate distribution of wealth: the Patrician class in control and the Plebian class subservient. In 200 B.C, the adult male population of Rome was 270,000 and the value of all property about $ 3 billion. It’s easy to imagine the wealthiest 1% of the population controlling 50% or more of this wealth. Scipio Africanus, the great general, who died in 183 B.C, left an estate of $ 600,000. His relative by marriage Aemilianus Paulus left an estate of $ 250,000.
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