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Conversations with Tyler / episode intelligence

Kim Bowes on the Economic Lives of Rome's Ninety Percent

15 Apr 2026 29 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Tyler CowenKim Bowes

Claim mix

belief 18evaluation 5commitment 2preference 2observation 1prediction 1

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The useful parts, with receipts.

29 published records

01 / evaluation

She is an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and she has a new book out called Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent. It has perhaps been my favorite economics book of the last year, though I think to the rest of the world it is more of a history book and an archaeology book.

“She is an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and she has a new book out called Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent. It has perhaps been my favorite economics book of the last year, though I think to the rest of the world it is more of a history book and an archaeology book.”
Speaker
Tyler Cowen
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

02 / belief

We would see that decoration as somehow being special and fenced off because that’s the way we manage decoration in our own spaces, but not in that world. Because everything is encrusted with some sort of decoration, everything is used in ways that I think would really surprise us, too.

“We would see that decoration as somehow being special and fenced off because that’s the way we manage decoration in our own spaces, but not in that world. Because everything is encrusted with some sort of decoration, everything is used in ways that I think would really surprise us, too.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

04 / belief

I think what the maximalists of Roman technology would argue is that the Romans didn’t invent too much that hadn’t already been, at least in the works, in the Greek world.

“I think what the maximalists of Roman technology would argue is that the Romans didn’t invent too much that hadn’t already been, at least in the works, in the Greek world.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

05 / belief

” I think that’s one of the biggest things that would have surprised us in a post-Constantinian world, is how few Christians there really are, especially when you went to the countryside.

“” I think that’s one of the biggest things that would have surprised us in a post-Constantinian world, is how few Christians there really are, especially when you went to the countryside.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

06 / belief

I think, though, what you’re asking, Tyler, is what we have a harder time seeing is them making future planning around profit in a quantified way that we would understand as part and parcel of an economic thinking that involves supply and demand.

“I think, though, what you’re asking, Tyler, is what we have a harder time seeing is them making future planning around profit in a quantified way that we would understand as part and parcel of an economic thinking that involves supply and demand.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

09 / belief

In a way, the debate about these issues is, I think, probably ancient historians’ discomfort with the idea of the modern notion of futures as applied to an ancient world.

“In a way, the debate about these issues is, I think, probably ancient historians’ discomfort with the idea of the modern notion of futures as applied to an ancient world.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

18 / belief

What I think is most interesting and what we’re all still wrestling with is, from even before Nero onwards, Roman emperors recognized the advantage to the fisc to basically producing coins with less silver.

“What I think is most interesting and what we’re all still wrestling with is, from even before Nero onwards, Roman emperors recognized the advantage to the fisc to basically producing coins with less silver.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

20 / commitment

I now observe my term limits.” It’s the first and only time in the history of the Roman Empire, and most empires, in which a leader has said this, and I am going to retire, and retire he did, and retire to this extraordinary palace/military garrison on the coast of Croatia.

“I now observe my term limits.” It’s the first and only time in the history of the Roman Empire, and most empires, in which a leader has said this, and I am going to retire, and retire he did, and retire to this extraordinary palace/military garrison on the coast of Croatia.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

21 / preference

I’m a little perplexed about this project, not least because it seems as though many of these works we have, some of them will doubtlessly be new—obviously, I’d prefer we spent more time on the millions and millions of papyri that exist in museum collections and libraries around the world that haven’t yet been published, which relate to the activities of ordinary Romans, rather than spending millions and hopefully not undertaking unnecessary excavations for a few admittedly very sexy, but ultimately, I think, not game-changing papyri in that villa.

“I’m a little perplexed about this project, not least because it seems as though many of these works we have, some of them will doubtlessly be new—obviously, I’d prefer we spent more time on the millions and millions of papyri that exist in museum collections and libraries around the world that haven’t yet been published, which relate to the activities of ordinary Romans, rather than spending millions and hopefully not undertaking unnecessary excavations for a few admittedly very sexy, but ultimately, I think, not game-changing papyri in that villa.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

22 / observation

You’re probably not making your own clothes, which was a surprise to all of us, I think, and you’re wearing and keeping and having a lot more clothes than we ever thought.

“You’re probably not making your own clothes, which was a surprise to all of us, I think, and you’re wearing and keeping and having a lot more clothes than we ever thought.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

24 / evaluation

Some brilliant colleagues of mine figured out that, in fact, that’s not the case, that the Romans could never have made all the bricks that built Rome right in the city of Rome because they’d already cut down all the forests.

“Some brilliant colleagues of mine figured out that, in fact, that’s not the case, that the Romans could never have made all the bricks that built Rome right in the city of Rome because they’d already cut down all the forests.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

25 / preference

The projects that I do, my favorite part, even more than swinging the pick, is actually getting to work with local farmers and local landowners who are our partners in doing archaeology.

“The projects that I do, my favorite part, even more than swinging the pick, is actually getting to work with local farmers and local landowners who are our partners in doing archaeology.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler

27 / evaluation

I was just looking at some TikTok videos of someone who’s done exactly that and really done a brilliant job, actually. They don’t taste like what we think of as tasting good because again—this is the light motif of this conversation, Tyler—it’s a completely different culinary world.

“I was just looking at some TikTok videos of someone who’s done exactly that and really done a brilliant job, actually. They don’t taste like what we think of as tasting good because again—this is the light motif of this conversation, Tyler—it’s a completely different culinary world.”
Speaker
Kim Bowes
Publisher
Conversations with Tyler
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