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The ancient Romans thrived on consumerism. Here's what was on their shopping lists

The ancient Romans thrived on consumerism. Here's what was on their shopping lists

Ordinary Romans were spending money their expendable money in pursuit of something very familiar: fitting in

A Roman mosaic depicting elegantly dressed figures surrounded by luxury goods, including shells, chests, vessels and other valuable objects, suggesting trade, wealth and domestic consumption.

James Osborne

Published: July 31, 2026 at 2:33 PM

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An average farmer in Roman Britain lived thousands of miles from Rome itself.

They would have spent most of their life working fields, tending livestock, repairing fences and worrying about the harvest. Their life was physically demanding and economically precarious. A poor harvest, an illness in the family, or the unexpected loss of an animal could all have serious consequences.

It was a simple, and local life. But, when they sat down to eat, the world might have been right there on the table before them.

The wine in their cup could have crossed the sea from Gaul. The pottery in their hands may have been made in a workshop hundreds of miles away. The brooch that fastened their tunic might have been manufactured in a regional centre and bought through local trade networks.

Even if they lived on the furthest fringes of the Roman empire, many ordinary people were tied into an economic system that stretched across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

Ancient Rome is sometimes envisaged as a world divided sharply between a tiny, fabulously wealthy elite and a vast mass of peasants living close to subsistence, and largely outside commercial life. So the regular story goes, emperors imported luxuries from India and Arabia, while senators filled their villas with marble statues, mosaics and exotic goods. Everyone else, it was long assumed, simply scraped by.

But according to historian Kim Bowes, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, the Roman empire’s “90 per cent” were not passive observers of a global economy.

“Can they be described as active participants in this global economy? I would say absolutely yes.”

In fact, the Roman empire seems to have produced something that looks surprisingly like a consumer culture.

The myth of the self-sufficient peasant

For much of the 20th century, historians tended to imagine ordinary Romans as relatively cut off from long-distance trade. The assumption was that most people lived as subsistence farmers, producing much of what they consumed and only occasionally entering wider markets.

“We imagined that the majority of the population were smallholder farmers – call them peasants – and we imagined peasants were always the same thing,” says Bowes.

That image was shaped partly by assumptions about pre-industrial life. Before the 19th-century advent of railways, factories and mass manufacturing, it seemed logical to suppose that most people relied overwhelmingly on local produce and local goods.

But across the Roman world, excavations have repeatedly uncovered imported pottery, glassware, jewellery, foodstuffs and other manufactured goods in places that were far removed from major cities.

“In reality,” says Bowes, “ordinary people were plugged into a global economy.”

An illustration of a Roman statesman addressing the Senate, with rows of senators seated in white togas inside a grand marble chamber.

Political debate in the Roman Senate shaped taxation, public spending and imperial trade, influencing an economy that connected Britain to the Middle East | Credit: Getty Images

A Mediterranean connected by trade

At its height in the second century AD, Rome ruled territory that stretched from Britain to the Middle East, and from the Rhine frontier to North Africa. Somewhere between 60 and 70 million people lived under Roman rule.

Maintaining such an empire required extraordinary systems of movement and administration. Merchant ships crossed the Mediterranean carrying grain, wine, olive oil, pottery, metal goods and luxury items. Armies marched between far-flung provinces on vast road networks, and taxation linked distant regions into a single imperial framework.

Some historians have described the Roman economy as the largest integrated economy the western world would see until the Industrial Revolution. As Bowes puts it, this was “a world unified by tax, on the one hand, and by the sword on the other”.

Read more | Your guide to the fall of Rome and the collapse of the Roman Empire

That’s because Roman economic integration rested on conquest, coercion and slavery.

“Let’s not imagine the Romans were anything but tough people who enslaved millions of people, moved them around, and forcibly resettled many others,” says Bowes. But a side-effect of this mass movement was an extraordinary level of connectivity. People, goods, and ideas travelled across immense distances.

“The 90 per cent are globalised,” Bowes argues. “You might even argue that they’re the basis of this globalisation, either through enslaved people who have been moved long distances from where they come from, or working people [who were] producing goods that then get consumed thousands of miles away.”

Ancient Roman consumerism

The importance of all this was first economic, and increasingly became social.

Like people today, Romans used possessions to signal identity, status and belonging. Clothing, ornaments, household goods and food all communicated information. They showed whether a person was respectable, prosperous, properly acculturated – or not.

“I certainly would describe it as a consumer culture,” Bowes says, “and it’s a consumer culture that I think we would recognise.”

For a long time, historians focused mainly on elite consumption. “We knew from all those rich people’s writings that rich people consumed a lot because they talk about it all the time.”

Archaeology, however, shows that these patterns of consumerism extended much further down the social scale. Yes, ordinary people were not only making consumer goods in workshops and markets. But they were also buying and using them.

Read more | Are you healthier than a Roman? These ancient secrets for longevity are still shockingly relevant

“They were both producing these consumer goods, making very low wages in unskilled artisanal jobs, and then consuming them on the other end. You have to consume to belong in this world.”

Poorer and working people, Bowes argues, were making their own distinctions through material culture – “what clothes they wear, what pots they have on their table, and how they decorate their houses”.

“These things really matter to social belonging.”

So, what did an ordinary Roman need if they wanted to fit in? For starters, clothing.

A Roman mosaic showing workers unloading a cargo vessel while others use a balance scale to weigh goods, illustrating commercial activity at a harbour.

This mosaic depicts goods being unloaded and weighed before entering the marketplace, reflecting the vast commercial networks that moved food, raw materials and luxury products across the empire. Such systems connected distant provinces to Mediterranean trade, making imported goods part of everyday consumer life even far from Rome itself | Credit: Getty Images

Must-have number one: the right clothes

“It’s absolutely key that you have multiple tunics,” Bowes explains.

The tunic was the most common garment across much of the Roman world, but it was not as basic as it sounds. Clothing conveyed social meaning. Importantly, one tunic was not enough.

“You don’t wear one at a time – you wear two at a time and layer them,” she says.

Layering helped signal status and decency. “That’s how you show that you’re not a slave.”

The cut and length mattered too. “If they’re really short, that suggests you’re either a slave or a prostitute.”

As with modern fashion, the point evolved beyond staying warm, comfortable, or covered. Clothes marked you out as a certain kind of person. Even those with modest means therefore had good reason to spend money on garments that looked respectable.

Must-have number two: jewellery

Jewellery served a similar purpose.

“You have to have some kind of jewellery,” says Bowes.

That didn’t necessarily mean gold and gemstones. As Bowes explains, “you can get really cheap jewellery in the Roman world, but you need some kind of ornament if you want to fit in.”

The rich wore expensive pieces of precious metal and imported stones, but ordinary people could buy cheaper ornaments made of bronze, glass or other relatively affordable materials. Again, the point was social participation. A brooch, ring or necklace could show that a person understood the social expectations of their community and possessed the minimum material signals of belonging.

Even inexpensive jewellery could therefore carry real symbolic weight.

Must-have number three: proper tableware

Meals in Roman society were social occasions shaped by expectations and rituals. That was true not just among senators and aristocrats, but more widely across society.

“You have to have the right tableware when you sit down to eat,” Bowes says.

Archaeologists have often found a surprising range of pottery and dining vessels even in relatively modest homes. This suggests that households invested significant care – and money – in the presentation of food: “you can’t just have a basic set of pots or plates.”

Read more | Could today’s kids survive in ancient Rome? Here’s the harsh reality of life as a Roman child

Instead, people seem to have wanted multiple forms of tableware for different foods, courses and occasions. “You have to have lots of different ones, and probably different plates for different courses.”

What is especially striking is how far down the social scale this appears to extend. “Even if you’re really poor, or an agricultural slave, you’re not just eating out of your cooking pot.”

Must-have number four: imported wine

Perhaps the most surprising item on the Roman shopping list was wine.

“An awful lot of people are drinking wine that they didn’t make, and this blew my mind. They were drinking imported wine from Gaza while making their own wine,” Bowes notes.

Even in Roman Britain – the empire’s north-western fringe – people were importing wine. “A farmer in the middle of Yorkshire could be drinking wine from France.”

“I’m not sure that’s a must-have,” she says, but it was clearly a regular part of life. “About half to over half of people in Britain, for whom this is a major luxury import, are actually drinking imported wine.”

The social bond of consumerism

Some of the most important expenses weren’t personal possessions, but obligations. Social life required spending. “It’s important that you have little gifts to give to your friends,” Bowes explains.

Gift-giving helped maintain friendships, neighbourhood ties and family relationships. “If you invite someone over, even for the most modest meal, you should have a little gift of food that you can leave them with.”

Religious life brought further demands. Across the empire, communities gathered for sacrifices, festivals and rituals that required contributions. “You should be able to participate in a religious sacrifice with your community by contributing a chicken, a piglet, or something similar.”

For wealthy Romans, such gifts were easy. But for members of the “90 per cent”, they could require real economy. “You might have to save for a couple of months to do this if you’re a member of the 90 per cent.”

But while costly, these expenses were socially essential. “It helps bind you to your community, and if you don’t do this, then you definitely fall on the outside of your world.”

This, as Bowes argues, was a genuine consumer culture.

Kim Bowes was speaking to Spencer Mizen on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

Authors

James OsborneSenior content producer

James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra