Housing and inequality in ancient Greece

This paper evaluates the relationship between housing and inequality in Greece and the Aegean, in light of recent arguments that use the remains of houses as evidence for inequalities in wealth, power, and status. Through a series of case studies from the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, it demonstrates that the relationship between housing and inequality is complicated by problems of archaeological visibility and by the existence of different activity patterns and prestige strategies in different periods and places. It is suggested that in some communities, variation in housing may be the product of competition for status or power, and is thus an indication of the potential for mobility within the hierarchy, rather than of inequality per se