"This book is one of the most exciting, provocative, and challenging works on ancient history to have appeared in recent times and is of immense importance to all historians of the Graeco-Roman world. . . . Because of the great wealth of insights brought to bear on a multiplicity of topics, no one in the future will be able to neglect the book and its major theme, the exploitation by a propertied elite of the bulk of the ancient population."—American Journal of Philology