L’ineguaglianza economica tra lavoratori autonomi e lavoratori salariati nell’Atene classica

[Machine translation] Unlike the traditional image, transmitted mainly by historians and philosophers of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, which sees democratic Athens polarized between the wealthy classes and the people, the latter understood as an economically and socially monolithic block, the analysis of contemporary sources, starting from some verses of Aristophanes' Pluto, reveals the awareness that self-employed workers had about their greater social security derived from the exercise of a profession that allowed them to maintain a modest but decent standard of living, unlike salaried workers who, lacking a wealth of technical knowledge, based their maintenance on occasional jobs at the service of third parties, thus remaining more exposed to the risk of falling from poverty into misery during unfavorable economic conditions.