Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots

by James Suzman

The historical association of specific neighborhoods with particular trades was not a quirk of zoning regulations or the result of careful urban planning. Nor was it the consequence of the fact that it makes good commercial sense for consumers looking for particular items to be able to go to one part of town to compare different wares on offer. It was because in the pulsing, plural hearts of big cities, people found companionship and comfort among others who did similar work and so shared similar experiences, with the result that in cities people’s individual social identities often merged with the trades they performed. Inscriptions on tombstones and written records from Imperial Rome describe 268 different career paths that ancient Romans pursued. Besides bureaucratic, construction, engineering, artisanal, mercantile, and soldiering jobs, many other jobs Romans did were the antecedents of some of the service-sector jobs that now account for most employment in modern, mainly urban states like the United States. And among the ranks of Roman service-sector personnel were lawyers, scribes, secretaries, accountants, chefs, administrators, advisers, teachers, prostitutes, poets, musicians, sculptors, painters, entertainers, and courtesans who—assuming they could secure the right patronage or were independently wealthy—could dedicate all their working lives to achieving mastery of their particular art.