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Can we really compare wealth between people who lived 2000 years apart though? The amount of material goods a relatively poor middle class American can afford is vastly greater than what the richest Romans could buy 2000 years ago. How do you compare net worth?

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Some things haven't changed: land, control over people.

Another way to measure wealth in a comparable way is the proportion of the economic production someone is able to control.

Land hasn't changed, but the right to own it certainly did. In the late roman republic state owned some land but most of it was owned by large estates of slave owners. And working the land or being in the military was mostly the only way to make a living.

So land was a much more important commodity, therefore I don't think you can't compare it reasonably with today.

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