Laudator Temporis Acti

Ramsay MacMullen (1928-2022), Roman Social Relations. 50 B.C. to A.D. 284 (1974; rpt. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), p. 14, with note on p. 151:

Nothing was wasted in the ancient world: not an abandoned baby, not the cloth that kept the ragpicker in business, not the empty fisherman's shack on the beach, not even the grains of barley in horse manure on the streets. There were always people poor enough to fight over another's leavings.⁵⁰

50 Sarcinator, Serv., Aen. 12.13; cf. Matt. 9.16; abandoned shack an object of litigation, Dig. 1.8.5 f.; barley grains salvaged from dung, Büchler, op. cit. (above, note 9) 22 and 30; on exposure of children to be made slaves, below, chapter 4 n. 8.

Büchler = Adolf Büchler, The Economic Conditions of Judaea After the Destruction of the Second Temple (London: Jews' College, 1912), p. 22:

In Ma'on in the south of Judaea, several hours' distance from Hebron, R. Joḥanan b. Zakkai saw a Jewish girl picking up grains of barley from the dung of horses (Mekhil. on Ex. 19, 1, 61 a)...

Id., p. 30:

One of the wealthiest men of Jerusalem before its destruction,¹ Nakdimon b. Gorjon, most probably perished during the siege of the capital. After the catastrophe his daughter is found by R. Joḥanan b. Zakkai and his disciples starving and picking grains of barley from horses' dung,² and, when questioned by the rabbi, explained that the money of her father and her father-in-law was all gone.

¹ His wealth and his position are described in ARN, XVII, 33 a, VI, 16a, b; 2 ARN, XIII, 16a; Kethub., 66 b, bottom.

² Sifrê Deut., 305, 130 a; Kethub., 66 b; ARN, XVII, 33 a; Bacher, Tannaiten, I, 42. R. Eleazar b. Ṣadok met her in Akko in abject poverty, Tos. Kethub., V, 10; jer., V, 30 b, 76 ff., b. 67 a.