This chapter argues that wealth was probably not the primary barrier for Pompeiians to enter the Roman senate. One oddity about the historical record of Pompeii is that it reveals not a single certain senator in the imperial period. A previous reconstruction of the local distribution of income offers a possible explanation: it predicts that there were no Pompeian households with a senatorial income, suggesting that a lack of wealth kept the Pompeiians outside the senate. However, a new reconstruction of the top part of the Pompeian wealth distribution suggests the opposite. This reconstruction is based on combining the archaeological remains of the intramural housing stock with an econometric model which assumes that the distribution of elite wealth follows a distinct mathematical function – a power law. Even though this type of cliometric modelling is pervaded by uncertainties, with the help of probabilistic calculations it is possible to conclude that at least several Pompeian households held enough wealth to satisfy the senatorial census qualification, implying that wealth may not have been the primary barrier preventing Pompeiians from embarking on a senatorial career.