This volume, featuring sixteen contributions from leading Roman historians and archaeologists, sheds new light on approaches to the economic history of urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the imperial period. Combining a wide range of research traditions from all over Europe and utilizing evidence from Italy, the western provinces, and the Greek-speaking east, this edited collection is divided into four parts. It first considers the scholarly history of Roman crafts and trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, focusing on Germany and the Anglo-Saxon world, and on Italy and France. Chapters discuss how scholarly thinking about Roman craftsmen and traders was influenced by historical and intellectual developments in the modern world, and how different (national) research traditions followed different trajectories throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The second part highlights the economic strategies of craftsmen and traders, examining strategies of long-distance traders and the phenomenon of specialization, and presenting case studies of leather-working and bread-baking. In the third part, the human factor in urban crafts and trade-including the role of apprenticeship, gender, freedmen, and professional associations-is analysed, and the volume ends by exploring the position of crafts in urban space, considering the evidence for artisanal clustering in the archaeological and papyrological record, and providing case studies of the development of commercial landscapes at Aquincum on the Danube and at Sagalassos in Pisidia.

The three centuries which followed the conquests of Alexander are perhaps the most thrilling of all periods of ancient history. This was an age of cultural globalization: in the third century BC, a single language carried you from the Rhone to the Indus. A Celt from the lower Danube could serve in the mercenary army of a Macedonian king ruling in Egypt, and a Greek philosopher from Cyprus could compare the religions of the Brahmins and the Jews on the basis of first-hand knowledge of both. Kings from Sicily to Tajikistan struggled to meet the challenges of ruling multi-ethnic states, and Greek city-states came together under the earliest federal governments known to history. The scientists of Ptolemaic Alexandria measured the circumference of the earth, while pioneering Greek argonauts explored the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic coast of Africa. Drawing on inscriptions, papyri, coinage, poetry, art, and archaeology, in this Very Short Introduction Peter Thonemann opens up the history and culture of the vast Hellenistic world, from the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) to the Roman conquest of the Ptolemaic kingdom (30 BC). ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture is the first comprehensive, historical account of the afterlives of ancient Greek monumental sculptures. Whereas scholars have traditionally focused on the creation of these works, Rachel Kousser instead draws on archaeological and textual sources to analyze the later histories of these sculptures, reconstructing the processes of damage and reparation that characterized the lives of Greek images. Using an approach informed by anthropology and iconoclasm studies, Kousser describes how damage to sculptures took place within a broader cultural context. She also tracks the development of an anti-iconoclastic discourse in Hellenic society from the Persian wars to the death of Cleopatra. Her study offers a fresh perspective on the role of the image in ancient Greece. It also sheds new light on the creation of Hellenic cultural identity and the formation of collective memory in the Classical and Hellenistic eras.

This volume is both a companion to the editors' Greek Historical Inscriptions, 404-323 BC, and a successor to the later part of the Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC, edited by Russell Meiggs and David M. Lewis and published in 1969. As with the editors' earlier collection, it seeks to make a selection of historically significant inscribed texts accessible to scholars and students of fifth-century Greek history. Since the publication of Meiggs and Lewis' collection, a number of significant new inscriptions and fragments have been unearthed and new interpretations of previously known examples developed. As well as updating the scholarly corpus, this volume aims to broaden the thematic range of inscriptions discussed and to include a greater selection of material from outside Athens, while still adhering to the intention of presenting texts which are important not just as typical of their genre but in their own right. In doing so, it offers an entry point to all aspects of fifth-century history, from political and institutional, to social, economic, and religious, and in order to make the material as accessible as possible for a broad readership concerned with the study of these areas, the Greek texts are presented here alongside both English translations and incisive commentaries, which will be of utility both to the specialist academic and to those less familiar with the areas in question. The inclusion of photographs depicting inscribed stones and bronzes complements discussion of the inscriptions themselves and enables parallel consideration of their nature, appearance, and transmission history, resulting in a work of thoroughly comprehensive, cutting-edge scholarship and an invaluable reference text for the study of fifth-century Greek history.

This book provides a twenty-first century perspective on Roman Britain, combining current approaches with the wealth of archaeological material from the province. This volume introduces the history of research into the province and the cultural changes at the beginning and end of the Roman period. The majority of the chapters are thematic, dealing with issues relating to the people of the province, their identities and ways of life. Further chapters consider the characteristics of the province they lived in, such as the economy, and settlement patterns. This Handbook reflects the new approaches being developed in Roman archaeology, and demonstrates why the study of Roman Britain has become one of the most dynamic areas of archaeology. The book will be useful for academics and students interested in Roman Britain.

The life cycle of a coin is long. One might even argue that its existence as a coin is only a minor part of the recycling of metal. In the field of archaeology, coin finds are evidence of connections between human beings. Coins were brought from one place to another by someone, with a reason to do so. Any object acquires new properties when moved from one cultural context to another, and the meaning of the Roman coin in the Danish Iron Age context no doubt differed greatly from its original significance. The Roman denarius was meant to be used as a coin in a monetary economy. Having left the area where the denarius was recognized as coin, it assumed new meanings. But, what were those new meanings? How was the denarius perceived in non-Roman communities? Which purposes did the coin serve? This book covers the later part of the Roman coin's existence - its arrival in Bornholm, its use there, and its deposition in and recovery from the soil.

Building Mid-Republican Rome offers a holistic treatment of the development of the Mid-Republican city from 396 to 168 BCE. As Romans established imperial control over Italy and beyond, the city itself radically transformed from an ambitious central Italian settlement into the capital of the Mediterranean world. Seth Bernard describes this transformation in terms of both new urban architecture, much of it unprecedented in form and extent, and new socioeconomic structures, including slavery, coinage, and market-exchange. These physical and historical developments were closely linked: building the Republican city was expensive, and meeting such costs had significant implications for urban society. Building Mid-Republican Rome brings both architectural and socioeconomic developments into a single account of urban change. Bernard, a specialist in the period's history and archaeology, assembles a wide array of evidence, from literary sources to coins, epigraphy, and especially archaeological remains, revealing the period's importance for the decline of the Roman state's reliance on obligation and dependency and the rise of slavery and an urban labor market. This narrative is told through an investigation of the evolving institutional frameworks shaping the organization of public construction. A quantitative model of the costs of the Republican city walls reconstructs their economic impact. A new account of building technology in the period allows for a better understanding of the social and demographic profile of the city's builders. Building Mid-Republican Rome thus provides an innovative synthesis of a major Western city's spatial and historical aspects, shedding much-needed light on a seminal period in Rome's development.

From Zeus and Europa, to Diana, Pan, and Prometheus, the myths of ancient Greece and Rome seem to exert a timeless power over us. But what do those myths represent, and why are they so enduringly fascinating? Why do they seem to be such a potent way of talking about our selves, our origins, and our desires? This imaginative and stimulating Very Short Introduction goes beyond a simple retelling of the stories to explore the rich history and diverse interpretations of classical myths. It is a wide-ranging account, examining how classical myths are used and understood in both high art and popular culture, taking the reader from the temples of Crete to skyscrapers in New York, and finding classical myths in a variety of unexpected places: from arabic poetry and Hollywood films, to psychoanalysis, the bible, and New Age spiritualism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Seven years after the Roman invasion of Britain in ad 43, Londinium was created. It would rise to become one of the most important Roman cities in Northern Europe. Life in Roman London approaches the history of Roman London in an entirely new way. Rather than focusing upon a handful of important figures such as procurators and statesmen, this book explores the lives and concerns of the ordinary citizens. Unlike many books about Roman history which are preoccupied with the basilicas, palaces, grand houses, statues and mosaics, Life in Roman London looks instead at the shops, houses and streets in which the majority of the fifty thousand or so inhabitants of the city spent their lives. In doing so, it reveals a city very different from the clean, white, classical metropolis familiar from the books of our childhood.

This illustrated study comprises a comprehensive and detailed account of the historical development of Greek military architecture and defensive planning, specifically in Arkadia in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Employing data gathered from the published literature, and collected during the field reconnaissance of every site, the fortification circuit of each Arkadian polis is explored. In this way, the book provides an accurate chronology for the walls in question; an understanding of the relationship between the fortifications and the local topography; a detailed inventory of all the fortified poleis of Arkadia; a regional synthesis based on this inventory; and the probable historical reasons behind the patterns observed through the regional synthesis. Maher argues that there is no evidence for fortified poleis in Arkadia during the Archaic period. However, when the poleis were eventually fortified in the Classical period, the fact that most appeared in the early fourth century BC, strategically distributed in limited geographic areas, suggests that the larger defensive concerns of the Arkadian League were a factor. Although the defensive responses to innovations in siege warfare and offensive artillery of the Arkadian fortifications follow the same general developments observable in the circuits found throughout the Greek world, there does exist a number of interesting and noteworthy, regionally specific, patterns. Such discoveries validate the methodology employed and clearly demonstrate the value of an exclusively regional focus for shedding light on a number of architectural, topographical, and historic issues.

The Greeks and Romans in the Black Sea presents the Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities, dedicated to the 90th birthday of Prof. Sir John Boardman, President of the Congress since its inception. It was held in Constanta in September 2017 with the same theme as the first of these congresses, which took place just down the coast in Varna 20 years earlier ('the Greeks and Romans in the Black Sea and the importance of the Pontic region for the Graeco-Roman world between the 7th century BC and 5th century AD'), celebrating the work of successive congresses in bringing together scholars and scholarship from Eastern and Western Europe and the extensive progress of 'Black Sea Studies' in the intervening years. Overall, 85 papers were received for publication from authors in Western and Eastern Europe-there is also a full set of the abstracts submitted to the Congress in Appendix 2. As with previous congresses, the work is divided into sections, the largest of which, the fourth, is, following a pattern established with the first congress, devoted to New Excavations and Projects. The opening lectures and various papers in the first sections reflect (on) the '20 years on' in the title. The vast majority of contributions are in English, a handful each in French and German.

In this volume, Philip Kay examines economic change in Rome and Italy between the Second Punic War and the middle of the first century BC. He argues that increased inflows of bullion, in particular silver, combined with an expansion of the availability of credit to produce significant growth in monetary liquidity. This, in turn, stimulated market developments, such as investment farming, trade, construction, and manufacturing, and radically changed the composition and scale of the Roman economy. Using a wide range of evidence and scholarly investigation, Kay demonstrates how Rome, in the second and first centuries BC, became a coherent economic entity experiencing real per capita economic growth. Without an understanding of this economic revolution, the contemporaneous political and cultural changes in Roman society cannot be fully comprehended or explained.

This is a study of the twelve small gold lamellae from Crete that were tokens for entrance into a golden afterlife: the deceased who were buried or cremated with them believed that they had 'earned Paradise.' The lamellae are placed within the context of a small corpus of similar texts, and published with extensive commentary on their topography, lettering and engraving, dialect and orthography, meter, chronology, and usage. The texts reveal a "hieros logos" whose poetics and rituals are not much different from Homeric rhapsodizing and prophetic discourses. Cretan contexts, both literary and archaeological, are also brought to bear on these incised objects and on the burial custom involved. Finally, this work adduces parallels to the texts on the lamellae from the Byzantine period and modern Greece to illuminate the everlasting and persistent human quest for 'earning Paradise.'

In 1949, in the aftermath of a devastating war, Eric Birley organised the First Congress of Roman Frontier Studies. His aim was not only to pursue the study of Roman frontiers but also to take a step towards restoring harmony in international relations within this field of research. The pattern was set early on: the exchange of information, networking and friendship. These three elements remain at the core of the approach of those organising and attending the Congress. They are reinforced by the pattern of the meetings, usually held every three years. The programme includes not only lectures but also visits to the local Roman military sites led by appropriate specialists. Over the 73 years since the First Congress, membership has grown enormously with more lecture theatres and more coaches being required every meeting. This publication marks the twenty-fifth Congress at Nijmegen in the Netherlands, a city well known to Roman frontier archaeologists and early medieval scholars alike. It aims to help newer members understand the body they have joined; for those who have been attending for longer, it will be a reminder of friendships made and strengthened; for all, the book hopes to be a spur to continuing investigations and research into Rome's greatest monument, its frontiers; for the moment of publication, it will be a celebration of the twenty-fifth Congress of Roman Frontier Studies.

The Dodecanese and the Eastern Aegean Islands in Late Antiquity, AD 300-700 is a regional study of the history, archaeology, and religious profile of the Late Antique Dodecanese (the islands of the south-eastern Aegean, centred on Rhodes), exploring how the spread of Christianity altered these communities and how the prosperity of the eastern Roman Empire, and the new capital in Constantinople, affected their life. Incorporating comparative evidence from the rest of the Aegean islands and both the Greek and Turkish mainlands, the volume analyses material from the whole area as part of a wider system of social and economic relations, political history, and culture. Accompanied by an extensive archaeological gazetteer, it presents the administrative and political history of the islands and considers the written and archaeological evidence for the monotheistic communities of the eastern Aegean, offering a closer examination of the late history of pagan temples and the transition to Christianity. It discusses the settlement and economic history of the islands, focusing on the urban history of Rhodes and Kos, but also on the numerous key non-urban sites from the rest of the islands, in particular the extended ruins of a barely known site located in the small island of Saria, north of Karpathos. The final chapter addresses the seventh century-which saw the destruction of so much of what had been built up in the fourth to sixth centuries-when the islands' societies acquired a new role for the State as naval outposts, functioning as a border zone in the course of the Arab-Byzantine wars.

Figured Tombstones from Macedonia, Fifth-First Century BC brings together for the first time a substantial body of material from ancient Macedonia, comprising stone funerary monuments, be they statues, stelai, or reliefs, which feature figured representations. The volume's geographical focus encompasses what can be referred to as the national territory of the ancient Macedonians, as established largely from the reign of Philip II until the last Antigonids, and extending from the range of Mount Pindos and Lake Lychnitis in the west as far as the Strymon valley and Mount Pangaion in the east. Its broad chronological scope stretches back to prehistoric times, when stone funerary monuments seem to have first appeared in the area, and into the first century AD, when significant changes in the modes which shaped (self-) representation in a funerary context can be traced. However, the volume takes as its main focus the Classical and Hellenistic periods, describing and unravelling the codes which moulded the representation of the dead on tombstones dating from the fifth to the first century BC. Paying close attention to the wealth of information that can be gained through morphological, typological, iconographical, and epigraphic analysis, the volume goes beyond artistic evaluation to consider social history: social and gender roles, social status, cultural identity, regionalism or consciously constructed cosmopolitanism, shifts in religious behaviour, and attitudes towards death and a possible afterlife are all addressed, revealing the ideas that shaped aesthetic predilections and the choice of (self-)representation.

This volume includes: Rachel Zelnick-Abramovitz, "Half Slave, Half Free: Partial Manumission in the Ancient Near East and Beyond"; Chris Eckerman, "I Weave a Variegated Headband: Metaphors for Song and Communication in Pindar's Odes"; Alexander Nikolaev, "Through the Thicket: The Text of Pindar Olympian 6.54 ( ' )"; Tobias Joho, "Alcibiadean Mysteries and Longing for 'Absent' and 'Invisible Things' in Thucydides' Account of the Sicilian Expedition"; Peter Barrios Lech, "Menander and Catullus 8-Revisited: Menander Misoumenos and Catullus Carmen 8"; Katharina Volk, "Varro and the Disorder of Things"; John T. Ramsey, "The Date of the Consular Elections in 63 and the Inception of Catiline's Conspiracy"; Brian D. McPhee, "Erulus and the Moliones: An Iliadic Intertext in Aeneid 8.560-567"; Julia Scarborough, "Eridanus in Elysium: The Underground Poetics of Virgil's Violent River"; Geert Roskam, "Providential Gods and Social Justice: An Ancient Controversy on Theonomous Ethics"; Rafael J. Galle Cejudo, "Progymnasmatic Alteration in the Love Letters of Philostratus"; Moyses Marcos, "Callidior ceteris persecutor: The Emperor Julian and His Place in Christian Historiography"; Valery Berlincourt, "Dea Roma and Mars: Intertext and Structure in Claudian's Panegyric for the Consuls Olybrius and Probinus"; Fabio Stok, "What is the Spangenberg Fragment?"; George M. Hollenback, "Do Not Steal Seed: An Overlooked Double Entendre in Oracula Sibyllina 2.71"; and Paolo Pellegrini, "R. A. B. Mynors and Harvard: An Unpublished Letter to E. K. Rand (10.10.1944)."

Ancient Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was of outstanding importance: in the Lydian period it held the residence of the kings and subsequently, under Persian rule, the satraps. Throughout antiquity it remained an administrative center. Travelers of modern times and archaeological excavations have revealed, from the city site and its surroundings, inscriptions written mostly in Greek, some in Latin. Their texts deal with all kinds of subjects: decrees, public honors, civil and sacred laws, letters, epitaphs, and more. In the corpus "Sardis VII 1" (1932) W. H. Buckler and D. M. Robinson published all inscriptions (228 items) known up to 1922, after which year excavation at Sardis came to a halt because of the Greek-Turkish war. Since excavation resumed in 1958, a portion of the Greek and Latin inscriptions has been published in various, widely scattered places; another portion, containing important texts discovered during the last ten years, was until now unpublished. The aim of this monograph is to present in a comprehensive corpus the entire epigraphic harvest (485 items) made in Sardis and its territory since 1958. Each inscription is accompanied by a description of the monument, bibliography, translation, and commentary; indices, concordances, photographs, and maps complement the collection.

This is the first full study of Roman strigillated sarcophagi, which are the largest group of decorated marble sarcophagi to survive in the city of Rome. Characterized by panels of carved fluting - hence the description 'strigillated', after the curved strigil used by Roman bathers to scrape off oil - and limited figure scenes, they were produced from the mid-second to the early fifth century AD, and thus cover a critical period in Rome, from empire to early Christianity. Roman Strigillated Sarcophagi focuses on their rich potential as an historical source for exploring the social and cultural life of the city in the later empire. The first part of the volume examines aspects of their manufacture, use, and viewing, emphasizing distinctive features. The second part looks at the figured representations carved on the sarcophagi, and at their social significance and creativity, concentrating on how their various arrangements allowed viewers to develop their own interpretations. The subjects represented by the figures and the flexibility with which they might be read, provide invaluable insights into how Romans thought about life and death during these changing times. The final part of the volume surveys how later societies responded to Roman strigillated sarcophagi. From as early as the fifth century AD their distinctive decoration and allusions to the Roman past made them especially attractive for reuse in particular contemporary contexts, notably for elite burials and the decoration of prominent buildings. The motif of curved fluting was also adopted and adapted: it decorated neo-classical memorials to Captain Cook, Napoleon's sister-in-law Christine Boyer, and Penelope Boothby, and its use continues into this century, well over one and a half millennia since it first decorated Roman sarcophagi.

The recycling and reuse of materials and objects were extensive in the past, but have rarely been embedded into models of the economy; even more rarely has any attempt been made to address the scale of these practices. Recent developments, including the use of large datasets, computational modelling, and high-resolution analytical chemistry are increasingly offering the means to reconstruct recycling and reuse, and even to approach the thorny issue of quantification. This volume is the first to bring together these new approaches, and the first to present a consideration of recycling and reuse in the Roman economy, taking into account a range of materials and using a variety of methodological approaches. It presents integrated, cross-referential evidence for the recycling and reuse of textiles, papyrus, statuary and building materials, amphorae, metals, and glass, and examines significant questions about organization, value, and the social meaning of recycling.

This exciting new guide is the ideal companion to Greece if you are a traveller with historical and archaeological interests, as it combines practical information with impeccable scholarly research.
Written by an expert on Greece's landscape and archaeology, the guide is unique in exploring a wide range of sites off the beaten track. It also tours all the best-known monuments and regions, from the Acropolis to Aegina, from Megara to Marathon and from Sounion to Salamis.
Beautifully illustrated with over 200 plates, maps, plans and drawings, it includes:
* precise descriptions of routes and individual sites
* artistic, historical, social and political background
* unprecedented coverage outside Athens
* detailed exploration of the post-classical, Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods.
Take it with you on your travels or read it at home; either way, you will gain a deeper appreciation and enjoyment of Greece's history and archaeology.

Dura-Europos, on the Syrian Euphrates, is one of the best preserved and most extensively excavated sites of the Roman world. A Hellenistic foundation later held by the Parthians and then the Romans, Dura had a Roman military garrison installed within its city walls before it was taken by the Sasanians in the mid-third century. The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses is the first study to consider the houses of the site as a whole. The houses were excavated by a team from Yale and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters in the 1920s and 30s, and though a wealth of archaeological and textual material was recovered, most of that relating to housing was never published. Through a combination of archival information held at the Yale University Art Gallery and new fieldwork with the Mission Franco-Syrienne d'Europos-Doura, this study re-evaluates the houses of the site, integrating architecture, artefacts, and textual evidence, and examining ancient daily life and cultural interaction, as well as considering houses which were modified for use by the Roman military.

Since their discovery in nineteenth-century Russia, Greco-Scythian artefacts have been interpreted as masterpieces by Greek craftsmen working according to the tastes of the Scythian nomads and creating realistic depictions of their barbarian patrons. Drawing on a broad array of evidence from archaeology, art history and epigraphy to contextualize Greco-Scythian metalwork in ancient society, this volume confronts the deep confusion between ancient representation and historical reality in contemporary engagements with classical culture. It argues that the strikingly life-like figure scenes of Greco-Scythian art were integral to the strategies of a cosmopolitan elite who legitimated its economic dominance by asserting an intermediary cultural position between the steppe inland and the urban centres on the shores of the Black Sea. Investigating the reception of this 'Eurasian' self-image in tsarist Russia, Meyer unravels the complex relationship between ancient ideology and modern imperial visions, and its legacy in current conceptions of cultural interaction and identity. With a synthesis of material evidence never yet attempted, this volume breaks significant new ground in explaining the archaeology of Scythia and its ties to inner Asia and classical Greece, the intersection between modern museum display and visual knowledge, and the intellectual history of classics in Russia and the West.

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies is an indispensable guide to the latest scholarship in this area. Over fifty distinguished scholars elucidate the contribution of material as well as literary culture to our understanding of the Roman world. The emphasis is particularly upon the new and exciting links between the various sub-disciplines that make up Roman Studies-for example, between literature and epigraphy, art and philosophy, papyrology and economic history. The Handbook, in fact, aims to establish a field and scholarly practice as much as to describe the current state of play. Connections with disciplines outside classics are also explored, including anthropology, psychoanalysis, gender and reception studies, and the use of new media.

The polar dichotomy between man and god, and the insurmountable gulf between them, are considered a fundamental principle of archaic and classical Greek religion. Greek Praise Poetry and the Rhetoric of Divinity argues that poetry produced between the eighth and the fifth centuries BC does not present such a uniform view of the world, demonstrating instead that particular genres of poetry may assess the distance between humans and gods differently. Discussion focuses on genres where the boundaries appear to be more flexible, with wedding songs, victory odes, and selected passages from tragedy and comedy taken as case studies that illustrate that some human individuals may, in certain situations, be presented as enjoying a state of happiness, a degree of beauty, or an amount of power comparable to that of the gods. A central question throughout is whether these presentations stem from an individual poet's creative ingenuity or from the conventional ideological repertoire of the respective genre, and how this difference might shape the comparison of a human with the gods. Another important question concerns the ritual contexts in which some of these songs would have been performed, expanding the scope of the analysis beyond merely a literary device to encompass a fundamental aspect of archaic and classical Greek culture.