Roman Culture Articles

This paper explores the acculturation of customs native to the people of Western Europe by Roman soldiers and citizens living on the frontier. This paper examines who these indigenous people were and focuses on their development from the middle of the fifth century BCE until several centuries after Roman conquest. There is an emphasis on the unique challenges... [continue reading]

This dissertation discusses Roman imperialism and runic literacy. It employs an interdisciplinary terminology. By means of terms new to archaeology, the growth of a specialized language, a technolect, is traced until it enters the realm of literacy. The author argues that there is more than one way for literacy to appear in prehistoric cultures. The ’normal&rsquo... [continue reading]

The Roman historian, Livy, wrote a comprehensive history of Rome during the reign of Augustus. The work, Ab Urbe Condita, spanned from the time of Aeneas, preceding the founding of the city by Romulus, until the reign of Augustus. In ancient times, Livy’s work was immediately praised and used as an authoritative text on the history of Rome, and... [continue reading]

This thesis is a study of the classes, architecture and uses of Romano-British amphitheatres. Such a study is useful in providing an understanding of the architectural characteristics of Romano-British amphitheatres, the manner in which they differed from and resembled those in other parts of the Empire and of the types of activities for which they were... [continue reading]

This account of viticulture in Italy during the period from the Punic Wars to the crisis of the third century AD is written in the conviction that the ‘economic’ history of the ancient world will remain unacceptably impoverished if it is written in isolation from the social and cultural history of the same period. The orthodoxy which sees... [continue reading]

One of Horace’s noblest odes, III.2, proclaims the undying glory to be won in war (17-24). It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s fatherland, he declares. Death will overtake the coward anyway (14-16); one must seize the opportunity to die in a manner that will win him lasting fame. Yet this same poet also wrote—without any apparent embarrassment—that... [continue reading]

The ancient Roman City of Pompeii is a spectacle of some of the worlds most beautiful and risqué forms of artwork ever found from ancient ruins. It is a city of beautiful villas, streets, bakeries, mansions, coliseums, bars and brothels. But the artwork of Pompeii is not like others found around the world. Rather the artwork from the city of Pompeii... [continue reading]

One cannot deny that the outcomes of historical research are to some extent a reflection of the researcher’s perceptions of historical events. When one deals with a topic such as “the role of women in antiquity,” which gained eminence in feminist literature in the 1970s, this is all the more true. Thus, although the sources and the interpretation... [continue reading]

Modern scholarly tradition has established that two fundamental rules regulated the use of torture in ancient Rome: torture must not be applied to Roman citizens or to slaves against their owners. It is commonly thought that during the Republic these principles were breached but exceptionally, whereas under the Empire their violation became ever more frequent... [continue reading]

This thesis examines the cultural and social relationships cultivated by ethnically diverse auxiliary soldiers in the western Roman empire. These soldiers were enrolled in the Roman auxilia, military units that drew primarily on the non-Roman subjects of the empire for their recruits in numbers that equaled the legionaries. I argue that auxiliary soldiers... [continue reading]