The Aventine--one of Rome's canonical seven hills--has long been identified as the city's plebeian district, which housed the lower orders of society and served as the political headquarters, religious citadel, and social bastion of those seeking radical reform of the Republican constitution. Lisa Marie Mignone challenges the plebeian-Aventine paradigm through a multidisciplinary review of the ancient evidence, demonstrating that this construct proves to be a modern creation. Mignone uses ancient literary accounts, material evidence, and legal and semantic developments to reconstruct and...