This provocative and often controversial volume examines concepts of ethnicity, citizenship and nationhood, to determine what constituted cultural identity in the Roman Empire. The contributors draw together the most recent research and use diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives from archaeology, classical studies and ancient history to challenge our basic assumptions of Romanization and how parts of Europe became incorporated into a Roman culture.
Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire breaks new ground, arguing that the idea of a unified and easily defined Roman...

Rome, Ostia, Pompeii captures how studies of the Roman city are currently shifting away from architecture towards a dynamic understanding of activities within the urban space. This is becoming a defining feature of new and innovative research on the nature of ancient urbanism and is underpinned by an understanding of the relationship between space and society - the two sides of the core dialectic of the 'Spatial Turn' in cultural studies. In this volume a new generation of scholars provide detailed case studies of the three best known cities from antiquity, Pompeii, Ostia, and Rome, and focus...

Roman Archaeology for Historians provides students of Roman history with a guide to the contribution of archaeology to the study of their subject. It discusses the issues with the use of material and textual evidence to explain the Roman past, and the importance of viewing this evidence in context. It also surveys the different approaches to the archaeological material of the period and examines key themes that have shaped Roman archaeology. At the heart of the book lies the question of how archaeological material can be interpreted and its relevance for the study of ancient history. It...

The world of pleasure became a defining feature of the Romans & this book explores how they pursued sensual delights - from steamy bathhouses to stately country villas; the excesses of the festivals to the rich culture of music, dance & song & sex, as both unrestrained & puritanical.

The family has been recognised in the ancient world as the key social institution on which both society and the state are based. However, in the pre-Classical and Classical world the family was constructed in dissimilar ways and provides the means to explaining why the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, although sharing many cultural features, in fact differed greatly. This volume draws on the most recent work of leading scholars in the field with the aim of establishing a new understanding of the ancient family for the 21st century. In so doing, the book includes new approaches to...

The world of pleasure became a defining feature of the Romans & this book explores how they pursued sensual delights - from steamy bathhouses to stately country villas; the excesses of the festivals to the rich culture of music, dance & song & sex, as both unrestrained & puritanical.