Ray Laurence

Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire

Cohors the governor and his entourage in the self-image of the Roman republic, David Braund punic persistence - colonialism and cultural identities in Roman Sardinia, Peter van Dommelen constructing the self and the other in Cyrenaica, Eireann Marshall Roman imperialism and the city in Italy, Kathryn Lomas landscape and cultural identity in Roman Britain, David Petts territory, ethnonyms and geography - the construction of identity in Roman Italy, Ray Laurence romancing the Celts - a segmentary approach to acculturation, Alex Woolf a spirit of improvement? marble and culture in Roman Britain, Raphael M.J. Isserlin material culture and Roman identity - the spatial layout of Pompeian houses and the problem of ethnicity, Mark Grahame the identity of the dead - marginal groups in Roman Nimes, Valerie M. Hope.

Rumour and Communication in Roman Politics

Recently there has been considerable debate about the nature of popular politics in the Roman Republic. This debate has demonstrated that the Roman citizen was actively involved in voting, and made conscious decisions about which candidate he should vote for at elections, and whether to vote for or against a bill at the meetings of the comitia . The results of elections and voting assemblies would seem to have been dependent upon the attendance and voting behaviour of Roman citizens. These two factors would vary according to the views and opinions of the individual citizen. This paper addresses the issue of how these views and opinions were formulated, with particular reference to the participation of Roman citizens in popular politics.

Were cities built as images

Many ancient city sites display a remarkable regularity in their plan which has led to considerable debate on the symbolism and intentionality which may lie behind these arrangements. Grid plan cities of the Greek and Roman world were discussed by Haverfield almost a century ago, but it was above all the cities of South and East Asia analyzed by Wheatley in his influential Pivot of the Four Quarters (1971) which has given new emphasis to the potential of meaning and significance. Such planned cities necessarily incorporate an essential tension between praxis — the practical day-to-day needs of the urban community — and idealism, the desire to impose on those practical concerns a city-plan which expresses a symbolic or cosmological image. Contemporary texts, where they exist, may help towards an answer, but the physicality of the city plan itself provides the crucial ground for argument as to whether symbolic or ideological imperatives governed the actual outcome. Cities may be conceptualized in ideal terms without ever taking on the physical attributes of any ideal form. The contributors to this Viewpoint approach the issue from a diversity of standpoints and with reference to different geographical areas. Were cities built as images? Did powerful belief systems combined with strong centralized control give rise to cities where the moat represented the encircling sea and the raised cathedral the mountain-dwelling of the gods? Or are such readings more the product of Western analysis and wishful thinking than the original intentions of their builders? The discussion here is opened by an architectural historian, who places city-planning firmly within the Western intellectual tradition, and considers it in particular as a product of Greek geometry. A series of regional specialists then take up the baton and assess the evidence for symbolic city planning in Egypt, the Roman world, South and Southeast Asia, and Mesoamerica. How far did cities of the Classical world conform to ideas set out by Aristotle and Vitruvius? Were the regulations of the Artashastra really adopted as a practical guide for city lay-out in South Asia? The balance of evidence — of what may have been intended, against what was actually laid out on the ground — provides fertile ground for a stimulating diversity of opinions.

Roman Narratives: The Writing of Archeaological Discourse - A View from Britain?

The narrative structure of Roman archaeology places a particular emphasis on the acculturation of the newly conquered provinces. This ‘process’ known as Romanisation has been found wanting by many commentators on Roman archaeology. Although rejected, it can still reappear and influence the narrative structure of many studies. Reference is deliberately made to the publications of the ‘Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference’ to highlight the revision of the usage of ‘Romanisation’ by British scholars during the 1990s. The paper identifies the cultural assumptions underpinning the revisionist views of Romanisation and the key problem of a narrative based explicitly or otherwise on textual evidence. Here, an attempt is made to account for the uniqueness of Roman archaeology as practiced in Britain – in comparison to that of prehistory or medieval archaeology. The paper suggests that there is a need to move on from Romanisation to alternative narrative forms drawing on recent revisionist agendas within the social sciences.

Metaphors, monuments and texts: the life course in Roman culture

The life course in ancient Rome is investigated in this paper to highlight how individual action was explained in relationship to the expectations of a persons age in relationship to their gender. A reconstruction of the life history for both females and males is attempted. Human growth is considered to show that rates may have been slower in antiquity than today. Following the analysis of the life course in texts, the representation of age and the life course is discussed in relation to the Ara Pacis. It is concluded that the mode of representation in both texts and this monument are in the same manner. Finally, the use of the life course of an individual emperor as a metaphor for the interpretation of Rome and its history is highlighted.

A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in Antiquity

A Cultural History of Childhood and Family presents an authoritative survey from ancient times to the present. This set of six volumes covers 2800 years of history, charting the cultural, social, economic, religious, medical and political changes in domestic life. 1. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in Antiquity Edited by Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence, both University of Birmingham 2. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Middle Ages Edited by Louise J. Wilkinson, Canterbury Christ Church University 3. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Early Modern Age Edited by Sandra Cavallo, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Silvia Evangelisti, University of East Anglia 4. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Age of Enlightenment Edited by Elizabeth Foyster, University of Cambridge, and James Marten, Marquette University, Milwaukee 5. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Age of Empire Edited by Colin Heywood, University of Nottingham 6. A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Modern Age Edited by Joseph M. Hawes, University of Memphis, and N. Ray Hiner, University of Kansas Each volume discusses the same themes in its chapters: 1. Family Relationships; 2; Community; 3. Economy; 4. Geography and the Environment; 5. Education; 6. Life Cycle; 7. The State; 8. Faith and Religion; 9. Health and Science; 10. World Contexts. This means readers can either have a broad overview of a period by reading a volume or follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume. Well illustrated, the full six volume set combines to present the most authoritative and comprehensive survey available on family and childhood through history.

The uneasy dialogue between ancient history and archaeology

Challenging both traditional and fashionable theories, this collection of pieces from an international range of contributors explores the separation of the human past into history, archaeology and their related sub-disciplines. Each case study challenges the validity of this separation and asks how we can move to a more holistic approach in the study of the relationship between history and archaeology. While the focus is on the ancient world, particularly Greece and Rome, rhe lessons learnded in this book make it an essential addition to all studies of history and archaeology.

Augustus Senex: Old Age and the Remaking of the Principate

In September ad 1, on the occasion of his birthday, Augustus wrote to Gaius, his adopted son and grandson by Julia and Agrippa, complaining about his age, stating that he had passed the climacteric common to all old men, the sixty-fourth year. And I pray the gods that whatever time is left to me I may pass with you safe and well, with our country in a flourishing condition, while you are playing the man and preparing to succeed to my position. (Gell. NA 15.7)

Gilbert J. Gorski a James E. Packer . The Roman Forum: a reconstruction and architectural guide . 2015. xxii+437 pages, 247 colour and 60 baw illustrations. New York: Cambridge University Press; 978-0-521-19244-6 hardback £150.

The 30 or so discrete archaeological sites that make up the main points along the trail are above all characterised by the survival of pottery vessels of various dates, including the so-called Sheikh Muftah ceramics used by nomadic pastoralists roughly contemporary with the late Old Kingdom Egyptians. The Egyptian vessels are mostly quite large closed forms, presumably for water storage, and it is notable that the most frequent types of container are, chronologically, also among the earliest, that is, Sixth Dynasty and First Intermediate Period (c. 2200–2100 BC). Not surprisingly, the latter are strikingly similar to those excavated by a French team at the major Old Kingdom town of Ayn Asil, in the Dakhla Oasis. The use of large groups of pottery vessels as ‘water depots’ substituting for wells or springs, in order to allow the crossing of barren desert regions, is mentioned by Herodotus (Book III, 6–7), and it seems that the Abu Ballas trail is perhaps our best archaeologically attested instance of such a strategy. There are also some sporadically surviving unusual artefacts (pp. 286– 310) that provide invaluable insights into the dayto-day operation of the Abu Ballas donkey caravans, including substantial fragments of a pack-bag woven from plant materials, fragments of leather and a sandstone Senet gaming board found near a cave entrance at Abu Ballas itself. The fact that the latter was identified and photographed in October 2000, but then subsequently mysteriously removed, is just one of many indications of the increasing vulnerability of the sites along the Abu Ballas trail.

The City in the Roman West, c.250 BC–c.AD 250: The Roman city in c . AD 250: an urban legacy of empire?

The city is widely regarded as the most characteristic expression of the social, cultural and economic formations of the Roman Empire. This was especially true in the Latin-speaking West, where urbanism was much less deeply ingrained than in the Greek-speaking East but where networks of cities grew up during the centuries following conquest and occupation. This up-to-date and well-illustrated synthesis provides students and specialists alike with an overview of the development of the city in Italy, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Spain and North Africa, whether their interests lie in ancient history, Roman archaeology or the wider history of urbanism. It accounts not only for the city’s geographical and temporal spread and its associated monuments (such as amphitheatres and baths), but also for its importance to the rulers of the Empire as well as the provincials and locals.