This book focuses on day-to-day interactions between Romans and Italians interacted, and the consequences of such interactions. Drawing on new archaeological evidence, literary and epigraphic material, it presents the current state of research on integration and identity formation in the Republic.

Processes of Cultural Change and Integration in the Roman World is a collection of studies on the interaction between Rome and the peoples that became part of its Empire between c. 300 BC and AD 300. The book focuses on the mechanisms by which interaction between Rome and its subjects occurred, e.g. the settlements of colonies by the Romans, army service, economic and cultural interaction. In many cases Rome exploited the economic resources of the conquered territories without allowing the local inhabitants any legal autonomy. However, they usually maintained a great deal of cultural freedom of expression. Those local inhabitants who chose to engage with Rome, its economy and culture, could rise to great heights in the administration of the Empire.

This second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.

This important new volume examines archaeological evidence of Roman colonization of the Middle Republican period. Themes of land use, ethnic accommodation and displacement, colonial identity, and administrative schemes are also highlighted. In delving deeply into the uniqueness of select colonial contexts, these essays invite a novel discussion on the phenomenon of colonialism in the political landscape of Rome’s early expansion. Roman urbanism of the Middle Republican period brought to the Italian peninsula fundamental changes, an important example of which, highlighted by a wealth of studies, is the ebullience of a dense network of colonies, as well as a mix of senatorial tactics and individual initiatives that underpinned their foundation. Whether Latin, Roman, or Maritimae, colonies created a new mesh of communities and imposed a new topography; more subtly, they signified the mechanisms of the rising hegemony. This book brings to the fore the diversity, agendas, and overall impact of a “settlement device” that changed the Italian landscape and introduced a new idea of Roman town.

Foodways in Roman Republican Italy explores the production, preparation, and consumption of food and drink in Republican Italy to illuminate the nature of cultural change during this period. Traditionally, studies of the cultural effects of Roman contact and conquest have focused on observing changes in the public realm: that is, changing urban organization and landscape, and monumental construction. Foodways studies reach into the domestic realm: How do the daily behaviors of individuals express their personal identity, and How does this relate to changes and expressions of identity in broader society? Laura M. Banducci tracks through time the foodways of three sites in Etruria from about the third century BCE to the first century CE: Populonia, Musarna, and Cetamura del Chianti. All were established Etruscan sites that came under Roman political control over the course of the third and second centuries BCE. The book examines the morphology and use wear of ceramics used for cooking, preparing, and serving food in order to deduce cooking methods and the types of foods being prepared and consumed. Change in domestic behaviors was gradual and regionally varied, depending on local social and environmental conditions, shaping rather than responding to an explicitly “Roman” presence.

Money, Warfare and Power in the Ancient World offers twelve papers analysing the processes, consequences and problems involved in the monetization of warfare and its connection to political power in antiquity. The contributions explore not only how powerful men and states used money and coinage to achieve their aims, but how these aims and methods had often already been shaped by the medium of coined money – typically with unintended consequences. These complex relationships between money, warfare and political power – both personal and collective – are explored across different cultures and socio-political systems around the ancient Mediterranean, ranging from Pharaonic Egypt to Late Antique Europe. This volume is also a tribute to the life and impact of Professor Matthew Trundle, an inspiring teacher and scholar, who was devoted to promoting the discipline of Classics in New Zealand and beyond. At the time of his death, he was writing a book on the wider importance of money in the Greek world. A central piece of this research is incorporated into this volume, completed by one of his former students, Christopher De Lisle. Additionally, Trundle had situated himself at the centre of a wide-ranging conversation on the nature of money and power in antiquity. The contributions of scholars of ancient monetization in this volume bring together many of the threads of those conversions, further advancing a field which Matthew Trundle had worked so tirelessly to promote.

Politics in the Roman Republic rewrites the field’s modern historiographical narrative through critical re-examinations of four foundational historians: Barthold Niebuhr, Theodor Mommsen, Friedrich Münzer, and Matthias Gelzer. Each chapter traces these scholars’ impact and offers novel (re)interpretations of their enduring frameworks, conceptual and methodological alike.