This collection of original essays focuses upon Roman Italy where, with over 400 cities, urbanization was at the very centre of Italian civilization. Informed by an awareness of the social and anthropological issues of recent research, these contributions explore not only questions of urban origins, interaction with the countryside and economic function, but also the social use of space within the city and the nature of the development process.; These studies are aimed not only at ancient historians and classical archaeologists, but are directed towards those working in the related fields of urban studies in the Mediterranean world and elsewhere and upon the general theory of towns and complex societies.

This collection of original essays focuses upon Roman Italy where, with over 400 cities, urbanization was at the very centre of Italian civilization. Informed by an awareness of the social and anthropological issues of recent research, these contributions explore not only questions of urban origins, interaction with the countryside and economic function, but also the social use of space within the city and the nature of the development process.; These studies are aimed not only at ancient historians and classical archaeologists, but are directed towards those working in the related fields of urban studies in the Mediterranean world and elsewhere and upon the general theory of towns and complex societies.

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the fi rst centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history. The contributions explore how these cities developed landscapes full of civic memory and ritual, saw commercial priorities transforming the urban environment, and began to expand signifi cantly beyond their wall circuits. These interrelated developments not only changed how cities looked and could be experienced, but they also affected the functioning of the urban community and together contributed to keeping increasingly complex urban communities socially cohesive. By focusing on the transformation of urban landscapes in the Late Republican and Imperial periods, the volume adds a new, explicitly historical angle to current debates about urban space in Roman studies. Confronting archaeological and historical approaches, the volume presents developments in Italy, Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, thus significantly broadening the geographical scope of the discussion and offering novel theoretical perspectives alongside well- documented, thematic case studies. Urban Space and Urban History in the Roman World will be of interest to anyone working on Roman urbanism or Roman history in the Late Republic and early Empire.

The ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Ostia have excited the imagination of scholars and tourists alike since early modern times. The removal of volcanic debris at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and the clearance of centuries of accumulated soil and vegetation from the ancient port city of Rome at Ostia, have provided us with the most important evidence for Roman urban life. Work goes on at all three sites to this day, and they continue to produce new surprises. Pompeii is the subject of numerous books, but the other two cities are nothing like as well-served. This book, written by an archaeologist, historian and teacher with a lifelong interest in the Roman world, is designed for students of A-level and university courses on Classical Civilization who need a one-stop introduction to all three sites. Its principal focus is status and identity in Roman cities, and how they were expressed through institutions, public buildings and facilities, private houses and funerary monuments, against a backdrop of the history of the cities, their rise, their destruction, preservation and excavation. The reader is also guided towards other reading material and Internet sites that now offer unprecedented access to the cities.

Between 1250 and 1350, numerous Italian city-states jockeyed for position in a cutthroat political climate. Seeking to legitimate and ennoble their autonomy, they turned to ancient Rome for concrete and symbolic sources of identity. Each city-state appropriated classical symbols, ancient materials, and Roman myths to legitimate its regime as a logical successor to&—or continuation of&—Roman rule. In Urban Legends, Carrie Bene&š illuminates this role of the classical past in the construction of late medieval Italian urban identity.

The spatial turn has brought forward new analytical imperatives about the importance of space in the relationship between physical and social networks of meaning. This volume explores this in relation to approaches and methodologies in the study of urban space in Roman Italy. As a consequence of these new imperatives, sociological studies on ancient Roman cities are flourishing, demonstrating a new set of approaches that have developed separately from "traditional" historical and topographical analyses. Rethinking the Roman City represents a convergence of these different approaches to propose a new interpretive model, looking at the Roman city and one of its key elements: the forum. After an introductory discussion of methodological issues, internationally-know specialists consider three key sites of the Roman world – Rome, Ostia and Pompeii. Chapters focus on physical space and/or the use of those spaces to inter-relate these different approaches. The focus then moves to the Forum Romanum, considering the possible analytical trajectories available (historical, topographical, literary, comparative and sociological), and the diversity of possible perspectives within each of these, moving towards an innovative understanding of the role of the forum within the Roman city. This volume will be of great value to scholars of ancient cities across the Roman world, well as historians of urban society and development throughout the ancient world.

This work gives students of all levels access to a comprehensive collection of primary sources on the early history of Italy, from the early expansion of Roman power to the first emmergence of Italy as a unified and cultural political unit. The sources, presented in translation, cover the Roman conquest of Italy, the mechanisms used by Rome to govern Italy and the post-conquest process of Romanization. These include inscriptions, coins and archaeological evidence where necessary. Brief explanatory notes are given and each chapter has an introduction in which the nature of the source material is discussed, together with the major questions raised by that particular aspect of the subject.