Rome and the north-western Mediterranean: integration and connectivity c.150-70 BC

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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]

This edited volume brings together 22 papers by 40 contributors to explore the question of how the northwestern Mediterranean—a region the editors define as the coastal hinterland between the Arno and Ebro Rivers; Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearics; and the maritime routes that linked these places together—underwent the shift from cultural and political independence to subordination to Rome in the second and first centuries BCE. The collection is the product of a three-year Spanish Research Agency project, Espacios de integración en la Roma republicana (II): el N.E. de la Hispania Citerior y su conectividad (133 – 72 a.C.), hosted at the Universitat de Girona and Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya. It is divided into four sections: “Rome, Italy and the West” (5 chapters), “Hispania Citerior and Transalpine Gaul” (8 chapters), “Seaborne Connectivity” (7 chapters), and an epilogue (2 chapters), along with an introduction and short index. Bibliographic references follow the individual papers. The contributions are mostly complementary, engage clearly and directly with the themes of the volume, and together present a coherent account of a region undergoing major cultural, economic, and political shifts in the last two centuries BCE.

The editors introduce the volume by acknowledging the scholarly interest in the Mediterranean that has followed Horden and Purcell’s The Corrupting Sea (2000), whose influence is indeed felt throughout. The intervention of the work under review in this reinvigorated tradition of Mediterranean studies is to comb through the diverse implications of micro-regionality along the Sea’s northwestern littoral, with a particular emphasis on the titular themes of connectivity and integration. The essential argument is that the northwestern Mediterranean was already densely connected at the beginning of the second century BCE, and that connectedness facilitated integration into the Roman world as Italian actors became more and more involved in the region. Furthermore, the arrival of these actors came about by virtue of the region’s position between Italy and Iberia: as Iberia became a theater of intense, sustained interest for Rome, the northwestern Mediterranean became a “transit zone” for soldiers, magistrates, and suppliers traveling west from Italy. This transitional status, the authors argue, implicated the area in Roman imperial affairs in both official and unofficial ways, as independent entrepreneurs explored new markets for their goods and Roman armies secured routes between Italy and Iberia. The papers approach these issues from several angles, combining various strands of evidence—texts, inscriptions, coins, ceramics, shipwrecks, and other materials—and focusing on different segments of the region.

There is not space here to mention each chapter individually, but I will highlight a few to give a sense of how the parts contribute to the project as a whole. The organization of the chapters into sections is broadly geographical. The first, “Rome, Italy and the West,” introduces the northwestern Mediterranean within its broader Mediterranean situation, as well as some of the volume’s recurring themes. François Cadiou (Chapter 1) makes a case for the generalizability of the region’s experience of integration, arguing that Rome turned lessons from its northwestern expansion into the provincial framework that it later deployed in other areas. Alexis Gorgues’s and Thibaud Poigt’s chapter (Chapter 4) on trading structures stands out for its lens, demonstrating the utility of the volume’s commitment to fine-grained analysis of integrative processes. They zoom in on the way that individual transactions were executed and on the interface between foreign and local agents, concluding that pre-Roman structures of trade such as gift-giving and domestic exchange persisted even after the imposition of Roman connective institutions. Gerard R. Ventós’s and Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán’s discussion of Liguria (Chapter 5) lays out another central argument of the volume, that the integration of the northwestern Mediterranean into the Roman sphere was a product of Roman designs on Iberia. From a targeted assessment of the historical record, they make the case that the repeated assignment of consular armies to Liguria during the first half of the second century BCE was an effort by the Roman Senate to eliminate threats to the safe movement of soldiers and supplies between Italy and conflict zones in Iberia.

Part II, “Hispania Citerior and Transalpine Gaul,” comprises studies of sub-regions within the terrestrial northwest. Two complementary chapters on northeast Hispania deal with settlement patterns, particularly the role of oppida in territorial organization—Josep Burch et al. (Chapter 9) address the initial persistence of oppida and their ultimate displacement by Italian-style towns across the region, trends which Borja Martín Chacón and Ignasi Garcés Estallo (Chapter 10) identify and describe in detail in their chapter on the Segre Valley. Two other chapters, one by Marta Campo (Chapter 12) and the other by Eneko Hiriart and Charles Parisot-Sillon (Chapter 13), focus on currency as the intersection of local connections and Roman imperial policy. Their papers present a contrast between Hispania, which was not heavily monetized prior to the arrival of Roman armies, and Gaul, where silver and bronze issues from Greek cities such as Massalia were already widely used. Pierre Moret (Chapter 11) offers a stimulating consideration of Tolosa Tectosagum, a key stop for Italians and Italian goods crossing the Gallic isthmus. He argues that this multicultural settlement was not merely a waystation connecting Narbonne to the Garonne, but that it in fact served as an Iberian trading outpost that extended Pyrenean networks beyond Roman imperial control.

Part III, “Seaborne Connectivity,” deals with islands and the dynamics of shipping. In their respective chapters, Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio Rivas (Chapter 18) and Bartomeu Vallori-Márquez (Chapter 19) discuss the role of pirates in regional connectivity, addressing them as actors who could move between licit and illicit military and trading activity depending on the political context. Together, their contributions make the argument that piracy in the northwestern Mediterranean was more complex than a monolithic menace that the Romans systematically rooted out, but instead was a facet of the commercial and military landscape that sometimes aided and sometimes hindered Roman efforts to assert control. Franca Cibecchini (Chapter 14) and Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán and Gerard R. Ventós (Chapter 20) take up the question of sea routes from different angles: Cibecchini uses shipwreck and ceramic evidence to identify patterns of trade in the third and second centuries BCE, whereas Cabezas-Guzmán and Ventós read historical accounts for evidence of how ports shaped both these patterns and Roman naval policy. Taken together, these chapters put forward another of the volume’s central arguments, that integration in the northwestern Mediterranean advanced largely because the goals and activities of Roman merchants and armies aligned.

The book closes with an epilogue that contextualizes and restates its arguments. Sophia Zoumbaki and Michalis Karambinis (Chapter 21) compare the northwestern Mediterranean to the eastern Mediterranean over the same period, arguing that in the west, integration followed the Roman military, whereas in the east, the opposite was true. Two of the editors, Jordi Principal and Toni Ñaco del Hoyo, conclude with a synthetic summary of the preceding material (Chapter 22), laying out the volume’s major theses: that before 150 BCE, the northwestern Mediterranean was a highly connected region where traders, pirates, and soldiers from various polities engaged with one another; that Rome’s military interests in Iberia turned the northwestern Mediterranean into a transit zone with an economy that ultimately attracted Roman senatorial action to support Italian trade and commerce; and that between 150 and 70 BCE, this commercial interest developed into an interventionist policy that shifted patterns of connectivity toward Roman hegemony and integration.

These stated conclusions are forcefully presented throughout the volume, but are not its only claims that merit attention. A great strength of the work is that it approaches integration as an analyzable process whose course and agents are identifiable in the historical and archaeological record, not something that simply came about in a black box. In discussing the changes to connective networks that drove integration, the authors demonstrate across many cases that the process was neither quick nor uniform, and identify inflection points when policy actions or historical events precipitated a realignment in material practice (e.g., Moret notes a peak in Iberian amphora inscriptions in Vieille-Toulouse after the Roman conquest of northeastern Iberia, and Hiriart and Parisot-Sillon see the Sertorian War as the impetus for an increase in local minting in southern Gaul). They also point to both top-down and bottom-up pressures behind integration, arguing that it came about because Italian traders, supported by the Roman state in the form of military operations and favorable tax policies, displaced Greek and Punic competitors. In this view, the movements and choices of private individuals generated connectivity, but it was the decision of the Roman state to adopt an outward looking policy implemented by official actors that turned connections between Italians and non-Italians into integrative bonds.

As in many network analyses that rely on archaeological evidence, connectivity in this volume is implicitly commercial. Even the Roman military, whose engagement with the unintegrated northwestern Mediterranean is somewhat clearer in the historical record than that of other mobile groups, is generally treated by the contributors as a source of demand for goods rather than as a spreader of cultural behaviors or values (Fernando Quesada Sanz’s chapter on military connectivity, Chapter 3, stands out as an exception). To some degree this is an unintentional product of the evidence under consideration, as many clearly traceable material signs of movement and connectivity—coins, amphoras, and shipwrecks—are commercial in nature. Still, several authors do focus on Italian entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial activities as the primary agents of integration. Others take a more expansive view: Quesada’s discussion of the sharing of military technologies in Hispania and Antonio Ibba’s treatment of language, craft, and ritual practices in Sardinia (Chapter 17), e.g., engage with non-commercial connections and with objects as expressions of group identity. This fundamental tension regarding the nature of connectivity is, to my mind, one of the most productive questions raised in the volume, even if left unresolved. The authors’ approach is a step forward in analyzing commercial networks as a connective force without treating connectivity as merely a synonym for the ancient economy.

The book is thoughtfully produced, though with occasional proofreading errors. These are not overly distracting, and mention should be made of the editors’ decision to present the entire volume in English in order to make its content more widely accessible. Hopefully this, along with the inclusion of extensive bibliography with each chapter, succeeds in opening the material—the quality of the research and evidence across the contributions is high, and will be of interest even to those who do not habitually deal with the northwestern Mediterranean. More disappointing are certain images; although the book is amply illustrated, some are difficult to parse because they are printed in black and white, and others do not correspond exactly with the text that they are meant to supplement (e.g., place names are rendered inconsistently and overlays blend together). It is evident that the authors carefully designed information-rich illustrations that would have enhanced the clarity of their discussions; the problem is not poor images, but rather excellent images whose impacts are diminished.

These minor items notwithstanding, this is a successful book that demonstrates that topics such as integration can be addressed in detail at a micro-regional level using multiple threads of evidence. Despite the pandemic cancellation of the conference that was meant to precede the preparation of the volume, there is strong dialogue evident among the contributors, which gives the collected papers a gratifyingly coherent feel. They will be of interest to anyone concerned with connectivity, cultural contact, exchange, and empire in the northwestern Mediterranean.

Authors and Titles

Toni Ñaco del Hoyo, Jordi Principal, and Mike Dobson, Introduction: The Agency of Integration and Connectivity in the North-Western Mediterranean

Part I: Rome, Italy and the West

1. François Cadiou, Rome and the Western Mediterranean (150-70 BC): Empire and War
2. Marleen K. Termeer, Non-Roman Coins in Italy: The Influence of Western Connections (3rd-1st Centuries BC)
3. Fernando Quesada Sanz, Military Connectivity between Romans and Non-Romans in the West
4. Alexis Gorgues (with the collaboration of Thibaud Poigt), Transactions, Trading Practices and Structures in the Western Mediterranean: The Impact of Roman Hegemony
5. Gerard R. Ventós and Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán, Ligurians, Gatekeepers of the West 197-118 BC

Part II: Hispania Citerior and Transalpine Gaul

6. Étienne Roudier, Ingrid Dunyach, and Jérôme Bénézet, Initial Indications of a Roman Presence East of the Pyrenees: A Possible Transition Zone between Gaul and Iberia in the Late 3rd and Early 2nd Centuries BC
7. Mike Dobson, Numantia. A Green and Pleasant Land. Not Once the Romans Arrived!
8. Corinne Sanchez, Trading Networks in Transalpine Gaul before and after the Conquest of 125 BC
9. Josep Burch, Ana Costa, Neus Coromina, Josep M. Nolla, Lluís Palahí, Marc Prat, Jordi Sagrera, Josefina Simon, David Vivó, and Jordi Vivo, Late Iron Age Iberians from Coastal North-Eastern Hispania and Rome
10. Borja Martín Chacón and Ignasi Garcés Estallo, Late Iron Age Iberians and Rome in the Segre Valley (North-East Hispania): Transformation and Integration
11. Pierre Moret, Tolosa Tectosagum: A Wide-Ranging Connectivity Hub between Transalpine Gaul, Aquitania and Hispania Citerior
12. Marta Campo, Coinage from North-East Hispania Citerior and Rome, c. 150-70 BC
13. Eneko Hiriart and Charles Parisot-Sillon, A Fistful of Denarii. Coinage, Conquest and Connectivity in Southern Gaul (c. 150-c. 70 BC)

Part III: Seaborne Connectivity

14. Franca Cibecchini, Shipwrecks and Trade in the North-Western Mediterranean during the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC: The Sea as an Agent of Connectivity
15. Pere Castanyer, Marta Santos, Joaquim Tremoleda, and Elisa Hernández, Emporion and its Port during the 2nd Century BC
16. Daniele Malfitana, Exploring the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in Ancient Sicily between Hellenisation and Romanisation: A Reassessment
17. Antonio Ibba, Between Carthage and Rome: Artisans, Businessmen and Colonists in Roman Republican Sardinia (150-50 BC)
18. Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio Rivas, Rome and the Political Dimension of Piracy in the North-Western Mediterranean
19. Bartomeu Vallori-Márquez, Between Traders and Pirates. Connectivity in the Balearic Islands from the Second Punic War to the Mid-1st Century BC
20. Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán and Gerard R. Ventós, Rome and the North-Western Mediterranean: Ports-of-Call and Sea Routes

Epilogue

21. Sophia Zoumbaki and Michalis Karambinis, The Roman and Italian Economic Diaspora as a Factor of Connectivity between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean, 150-70 BC
22. Jordi Principal and Toni Ñaco del Hoyo, A Message in a Bottle Crossing the North-Western Mediterranean