[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Materialising the Rome Empire is a collection of eleven essays that explores how material culture played a role in the process of imperialism. As the introduction to the volume frankly explains, the volume emerged from a conference that paired Roman and Chinese archaeologists to discuss material aspects of the Roman Empire and Chinese Empire. The conference produced fruitful conversations, but papers from the Chinese scholars did not materialize. The Romanists faced the difficult decision between waiting, perhaps indefinitely, for the papers, scrapping the volume entirely, or finding a way to bring the Roman archaeology papers to light. The resulting volume provides an overview of the field and an up-to-date account of some of the major discussions and areas of research.
Ray Laurence’s chapter on roads and communication includes the physical, financial, and political infrastructure that supported them. It discusses how roads connect but can also show hierarchy and priorities as well as garner political favor. State roads were supported also by locals, while inns facilitated state transport at fixed prices. Mules, important caravan and pack animals, were bred for efficient transport alongside the development and use of roads. Arches, bridges, and milestones marked the beginning of not only a road but also state presence. Overall, the paper shows that the vitality of roads reflected the health of the empire.
John Pearce’s chapter discusses how writing was both a product and agent of empire by examining writing practices in the northwest provinces — Britain, Germany, Gaul — to track the establishment and spread of Latin. Writing could spread because of the availability of materials and as it became more useful for the population. The chapter provides an overview of the various functions and forms of writing such as inscriptions, instrumentum domesticum, and writing tablets. It emphasizes that writing not only fulfilled certain functions, but also could bring authority and social status for those who had access to writing and literacy, serve as a reminder of the emperor, and establish socio-economic hierarchies and act as a performative differentiation between groups.
Chris Howgego’s chapter focuses on coinage and is organized around four sections: empire of coinage, empire of money, empire of monuments, and archaeology of coinage. Roman coinage spread at different rates in different places, often following local conventions, indicating that Roman coinage developed very much ad hoc for a long time with no cohesive plan. The primary driver of coinage was state expenditure, especially for the military, and was further spread through urbanization and its use in taxes, rent, wages. Coins also acted as little monuments that celebrated achievements and could spread images of monuments and inscriptions. The paper ends with a discussion of some of the resources online and hoard studies.
Andrew Wilson’s chapter traces trade through different commodities. The production sites of certain tablewares moved closer to markets, and tablewares and transport jars more generally show clustering around coasts and rivers, but these items were also found inland, suggesting that road transport was not prohibitively expensive. The distribution of imported cookwares, on the other hand, was more coastal, and thus might not have been worth the additional costs of road transport. The paper also looks at the role of the state in supporting infrastructure for land and maritime transport as well as the food supply, such as the development of Portus for Rome’s annona and the buildup of Monte Testaccio from amphorae of imported olive oil. The paper ends by discussing external trade with China and the Silk Road, made possible by an increase in facilities and infrastructure across the Red Sea.
Louise Revell’s paper considers urbanism in imperial thought before examining several case studies in Iberia. Urban centers were viewed as places of order, social norms, civilization, laws, and control and effectively became a platform for performative urban citizenship. Urbanism in the Iberian provinces started in the late first century BCE. The paper then looks at Roman ideology of urbanism in two aspects: the organization of an urban community, defined by participation in politics, religion, and legal activity, and the reliance on specific urban facilities such as the forum, temples, theaters, and amphitheaters, which could vary based on individual histories. Overall, Revell argues that urbanization allowed people to participate in a wider system. Although they were no longer face to face with local rulers, people regularly encountered the emperor through representations and symbols and became linked into a larger political body through chains of influence and patronage.
Rebecca Redfern’s chapter on Roman slavery discusses some of the key debates and theoretical approaches and evidence (e.g. Black feminist archaeology, web of violence, embodiment, archaeologies of the heart). Enslaved labor was a major part of the ancient economy and demography, probably overlapping with lower status and poor freeborn and freed people. In acts of resistance and escape, the enslaved could try to hold on to certain markers of identity or remove themselves from their enslaver’s web. Redfern notes that it can be difficult to identify the enslaved in the archaeological record, but paired with other archaeological evidence such as grave goods (or lack thereof) and the manner in which bodies were treated, bioarchaeological data can help point to poor health of the enslaved: high amounts of metals in the human remains of miners, as well as vitamin deficiencies, adverse skeletal development, and traumatic injuries in many other individuals.
Astrid Van Oyen’s paper discusses how craft production shaped empire. During the principate, craft production did not change in terms of the types of goods produced, but craft goods became both more diverse locally and more homogenous globally. In becoming more standardized, craft goods reached more consumers. Glass technology, as an example, developed into a more advanced craft that cut down on wastage and allowed faster production of small closed forms; the ability to recycle glass also expanded production beyond centers with raw materials to places of consumption. Overall, craft goods became more affordable and reached beyond the wealthy elites, expanding markets. Craft production during the principate straddled city/town and country, and investment in skill and human capital was critical for its success. Van Oyen’s exciting ongoing work at Marzuolo provides a good example of Roman processes of experimentation and training, and discusses how future study through archaeometry (clay mixtures) and stamps (personnel) could shed light on the different people involved as well as how they trained.
Peter Stewart’s chapter on art first discusses the influence of Hellenistic art on Roman art, and provides an overview of the concept that Roman art began with conquest over Greece and the incorporation of Greek art elements into Roman art. Many elements of Greek art gained new significance in Roman culture, and crystallized during the beginning of the principate. Art played a major role in constructing images of imperial power and giving monarchy a face. The dissemination of these ideas spread across the empire through visual language reaching the provinces, but sometimes with differences in form and execution. Stewart cautions though that Romanization is not a useful concept for thinking about the spread of visual language, but globalization could be. The paper then looks at edges of empire to consider Roman art and its valence; examples from Dura Europos and Gandhara exemplify how Roman visual language could spread and that empire might have been a vehicle but not necessarily a container for different ideas.
Ton Derks’ paper on imperial ideology and religion first looks at the role material forms of religion played in the legitimization and acceptance of new political order introduced by Augustus, especially at how monuments reflected and were instrumental in creating, communicating, and maintaining the sacrosanct power and prominence of the emperor and the imperial family. It focuses on the messaging and effects of the Pantheon and the Ara Pacis. The second part explores how Roman rule affected religions of subject territories at different levels of organization. It discusses the imperial cult in provinces by looking at different manifestations at Lugdunum and Ancyra and how the imperial cult expanded beyond the emperor to include the imperial household. The last part of the paper discusses the assimilation of Roman with local deities through the examples of how Remi, an indigenous Gallic god, mixed with imperial ideology and symbols of Mars and how provincial non-elites who did not have Roman citizenship could invent new rituals with materials borrowed from Roman visual language for a coming of age ritual. The chapter draws on both well-known and lesser known materials from Italy, Britain, and the eastern Mediterranean to consider why classifying them as “Roman” could be problematic.
Andrew Gardener’s chapter on frontiers opens with the discussion of some of the challenges in studying the borders of frontier zones. In antiquity, city borders were better understood and defined while ancient authors had little experience with frontier borders, with the result that the limes as a concept did not emerge until later. In scholarship, the origins of limes studies coincided with the emergence of nation states of central and western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which used ancient frontiers to guide projects of colonialism and imperialism and justify authority. Gardener emphasizes that there is always the process of re-bordering and that borders are not static. The rest of the paper focuses on three different frontier zones of Roman Britain – the Wales and Irish Sea zone, the northern frontier, and the Saxon shore – to highlight the shifting roles of the military and its infrastructure in connecting and dividing different peoples. Forts, gates, walls, and frontiers were not just isolated bastions but could act as zones of interaction, whether through trade, migration, raids, deploying troops, or raising troops for usurpers.
David Mattingly’s chapter on imperial power and its limits opens with an overview of Roman imperialism studies before suggesting fruitful paths forward. Studies of Roman imperialism traditionally looked at elite sites, public monuments, and high end material culture and assumed Roman imperialism was mainly top down. The chapter advocates a different view, one that looks at metropolitan, provincial/periphery, and systemic effects. Mattingly argues that the Roman Empire was varied and that cultural behaviors need to be calibrated by evidence of imperial structures. The paper then explores the concept of discrepant identities and shows, by discussing several funerary tombstones from North Africa, Britain, and Gaul, that many factors contributed to identities people chose to display, such as their gender, age, wealth, and whether they were in a rural or urban setting. The paper lastly advocates looking at material culture beyond the Roman/non-Roman binary and to consider multiple vectors of change, not just Roman influence flowing out of the capital but also other influences on the capital.
Throughout the volume, much of the emphasis is on the beginning of the principate, and some papers examine evidence predating the principate to discuss the establishment of certain infrastructure or concepts or how the principate modified earlier practices. Many of the papers discuss well-known case studies and occasionally lesser-known material; most of the material comes from the northwestern provinces, Roman Britain, and Italy, with fewer papers engaging with examples from the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, or beyond; Egypt is mostly absent. Understandably no volume can cover everything, and these papers do not aim to do that but to engage with selected examples in order to highlight the role of material culture in imperialism. In doing so, the papers illustrate some of the complexities in studying the material culture of the Roman Empire, with discussion of variations due to local circumstances and traditions. Some papers caution against using a Roman/non-Roman binary in interpreting material culture, and some even show how classifying something as “Roman” could be limiting. Due to their scope and aim, the papers can provide useful reading for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses. They could be paired with other case studies for fruitful class discussion, such as Pearce’s paper on writing with a paper on writing in Roman Egypt or Laurence’s paper on roads with new work on road repairs.
Overall, the volume is well edited and published with ample color illustrations and minimal typographical errors and omissions (e.g. Weigand 1937).[1] Each paper stands on its own, yet the papers work together towards the volume’s goals of elucidating the role of material culture in Roman imperialism. They all give background on their topic, with some discussing more in depth the history, guiding questions, and/or theoretical approaches of the respective subfield, and have their own extensive bibliographies. Although it is a pity the volume was published without the Chinese archaeologists’ papers, this volume opens the door for further conversation and hopefully more comparative work in the future.
Authors and Titles
Preface (Jeremy Tanner)
Introduction: Roman archaeology and the materiality of empire (Andrew Gardner)
- Roads and communications (Ray Laurence)
- An empire of words? Archaeology and writing in the Roman world (John Pearce)
- Archaeologies of coinage (Chris Howgego)
- Trade in the Roman Empire (Andrew Wilson)
- Empire and urbanism in Ancient Rome (Louise Revell)
- ‘Becoming darkness’ and the invisible slave economy: archaeological approaches to the study of enslavement in the Roman world (Rebecca Redfern)
- The Roman Empire and transformations in craft production (Astrid Van Oyen)
- Art and Empire in the Roman World (Peter Stewart)
- Materialising imperial ideology and religion in the Roman world (Ton Derks)
- Empires and their boundaries: the Archaeology of Roman frontiers (Andrew Gardner)
- Imperial power and its limits: social and cultural integration and resistance in the Roman Empire (David J. Mattingly)
Notes
[1] Weigand, E. 1937. Review of Der Tempel in Ankara, by D. Krencker and Martin Schede. Gnomon 13: 414-422.