The question of what life was really like for ‘ordinary people’ who lived ‘normal’ lives has steadily gained traction over the last few decades, because so much of what we know about the Roman world is, in fact, the world as viewed through the eyes of the literate upper classes with only occasional forays through their eyes into what life would have been like for those slopping about in the mud. Indeed, I would hazard that at least as much of our knowledge of what ‘life was really like’ comes from archaeology as from literary sources, though increasingly sophisticated analytical techniques are gleaning new information from literary sources to the point that our knowledge of ordinary people seems to be approaching a critical mass of research. In a book that reads as smoothly as the novelization of a source reader, Guy de la Bédoyère once again takes up the topic of daily life, a world he has already ventured into with analyses of town and military life in Roman Britain, but now focused on the Urbs Aeterna herself.
Populus “is not a history of ancient Rome” (17), but is instead an extended investigation into the question of “what it was like to be Roman in the city of Rome” (4), by which he means what it meant to live and work in the vagaries that accompany the capital of empire. What did it mean to be starving in the streets mere meters from gilded ostentation or to carry a luxurious litter through sometimes shin-deep excrement while the person being transported cursed about not going faster because of the stench? This multiplicity of experience makes it difficult to make any sort of sweeping generalizations, even within social strata. Some slaves were chained to workstations, while others managed their owner’s entire financial affairs. Some senators could, and famously did, spend millions on spectacles, while others were so destitute that they could barely serve meat at their banquets. With this in mind, De la Bédoyère’s primary unit of analysis is the individual with a focus on the “ordinary people” for whom we have an “exceptional record” with no comparable analogue for the Middle Ages (3).
The theme that underpins the entire book, though, is the understanding that the Romans were not so different from us. In our triumphant modernity, we sit in our climate-controlled rooms working with the gadgets that dominate the contemporary age, but even with (or perhaps especially with?) modern recordkeeping, we must unflinchingly face the fact that nearly all of us will inevitably fade without a trace into the incomplete nature of the historical record. In this, we moderns are little different from the ancients (or the medievals) that we research so carefully, and so de la Bédoyère argues for the continuity of the human experience. Replace bathhouses with bars and some of these same stories could be told about last Tuesday, while the dimly lit Roman alleyways (23) could also describe New York or Shanghai. The Romans in chapter twelve (“Spectacles”) would be quite comfortable reveling in the roar of a modern sporting crowd after a game-winning shot, though they would doubtless sniff disdainfully about that little shove being a foul. We have all damaged things while chasing pets (363) and we all know people who display gluttony and poor table manners (218-219). In this way, we are all still Romans.
In making this argument, the author uses a tremendous range of sources. Literary sources and inscriptions are his stated base, and de la Bédoyère uses them effectively to demonstrate the zeitgeist of the Romans, while hedging the written sources effectively throughout as the preserve largely of what we might call gentlemen in the modern era. As a practiced archaeologist, however, de la Bédoyère is most convincing when analyzing material culture. Coins and architecture are used to make political points, archaeological sites outline spatial politics, and gravestone inscriptions demonstrate both the love that Romans had for their familiars and aspects of self-fashioning. The history of the ancients, he argues throughout, is still tangibly ubiquitous in Rome, if we only know where and how to look.
The chronological and geographical settings are somewhat more focused, but still wide-ranging. The book primarily covers the city of Rome in the first centuries BC and AD, though in places it does dip back as far as the sixth century BC and lean as far forward as the fifth century AD. The fact that the author does not intend this volume as a rigorous history of individuals in Rome means that there is little attempt at chronology (which the author acknowledged) and therefore definite causation, which might, caveat lector, annoy some readers while delighting others. The geographical focus is almost entirely on central Italy, with the author making repeated use, as many scholars do, of Pompeii and Ostia to fill in the gaps provided by purely Roman sources. The truly substantial mentions of Gaul, Africa, etc. occur primarily in the context of supplying something to the city of Rome, usually for the ludi. Because a substantial minority of Romans were not from the city that is often cited as the most cosmopolitan of its era, it might have been important to see how someone from, say, Alexandria (a large, wealthy city in its own right) made the transition to being ‘Roman.’ The author states in several places that Rome saw a constant ebb and flow of visitors, who doubtless decisively modified urban culture, much like numerous examples of immigrants in the 19th-20th centuries. It is true that many of these individuals are more difficult to track, but they are important to the type of investigation de la Bédoyère conducted.
Populus joins an ever-expanding historiography of work on individuals in the ancient world focusing on ‘ordinary’ people. The earthiness of the people under analysis here places de la Bédoyère in line with such scholars as Greg Aldrete, Mary Beard, and Sarah Bond, a line that fills out the framework of individuals in the lofty world-building done by scholars such as Peter Brown and Averil Cameron. The slight informality in the writing recalls the more recent work of other late-career scholars such as Peter Heather and Tom Noble. The focus on individuals is genuinely excellent and worthwhile; however, the true historiographic value of this book lies in its masterful treatment of the ways in which the tactile elements of daily life affected all Romans and the ways in which different individuals responded to those challenges. Strongly evocative language drives home the smells and sounds of the ancient city, including the challenges that the upper classes had with the same problems. After all, the smell of filth does not care how many people are under your patronage and the roar of the crowd will not respect even the most exclusive dinner party. Gyrations in the marketplace will block both wealthy palanquins and day laborers running errands alike, while bad lighting equally destroys the eyes of rich and poor. The visual aspects of the city are discussed somewhat less than sounds and smells, but visual culture can afford to be relegated as the sights are the focus of an already-lengthy historiography. I would go so far as to say that the tactile portions of this book should be required reading for every course addressing ancient cities and should be considered for courses on medieval cities as well.
My only other caveat lector is that the work’s structure as an investigation of a question means that it lacks a firm thesis and the author’s status as a well-published scholar means that sometimes basic details are omitted in ways that can hinder understanding of parts of the underlying question. For example, Chapter Five is an excellent discussion of the cursus honorum, its general social and political effects, why it existed, and its use(s) in the careers of the upper classes. However, as fundamental as the Roman political cursus seems, it is only tangentially related to many peoples’ studies (including mine) who might not fully carry that information in their memory and might repeatedly wonder simply what the sequence of the cursus was at any given point. Other times, there are curious omissions related to the basic argument of the book. Chapter Nine is about “Dining Out and Eating In,” but, following the theme of the book, who were the ordinary individuals who worked in the eateries and what do we know about them? Many of these questions are admittedly fairly easy to answer, but answering them does require either assigning supplementary readings or stepping away from Populus to answer them. The book is suitable for non-specialists and portions should be required reading for undergrads, but the meditative quality of the book means that advanced readers will also find it beneficial as a thought-piece to expand their own analyses in new directions.
There are no substantial factual errors or editing mistakes that I found. The only point of substance to be made here is the lack of secondary citations, though it is unclear if that should be attributed to the author or the editor. It is puzzling because there is a wonderful apparatus of primary citations, but specific facts such as noting that 325 tons of excrement were left on Rome’s streets daily are stated confidently with no ability to trace them, which is made all the more frustrating because of the author’s statement that readers deserve to know whence information comes (18). Otherwise, the book is well-organized with a nice typeface, good binding, and helpful diagrams/illustrations.