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The study of the Roman Empire has changed dramatically in the last century, with significant emphasis now placed on understanding the experiences of subject populations, rather than a sole focus on the Roman imperial elites. Local experiences, and interactions between periphery and centre, are an intrinsic component in our understanding of the empire's function over and against the earlier, top-down model. But where does law fit into this new, decentralized picture of empire? This volume brings together internationally renowned scholars from both legal and historical backgrounds to study the operation of law in each region of the Roman Empire, from Britain to Egypt, from the first century BCE to the end of the third century CE. Regional specificities are explored in detail alongside the emergence of common themes and activities in a series of case studies that together reveal a new and wide-ranging picture of law in the Roman Empire, balancing the practicalities of regional variation with the ideological constructs of law and empire.
Ancient Rome is the only society in the history of the western world whose legal profession evolved autonomously, distinct and separate from institutions of political and religious power. Roman legal thought has left behind an enduring legacy and exerted enormous influence on the shaping of modern legal frameworks and systems, but its own genesis and context pose their own explanatory problems. The economic analysis of Roman law has enormous untapped potential in this regard: by exploring the intersecting perspectives of legal history, economic history, and the economic analysis of law, the two volumes of Roman Law and Economics are able to offer a uniquely interdisciplinary examination of t...
In the first volume in this new series on Roman society and law, Saskia T. Roselaar traces the social and economic history of the ager publicus, or public land. As the Romans conquered Italy during the fourth to first centuries BC, they usually took land away from their defeated enemies and declared this to be the property of the Roman state. This land could be distributed to Roman citizens, but it could also remain in the hands of the state, in which case it was available for general public use. However, in the third and second centuries BC growth in the population of Italy led to an increased demand for land among both commercial producers and small farmers. This in turn led to the gradual privatization of the state-owned land, as those who held it wanted to safeguard their rights to it. Roselaar traces the currents in Roman economy and demography which led to these developments.
The Handbook is intended to survey the landscape of contemporary research and chart principal directions of future inquiry. Its aim is to bring to bear upon Roman legal study the full range of intellectual resources of contemporary legal history, from comparison to popular constitutionalism, from international private law to law and society. This unique contribution of the volume sets it apart from others in the field. Furthermore, the volume brings the study of Roman law into closer alignment, and thus into dialogue, with historical, sociological, and anthropological research in law in other periods. The volume is therefore directed not simply to ancient historians and legal historians already focused on the ancient world, but to historians of all periods interested in law and its complex and multifaceted relationship to society.
An indispensable guide to the latest scholarship in the field of Roman Studies. Over fifty distinguished scholars elucidate the contribution of material as well as literary culture to our understanding of the Roman world, and suggest pathways for fresh investigations.
Marzano explores the exploitation of marine resources in the Roman world and its role within the economy. Bringing together literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and legal sources, she shows that these marine resources were an important feature of the Roman economy and paralleled phenomena taking place in the Roman agricultural economy on land.
The study of Roman society and social relations blossomed in the 1970s. By now, we possess a very large literature on the individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and the various ways in which members of that community interacted. There simply is, however, no overview that takes into account the multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty-odd years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it synthesizes what has heretofore been accomplished in this field. On the other hand, it attempts to configure the examination of Roman social relations in some new ways, and thereby indicates directions in which the discipline might now proceed. The bo...
Statues are among the most familiar remnants of classical art. Yet their prominence in ancient society is often ignored. In the Roman world statues were ubiquitous. Whether they were displayed as public honours or memorials, collected as works of art, dedicated to deities, venerated as gods,or violated as symbols of a defeated political regime, they were recognized individually and collectively as objects of enormous significance.By analysing ancient texts and images, Statues in Roman Society unravels the web of associations which surrounded Roman statues. Addressing all categories of statuary together for the first time, it illuminates them in ancient terms, explaining expectations of what statues were or ought to be anddescribing the Romans' uneasy relationship with 'the other population' in their midst.
In this volume, papers by leading Roman historians and archaeologists discuss trade within the Roman Empire and beyond its frontiers between c.100 BC and AD 350, focusing especially on the role of the Roman state in shaping the institutional framework for trade. As part of a novel interdisciplinary approach to the subject, the chapters address its myriad facets on the basis of broadly different sources of evidence - historical, papyrological, andarchaeological - demonstrating how collaborations with the elite holders of wealth within the empire fundamentally changed its political character in the longer term.
The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. With a population of sixty million people, it encircled the Mediterranean and stretched from northern England to North Africa and Syria. This Very Short Introduction covers the history of the empire at its height, looking at its people, religions and social structures. It explains how it deployed violence, 'romanisation', and tactical power to develop an astonishingly uniform culture from Rome to its furthest outreaches.