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Communal Dining in in the Roman West explores why the practice of privately sponsored communal dining gained popularity in certain parts of the Western Roman Empire for almost 300 years. This book brings together 350 Latin inscriptions to examine the benefactors and beneficiaries, the geographical and chronological distributions, and the relationship between public and collegial dining practices. It argues that food-related euergetism was a region-specific phenomenon which was rooted in specific social and political cultures in the communities of Italy, Baetica and Africa Proconsularis. The region-specific differences in political cultures and long-term changes in these cultures are key to understanding not only the long persistence of this practice but also its ultimate disappearance.
Work and labour are fundamental to an understanding of Roman society. In a world where reliable information was scarce and economic insecurity loomed large, social structures and networks of trust were of paramount importance to the way work was provided and filled in. Taking its cue from New Institutional Economics, this book deals with the wide range of factors shaping work and labour in the cities of Roman Italy under the early empire, from families and familial structures, to labour collectives, slavery, education and apprenticeship. To illuminate the complexity of the market for labour, this monograph offers a new analysis of the occupational inscriptions and reliefs from Roman Italy, placing them in the wider context by means of documentary evidence like apprenticeship contracts, legal sources, and material remains. This synthesis therefore provides a comprehensive analysis of the ancient sources on work and labour in Roman urban society, leading to a novel interpretation of the market for work, and a fuller understanding of the daily lives of nonelite Romans. For some of them, work was indeed a source of pride, whereas for others it was merely a means to an end or a necessity of life.
Integration is a buzzword in the 21st century. However, academics still do not agree on its meaning and, above all, on its consequences. This book offers numerous examples showing that the inhabitants of the Roman Mediterranean were “integrated”, i.e. were aware of the existence of a common framework of coexistence, without this necessarily resulting in a process of cultural convergence. For instance, the Spanish poet Martial explicitly refused to be considered the brother of the Greek Charmenion (10.65): paradoxically, while reaffirming their differences, his satirical epigram confirms the existence of a common frame of reference that encompassed them both. Understanding integration in the Roman world requires paying attention to the complex and varied responses to diversity in Roman times.
How were space and movement in Roman cities affected by economic life? What can the study of Roman urban landscapes tell us about the nature of the Roman economy? These are the central questions addressed in this volume. While there exist many studies of Roman urban space and of the Roman economy, rarely have the two topics been investigated together in a sustained fashion. In this volume, an international team of archaeologists and historians focuses explicitly on the economics of space and mobility in Roman Imperial cities, in both Italy and the provinces, east and west. Employing many kinds of material and written evidence and a wide range of methodologies, the contributors cast new light both on well-known and on less-explored sites. With their direct focus on the everyday economic uses of urban spaces and the movements through them, the contributors offer a fresh and innovative perspective on the workings of Roman urban economies and on the debates concerning space in the Roman world. This volume will be of interest to archaeologists and historians, both those studying the Greco-Roman world and those focusing on urban economic space in other periods and places as well as to other scholars studying premodern urbanism and urban economies.
This volume offers an innovative analysis of Roman political culture in Italy from the first to the sixth century AD on the basis of seven case studies. Its main contention is that, during the period in which Italy was subject to single rule, political culture took on a specific form, being the product of the continued existence of two traditional political institutions: the senate in the city of Rome and the local city councils in the rest of Italy. Under single rule, the position of both institutions was increasingly weakened and they became part of a much wider institutional landscape, although the fact that they continued to function until the end of the sixth century AD must imply that they retained meaning for their members, even while society as a whole was undergoing radical changes. As their powers and prerogatives shrank considerably, their significance became social rather than political as they allowed elites to enact and negotiate their own position in society. However, the tension between the participatory nature of these institutions and the restriction of their power generated complex social dynamics: on the one hand, participants became locked in mutual expectations about each other's behaviour and were compelled to enact particular social roles, while on the other hand they retained a degree of agency. They were encapsulated in an honorific language and in a set of conventions that regulated their behaviour, but that at the same time offered them room for manoeuvre: this degree of autonomy provides a compelling basis on which to challenge the prevailing view among historians that deliberative and participatory politics effectively ended with the institution of the Roman monarchy under Augustus.
Römerzeit - Siedlung - Religionsgeschichte.
The Roman Empire was home to a fascinating variety of different cults and religions. Its enormous extent, the absence of a precisely definable state religion and constant exchanges with the religions and cults of conquered peoples and of neighbouring cultures resulted in a multifaceted diversity of religious convictions and practices. This volume provides a compelling view of central aspects of cult and religion in the Roman Empire, among them the distinction between public and private cult, the complex interrelations between different religious traditions, their mutually entangled developments and expansions, and the diversity of regional differences, rituals, religious texts and artefacts.
A Place at the Altar illuminates a previously underappreciated dimension of religion in ancient Rome: the role of priestesses in civic cult. Demonstrating that priestesses had a central place in public rituals and institutions, Meghan DiLuzio emphasizes the complex, gender-inclusive nature of Roman priesthood. In ancient Rome, priestly service was a cooperative endeavor, requiring men and women, husbands and wives, and elite Romans and slaves to work together to manage the community's relationship with its gods. Like their male colleagues, priestesses offered sacrifices on behalf of the Roman people, and prayed for the community’s well-being. As they carried out their ritual obligations, they were assisted by female cult personnel, many of them slave women. DiLuzio explores the central role of the Vestal Virgins and shows that they occupied just one type of priestly office open to women. Some priestesses, including the flaminica Dialis, the regina sacrorum, and the wives of the curial priests, served as part of priestly couples. Others, such as the priestesses of Ceres and Fortuna Muliebris, were largely autonomous. A Place at the Altar offers a fresh understanding of how the women of ancient Rome played a leading role in public cult.
This study offers a new interpretation of 1 Corinthians 5-11:1. Taking a social identity approach, Ho investigates the inner logic of Paul from the ears of the Corinthian correspondence. Ho argues that Paul consistently indoctrinates new values for the audience to uphold which are against the mainstream of social values in the surrounding society. It is shown that Paul does not engage in issues of internal schism per se, but rather in the question of the distinctive values insiders should uphold so as to be recognisable to outsiders. While church is neither a sectarian nor an accommodating community, it should maintain constant social contact with outsiders so as to bring the gospel of Christ to them. In addition, insiders should practice radical values that could challenge the existing shared social values prevalent in the urban city of Corinth. These new values are based mainly on Scripture, ancient Jewish literature and the new social identity of the church defined by Jesus Christ. This fresh interpretation renders the logical flow, unitary design and coherence of 1 Cor 5 -11.1 more apparent.
On its initial publication, The Roman Community at Table during the Principate broke new ground with its approach to the integral place of feasting in ancient Roman culture and the unique power of food to unite and to separate its recipients along class lines throughout the Empire. John F. Donahue’s comprehensive examination of areas such as festal terminology, the social roles of benefactors and beneficiaries, the kinds of foods offered at feasts, and the role of public venues in community banquets draws on over three hundred Latin honorary inscriptions to recreate the ancient Roman feast. Illustrations depicting these inscriptions, as well as the food supply trades and various festal venues, bring important evidence to the study of this vital and enduring social practice. A touchstone for scholars, the work remains fresh and relevant. This expanded edition of Donahue’s work includes significant new material on current trends in food studies, including the archaeology and bioarchaeology of ancient food and drink; an additional collection of inscriptions on public banquets from the Roman West; and an extensive bibliography of scholarship produced in the last ten years. It will be of interest not only to classicists and historians of the ancient world, but also to anthropologists and sociologists interested in food and social group dynamics.