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The Archaeology of Sanitation in Roman Italy: Toilets, Sewers, and Water Systems

Ann Koloski-Ostrow

The Romans developed sophisticated methods for managing hygiene, including aqueducts for moving water from one place to another, sewers for removing used water from baths and runoff from walkways and ... More

The Romans developed sophisticated methods for managing hygiene, including aqueducts for moving water from one place to another, sewers for removing used water from baths and runoff from walkways and roads, and public and private latrines. Through the archaeological record, graffiti, sanitation-related paintings, and literature, this book explores this little-known world of bathrooms and sewers, offering unique insights into Roman sanitation, engineering, urban planning and development, hygiene, and public health. Focusing on the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Ostia, and Rome, this work challenges common perceptions of Romans’ social customs, beliefs about health, tolerance for filth in their cities, and attitudes toward privacy. In charting the complex history of sanitary customs from the late republic to the early empire, the book reveals the origins of waste removal technologies and their implications for urban health, past and present.Less

The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture

Harriet I. Flower

Elite Romans periodically chose to limit or destroy the memory of a leading citizen who was deemed an unworthy member of the community. Sanctions against memory could lead to the removal or ... More

Elite Romans periodically chose to limit or destroy the memory of a leading citizen who was deemed an unworthy member of the community. Sanctions against memory could lead to the removal or mutilation of portraits and public inscriptions. The author of this book provides the first chronological overview of the development of this Roman practice—an instruction to forget—from archaic times into the second century a.d. She explores Roman memory sanctions against the background of Greek and Hellenistic cultural influence and in the context of the wider Mediterranean world. Combining literary texts, inscriptions, coins, and material evidence, this richly illustrated study contributes to a deeper understanding of Roman political culture.Less

The Column of Marcus Aurelius: The Genesis and Meaning of a Roman Imperial Monument

Martin Beckmann

One of the most important monuments of Imperial Rome and at the same time one of the most poorly understood, the Column of Marcus Aurelius has long stood in the shadow of the Column of Trajan. This ... More

One of the most important monuments of Imperial Rome and at the same time one of the most poorly understood, the Column of Marcus Aurelius has long stood in the shadow of the Column of Trajan. This book makes a thorough study of the form, content, and meaning of this infrequently studied monument. The author employs a new approach to the column, one that focuses on the process of its creation and construction, to uncover the cultural significance of the column to the Romans of the late second century ad. Using clues from ancient sources and from the monument itself, this book traces the creative process step by step from the first decision to build the monument through the processes of planning and construction to the final carving of the column's relief decoration. The conclusions challenge many of the widely held assumptions about the value of the column's 700-foot-long frieze as a historical source. By reconstructing the creative process of the column's sculpture, the author opens up numerous new paths of analysis not only to the Column of Marcus Aurelius but also to Roman imperial art and architecture in general.Less

Commanders and Command in the Roman Republic and Early Empire

Fred K. Drogula

This book studies the development of Roman provincial command using the terms and concepts of the Romans themselves as reference points. Beginning in the earliest years of the republic, the text ... More

This book studies the development of Roman provincial command using the terms and concepts of the Romans themselves as reference points. Beginning in the earliest years of the republic, the text argues, provincial command was not a uniform concept fixed in positive law but rather a dynamic set of ideas shaped by traditional practice. Therefore, as the Roman state grew, concepts of authority, control over territory, and military power underwent continual transformation. This adaptability was a tremendous resource for the Romans since it enabled them to respond to new military challenges in effective ways. But it was also a source of conflict over the roles and definitions of power. The rise of popular politics in the late republic enabled men like Pompey and Caesar to use their considerable influence to manipulate the flexible traditions of military command for their own advantage. Later, Augustus used nominal provincial commands to appease the senate even as he concentrated military and governing power under his own control by claiming supreme rule. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the early empire’s rules of command.Less

New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism

George A. Kennedy

This book provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, the book's approach ... More

This book provides readers of the Bible with an important tool for understanding the Scriptures. Based on the theory and practice of Greek rhetoric in the New Testament, the book's approach acknowledges that New Testament writers wrote to persuade an audience of the truth of their messages. These writers employed rhetorical conventions that were widely known and imitated in the society of the times. Sometimes confirming but often challenging common interpretations of texts, this is a systematic study of the rhetorical composition of the New Testament. As a complement to form criticism, historical criticism, and other methods of biblical analysis, rhetorical criticism focuses on the text as we have it, and seeks to discover the basis of its powerful appeal and the intent of its authors. The book shows that biblical writers employed both “external” modes of persuasion, such as scriptural authority, the evidence of miracles, and the testimony of witnesses, and “internal” methods, such as ethos (authority and character of the speaker), pathos (emotional appeal to the audience), and logos (deductive and inductive argument in the text). The first chapter presents a survey of how rhetoric was taught in the New Testament period and outlines a rigorous method of rhetorical criticism that involves a series of steps. The book provides in succeeding chapters examples of rhetorical analysis, including close looks at the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus's farewell to the disciples in John's Gospel, and the distinctive rhetoric of Jesus.Less

Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Volume 3: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East

Fergus Millar

Hannah M. Cotton and Guy MacLean Rogers (eds)

This volume completes the author's three-volume collection of essays, which, together with his books, transformed the study of the Roman Empire by shifting the focus of inquiry onto the broader ... More

This volume completes the author's three-volume collection of essays, which, together with his books, transformed the study of the Roman Empire by shifting the focus of inquiry onto the broader Mediterranean world and beyond. The eighteen essays presented here include his classic contributions to our understanding of the impact of Rome on the peoples, cultures, and religions of the eastern Mediterranean, and the extent to which Graeco-Roman culture acted as a vehicle for the self-expression of the indigenous cultures. In an epilogue written to conclude the collection, the author argues for rethinking the focus of “ancient history” itself and for considering the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean from the first millennium bc to the Islamic conquests a valid scholarly framework and an appropriate educational syllabus for the study of antiquity. English translations of extended ancient passages in Greek, Latin, and Semitic languages in all the essays make the author's most important articles accessible for the first time to specialists and nonspecialists alike.Less

Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos

James M. May

By its very nature, the art of oratory involves character. Verbal persuasion entails the presentation of a persona by the speaker that affects an audience for good or ill. This book explores the role ... More

By its very nature, the art of oratory involves character. Verbal persuasion entails the presentation of a persona by the speaker that affects an audience for good or ill. This book explores the role and extent of Cicero's use of ethos and demonstrates its persuasive effect. The book discusses the importance of ethos, not just in classical rhetorical theory but also in the social, political, and judicial milieu of ancient Rome, and then applies his insights to the oratory of Cicero. Ciceronian ethos was a complex blend of Roman tradition, Cicero's own personality, and selected features of Greek and Roman oratory. More than any other ancient literary genre, oratory dealt with constantly changing circumstances, with a wide variety of rhetorical challenges. An orator's success or failure, as well as the artistic quality of his orations, was largely the direct result of responses to these circumstances and challenges. Acutely aware of his audience and its cultural heritage and steeped in the rhetorical traditions of his predecessors, Cicero employed rhetorical ethos with uncanny success. The book analyzes individual speeches from four different periods of Cicero's career, tracing changes in the way Cicero depicted character, both his own and others', as a source of persuasion—changes intimately connected with the vicissitudes of Cicero's career and personal life. It shows that ethos played a major role in almost every Ciceronian speech, that Cicero's audiences were conditioned by common beliefs about character, and finally, that Cicero's rhetorical ethos became a major source for persuasion in his oratory.Less

The World of Ovid's Metamorphoses

Joseph B. Solodow

Synthesizing many detailed observations, this book studies the structure of Ovid's poem Metamorphoses, the role of the narrator, Ovid's treatment of myth, and the relationship between Ovid's and ... More

Synthesizing many detailed observations, this book studies the structure of Ovid's poem Metamorphoses, the role of the narrator, Ovid's treatment of myth, and the relationship between Ovid's and Virgil's presentations of Aeneas. It argues that for Ovid, metamorphosis is an act of clarification, a form of artistic creation, and that the metamorphosed creatures in his poem are comparable to works of art. These figures ultimately aid us in perceiving and understanding the world.Less