Future Thinking in Roman Culture is the first volume dedicated to the exploration of prospective memory and future thinking in the Roman world, integrating cutting edge research in cognitive sciences and theory with approaches to historiography, epigraphy, and material culture. This volume opens a new avenue of investigation for Roman memory studies in presenting multiple case studies of memory and commemoration as future-thinking phenomena. It breaks new ground by bringing classical studies into direct dialogue with recent research on cognitive processes of future thinking. The thematically linked but methodologically diverse contributions, all by leading scholars who have published significant work in memory studies of antiquity, both cultural and cognitive, make the volume well suited for classical studies scholars and students seeking to explore cognitive science and philosophy of mind in ancient contexts, with special appeal to those sharing the growing interest in investigating Roman conceptions of futurity and time. The chapters all deliberately coalesce around the central theme of prospection and future thinking and their impact on our understanding of Roman ritual and religion, politics, and individual motivation and intention. This volume will be an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students of classics, art history, archaeology, history, and religious studies, as well as scholars and students of memory studies, historical and cultural cognitive studies, psychology, and philosophy.

This is the first book-length exploration of the ways art from the edges of the Roman Empire represented the future, examining visual representations of time and the role of artwork in Roman imperial systems. This book focuses on four kingdoms from across the empire: Cottius’s Alpine kingdom in the north, King Juba II’s Mauretania in the south-west, Herodian Judea in the east, and Kommagene to the north-east. Art from the imperial frontier is rarely considered through the lens of the aesthetics of time, and Roman provincial art and the monuments of allied rulers are typically interpreted as evidence of the interaction between Roman and local identities. In this interdisciplinary study, which explores statues, wall paintings, coins, monuments, and inscriptions, readers learn that these artworks served as something more: they were created to represent the futures that allied rulers and their people foresaw. The pressure of Roman imperialism drove patrons and artists on the empire’s borders to imbue their creations with increasingly sophisticated ideas about the future, as they wrestled with consequential decisions made under periods of intense political pressure. Comprehensively illustrated and providing an important new approach to Roman material culture at the edge of empire, Visions of the Future in Roman Frontier Kingdoms 100 BCE–100 CE is suitable for students and scholars working on Rome and its frontiers, as well as Roman material culture more broadly, and those studying the aesthetics of time in art and art history.

In this book, Maggie Popkin offers an in-depth investigation of souvenirs, a type of ancient Roman object that has been understudied and that is unfamiliar to many people. Souvenirs commemorated places, people, and spectacles in the Roman Empire. Straddling the spheres of religion, spectacle, leisure, and politics, they serve as a unique resource for exploring the experiences, interests, imaginations, and aspirations of a broad range of people - beyond elite, metropolitan men - who lived in the Roman world. Popkin shows how souvenirs generated and shaped memory and knowledge, as well as constructed imagined cultural affinities across the empire's heterogeneous population. At the same time, souvenirs strengthened local identities, but excluded certain groups from the social participation that souvenirs made available to so many others. Featuring a full illustration program of 137 color and black and white images, Popkin's book demonstrates the critical role that souvenirs played in shaping how Romans perceived and conceptualized their world, and their relationships to the empire that shaped it.

This study considers the relationship between geography and power in the Roman world, most particularly the visualisation of geographical knowledge in myriad forms of geography products: geographical treatises, histories, poems, personifications, landscape representations, images of barbarian peoples, maps, itineraries, and imported foodstuffs.

An investigation into dream reports in the history and literature of early Roman culture.

Explores how the senses shaped the way the Romans perceived, understood, and remembered ritual experiences.

This volume presents an innovative picture of the ancient Mediterranean world. Approaching poverty as a multifaceted condition, it examines how different groups were affected by the lack of access to symbolic, cultural and social – as well as economic – capital. Collecting a wide range of studies by an international team of experts, it presents a diverse and complex analysis of life in antiquity, from the archaic to the late antique period. The sections on Greece, Rome, and Late Antiquity offer in-depth studies of ancient life, integrating analysis of socio-economic dynamics and cultural and discursive strategies that shaped this crucial element of ancient (and modern) societies. Themes like social cohesion and control, exclusion, gender, agency, and identity are explored through the combination of archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence, presenting a rich panorama of Greco-Roman societies and a stimulating collection of new approaches and methodologies for their understanding. The book offers a comprehensive view of the ancient world, analysing different social groups – from wealthy elites to poor peasants and the destitute – and their interactions, in contexts as diverse as Classical Athens and Sparta, imperial Rome, and the late antique towns of Egypt and North Africa. Poverty in Ancient Greece and Rome: Discourses and Realities is a valuable resource for students and scholars of ancient history, classical literature, and archaeology. In addition, topics covered in the book are of interest to social scientists, scholars of religion, and historians working on poverty and social history in other periods.

This volume introduces new perspectives on taxation policies in the Roman Empire, the Galilee, and Egypt, with unique insights into the economic effects of imperial pacification on local and regional microlevel economies in the Galilee both before and after the First Jewish Revolt against Rome. Through examining tax documents and other ancient texts in detail, this book offers innovative perspectives on the mechanisms, ideological justifications, and politically hierarchizing functions of taxation and tribute, particularly in the Roman Empire. Moreover, leading archaeologists present important information about the economic effects of the First Jewish Revolt on local economies in the Galilee, based on findings from recent archaeological excavations. Taxation, Economy, and Revolt in Ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt is of interest to students and scholars in Classical, Biblical, and Jewish Studies, as well as economic history and Mediterranean archaeology.

The Province of Achaea in the 2nd Century CE explores the conception and utilization of the Greek past in the Roman province of Achaea in the 2nd century CE, and the reception of the artistic, cultural, and intellectual outputs of this century in later periods. Achaea, often defined by international scholars as "old Greece", was the only Roman province located entirely within the confines of the Modern Greek state. In many ways, Achaea in the 2nd century CE witnessed a second Golden Age, one based on collective historical nostalgia under Roman imperial protection and innovation. The papers in this volume are holistic in scope, with special emphasis on Roman imperial relations with the people of Achaea and their conceptualizations of their past. Material culture, monumental and domestic spaces, and artistic representations are discussed, as well as the literary output of individuals like Plutarch, Herodes Atticus, Aelius Aristides, and others. The debate over Roman influence in various Hellenic cities and the significance of collective historical nostalgia also feature in this volume, as does the utilization of Achaea’s past in the Roman present within the wider empire. As this century has produced the highest percentage of archaeological and literary material from the Roman period in the province under consideration, the time is ripe to position it more firmly in the academic discourse of studies of the Roman Empire. The Province of Achaea in the 2nd Century CE will appeal to scholars, students, and other individuals who are interested in the history, archaeology, art, and literature of the Graeco-Roman world and its reception.

New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Foreign Affairs, and Kirkus Reviews Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) Shortlisted for the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Gift Guide Selection A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection A sweeping, "magisterial" history of the Roman Empire from one of our foremost classicists shows why Rome remains "relevant to people many centuries later" (Atlantic). In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come.