A mosquito-infested and swampy plain lying north of the city walls, Rome's Campus Martius, or Field of Mars, was used for much of the period of the Republic as a military training ground and as a site for celebratory rituals and occasional political assemblies. Initially punctuated with temples vowed by victorious generals, during the imperial era it became filled with extraordinary baths, theaters, porticoes, aqueducts, and other structures - many of which were architectural firsts for the capitol. This book explores the myriad factors that contributed to the transformation of the Campus Martius from an occasionally visited space to a crowded center of daily activity. It presents a case study of the repurposing of urban landscape in the Roman world and explores how existing topographical features that fit well with the Republic's needs ultimately attracted architecture that forever transformed those features but still resonated with the area's original military and ceremonial traditions.

A comparative study of urban form and the reuse of buildings in modern Detroit and Rome (Italy). This exhibition catalog includes 3 U scholarly essays and 25 catalog entries describing the Usage history of buildings in Detroit & Rome.

Shortly after the death in 161 of Antoninus Pius, his sons dedicated a column to him as a funerary monument. The form of the column in general and the reliefs on the pedestal in particular raise problems central to the understanding of Roman art. In this first thorough study, illustrated with nearly 100 photographs, Lise Vogel restores the column to its rightful place as one of the major monuments of Roman art. In addition, she re-evaluates the meaning of the column of Antoninus Pius in the context of the development of second century Roman imperial sculpture.

This volume looks at various ways in which royal images functioned within different ideological frameworks in the ancient Near East, Greece and Rome. It argues that visibility lies at the heart of power, especially under monarchic rule. The contributions highlight how, throughout the ancient Mediterranean, patterns can be detected in the use of royal images. There seem to have been continuous (re)negotiations between innovation and tradition, East and West, and between aerealAe and aeimaginaryAe kings. Contents Richard Fowler / Olivier Hekster: Imagining kings: From Persia to Rome Lindsay Allen: Le roi imaginaire: An audience with the Achaemenid king Peter Thonemann: The tragic king: Demetrios Poliorketes and the city of Athens Margherita Facella: Roman perception of Commagenian royalty Matthew Gisborne: A curia of kings: Sulla and royal imagery Richard Fowler: aeMost fortunate rootsAe: Tradition and legitimacy in Parthian royal ideology Olivier Hekster: Captured in the gaze of power: Visibility, games and Roman imperial representation Ted Kaizer: Kingly priests in the Roman Near East? Bibliography Index

"Tafuri's work is probably the most innovative and exciting new form of European theory since French poststructuralism and this book is probably the best introduction to it for the newcomer. ..."

Defined by borders both physical and conceptual, the Roman city stood apart as a concentration of life and activity that was legally, economically, and ritually divided from its rural surroundings. Death was a key area of control, and tombs were relegated outside city walls from the Republican period through Late Antiquity. Given this separation, an unexpected phenomenon marked the Augustan and early Imperial periods: Roman cities developed suburbs, built-up areas beyond their boundaries, where the living and the dead came together in densely urban environments. Life and Death in the Roman Suburb examines these districts, drawing on the archaeological remains of cities across Italy to understand the character of Roman suburbs and to illuminate the factors that led to their rise and decline, focusing especially on the tombs of the dead. Whereas work on Roman cities has tended to pass over funerary material, and research on death has concentrated on issues seen as separate from urbanism, Emmerson introduces a new paradigm, considering tombs within their suburban surroundings of shops, houses, workshops, garbage dumps, extramural sanctuaries, and major entertainment buildings, in order to trace the many roles they played within living cities. Her investigations show how tombs were not passive memorials, but active spaces that facilitated and furthered the social and economic life of the city, where relationships between the living and the dead were an enduring aspect of urban life.

In these articles Professor Bachrach starts by looking at aspects of the ’barbarian’ occupation of the land of the Roman Empire, from Britain to the Alan settlements in southern Gaul. His particular interest, however, is in the political and, above all, in the military structures that grew out of the Early Middle Ages. He has sought to demonstrate that there was a fundamental continuity in military organisation and tactics from the Merovingian through the Carolingian period. As he shows, there is no reason to connect the origins of ’feudalism’ with Charles Martel’s wish to create a force of cavalry, and it is a fallacy that he grasped the potential of the stirrup for enabling mounted shock combat. On the contrary, its use in the West progressed only slowly, and it had nothing to do with the origins or growth of feudalism. Le professeur Bachrach débute par l’analyse de certains aspects de l’occupation barbare des terres de l’empire romain, de la Grande-Bretagne aux campements alans en Gaule méridionale. Il s’attache en suite aux structures politiques et, surtout, militaires qui furent issues du Haut Moyen Age. Selon lui, et il tente d’en faire ici la démonstration, l’organisation et les tactiques militaires ont fait preuve d’une continuité fondamentale de l’époque mérovingienne à celle des Carolingiens. Comme il le demontre, il n’y a pas lieu d’établir de liens entre l’origine du féodalisme et le désir qu’avait Charles Martel de créer une cavalerie; il est également tout à fait erroné de dire que ce dernier s’était rendu compte du potentiel de l’étrier en tant que facteur de mener des combats à cheval de choc. Bien contraire, l’utilisation de l’étrier à l’Ouest ne fit que progresser lentement et aucun rapport n’existe entre cet instrument et l’origine ou la croissance de la féodalité.

This is the first monograph to examine in detail the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games) of Septimius Severus and argues that the games represented a radical shift from Antonine imperial ideology. To garner popular support and to legitimise his power, Severus conducted an intensive propaganda campaign, but how did he use the ludi to strengthen his power, and what were the messages he conveyed through them? The central theme is ritual, and the idea of ritual as a process that builds collective identity. The games symbolised the new Severan political and social vision and they embodied the idea of Roman identity and the image of Roman society which the emperor wished to promote. The programme of the games was recorded in a stone inscription and this text is analysed in detail, translated into English and contextualised in the socio-political aims of Septimius Severus.