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Article

Ariminum  

Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Ariminum (mod. Rimini), on the Adriatic, was an *Umbrian and Gallic settlement, which became a Latin colony (see ius latii) in 268 bce (Vell. Pat. 1. 14). An important harbour and road-centre, Ariminum was the key to *Gaul (Cisalpine), controlling the bottle-neck between Apennines and Adriatic (Polyb. 3. 61, etc. ; Livy 24. 44, etc. ; Strabo 5. 217). It remained loyal to Rome against *Hannibal (Livy 27. 10) and obtained Roman *citizenshipc.89 bce (Plin. HN 3. 115). Surviving sack by *Sulla, occupation by *Caesar, confiscation and colonization by the *triumvirs, attacks by Flavians (ce 69) and Goths (538), it became one of five towns composing the pentapolis maritima under the Ravenna exarchs (App. BCiv. 1. 67, 4. 3; Plut. Caes.32; Tac. Hist. 3. 41; Procop. 2. 10). Surviving monuments include the arch of Augustus, marking the end of the *via Flaminia, and a Tiberian bridge.

Article

arms and armour, Roman  

Jonathan Coulston

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Artistic representations, military treatises, other literary and subliterary references, and archaeological artefacts are the main sources of information. Pre-imperial artefacts are sparse and come mainly from siege sites. Imperial finds are most plentiful, associated mainly with ordered dismantlement-deposits in frontier installations. Late Roman equipment is again sparse, final site-abandonments being less ordered. Roman military equipment represented a constantly evolving and adapting mélange of cultural traits.In the regal and early republican periods the Roman infantry was equipped on the Greek *hoplite model, with Italic modifications. A long thrusting-spear (hasta) combined with javelins was the chief offensive weapon, and the defensive armour varied with individual wealth, the richest men having cuirasses (loricae), round shields, greaves, and helmets of Greek or Italic form.By the mid-2nd cent. bce, however, the heavy javelin (pilum) replaced the hasta in the first two legionary lines (hastati and principes; see legion).

Article

Arpinum  

Edward Togo Salmon and D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Arpinum, in Italy, a Volscian hill-town (see volsci) in the *Liris valley, modern Arpino, with interesting polygonal walls. Rome captured Arpinum from its Samnite conquerors and gave it civitas sine suffragio (see citizenship, roman), 305–303 bce (Diod. Sic. 20. 90; Livy 9. 44, 10. 1). After 188 it enjoyed full citizenship, being administered as a *praefectura and, after 90, as a *municipium (Livy 38.

Article

Arretium  

John Bryan Ward-Perkins and D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Arretium (mod. Arezzo), north-easternmost of the cities of Etruria (see etruscans) and one of the latest founded. It is not certain when it passed under Roman rule, but in the 3rd cent. bce it was an important base for Roman operations in north Italy, and it acquired additional importance in the mid-2nd cent. from the construction of the *via Cassia, of which it was the first terminal. It became a *municipium in the 2nd cent. bce and a colony under Sulla, and again under Caesar. From it comes a fine series of archaic and later bronzes, notably the Chimaera (cf. also Livy 28. 45, where Arretium supplies large quantities of bronze weapons for *Scipio Africanus' African expedition); and for nearly a century after c.30 bce its red-gloss table wares, both plain and relief-moulded, dominated the markets of the Roman world (see pottery, roman).

Article

art, funerary, Roman  

Glenys Davies

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Early republican tombs at Rome have none of the decorative features of contemporary Etruscan funerary art (see etruscans), but by the mid to late republic some aristocratic tombs show a desire for elaboration (e.g. the sarcophagus of L. *Cornelius Scipio Barbatus and the façade of the tomb of the Scipio family, painted and decorated with statues in niches). From the last years of the republic onwards funerary art ceased to be the prerogative of the rich: even *freedmen and slaves decorated their tombs and bought funerary monuments. Several media were used to decorate the tomb outside and inside, and to provide memorials for the dead. The exterior might have decorations in relief (stone or terracotta) alluding to the deceased's offices or profession (e.g. fasces and curule chair for a magistrate, or a scene of everyday business such as the baking depicted on the tomb of the baker M. Vergilius Eurysaces). Portraits of the deceased, represented in the round or in relief, were also popular, especially with freedmen in the late republic and early empire. Inside the tomb there were sculptured free-standing monuments, including the containers for the remains of the deceased—ash-chests in the early empire and, increasingly from c.

Article

artisans and craftsmen  

Cameron Hawkins

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
06 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Greek Material Culture
  3. Roman Material Culture

The social worlds of artisans and craftsmen were structured around skill on both conceptual and practical levels. On a conceptual level, artisans employed skill (τέχνη / ars) as a crucial component of the identities they constructed for themselves—identities that differed distinctly from perceptions of artisans among the elite, who dismissed most craftsmen as “base” manual labourers. On a practical level, the importance of apprenticeship as a tool for the acquisition of skill had a profound impact on the social profile of artisans and craftsmen: while it ensured that skill could be acquired by both free and enslaved artisans, it limited opportunities for women and for children born into households of low economic status. From an economic perspective, the small workshop remained the backbone of artisanal production. The ubiquity of small workshops in the economy can be explained best as the product of artisans’ efforts to respond to the risks created by product markets in which demand was inherently seasonal and uncertain. With some exceptions, artisans sought to mitigate their exposure to risk by minimizing fixed costs, while nevertheless preserving the ability to expand their output in periods of elevated demand. This was true even in industries that fostered specialization in discrete and technically demanding stages of a vertical production process: in these industries, artisans typically coordinated their production not within integrated firms, but rather within subcontracting networks.

Article

Arverni  

John Frederick Drinkwater

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman History and Historiography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Arverni, an advanced iron age people, occupying modern Auvergne, who contested the primacy of Gaul with the *Aedui (Caes. BGall. 1. 31. 3). In 207 bce they treated with *Hasdrubal (2) (Livy 27. 39. 6), and in the next century, under Luernius and his son Bituitus, they commanded an extensive empire (Strabo 4. 2. 3). Bituitus was, however, defeated by Cn. *Domitius Ahenobarbus (2) and Q. *Fabius Maximus (Allobrogicus) (121), and the Arvernian empire was reduced to suzerainty over some neighbouring tribes. In 52*Vercingetorix, son of a former Arvernian king, led the Gallic revolt against *Caesar, and defeated an attempt upon the hill-fort capital, *Gergovia. After the fall of Vercingetorix, the Arverni lost their powers of suzerainty, but obtained the position of civitas libera (see free cities), and became prosperous and Romanized. Under Augustus their capital was moved to Augustonemetum (Clermont-Ferrand). Their territory accommodated a major centre of pottery production at Lezoux, and their principal temple, on the Puy-de-Dôme, was famous for a statue costing forty million sesterces (Plin. HN 34.

Article

Aspendus  

Stephen Mitchell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Aspendus, a city in *Pamphylia whose inhabitants claimed kinship with the Argives (see hellenism; argos (1)). Linguistic evidence shows that most of the inhabitants were of Anatolian origin (see anatolian languages). The city issued coins in the 5th cent. bce which preserve its Anatolian name Estvediys, to be identified with the Asitawandas named on inscriptions of the second millennium bce from Karatepe. Although assessed as a member of the *Delian League, it preferred Persian rule, even resisting *Alexander (3) the Great. It was alternately under Ptolemaic and Seleucid rule until 189 bce, and later came under Roman control. Situated 13 km. (8 mi.) from the present mouth of the *Eurymedon, which was navigable as far as the city, it had an important harbour from which grain was exported. The remains include *market buildings and a council-house of the Hellenistic period, as well as many important Roman public buildings, above all the magnificently preserved *theatre and long stretches of *aqueduct.

Article

Atella  

H. Kathryn Lomas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Atella, *Campanian city, in the Clanis valley. The site was inhabited from the 7th cent. bce and urbanized in the 4th. Atella was a Roman ally (see socii) by 338 but defected in 211. It was flourishing in the empire, but abandoned in the 11th cent. There are remains of walls, street plan, republican and imperial baths and houses, and a Hellenistic/Roman cemetery.

Article

Athenaeum  

Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture

*Hadrian's famous institution for the study of Greek *rhetoric and letters in the centre of Rome. In the 4th cent. ce it was the setting for public *declamation in Latin as well. Its location is uncertain.

Article

Athenaeus (2) Mechanicus  

David Whitehead

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Science, Technology, and Medicine
  3. Roman Material Culture
Athenaeus (2) Mechanicus is the named author of a surviving treatise On Machines; military ones, for use in siege-warfare. The work is addressed to a ‘Marcellus,’ and nowadays orthodoxy identifies him with M. Claudius Marcellus, the short-lived (42–23 bce) nephew & son-in-law of Augustus. That in turn makes it plausible that the writer himself is Athenaeus of Seleucia-on-the-Calycadnus, a Cilician Greek intellectual known to have been in Rome in the 20s, and a contemporary, in that milieu, of Vitruvius. There is indeed material common to A.’s treatise and to sections of Book 10 of Vitruvius' On Architecture—material that, it seems, they took from their teacher Agesistratus of (?)Rhodes.Short and not always coherent though it is, the On Machines has a two-fold importance. One is in the material mentioned already: Athenaeus and Vitruvius in tandem (together with a middle-Byzantine version of the same material) provide a succinct but useful summary history of military machinery from its beginnings to the early Hellenistic period, highlighting especially the mechanici who served Alexander the Great.

Article

athletics, Roman  

Stephen Instone

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

At Rome colourful *circus spectacles (especially chariot-racing) and *ball games were the most popular sporting activities. But Augustus promoted traditional athletics, staging athletics competitions in the Campus Martius and exhibition-running in the Circus (Suet. Aug. 43. 1–2); he himself was keen on watching boxing (45. 2). Ultra-distance running was also practised: ‘Some men can do 160 [Roman] miles in the Circus’ (Plin. HN 7. 84). Interest in athletics was maintained by the establishing of Greek-style games at Rome and elsewhere. In (?)4 bce*Tiberius won the chariot-race at the Olympian Games; from then on, Romans (mostly either eastern provincials with Roman citizenship, or those with sufficient authority to bend the rules, as Nero did in ce 67) won at Olympia with increasing regularity. See agones.

Article

Atina  

H. Kathryn Lomas

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Atina (mod. Atene Lucana), in Italy, *Lucanian city in the Valle di Diano. *Oscan and Greek inscriptions indicate a Hellenized (see hellenism) Oscan settlement from the 5th cent. bce, but it was not prominent before the Roman period. It may have had either praefectural or municipal status (see municipium; praefectura).

Article

Atria  

D. W. R. Ridgway

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture
Atria (mod. Adria), a coastal city in the north of the Po delta (see padus), now nearly 20 km. (12½ mi.) from the sea. From the late 6th cent. bce onwards it was an important entrepôt for Greek and *Etruscan trade with the Po valley and Europe. Epigraphy suggests that the city was an originally Aeginetan foundation that came under Etruscan control in the 5th cent. (cf. Livy 5. 33. 8). Varro (De Ling 5.

Article

Atrium Vestae  

Janet DeLaine

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Atrium Vestae, the whole ancient precinct next to the *Regia, east of the *forum Romanum, including the temple and sacred grove of *Vesta and the house of the Vestal virgins, although the term is now commonly used for the latter alone. Remains of its republican predecessor underlie the existing structure, built on a different orientation during *Nero's reorganization of the *via Sacra.

Article

Augusta Praetoria  

Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Augusta Praetoria (mod. Aosta), a colony founded with 3,000 *praetorians in Cisalpine Gaul (see gaul (cisalpine)) by Augustus (24 bce); it was here that A. *Terentius Varro Murena had encamped the previous year when subjugating the *Salassi (Strabo 4. 206; Cass. Dio 53. 25). Standing at the Italian end of the Great and Little St Bernard passes (see alps), Augusta became and still is the capital of this whole region.

Article

Augusta Raurica  

John Frederick Drinkwater

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture

Augusta Raurica (modern Augst, near Basle), a colony founded by L. *Munatius Plancus in 44 bce in the territory of the Raurici. Strengthened by Augustus, with *Augusta Praetoria and *Augusta Vindelicorum it helped protect the upper Rhine and Danube valleys, and the Alpine route from Italy. It flourished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, as is demonstrated by the impressive remains: forum, temples, theatre, amphitheatre, basilica, baths, curia, dwellings. In the 3rd century it proved vulnerable to *Alamannic attack. The city wall, begun then, remained uncompleted, and in the 4th century the settlement was moved a little north, to the fortified site of Castrum Rauracense (Kaiseraugst).

Article

Augusta Taurinorum  

Edward Togo Salmon and T. W. Potter

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Roman Material Culture
Augusta Taurinorum (mod. Torino, Turin), an important Augustan colony (c.25 bce) in Cisalpine Gaul (see gaul, (cisalpine)), at the confluence of the Dora and Po (*Padus) rivers (which here became navigable: Pliny, HN 3. 123). Originally the capital of the Taurini, who were probably Celticized *Ligurians, it is apparently identical with the Taurasia captured by Hannibal, 218 bce (App.

Article

Augusta Traiana  

John Wilkes

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Augusta Traiana or Beroe (mod. Stara Zagora, Bulgaria) was a Roman city of *Thrace founded by Trajan to replace the Thracian-Hellenistic Beroe in the north of the Thracian plain, controlling a huge territory extending from the Haemus range (Stara planina) in the north to the Rhodope mountains in the south. The 2nd-cent. walls enclose an area of 48.5 ha. (120 acres), within which several streets and public buildings have been excavated. In the late empire the city was again known as Beroe and is described by Ammianus (27. 4. 12) as one of the ‘spacious cities’ (amplae civitates) of Thrace. After being sacked by the *Huns, by the 6th cent. (according to Procop. Aed. 4. 11. 19) it was in need of repair and was fortified with a massive new double wall. It was again sacked, by the *Slavs or Avars, around 600.

Article

Augusta Treverorum  

John Frederick Drinkwater

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Geography
  2. Roman Material Culture

Augusta Treverorum (mod. Trier), *civitas-capital of the *Treveri, developed from a settlement around a fort established under Augustus to guard a crossing of the Moselle. In the early empire Trier became the seat of the imperial procurator of Belgica and the Germanies (see belgae; germania), and eventually also that of the governor of Belgica. It soon (probably under Claudius) gained colonial status. Later, the advantages of its position brought it even more success. *Postumus chose it as his capital; the *tetrarchs based the Gallic prefecture there; and throughout the 4th cent. ce it accommodated various emperors and usurpers. Its bishop enjoyed great influence with the resident rulers. From 395, however, emperors ceased to visit the German frontier and the Gallic prefect was transferred to Arles (*Arelate). Early in the 5th cent. Trier was frequently sacked by the *Franks, and went into decline.