To what extent was urbanization a vital tool in the construction of a “Roman” identity? (original) (raw)

Roman Urbanism. Syllabus 2008-9

The study of the Roman city has traditionally focussed on urban topography and the study of major public buildings. This course seeks to understand how and why cities develop and change, their physical and economic fabric, their historical and cultural context, and their place in Roman self-definition.

”The Fall and Decline of the Roman Urban Mind”

""This chapter discusses the 5th-century west Roman imperial residences of Rome and its substitutes Arles and Ravenna, as understood within the framework of an imperialist ideology of urbanism, the “Roman urban mind”. During the late Roman Empire, the city of Rome was the central focus of the old Roman infrastructure. Ideally, the highest echelons of the imperial administration also ought to be located in Rome. There was an underlying idea that the purpose of the Roman Empire was to sustain the city of Rome – the capital of the world – and its ever-growing population. In this paper the authors argue that in spite of the fascination with Rome as the caput mundi, urban sustainability and resilience were problematic matters within the West Roman Empire. The imperial state apparatus proved incapable of resolving these issues in the face of barbarian attacks and internal strife. This spelled the end for the Roman urban mind.""

Urban Identities in Late Roman Italy

Civic Identity and Civic Participation in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, eds. E. Rose, C. Brélaz, Turnhout (Brepols) 2021, 167-194 , 2021

In the period from the fourth to the sixth centuries the most interesting process is twofold: while a global Italic identity or a ‘provincial identity’ did not develop even after the provincialization of Italy, civic and local identity, often evoked in opposition to a global one, also weakened slowly. From the second half of the third century onwards, the cities of Italy Annonaria adapted to the new fiscal and military needs consolidated by Diocletian and Constantine. The cities of Italia Suburbicaria remained in the orbit of powerful senatorial patrons and great landowners in southern Italy. Milan and Rome were the two centres of this bipolarity. During the fourth century, ‘clientelar urban identity’ was strong. This traditional relationship aroused deep emotions and inspired intense collective participation. The participation of citizens, their internal solidarity, and their affection for their homeland appear hard to detect in the fifth an sixth centuries. The survey on civic identity in Italy shows a ‘negative’ process of loss of identity: both at the top level of exhausted ecumenical imperialism and at the local level of belonging to ‘Romanitas’.

Romana urbs: levels of Roman and imperial identity in the city of Rome

This contribution investigates how the urban Roman identity of the popes and the papacy developed in relation to the Romanness of the Roman empire of the eighth century and the perception of a 'state' (res publica, but also imperium). It then shows examples of how the city of Rome itself was used and perceived in papal writings of the time and how all these concepts were consciously altered by the papacy in the course of the eighth century to enhance Rome's ecclesiastical and political prestige as well as its secular power.

Re-defining the Roman ‘suburbium’ from Republic to Empire: A Theoretical Approach

TRAC 2014. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference , 2015

Despite numerous publications, conferences, and excavations focused on the suburbs (or ‘suburbium’) of ancient Rome over the last several decades, current definitions of this space, its extent, and its functions remain frustratingly varied and even conflicting. This is partly due to the lack of specific demarcations for such spaces in the surviving ancient literature and epigraphy. In fact, the term suburbium only appears twice in known ancient sources (Champlin 1982: 110). However, these assorted and often unsatisfactory modern definitions are also largely the result of a tendency to ignore the numerous and diverse aspects of the suburban realm in order to achieve a simplified, manageable definition. The frequent treatment and study of the Roman ‘suburbium’ as an autonomous entity, disconnected from the Urbs, further compound the situation, as arbitrarily separating this space diminishes its role in a greater interconnected system largely dependent on the city that it surrounds (see Ravetz et al. 2013). Given the current frustrations, one must wonder, whether we are asking the right questions of this space. This article introduces a set of concepts and approaches that I argue will have validity for redefining and reassessing the Roman ‘suburbium’. In it, I will take a holistic approach to the Roman suburbs, embracing their complexity to combat their innate ambiguity. While the topic is indeed substantial, discussion of individual sites and detailed historical sequencing will necessarily be omitted since the focus instead will be on providing new models by which to reexamine and redefine this space (given the myriad issues of the archaeology). This is no easy task however, as even today’s metropolitan planners, (economic) geographers, and land-use analysts struggle to accurately demarcate and assess extra-urban areas around contemporary metropoleis (see www.plurel.net). Yet, by approaching the problem from a theoretical standpoint, and analyzing Rome Ekistically - as a dynamically expanding polis (see Doxiadis 1968: 193-199 and below), innovative ways of mapping and measuring may be assessed, offering a clearer understanding of this space, in turn allowing for its evolution, functions, and mobility to be better tracked from Republic to Empire.

Conference: Urban life and the built environment in the Roman world - Leiden, 7-9 December 2016

This conference builds upon recent and ongoing discourse in the study of Roman urbanism to explore the relation between architecture and society in the Roman world. While recent decades have seen spectacular developments in the theories and concepts that inform the study of Roman urbanism, not all spheres of urban life have profited equally, a lot of discourse has gravitated around a limited number of showcase sites (particularly Pompeii and Ostia), and there have been relatively few attempts to draw links with the world beyond Central Italy. This conference focuses on four spheres of activities—religion, politics, commerce, and movement—and brings together specialists focusing on several parts of the Roman world, with a particular focus on the more densely urbanized regions in the Mediterranean. Approaches will vary between micro-scale and more wide-ranging, and issues on the agenda particularly include the identification of regional trends, and the impact of urban development on local communities. Confirmed speakers include Touatia Amraoui, Marlis Arnhold, Eleanor Betts, Chris Dickenson, Elizabeth Fentress, Miko Flohr, Annette Haug, Patric-Alexander Kreuz, Simon Malmberg, Stephan Mols, Eric Moormann, Cristina Murer, Candace Rice, Amy Russell, Saskia Stevens, Christina Williamson, Andrew Wilson, and Sandra Zanella. A detailed program can be found below the break. PROGRAMME Wednesday 7 December Gravensteen (Pieterskerkhof 6), Room 1.11 I. Urban life between theory and practice Chair: Eric Moormann, Radboud University 14:15 – 14:45 Introduction: Urbanism, urban space, and urban life (Miko Flohr, Leiden University) 14:45 – 15:30 Multisensory approaches to Roman urban space (Eleanor Betts, Open University (UK)) 16:00 – 16:45 Emotion and the City: the example of Pompeii (Annette Haug, University of Kiel) 16:45 – 17:30 Rome – the Moving City: Approaches to the Study of Urban Space (Simon Malmberg, University of Bergen) Thursday 8 December Gravensteen (Pieterskerkhof 6), Room 0.11 II. Urbanism and the sacred Chair: Tesse Stek, Leiden University 10:00 – 10:45 Urbanizing the sacred landscape. Rural sanctuary complexes in Asia Minor (Christina Williamson, Groningen University) 11:15 – 12:00 Religion in the urbs: Defining the special case of Imperial Rome beyond the political centre (Marlis Arnhold, University of Bonn) 12:00 – 12:45 The Economy of the Sacred (Elizabeth Fentress, Rome). III. Landscapes and Citizens Chair: Luuk de Ligt, Leiden University 14:00 – 14:45 Topographical permeability and dynamics of public space in Roman Minturnae (Patric-Alexander Kreuz, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Amman) 14:45 – 15:30 Statues and public life in the cities of Roman Greece: Athens, Corinth and Messene (Chris Dickenson, University of Oxford) 16:00 – 16:45 Political space and the experience of citizenship in Republican Rome: monumentality, interpellation, and performance (Amy Russell, Durham University) 16:45 – 17:30 Female Citizens and Cityscaping in Africa Proconsularis (Cristina Murer, Free University, Berlin) Friday 9 December Gravensteen (Pieterskerkhof 6), Room 0.11 IV. Landscapes of Interaction Chair: Nathalie de Haan, Radboud University Nijmegen 09:30 – 10:15 The urban borderscape as an arena for social, political and cultural interaction (Saskia Stevens, University of Utrecht) 10:15 – 11:00 I risultati delle recenti indagini in una zona suburbana di Pompei. Per una rilettura del dato topografico (Sandra Zanella, Université Montpellier – Labex Archimede) 11:30 – 12:15 Roman roads as indicators of urban life: the case of the Via Appia near Rome (Stephan Mols & Eric Moormann, Radboud University Nijmegen) 12:15 – 13:00 The commercial landscape of Roman ports (Candace Rice, University of Edinburgh) Chair: Tyler Franconi, University of Oxford 14:00 – 14:45 Urban workshops in Roman Africa: location, ownership and management (Touatia Amraoui, Casa de Velázquez, Madrid) 14:45 – 15:30 Fora and commerce in Roman Italy (Miko Flohr, University of Leiden) V. Concluding Remarks & General Discussion Chair: Tyler Franconi, University of Oxford 16:00 – 16:20 Concluding Remarks (Andrew Wilson, University of Oxford) 16:20 – 17:00 General Discussion

Urbanism and Elites – Rome and the Cities of Italy (2nd Century BC – 1st Century AD): an Overview

Articol apărut în Revista CICSA, Serie Nouă, Anul I, 2015, ISSN 2457 – 3809 ISSN–L 2457 – 3809, pp. 52-72. This article brings up for discussion the urban manifestation in the Italian Peninsula, during the end of the Republic and beginning of the Principate, as well as the importance of the rural space in the definition and the evolution of urban planning. Local elites play a defining role as regards urban space because they are involved, to a lesser or higher extent (depending on the time and area), in the construction of public buildings. Also, urban development directly affects the elites causing changes in terms of their way of referring to the urban space. The degree of building development throughout the territory of Italy is not uniform. As a matter of fact, a different level and pace of public buildings constructions is observed between the regions in Italy. Furthermore, the article presents and briefly discusses the most important ideas and work assumptions which have marked the research at the end of the twentieth-century, with regard to urbanity in the Roman antiquity.