CLANS OF ROMAN ITALY (original) (raw)

‘The Rome of Tarquinius Superbus: demography and economy’, in P. Lulof, C. Smith (eds), The Age of Tarquinius Superbus. Central Italy in the Late Sixth Century BC. New Series of the Royal Dutch Institute at Rome (Peeters: Leuven: 2017) 123-133 [Postprint version]

My chapter addresses the demographic and economic nature of Rome under Tarquinius in the light of recent archaeological work. The chapter begins by considering the historical implications of Rome's walls and the Capitoline Temple, as revealed by recent excavations, and how they help to situate the Urbs within its comparative Mediterranean background. The chapter then examines the potential use of these monuments in analysing the demography of the city, critically reviewing some earlier estimates. Recent advances in the demography of Classical Greece (particularly Hansen, The Shotgun Method 2006) have much to offer to the study of Archaic Rome, and help shed new light on the problem of the early census figures and their possible explanations. This in turn raises questions about the nature of new large cities in the Archaic Mediterranean, and what economies sustained them. Two major characteristics of Rome in the era of Tarquinius Superbus emerge: the importance of autocratic conceptions of the city-state, in terms of its scale, political organisation, and monumentality; and the integration of Rome with an emerging Mediterranean 'world-system'. * paterfamilias CAPITOLIUM cappellaccio tufo del Palatino fig. 1 Satricum peripteros sine postico peripteros sine postico

Between urbs and tribus. The expansion and organization of the ager Romanus in the Early Republic

AHB 36, 2022

The Roman conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean rested on the shoulders of its citizens. It is therefore surprising that Roman republican scholarship has paid little attention to the majority of the cives Romani living in the steadily expanding rural tribus, which reached their final number of 35 with the Quirina and Velina. Although the conditions and historical circumstances of new tribus varied greatly between 387 and 241, some remarkable general features can be discerned. In contrast to the coloniae Latinae, the tribus seem to have relied on a grass-roots organization for the levying of taxes and soldiers and lack large urban sites. This article argues that the central Roman authorities consciously avoided the creation of elaborate administrative structures in regard to the ager Romanus in the fourth and third century BC.

V. Antoniadis, 'Tabula Imperii Romani: Thesprotia. Mapping the Roman Presence and Activities', in I. Chouliaras and G. Pliakou (eds) Α΄ Διεθνές Αρχαιολογικό και Ιστορικό Συνέδριο για τη Θεσπρωτία (Proceedings), Ioannina 2019, 389-401.

Α΄ Διεθνές Αρχαιολογικό και Ιστορικό Συνέδριο για τη Θεσπρωτία (Πρακτικά), 2019

According to ancient authors, Romans destroyed seventy Epirote settlements in 167 BC. Soon after, rich Italians began to explore and colonise the region. Extensive use of written sources has led archaeologists to interpret various signs of destruction in Hellenistic Epirote sites as direct evidence of Roman aggression. On the other hand, farmsteads dating to the late second century BC have been associated, especially in Thesprotia, with the Roman colonization. In other words,invasion and colonisation models have been used in order to confirm historical evidence.This paper revisits the subject of the Roman establishment in Thesprotia with a synthesis of the available archaeological evidence. There is a survey of archaeological sites from the Thespotian coast and inland which date to the Early Roman period. Most of these sites attest a prior Thesprotian occupation: cities such Phanote and Gitana who supposedly raised to the ground by the Romans do demonstrate evidence of continuity. It is the distribution of the non-urban and rural sites, however, that seems more important. There, one can see that initially the development of the Early Roman economy in Thesprotia was based in the local farmsteads and villages. The locals could also have a role to play in the Roman activities. This synthesis aids to a better understanding of the relationships developed between the local population and the Romans from167 BC to the late first century BC.