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.
Author(s): Allison Emmerson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xviii+282
Cover
Life and Death in the Roman Suburb
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Abbreviations
1: City and Suburb in Roman Italy
1.1 On Definitions and Methodologies
1.2 Death, Pollution, and Roman Urban Boundaries
1.3 The Shape of This Book
2: Three Suburbs
2.1 The Porta Ercolano Suburb at Pompeii
2.2 The Porta Marina Suburb at Ostia
2.3 The Via del Tritone Suburb at Rome
2.4 Other Suburbs: Bononia, Falerii Novi, and Elsewhere
2.5 Beyond Demography: Prosperity, Peace, and the Ideal City
2.6 The Decline of Suburbs and a New Ideal
2.7 Conclusion: Suburbs as Neighborhoods
3: Death in the Suburb
3.1 Before Suburbs: Life and Death in Early Rome
3.2 Monumentalization and (Sub) Urbanization:Rome and Beyond
3.3 Suburban Growth and the Destruction of Tombs
3.4 Conclusion: Tombs, Change, and the Suburban Landscape
4: Waste Management from Center to Suburb
4.1 The “Puticuli” of the Republican Esquiline
4.2 Reuse, Recycling, and the Economy of Garbage: Waste Management at Pompeii
4.3 Conclusion: Trashing the City from Rome to Pompeii
5: Shops, Workshops, and Suburban Commercial Life
5.1 Shops and Workshops in the Suburbs of Patavium
5.2 Intersections of Tombs and Commerce at Rome
5.3 Commercializing Suburban Prestige at Pompeii
5.4 Decommercializing Suburban Prestige at Puteoli and Rome
5.5 Conclusion: Suburban Commerce, Urban Life
6: Italy’s Suburban Amphitheaters
6.1 Games and Community Life at Verona
6.2 Amphitheaters and Regional Competition at Capua and Pompeii
6.3 Herdonia’s Amphitheater and the Destruction of Fortifications
6.4 Ocriculum and the Augustan Campus Martius
6.5 Conclusion: The Benefits of a Suburban Amphitheater
7: Gods Outside the Walls
7.1 Religion and Suburban Development at Minturnae
7.2 Connection and Competition in the Suburban Sanctuary of Hispellum
7.3 The Transtiberim Suburb Before and After the Aurelian Wall
7.4 Conclusion: Continuity and Change in the Christian Suburbs of Rome
Epilogue: Life and Death, City and Suburb: The Transformations of Late Antiquity
References
Index
