Cosmetics & Perfumes in the Roman World


Book Description

In a pioneering work the author draws on literary, non-literary, visual and archaeological evidence to show the importance of cosmetics and perfumes for health, ideas of beauty, social status, as a demonstration of wealth and luxury, and as an expression of gender.




Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture


Book Description

Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture investigates the social symbolism and cultural poetics of dress in the ancient Roman world in the period from 200 BCE-400 CE. Editors Jonathan Edmondson and Alison Keith and the contributors to this volume explore the diffusion of Roman dress protocols at Rome and in the Roman imperial context by looking at Rome's North African provinces in particular, a focus that previous studies have overlooked or dealt with only in passing. Another unique aspect of this collection is that it goes beyond the male elite to address a wider spectrum of Roman society. Chapters deal with such topics as masculine attire, strategies for self-expression for Roman women within a dress code prescribed by a patriarchal culture, and the complex dynamics of dress in imperial Roman culture, both literary and artistic. This volume further investigates the literary, legal, and iconographic evidence to provide anthropologically-informed readings of Roman clothing. This collection of original essays employs a range of methodological approaches - historical, literary critical, philological, art historical, sociological and anthropological - to offer a thorough discussion of one of the most central issues in Roman culture.




Artifacts from Ancient Rome


Book Description

When Roman objects and artifacts are properly analyzed, they serve as valuable primary sources for learning about ancient history. This book provides the guidance and relevant historical context students need to see relics as evidence of long-past events and society. Artifacts from Ancient Rome is a unique social history that explores major aspects of daily life in a long-ago era via images of physical objects and historical information about these items. This book also affords "hands-on training" on how to approach primary sources. The author—a historian also trained as an archaeologist—begins by explaining the concept of using artifacts to understand and "see" the past and providing a primer for effectively analyzing artifacts. Entries on the artifacts follow, with each containing an introduction, a description of the artifact, an explanation of its significance, and a list of further sources of information. Readers of the book will not only gain a composite impression of daily life in ancient Rome through the study of artifacts from domestic life, religion, war, transportation, entertainment, and more, but will also learn how to best understand and analyze primary sources for learning.




All Things Ancient Rome [2 volumes]


Book Description

Through roughly 160 alphabetically arranged reference entries, this book surveys the material culture and social institutions of Ancient Rome. Ancient Rome was one of the great civilizations of antiquity. Honoring the contributions of their cultural forebearers-who included Etruscans, Asians, and Egyptians as well as Greeks-Roman artists, writers, and thinkers freely borrowed where tradition dictated and innovated where personal talent and imagination directed, forging a unique creative experience that formed the basis of Western European artistic, literary, and philosophical production for 2,000 years. While other reference works typically examine battles and politicians, this book focuses on Roman social history and daily life, painting a detailed picture of the material culture and social institutions of Ancient Rome. A timeline highlights key events, while an overview essay surveys the achievements of the Romans. Reference entries provide objective information about art, architecture, literature, commerce, transportation, government, religion, and other topics related to Roman life. Each entry provides cross-references and suggestions for further reading, and some provide sidebars of interesting facts along with excerpts from primary source documents. The book closes with a selected, general bibliography of resources suitable for student research.




The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome


Book Description

The decadence and depravity of the ancient Romans are a commonplace of serious history, popular novels and spectacular films. This book is concerned not with the question of how immoral the ancient Romans were but why the literature they produced is so preoccupied with immorality. The modern image of immoral Rome derives from ancient accounts which are largely critical rather than celebratory. Upper-class Romans habitually accused one another of the most lurid sexual and sumptuary improprieties. Historians and moralists lamented the vices of their contemporaries and mourned for the virtues of a vanished age. Far from being empty commonplaces these assertions constituted a powerful discourse through which Romans negotiated conflicts and tensions in their social and political order. This study proceeds by a detailed examination of a wide range of ancient texts (all of which are translated) exploring the dynamics of their rhetoric, as well as the ends to which they were deployed. Roman moralising discourse, the author suggests, may be seen as especially concerned with the articulation of anxieties about gender, social status and political power. Individual chapters focus on adultery, effeminacy, the immorality of the Roman theatre, luxurious buildings and the dangers of pleasure. This book should appeal to students and scholars of classical literature and ancient history. It will also attract anthropologists and social and cultural historians.




The Old Roman World


Book Description




The World of Ancient Rome [2 volumes]


Book Description

This study of Ancient Rome offers a fascinating glimpse of what Roman society was like—from fashion, to food, to politics and recreation—gathered from literary works, art, and archaeological remains. While the political history and prominent figures of Ancient Rome are well known, accounts of daily life in that time and place often remain untold. This fascinating encyclopedia explores this period from a social and cultural perspective, digging into the day-to-day activities of how Romans dressed, what they ate, how they worked, and what they did for fun. Drawing from recent archaeological evidence, author James W. Ermatinger explores the everyday lives of Roman citizens of all levels and classes. This book is organized into ten sections: art, economics, family, fashion, food, housing, politics, recreation, religion, and science. Each section contains more than two dozen entries that illuminate such topics as slavery as a social movement; the menus of peasants, slaves, and the elite; and the science and engineering solutions that became harbingers for today's technology. The work contains a selection of primary documents as well as a bibliography of print and Internet resources.










A writer's guide to Ancient Rome


Book Description

‘A really fun idea for a book - and full of great stuff.’ Greg Jenner, Public Historian This is the perfect guide for any writer who wants to recreate the Roman world accurately in their fiction. It will aid any novelist, screenwriter, games designer or re-enactor in populating their story with authentic characters and scenes, costumes and locations. Written from a historian’s perspective, this guide pulls back the curtain to show the reader what life in Ancient Rome was really like: what they wore, what they ate, and how they spent their time at work, at home, at war, and at play. Individual chapters focus on different aspects of Romans’ lives, to give you specific knowledge of what they looked like and how they behaved, as well as a broad appreciation of what held their civilisation together, from religion, to the economy, to law and order. You may wish to work your way through the book from cover to cover, or focus specifically on individual chapters as you hone your creative writing skills. Covering the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE, A writer’s guide to Ancient Rome surveys the vast amount of sources and scholarship on the Classical world so you don’t have to! It outlines current scholarly debates and changing interpretations, suggests further reading, and recommends particular resources to mine for each topic. It gives you plenty to consider while you construct your own Roman world.