Print Price: $38.50

Format:
Paperback
336 pp.
36 illustrations, 6.125" x 9.25"

ISBN-13:
9780197608265

Publication date:
July 2021

Imprint: OUP US

Building Mid-Republican Rome

Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy

Seth Bernard

Building Mid-Republican Rome offers a holistic treatment of the development of the Mid-Republican city from 396 to 168 BCE. As Romans established imperial control over Italy and beyond, the city itself radically transformed from an ambitious central Italian settlement into the capital of the Mediterranean world. Seth Bernard describes this transformation in terms of both new urban architecture, much of it unprecedented in form and extent, and new socioeconomic structures, including slavery, coinage, and market-exchange. These physical and historical developments were closely linked: building the Republican city was expensive, and meeting such costs had significant implications for urban society. Building Mid-Republican Rome brings both architectural and socioeconomic developments into a single account of urban change. Bernard, a specialist in the period's history and archaeology, assembles a wide array of evidence, from literary sources to coins, epigraphy, and especially archaeological remains, revealing the period's importance for the decline of the Roman state's reliance on obligation and dependency and the rise of slavery and an urban labor market. This narrative is told through an investigation of the evolving institutional frameworks shaping the organization of public construction. A quantitative model of the costs of the Republican city walls reconstructs their economic impact. A new account of building technology in the period allows for a better understanding of the social and demographic profile of the city's builders. Building Mid-Republican Rome thus provides an innovative synthesis of a major Western city's spatial and historical aspects, shedding much-needed light on a seminal period in Rome's development.

Readership : Students and scholars interested in the study of the city of Rome, Roman architecture, and the Roman economy; academic readers interested in economic history and urbanism more broadly.

Reviews

• "Bernard's study offers a cogent argument for the reappraisal of the period prior to the Second Punic War, weaving disparate developments together into a coherent narrative to reopen the debate on the changing social makeup and economic mentalities operating in the Early and Mid-Republican city. He presents an original model for reconstructing the formative process of economic institutions commonly associated with Rome's later history.... His expert use of buildings and construction processes as historical sources in their own right opens the way for a more nuanced exploration of Republican urbanism in Italy and will prompt further quantitative research on the demographic and economic effects of urban development in higher-order settlements. Already a classic, the book is its own building block for future work."
  
  --Journal of Roman Archaeology
  
  
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• "This book provides an interdisciplinary insight into Rome's mid-republican architecture, building technology, economic and socio-political history."
  
  --Niccolo Mugnai Classical Review
  
  
• "Many of the topics are considered holistically and intertwine over several chapters, rendering the author's arguments more persuasive. The volume comes together to provide a vivid description of the mounting sophistication of Rome during the mid-Republican period. This is an excellent and ably presented book, balancing a wide-ranging approach with intricate detail."
  
  --Albert J. Nijboer, Antiquity