Community And Society In Roman Italy

Stephen L. Dyson examines rural communities as functioning, largely autonomous societies. Dyson traces the major outlines of community development from the end of the war with Hannibal to the early Middle Ages. He shows how local communities responded to changes in the greater Roman society while still retaining their distinctive identity. He examines the "typical" Roman community during the High Empire and explores the life cycle of rural inhabitants, showing how individuals- the aristocrats, the free poor, and the slaves- developed in relation to society as a whole.

This collection of original essays focuses upon Roman Italy where, with over 400 cities, urbanization was at the very centre of Italian civilization. Informed by an awareness of the social and anthropological issues of recent research, these contributions explore not only questions of urban origins, interaction with the countryside and economic function, but also the social use of space within the city and the nature of the development process.; These studies are aimed not only at ancient historians and classical archaeologists, but are directed towards those working in the related fields of urban studies in the Mediterranean world and elsewhere and upon the general theory of towns and complex societies.

Summary: This study throws new light on the Roman impact on Italic religious structures in the last four centuries BC and, more generally, on the complex processes of change and accommodation set in motion by the Roman expansion in Italy. Cult places had a pivotal function among the various 'Italic' tribes known to us from the ancient sources, which had been gradually conquered and subsequently controlled by Rome. Through an analysis of archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence from rural cult places in Central and Southern Italy including a case study on the Samnite temple of San Giovanni in Galdo, the authors investigate the fluctuating function of cult places in among the non-Roman Italic communities, before and after the establishment of Roman rule.

This work gives students of all levels access to a comprehensive collection of primary sources on the early history of Italy, from the early expansion of Roman power to the first emmergence of Italy as a unified and cultural political unit. The sources, presented in translation, cover the Roman conquest of Italy, the mechanisms used by Rome to govern Italy and the post-conquest process of Romanization. These include inscriptions, coins and archaeological evidence where necessary. Brief explanatory notes are given and each chapter has an introduction in which the nature of the source material is discussed, together with the major questions raised by that particular aspect of the subject.

This collection of original essays focuses upon Roman Italy where, with over 400 cities, urbanization was at the very centre of Italian civilization. Informed by an awareness of the social and anthropological issues of recent research, these contributions explore not only questions of urban origins, interaction with the countryside and economic function, but also the social use of space within the city and the nature of the development process.; These studies are aimed not only at ancient historians and classical archaeologists, but are directed towards those working in the related fields of urban studies in the Mediterranean world and elsewhere and upon the general theory of towns and complex societies.

Cities in the ancient world relied on private generosity to provide many basic amenities. This collection of essays by leading scholars explores the important phenomenon of benefaction and public patronage in Roman Italy.

This book investigates demographic behaviour and population trends in Italy during the emergence of the Roman Empire. It unites literary and epigraphic sources with demographic theory, archaeological surveys, climatic and skeletal evidence, models and comparative data. Also featured is a chapter on climate change in Roman times.

A work with broad implications for theories of comparative strategic behavior and civil-military relations, Societies and Military Power uses the long history of the armies of India as a basis for analyzing whether the character of a given society affects the amount of military power that can be generated by the armies that emerge from that society. By examining the changing relationship between ruling elites in the Indian subcontinent and their armed forces, the book shows that divisions within society are mirrored within the military, even within the contemporary professional military. Stephen Peter Rosen explores the proposition that cultural explanations don't sufficiently account for changes in military power, whereas social structure does. He suggests also that the dynamics of civil-military relations in a non-Western setting are not explicable without social-structural insight. He concludes that the comparative study of strategic behavior and military organization has lacked a sound foundation, which the social-structural explanation offered in this book begins to provide.