Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The period of Romes imperial expansion, the late republic and ear-
lier empire, saw transformations of its society, culture and identity.
Drawing equally on archaeological and literary evidence, this book
offers an original and provocative interpretation of these changes.
Moving from recent debates about colonialism and cultural identity,
both in the Roman world and more broadly, and challenging the tra-
ditional picture of romanisation and hellenisation, it offers instead a
model of overlapping cultural identities in dialogue with one another.
It attributes a central role to cultural change in the process of redef-
inition of Roman identity, represented politically by the crisis of the
republican system and the establishment of the new Augustan order.
Romans are shown using Greek culture creatively to create new sys-
tems of knowledge which render the old ruling class powerless, and
give authority to the new imperial system. The discussion follows a
number of principal themes, including the cultural transformations of
Italy, the role of Vitruvius treatise on architecture in building a new
Roman identity, the role of antiquarian writers in transforming the
idea of Roman tradition, the transformation by Augustus of ways of
knowing and controlling the city of Rome and, above all, the growth of
luxury, the Roman debate on the issue, and the archaeological evidence
for transformations of Roman material culture. Whether or not it is
right to see these changes as revolutionary, they involve a profound
transformation of Roman life and identity, one that lies at the heart of
understanding the nature of the Roman empire.
a n d r e w wa l l ac e - h a d r i l l
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521721608
C Andrew Wallace-Hadrill 2008
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Contents
pa rt i c u lt u r e s a n d i d e n t i t i e s
1 Culture, identity and power [3]
pa rt i i bu i l d i n g i d e n t i t i e s
3 Roman Italy: between Roman, Greek and local [73]
pa rt i i i k n ow l e d g e a n d p ow e r
5 Knowing the ancestors [213]
6 Knowing the city [259]
pa rt i v t h e c o n s u m e r r e vo lu t i o n
7 Luxury and the consumer revolution [315]
8 Waves of fashion [356]
Figures
2.1 Hadrian wearing the pallium, from Cyrene (C Copyright the
Trustees of the British Museum) [40]
2.2 Augustus as pontifex maximus (DAI Neg. 65.1111) [40]
2.3 Statue of togatus, Arringatore, Museo Archeologico Firenze
(DAI Neg. 63.599) [44]
2.4 Roman togati on Ara Pacis frieze (DAI Neg. 72.2401) [44]
2.5 Grave relief from the via Statilia showing togatus/palliatus
(DAI Neg. 2001.2051) [46]
2.6 Aeschines in pallium, Naples Museum (Villa of the Papyri)
(DAI Neg. 85.486) [46]
2.7 Tombstone of the baker Eurysaces, outside the Porta Maggiore
(DAI Neg. 33.749) [50]
2.8 Statue of a Roman as naked hero, Chieti Museum (DAI
Neg. 67.841) [53]
2.9 Denarius of Octavian as naked hero, with foot on globe (photo
courtesy British Museum, BMRR Rome 4341) [53]
2.10 Augustus in hip-mantle, Ravenna relief (DAI Neg. 38.1407) [53]
2.11 Statue of Flavian lady as Venus Pudica, from villa near Lago Albano
(Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen) [56]
3.1 Map of Italy with principal language groups (drawn by Amy
Richardson) [72]
3.2 Burial assemblage from Oleggio with La Tene items, deformed
sword, brooch, etc. (after Spagnolo Garzoli 1999, gure 157, with
permission, Omega Edizioni) [74]
3.3 Burial assemblage from Oleggio with Campanian ware and bathing
equipment (after Spagnolo Garzoli 1999, gure 102, with
permission, Omega Edizioni) [75]
3.4 Map of Umbria (drawn by Amy Richardson) [88]
3.5 Roof tile from Pietrabbondante with bilingual inscription in Oscan
and Latin (after La Regina, Studi Etrusci 44, 1976: 285) [91]
8.19 Forms of lamps of volute type (drawing after Valenza Mele 1981,
gures 44, 47, 119) [384]
8.20 Forms of lamps of pear-form type (drawing after Valenza Mele
1981, gures 209, 300, 314) [385]
8.21 Examples of discus lamps from Pompeii Reg. I ins. 9 (photo
Hay/Sibthorpe, courtesy British School at Rome) [388]
8.22 Discus lamp from Pompeii I.9.8, inv. 9033, in its mould (photo
Hay/Sibthorpe, courtesy British School at Rome) [388]
8.23 Calyx crater from the Mahdia wreck (drawing Rheinisches
Landesmusem Bonn, courtesy Musee Nationale du Bardo,
Tunis) [394]
8.24 Calyx crater from the House of Julius Polybius, Pompeii (courtesy
Soprintendenza Archeologica di Napoli e Pompei) [394]
8.25 Bronze volute crater from the Mahdia wreck (drawing Rheinisches
Landesmusem Bonn, courtesy Musee Nationale du Bardo,
Tunis) [395]
8.26 Bronze calyx and volute craters from Herculaneum (from Carlo
Ceci, Piccoli bronzi del Real museo borbonico (Naples 1854),
tav. IV) [395]
8.27 Bronze bucket from the Mahdia wreck (drawing Rheinisches
Landesmusem Bonn, courtesy Musee Nationale du Bardo,
Tunis) [396]
8.28 Situla of Cornelia Chelidon, Naples Museum (drawing from Real
Museo Borbonico (Naples 1827), tav. XIV) [397]
8.29 Illustration of automatic boiler from Heron of Alexandria
(drawing from Dunbabin 1993, gure 15b, after Schmidt) [399]
8.30 Types of authepsa from Roman world (drawing after Buck 2002,
Abb. 2, by E. Weber) [400]
8.31 Distribution map of nds of authepsae in the Roman world (by Amy
Richardson) [400]
8.32 Bronze boiler from Pompeii (photo Alfredo Foglia, courtesy
Soprintendeuza Archeologica di Napoli e Pompei) [401]
8.33 Examples of domestic bronze ware from Pompeii (photo
Hay/Sibthorpe, courtesy British School at Rome) [403]
8.34 Bronze rams-head patera from the House of C. Iulius Polybius,
Pompeii, inv. 21798 (photo Soprintendenza Archeologica di Napoli
e Pompei) [405]
8.35 Distribution map of bronze ware from the workshop of the Cipii
(by Amy Richardson after Kunow 1985) [406]
Table
6.1 Statistics for Rome from the fourth-century Regionary
catalogues [295]
Colour plates
Preface
xx Preface
This project has spent painfully long in gestation. The stages of its devel-
opment often show through the nal text, and are in any case marked by a
series of publications over the last two decades. The idea of writing a book
on this theme grew in the early 1980s in Cambridge while writing about
emperors and culture in Suetonius, and wishing my canvas were broader.
The title comes from a jesting comment by Brent Shaw on an early outline: I
have been unable to get it out of my head. I have been deected along the way
by numerous distractions: the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum took on
a life of their own, the challenges of teaching and of running a department
(in Reading) and an institution (in Rome) proved more demanding than
my worst fears. For signicant steps forward in the project I have always
depended on periods of research leave. A semester in the Classics depart-
ment at Princeton in 1991 gave me the chance to share my ideas with a
bright and critical group of graduate students, and to sketch a rst draft,
long since submerged (to Elaine Fantham I owe not only my invitation, but
the chance to read and think in her own peaceful and well-stocked study). A
later period in 19945 supported by a British Academy Research Readership
allowed me to visit Munich and deepen my knowledge of Roman luxury (my
understanding of Roman art has been transformed by discussions then and
later with Paul Zanker). The text incorporates material from these earlier
drafts, and from earlier publications, but as is stands was completely rewrit-
ten in subsequent periods of leave from the British School at Rome, rst in
the Getty Research Centre in Los Angeles (Marion Trues kindness to me as
to many others is not forgotten), then in the Sackler Library in Oxford (I
thank Ewen Bowie for the hospitality of the SCR of Corpus Christi College).
The advantage, and disadvantage, about taking too long over a project is
that major publications have continued to appear which change the com-
plexion of the question. In the early stages, Paul Zankers Power of Images
in the Age of Augustus, Elizabeth Rawson Intellectual Life in the Late Roman
Republic, and Erich Gruens Culture and National Identity in Republican
Rome reset my agendas. As I tried to nish off the text, major new works
continued to appear, including Emma Denchs Romulus Asylum and Denis
Feeneys Caesars Calendar. As I have struggled to keep the bibliography in
any sense up to date, I have had to concede that the longer I spend updating,
the more out of date the text will become.
I have had the benet and stimulus of the advice of more friends than
I can list. Those who have helped me with comments on individual chap-
ters include Michael Fulford, Martin Millett, John Papadopoulos, Simon
Keay and Paul Zanker. Many Italian friends have let me pick their brains
about their sites, and have proved generous in helping me with illustrations,
especially Francesco Cifarelli and Federica Colaiacomo for Segni, Sandra
Preface xxi
Gatti for Palestrina and Alatri, Piero Guzzo and Maria Pala Guidbaldi for
Pompeii and Herculaneum, Adriano La Regina for Pietrabbondante, and
Eugenio La Rocca and Claudi Parisi Presicce for Rome. A vital help over
recent years has been provided by a sequence of research assistants in Rome,
without whom my bibliography would be very much thinner: Sarah Court,
Rosie Harman, Sophy Downes, and above all Amy Richardson, whose sup-
port over the illustrations has proved indispensable. At the nal stage, Chris
Siwicki helped me out with the index. I am particularly indebted to those who
undertook the labour of reading the entire text, and in doing so have saved
me on countless occasions from my careless errors, ignorance and forgetful-
ness: these are Mary Beard, Filippo Coarelli, Jas Elsner, Denis Feeney, Fergus
Millar, and Peter Wiseman. It would be no repayment for their great kind-
ness to lay the numerous imperfections that remain at their door. Michael
Sharp and his sharp-eyed team at Cambridge University Press have helped
to remove many other aws, and have made the process of production
remarkably swift and painless.
One nal debt is summed up in the dedication. It would not have been
possible to write this book as it is without the extraordinary opportunity
of living for twelve years in Rome provided to me by the British School.
For over a century, this institution has given British (and other) scholars
a chance to see the Roman world from a different perspective, to engage
with the materiality of Roman Italy, and to get to know different worlds of
scholarship, above all that of Italy, but also that of the international cluster
of academies in Rome. If this book has a good deal to say about people
who nd themselves between cultures, it is because I have found myself
so. Possibly I place too much weight on language as a model of cultural
identity: that is an outcome of living between languages, and being daily
confronted with my own limitations and rootedness. I am deeply obliged
to the generous help of many colleagues, in particular to Valerie Scott and
her staff in the Schools superb library, to Sue Russell, for her calm skill in
deputising in my absences, to Maria Pia Malvezzi, for arranging permissions
for me as for so many others, to Elly Murkett, for keeping administrative
distractions at bay, and to four successive Chairmen, Fergus Millar, Geoffrey
Rickman, Peter Wiseman and Ivor Roberts, for support in tough times.
My nal and greatest thanks are to my wife, Jo, who has cheerfully put
up with being institutionalised in Rome, and given me unfailing support
and encouragement throughout the protracted conception, gestation, and
birthpangs of this volume.
AWH
1 May 2008
Every attempt has been made to trace copyright holders for all illustra-
tions used in this book; any omissions are unintentional, and result from
the difculties of identifying copyright in older publications. I am deeply
appreciative of the readiness of numerous individuals and institutions to
provide illustrations and permissions.
Research institutions
British School at Rome (gs. 3.13, 8.1, 8.15, 8.21, 8.22, 8.33, 8.35, 8.36,
8.37, Plate XXIV); Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Rome (gs. 2.2, 2.3,
2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.10, 6.9, 6.11, 6.12, 6.13, 6.15); Ecole Francaise de Rome
(gs. 6.1, 6.2, 6.21, 6.22, 6.23, 6.24, 6.25).
Publishing houses
Cambridge University Press (gs. 4.14, 6.19); Edizioni Quasar (g. 3.25);
Gangemi Editore (g. 4.4); Istituto Poligraco e Zecca dello Stato (gs.
6.7, 6.8, 8.16, 8.17, 8.18, Plates XV, XVI); MIT Press (g. 4.11); Omega
Edizioni (gs. 3.2 and 3.3); Oxford University Press (gs. 4.1, 4.2); Princeton
University Press (gs. 4.8, 4.13, 4.15); Rudolf Habelt GMBH, Bonn (g.
8.39); Sagep Editori, Genova (gs. 6.3, 6.4); Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin
(g. 4.12).