Chapter: The global and the local in the Roman empire: connectivity and mobility from

an urban perspective

Team 3
Members: Natalia Ballen, Juan Daniel Cordoba, Camilo Duarte and Valentina Umbarila.

The Roman Empire has had great influence on the theories of globalization, through Roman
archaeological writings and evidence, which allow defining globalization as a set of
individuals influenced by Roman culture in a defined or indefinite way to produce a physical
identity. On the other hand, this chapter attempts to define global-local relationships, it has
been fundamental and needs to be recognized as the prehistory of globalization and the
Roman Empire.

To understand this relationship, it is necessary to know the theory of Romanization to see

how the relationship was articulated, in addition, scholars review models that help to interpret
the data provided by Roman archeology and look for the relationship that it had in the
beginning of globalization. To better understand this study, the study of Roman Britain was
taken as a reference, this being the key to determining and interpreting the economy and
ancient societies.

When examining the book of Romanization of Britain, the influence of the Roman economy
could be highlighted and how it developed in Roman imperialism, from this text one has a
clearer idea about the economy and the monopolies given in Rome and how these have
survived in today's trade. To summarize, the influence of this text was fundamental to
understand the economy and the global perception created in ancient times, it also highlighted
the presence of terms such as taxation, import, and trade, key concepts for the development of
an economy.

The text spoke about the wealth of artifacts available from Roman times and how these allow
the possibility of a complete mapping of the adoption of particular cultural practices. Within
the category of artifacts, they included, for example, simple epitaphs that apparently are
global phenomena in the Roman Empire (or at least in the west). An epitaph is a text that
honors the deceased, usually inscribed on a tombstone or plaque on his grave. The carving of
Latin letters and the use of Roman numerals to record age at death provide a record of the
burial site and commemorate the identity of the deceased.

There are a large number of epitaphs from the Roman West and therefore it is possible to
analyze the use of a global writing system in the context of local commemorative practices.
They made a sample consisting of 24,000 epitaphs that mention the age of the person
dedicated to death. And through these samples, they deduced that if we are looking at a
global phenomenon (the use of age in epitaphs), we can relate its variation to connectivity
patterns and begin to see how "global" was assumed locally.
They also saw that it is also notable that there is no strong variation in the pattern between
genders according to age, except that younger females have a higher rate of commemoration
than younger males. The early stages of the human life course are rarely commemorated,
while those of middle age dominate with a greater emphasis on commemorating the elderly.
This pattern found in Numidia is repeated in the North African provinces and a little more
moderately in Betica. The only province that begins to resemble the age commemoration
patterns found in Italy.

This divergence, however, does not indicate that we cannot identify aspects of globalization,
both regions are utilizing Latin formulae engraved on stones to commemorate the dead. To
conclude, it is not geographical connectivity that promoted a global concept of the use of age
in epitaphs. Instead, it was the connection with the global institution, it means the Roman
army that resulted in the dissemination of this particular practice.

On the other hand, the public monuments were local symbols of global culture; figures show
patterns during three centuries of construction that show a very limited variation over time.
They took Italy and Africa as an example and it could be said that the two urban systems
produced monuments in the same way in three centuries of the Roman Empire.

In Africa, there was a greater emphasis on the building of temples and the construction of
honorific arches, and in Italy, there was a greater focus on the construction and restoration of
theaters and amphitheaters. There is a shift towards a further proliferation of functional
buildings (including baths) from the 2nd century. However, we could say that the two urban
systems produce monuments in a very similar way and with little change at the regional level.

Obviously, building a monument in any city had a very significant effect on that city, but
little impact on the overall system. What these two urban systems do is produce
monuments.There is a sense of predictability in these monuments and they would appear to
be the global manifestation of Roman culture, provided by the elites who spent money on
monuments. In the long term, the patterns continue to reproduce their divergence in the same
way over time.

During the three centuries, Italy and Africa had similar rage of building construction, as for
example temples, walls, major projects, honorific arches or monuments for spectacles. In
contrast, in Africa there was more emphasis in temples building and construction of honorific
arches, while in Italy there was an emphasis on the construction and reconstruction of
theatres and amphitheatres. We can observe that there is a similarity between them, and the
impact of the construction in a city is very big, but not for the complete system.the global
concept was mediated in the context of the place of monumentalisation to produce a pattern
that was divergent in Africa to that of Italy.

Otherwise, is the connectivity and time-space comprehension, the monumentalisation of the

cities was one of the most important things in the beliefs of the society, however, the time-
space comprehension was turned around about the capital circulation, that was speeded up
and disrupted the significance of the place. Coastal cities were more likely to build
monuments than non-coastal cities in Italy,twenty per cent of all cities in Italy lay on the
coast and that twenty-two percent of all public monuments were constructed in these cities.
Moreover, the geographical thinking of the Romans and their conception of their empire was
marked with Antoine's itineraries in which Rome was connected by every other place.

The roman empire had different ways of doing globalization in the forts by making special
baths for the roman citizens. Those baths have a specific structure of order of places. Always
having the tepidarium, caldarium and the frigidarium near each other having a pattern on all
the baths that they made. This is just a clue of what Romans made to have globalization of
their culture to other places, also one of the most important cultural aspects like the details of
ceilings and other important details that they used to leave to have their bath as they like.
after concluding that those baths are the key to know the type of globalization that the
Romans left. People are trying to know if all the places have the same issue if romans always
did this to their forts or they just do it in important places for example towns, cities or forts
also to know if the time spent on that was worthy.

Local and global were found in different ways of expression: the use of latin letters, roman
numeral numbers, the construction of monuments and bath-buildings in some frontiers. The
globalization had difficulties on the how it will work but romans made roads and a form of
finance to get people more used to this new changes in their time, this moves made a negative
and a positive reaction to all by making changes in some culture so those towns or cities
could be more close to the romans and also having new things to trade and having easier
ways to move around those road made by the romans. in some ways cities are 100% local by
meaning that are original and conservative but at the same time ar also global this means that
have change due finance or culturals ways or the need of having ways to communicate with
people outside their towns or cities this way or reasoning is non mathematical right but
makes sense one you get to read all the different examples of cities that are now in our world