MacMahon, A. & J. Price. Eds. 2005. Roman working lives and urban living. – Oxford, Oxbow Books

Abstract

This volume originated in the conference ‘Roman working lives and urban living’ held at the university of Durham in July 2001 and contains twelve papers on the subject. The conference was held in order to discuss a subject that, in my opinion, has gotten less attention than it should have in the past: the lives of ‘ordinary’ people. The whole volume is a great joy to read not in the least because the central task of archaeology is just that: finding out more about the lives of common people. Almost all the papers were clearly written and easy to read and understand. They give great insight into what common people did, how they earned their living and how they traded. Especially good is that wherever possible, information from Roman Britain itself is used. If there is difficulty finding information in Britain the situation in the Mediterranean is considered and/or included in the data on Roman Britain. In this way even the most obscure subjects are within reach.

This becomes immediately clear in the first paper, which discusses ritual and the articulation of urban space (Simon Esmonde Cleary, p. 1–18). As it is extremely difficult to find information on this subject in Roman Britain, Cleary looks at the situation in the provinces where they do have pictorial and written evidence. After he has done this, he translates the results to the situation in Roman Britain. This works very well because Cleary takes examples from many different places and takes into account the differences between the Mediterranean and the northern provinces. Although the article offers great insight into the use of urban space in Roman Britain, Cleary unfortunately does not succeed in going beyond the obvious. Read more...