Architectures of the Roman World : Models, Agency, Reception

These case studies provide an interdisciplinary reassessment of the function, impact, and significance of architecture within local cultures and the dynamic relationship between periphery and center of the Roman Empire.

This book brings together an international team of scholars to re-evaluate Roman-period architecture outside Rome and the Italian Peninsula, looking at the regions that formed part of the Roman Empire over a broad time frame: from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE. Moving beyond traditional views of ‘Roman provincial architecture’, they highlight the multi-faceted features of these architectures, their function, impact and significance within the local cultures, and the dynamic discourse between periphery and centre.

Architecture is intended in the broad sense of the term, encompassing the buildings’ technological components as well as their ornamental and epigraphic apparatuses. The geographic framework under examination is a broad one: along with well-documented areas of the ancient Mediterranean, attention is also paid to the territories of north-west Europe. The discussion throughout the volume focuses on three interrelated themes – models, agency, and reception. The broader scope of these essays gives a reinvigorated impetus to the scholarly debate on the role and influence of ancient architectures beyond the centre of Empire. The book has a strong interdisciplinary character, reflecting the authors’ diverse expertise in the fields of archaeology, architecture, ancient history, art and architectural history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of figures
List of abbreviations
1. Architectures of the Roman World: An introduction
Niccolò Mugnai
2. …incorrupti imbribus, ventis, ignibus omnique caemento firmiores? Earthen building materials in the Roman West
Ben Russell, Christopher Beckett, Tanja Romankiewicz, J. Riley Snyder and Rose Ferraby
3. Unusual terracotta tiles for the vaulting of Roman baths: An investigation into the exchange and diffusion of technical knowledge in the western Roman Empire
Lynne C. Lancaster
4. From dry to mortared construction: Building at Nikopolis and Olympia between the first century BCE and the first century CE
Paolo Vitti
5. Green shoots: Architectural transfer and sustainability in the architecture of the Roman provinces
Edmund Thomas
6. Building cities on the Rhine and on the Danube: The socio-ecological diversity of Roman construction
Dominik Maschek
7. Provincial-sized monumentality: The construction site of the Roman theatre of Augusta Raurica (Switzerland)
Thomas Hufschmid
8. Building public baths outside Rome: The case study of Nora, Sardinia
Caterina Previato
9. What have the Romans ever done for us? Early Roman Jerusalem as an urban centre between local tradition and Roman rule
Orit Peleg-Barkat
10. Building and reshaping public spaces in North Africa in the early imperial period: The examples of Thugga, Lepcis Magna, and Cyrene
Niccolò Mugnai
11.Responding to ‘Classical’ architecture in Roman-era Athens
Christopher Siwicki
12. A matter of perspective: The reception of early imperial composite column capitals in Asia Minor
Phil Stinson
13. Where do we live? Local stonescapes and globalized architecture in Cyrenaica and Cyprus
Eleonora Gasparini
14. Architectures of the Roman World: Some conclusions
Janet DeLaine

Niccolò Mugnai is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford. He held postdoctoral fellowships at the British School at Rome and at the University of Leicester, where he completed his doctorate in 2016. His main research interests are Greco-Roman architecture, urbanism, and the archaeology of the Roman provinces.