Funded Projects Query Form
One match

This interdisciplinary study examines the Roman street as a social arena. Among Roman urban spaces, streets were the most inclusive and least predictable, bringing everyone from slave to senator into spontaneous, face-to-face contact. Consequently, they offered an environment where social boundaries were challenged and, therefore, the performance of status was key. This project unites material evidence from Pompeii and Herculaneum with legal, historical, and literary sources to describe the push and pull among various players as they used this stage for self-aggrandizing display and the negotiation of social and political tensions. In exchanges mediated through architecture, images, ritual, and informal movements, streetlife profoundly affected how individual Romans conceived of the social hierarchy and their place within it. This monograph should find a broad readership among scholars and students of classics, archaeology, art and architectural history, and urban studies.