Making the Middle Republic
New Approaches to Rome and Italy, c.400-200 BCE

Showcases new approaches that reveal the remarkable transformation of Roman and Italian societies during the Middle Republican period.

Seth Bernard (Edited by), Lisa Marie Mignone (Edited by), Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Edited by)

9781009327985, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 April 2023

348 pages, 10 b/w illus. 10 colour illus. 10 maps 10 tables
25 x 17.7 x 2.4 cm, 0.78 kg

During the fourth and third centuries BCE, Roman expansion into Italy reshaped the peninsula's Archaic societies and prompted new political relationships, new economic practices, and new sociocultural structures. Rural landscapes and urban spaces throughout Latium saw intensified use amidst novel principles of land management, animal husbandry, and architectural design. This book offers fresh perspectives on these transformations by embracing a wide range of approaches to Middle Republican history. Chapters take up topics and methods ranging from fiscal sociology, bioarchaeology, comparative slaveries, field survey, art and architectural history, numismatics, elite mobility, and beyond. An emphasis is placed on how developments in this period reshaped not only Rome, but also other Latin and Italian societies in complex and often multilinear ways. The volume promotes the Middle Republic as a period whose full dynamism is best appreciated at the intersection of diverse lines of inquiry.

1. Introduction: a middle in the making Seth Bernard, Lisa Mignone and Dan-el Padilla Peralta
2. Italian descent in middle Republican Roman magistrates: the flipside of the conquest Parrish Wright and Nicola Terrenato
3. The long shadow of tributum in the long fourth century James Tan
4. Paying for conquest in the early middle republic Nathan Rosenstein
5. Building up slaveries in ancient Italy and the central Sudan Walter Scheidel
6. The strangeness of Rome's early heavy bronze Liv M. Yarrow
7. Rural transformation in middle republican central Italy: the archaeological perspective Tymon de Haas
8. Towards an agroecology of the Roman expansion: republican agriculture and animal husbandry in context Angela Trentacoste and Lisa Lodwick
9. No longer archaic, not yet Hellenistic: urbanism in transition Domenico Palombi
10. On architecture's agency in fourth-century Rome Penelope J. E. Davies
11. Becoming historical in Oscan Campania Seth Bernard
12. Becoming political: middle republican quandaries Christopher Smith.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]