Souvenirs and the Experience of Empire in Ancient Rome

This book uses ancient souvenirs and memorabilia to reveal the experiences, interests, imaginations, and aspirations of ordinary ancient Romans.

Maggie Popkin (Author)

9781316517567, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 April 2022

346 pages
26.1 x 18.4 x 2.1 cm, 0.89 kg

'This is an unusually perceptive, engaging, and thoroughly readable study, originating in a small but representative sample of artifacts rarely featured in the archaeological literature. The author is to be congratulated for both recognizing their value and making them sing.' Karl M. Petruso, American Journal of Archaeology

In this book, Maggie Popkin offers an in-depth investigation of souvenirs, a type of ancient Roman object that has been understudied and that is unfamiliar to many people. Souvenirs commemorated places, people, and spectacles in the Roman Empire. Straddling the spheres of religion, spectacle, leisure, and politics, they serve as a unique resource for exploring the experiences, interests, imaginations, and aspirations of a broad range of people - beyond elite, metropolitan men - who lived in the Roman world. Popkin shows how souvenirs generated and shaped memory and knowledge, as well as constructed imagined cultural affinities across the empire's heterogeneous population. At the same time, souvenirs  strengthened local identities, but excluded certain groups from the social participation that souvenirs made available to so many others. Featuring a full illustration program of 137 color and black and white images, Popkin's book demonstrates the critical role that souvenirs played in shaping how Romans perceived and conceptualized their world, and their relationships to the empire that shaped it.

1. Introduction: Souvenirs of the Roman Empire
Part I: 2. Souvenirs of cult statues
3. Souvenirs of cities and sites
4. Memory, knowledge, cultural affinities
Part II: 5. Souvenirs of the circus and arena
6. Souvenirs of the theater
7. Imagining the Roman Empire
8. Conclusion: Rethinking Rome.

Subject Areas: Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], History of art: ancient & classical art,BCE to c 500 CE [ACG]