HS4363: Houses in Roman Italy

School Ancient History
Department Code SHARE
Module Code HS4363
External Subject Code V110
Number of Credits 10
Level L6
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader Dr Ruth Westgate
Semester Spring Semester
Academic Year 2013/4

Outline Description of Module

This module is an introduction to the study of ancient houses, focusing on Roman Italy in the late Republic and early Principate (second century BC to second century AD). The Roman house was not just a family home: it was also a political power-base, a theatre for social climbing, and a place of business. The course looks at well-preserved examples of Roman housing, such as those at Pompeii and Ostia, and literary sources which illuminate the role of the house in Roman family, social and political life. Major themes include: methods of understanding and interpreting houses; concepts of public and private space; ways of 'reading' decoration and architectural forms; Roman debates about luxury and propriety; the economic role of the house; the development of Imperial palaces. METHODS OF TEACHING: 10 lectures; at least 2 seminars. METHODS OF ASSESSMENT: 1 piece written work 50%, 1 hour examination (Autumn) 50%. For Study Abroad and Erasmus students, coursework (100%). REQUISITES: Pre-requisite Modules: HS2102 or HS3102. CONDITIONS: Suitable for students studying at levels Two and Three only, subject to approval by the relevant Board of Studies.

On completion of the module a student should be able to

Knowledge and Understanding:

·         demonstrate a knowledge of the archaeological evidence for Roman housing;

·         demonstrate a knowledge of the literary sources relevant to Roman domestic life;

·         demonstrate an understanding of key approaches and debates relevant to the interpretation of domestic architecture;

Intellectual Skills:

·         demonstrate an ability to evaluate the evidence critically with reference to these approaches and debates;

·         demonstrate an appreciation of the problems encountered when trying to interpret archaeological and literary evidence together;

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

Transferable Skills:

·         demonstrate an ability to discuss the above issues in written work with coherent and logical arguments, clearly and correctly expressed.

How the module will be delivered

This module will be taught by a series of lectures and supporting seminars

Skills that will be practised and developed

On completion of the module a student should be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding:

·         demonstrate a knowledge of the archaeological evidence for Roman housing;

·         demonstrate a knowledge of the literary sources relevant to Roman domestic life;

·         demonstrate an understanding of key approaches and debates relevant to the interpretation of domestic architecture;

Intellectual Skills:

·         demonstrate an ability to evaluate the evidence critically with reference to these approaches and debates;

·         demonstrate an appreciation of the problems encountered when trying to interpret archaeological and literary evidence together;

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

Transferable Skills:

·         demonstrate an ability to discuss the above issues in written work with coherent and logical arguments, clearly and correctly expressed.

How the module will be assessed

This module will be assessed by 1 hour examination only (100%)

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Exam - Spring Semester 100 Houses In Roman Italy 1

Syllabus content

This module is concerned with houses and domestic life in Roman Italy in the late Republic and early Principate (second century BC to second century AD).  The Roman house was not just a family home: it was also a political power-base, a theatre for social climbing, and a place of business.  The course will examine the architecture and decoration of surviving houses, villas, apartments and palaces from Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia, and consider ways of understanding and interpreting those remains.  Literary sources such as Vitruvius, Cicero, Pliny and Petronius will be used to give an insight into the role of the house in Roman family, social and political life.  We will consider various themes and approaches in the study of Roman houses, such as: concepts of public and private space; ways of ‘reading’ decoration and architectural forms; Roman debates about luxury and propriety; the economic role of the house; and the development of Imperial palaces.

Essential Reading and Resource List

You will find additional copies of some of the books on this list in several libraries around the University: Architecture (Bute Building), Lifelong Learning (Senghennydd), Aberconway, and the Sheila White Library. There are additional links to useful websites in Learning Central, as well as reading lists for each lecture.

Abbreviations:

AJA        American Journal of Archaeology             JRA        Journal of Roman Archaeology

JRS        Journal of Roman Studies                          PBSR      Papers of the British School at Rome

General Works on Roman Housing

Barton, I.M., Roman Domestic Buildings (Exeter 1996)                                                                 DG97.R6

Clarke, J.R., The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250. Ritual, Space, & Decoration (Berkeley 1991) DG97.C4

Clarke, J.R., Roman Life, 100 B.C. to A.D. 200(New York 2007)                                                 DG78.C5

Frazer, A. (ed.), The Roman Villa: Villa Urbana. First Williams Symposium on Classical Architecture held at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, April 21–22, 1990(Philadelphia 1998)        folio NA324.W4

Ellis, S.P., Roman Housing (London 2000)                                                                                    DG97.E5

Hales, S.J., The Roman House and Social Identity (Cambridge 2003)                                         NA324.H2

Lafon, X., Villa Maritima: Recherches sur les villas littorales de l’Italie romaine (Rome 2001)folio NA7359.L2

Laurence, R. & A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (JRA Supplement 22, Portsmouth 1997)                                                                                                       folio DG97.D6

Marzano, A., Roman Villas in Central Italy: A Social and Economic History(Leiden 2007)      NA324.M2

McKay, A.G., Houses, Villas and Palaces in the Roman World (London 1975)                           DG97.M2

Painter, K. (ed.), Roman Villas in Italy: Recent Excavations and Research (London 1980)   folio DG97.R6

Percival, J., The Roman Villa: An Historical Introduction (London 1976)                                    DG105.P3

Rawson, B. & P. Weaver (eds.), The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space (Oxford 1997)HQ511.R6

Smith, J.T., Roman Villas: A Study in Social Structure (London 1998)                                        NA310.S6

Wallace-Hadrill, A., Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton 1994)       DG70.P7.W2

— some chapters also published separately as:

Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘The social structure of the Roman house’, PBSR 56 (1988) 43–97

Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘The social spread of Roman luxury: sampling Pompeii and Herculaneum’, PBSR 58 (1990) 145–92

Zanker, P., Pompeii: Public and Private Life (Cambridge, Mass., 1998)                                   DG70.P7.Z2

General Works about Housing and the Built Environment

Allison, P.M. (ed.), The Archaeology of Household Activities (London 1999)                             CC72.4.A7

Blanton, R.E., Houses and Households: A Comparative Study (New York 1994)                       CC72.4.B5

Bourdieu, P., Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London 1984)        Bute HT609.B6

Carter, E., Donald, J. & J. Squires (eds.), Space and Place: Theories of Identity and Location (London 1993) PN56.N19.S7

Clarke, D. (ed.), Spatial Archaeology (London 1977) [esp. article by Raper]                                 CC76.S7

Douglas, M. & B. Isherwood, The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption (London 1979) HB801.D6

Hanson, J., Decoding Homes and Houses (Cambridge 1998)                                                    NA7331.H2

Hillier, B. & J. Hanson, The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge 1984)               Aberconway Main 711.4.H

Kent, S. (ed.), Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space (Cambridge 1990)                   folio GN414.D6

Lawrence, D.L. & S.M. Low, ‘The built environment and spatial form’, Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990) 453–505                 available online at http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/loi/anthro/ or through JSTOR

Lawrence, R., Houses, Dwellings and Homes (Chichester 1987)                                   Architecture 728.3L

Lawson, B., The Language of Space (Oxford 2001)                                                       central NA2765.L2

Oliver, P., Dwellings: The Vernacular House Worldwide (London 1987/2003/2007)     Architecture 728 O

Parker Pearson, M. & C. Richards, Architecture and Order: Approaches to Social Space (London 1994) NA2543.S6.A7

Rapoport, A., House Form and Culture (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969)                            Architecture 728R

Rapoport, A., The Meaning of the Built Environment: A Non-Verbal Communication Approach (Beverly Hills 1982)                                                                                                              BF353 R36/Architecture 155.9R

Rykwert, J., The Idea of a Town (Cambridge, Mass., 1988)                                                          HT114.R9

Samson, R. (ed.), The Social Archaeology of Houses (Edinburgh 1990)                         central NA7110.S6

Sanders, D. ‘Behavioral conventions and archaeology: methods for the analysis of ancient architecture’, in S. Kent (ed.), Domestic Architecture and the Use of Space (Cambridge 1990) 43–72                folio GN414.D6

Roman Architecture and Cities

Adam, J.-P., Roman Building: Materials and Techniques (London 1999)                           folio NA310.A3

Anderson, J.C., Roman Architecture and Society (Baltimore 1997)                                      NA2543.S6.A6

Boethius, A. & J.B. Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (Harmondsworth 1970)   NA310.B6

Cornell, T. & K. Lomas, Urban Society in Roman Italy (London 1995) [esp. Wallace-Hadrill article] centralDG82.U7

Gates, C., Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome (London 2003) HT114.G2

Gros, P., L’Architecture romaine du début du IIIe siècle av. J.-C. à la fin du Haut-Empire. 2, maisons, palais, villas et tombeaux(Paris 2001) folio NA310.G7

Lancaster, L.C., Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: Innovations in Context (Cambridge 2005) folio TH16.L2/Architecture 690.143L

MacDonald, W.L., The Architecture of the Roman Empire (2 vols, London 1982 & 1986)folio NA310.M2

Sear, F., Roman Architecture (London 1983/1992/1998) central NA310.S3

Ward-Perkins, J.B., Roman Imperial Architecture (New York 1981)  NA310.W2

Wilson Jones, M., Principles of Roman Architecture (New Haven 2000) Architecture 720.937 W

Literary Sources

Vitruvius, De Architectura

architectural handbook, late C1 BC

Loeb/version by I.D. Rowland

Cicero

letters & speeches, first half of C1 BC

Penguin

Pliny the Elder, Natural History

mid-C1 AD

Loeb

Pliny the Younger

letters, late C1/early C2 AD

Penguin

Petronius, Satyricon

comic novel, mid-C1 AD

see seminar 2

Juvenal, Satires

poems, late C1/early C2 AD

Penguin

Martial, Epigrams

short poems, late C1/early C2 AD

Penguin

Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars

biographies, early C2 AD

Penguin

• collections of sources in translation:

Gardner, J. & T. Wiedemann, The Roman Household: A Sourcebook (London 1991)                 HQ511.R6

Pollitt, J.J., The Art of Rome c. 753 BC–AD 337: Sources and Documents (Cambridge 1983)      N5760.P6

Shelton, J., As the Romans Did (New York 1988/1998)                                                                 DG78.S4

website: Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum                       http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/index.html

The Roman Household

Allison, P.M., ‘Engendering Roman domestic space’, in R. Westgate, N. Fisher & J. Whitley (eds.), Building Communities: House, Settlement and Society in the Aegean and Beyond (London 2007) 343–50 folio DF261.A177.B8

Balsdon, J., Roman Women (London 1962/1977)                                                                          DG91.B2

Bradley, K., Discovering the Roman Family (New York 1991)                                                   HQ511.B7

Bradley, K., Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge 1994)                                                       HT863.B7

D’Ambra, E., Roman Women (Cambridge 2007)                                                                       HQ1136.D2

D’Arms, J., ‘Slaves at Roman convivia’ in Slater 1991

Dixon, S., The Roman Family (Baltimore 1992)                                                                          HQ511.D4

Finley, M.I., ‘The elderly in Classical antiquity’, Greece & Rome 28 (1981)

Fitzgerald, W., Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination (Cambridge 2000)        central PA6030.S6.F4

Flower, H., Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford 1996)Sheila White Library

Gardner, J., Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (Oxford 1998)                                       DG91.G2

Gardner, J., Women in Roman Law and Society (London1986/1990)                                        HQ1136.G2

George, M., ‘Servus and domus: the slave in the Roman house’ in Laurence & Wallace-Hadrill 1997, 15–24

George, M. (ed.), The Roman Family in the Empire: Rome, Italy, and Beyond(Oxford 2005)     HQ511.R6

Hallett, T., Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family (Princeton 1984)HQ1136.H2

Harlow, M. & R. Laurence, Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome. A Life Course Approach (London 2002)                                                                                                                                                  BF713.H2

Hasegawa. K., The Familia Urbana during the Early Empire: A Study of Columbaria Inscriptions. BAR International Series 1440 (Oxford 2005)                                                                                        folio CN528.E6.H2

Hopkins, K., Death and Renewal (Cambridge 1983)                                                                HN10.R7.H6

Konstan, D., Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge 1997)                                           DE61.F7.K6

Lazer, E., Resurrecting Pompeii (London 2009)                                                                             DG70.P7

Murnaghan, S. & S. Joshel (eds.), Women and Slaves in Graeco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations (London 1998)                                                                                                                                             HQ1134.W6

Parkin, T.G., Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore 2003)HQ1064.R6.P2

Petersen, L., The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History (Cambridge 2006)                              N5760.P3

Pomeroy, S., Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves (New York 1975), esp. chs 8–10              HQ1134.P6

Prag, J., & I. Repath (eds.), Petronius: A Handbook (Oxford 2009)                                      PA6561.A1.P3

Rawson, B. (ed.), Marriage, Divorce and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford 1991)                  HQ511.M2

Rawson, B. (ed.), The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (London 1986)                       HQ511.F2

Rawson, B., Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford 2003)                                      HQ792.I8.R2

Rawson, B. (ed.), A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford 2011)         on order

Saller, R., ‘Familia, domus and the Roman conception of family’, Phoenix 38 (1984)

Saller, R., ‘Slavery and the Roman family’ in M.I. Finley (ed.), Classical Slavery (London 1987)HT863.C5

Saller, R., Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge 1994)                    HQ511.S2

Tanner, T., Adultery in the Novel: Contract and Transgression (Baltimore 1979) — chapter on Trimalchio PN3352.A3.T2

Thompson, F.H., The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery (London 2003)                        HT863.T4

Toynbee, J., Death and Burial in the Roman World (London 1971/Baltimore 1996)                   DG103.T6

Treggiari, S., Roman Marriage (Oxford 1991)                                                                             HQ511.T7

Walsh, P., The Roman Novel (London 1970) — chapter on Trimalchio                               PA6144.A5.W2

Whitehead, J., ‘The Cena Trimalchionis and biographical tradition in Roman middle class art’ in P. Holliday (ed.), Narrative and Event in Ancient Art (Cambridge 1993) 299–325                                              N5613.N2

Social and Domestic Life

Balsdon, J., Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (London 1969/1980)                                              DG90.B2

Balsdon, J., Social Life in the Early Empire (Milton Keynes 1974)                                     folio DG272.O7

Carcopino, J., Daily Life in Ancient Rome (London 1941)                                                             DG78.C2

Dalby, A., Empire of Pleasures (London 2002)                                                                  PA6029.L87.D2

Dilke, O., The Ancient Romans: How they Lived and Worked (Newton Abbot 1975)                    DG30.D4

Gruen, E., Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (London 1993)                              DG77.G7

Potter, D.S. & D.J. Mattingly (eds.), Life, Death and Entertainment in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor 1999) DG272.L4

Rich, J. & A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), City and Country in the Ancient World (London 1991)       HT114.C4

Veyne, P., A History of Private Life: 1, From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, Mass., 1987)GT2400.H4

Political Life and Morality

Allen, W., ‘Cicero’s house and libertas’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 75 (1944)

Bodel, J., ‘Monumental villas and villa monuments’, JRA 10 (1997) 5–35

Edwards, C., The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 1993)                        PA6029.M6.E3

Elsner, J., ‘Constructing decadence: the representation of Nero as an Imperial builder’, in J. Elsner & J. Masters (eds.), Reflections of Nero: Culture, History and Representation (London 1994) 112–127                DG285.R3

Flower, H.I., The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture(Chapel Hill 2006) DG211.F5

Hales, S., ‘At home with Cicero’, Greece & Rome 47 (2000) 44–55

Henderson, J., Morals and Villas in Seneca’s Letters: Places to Dwell (Cambridge 2004)    PA6661.E8.H3

Milnor, K., Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life (Oxford 2005)HQ1136.M4

Murphy, T., Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: The Empire in the Encyclopedia (Oxford 2004)  QH41.M8

O’Sullivan, T.M., ‘The mind in motion: walking and metaphorical travel in the Roman villa’, Classical Philology 101 (2006) 133–52

Treggiari, S., ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “public” and “private”’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 128 (1988) 1–23                                                                                                                  

     — also available online at http://www.apaclassics.org/Publications/PresTalks/TREGGIARI97.html

Treggiari, S., ‘The upper-class house as symbol and focus of emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12 (1999) 33–56

Wallace-Hadrill, A. (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society (London 1989)                                     DG83.3.P2

Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Pliny the Elder and man’s unnatural history’, Greece & Rome 37 (1990) 80–96

Welch, K.E., ‘Domi militaeque: Roman domestic aesthetics and war booty in the Republic’, in S. Dillon & K.E. Welch (eds.), Representations of War in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 2006) 91­–161                     NX650.W3.R3

Wiseman, T., ‘Conspicui postes tectaque digne deo: the public image of aristocratic and imperial houses in the late Republic and early Empire’, in L’urbs: espace urbain et histoire (Rome 1987) 393–413 photocopy in Sheila White Library

Zeiner, N.K., Nothing Ordinary Here (Routledge 2005)  PA6698.Z3

Rooms and Activities in the House

Allison, P.M., ‘Artefact assemblages: not “the Pompeii Premise”’, in E. Herring, R. Whitehouse & J. Wilkins (eds.), Papers of the Fourth Conference of Italian Archaeology, Volume 3: New Developments in Italian Archaeology, Part 1 (London 1992) 49–56

Allison, P.M., ‘Artefact distribution and spatial function in Pompeian houses’, in Rawson & Weaver 1997, 321–54

Allison, P.M., ‘Roman households: an archaeological perspective’, in H. Parkins (ed.), Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City (London 1997) 112–46

D’Arms, J.H., ‘Performing culture: Roman spectacle and the banquets of the powerful’, in B. Bergmann & C. Kondoleon (eds.), The Art of Ancient Spectacle (New Haven 1999) 301–19               folio NX448.5.A7

Dunbabin, K.M.D., ‘Triclinium and stibadium’, in Slater 1991, 121–148                           central DE71.D4

Dunbabin, K.M.D., ‘Convivial spaces: dining and entertainment in the Roman villa’, JRA 9 (1996) 66–80

Dunbabin, K.M.D., The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge 2003)             GT2853.I8.D8

Farrar, L., Gardens of Italy and the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire: from the fourth century BC to the fourth century AD (Oxford 1996)                                                                                                folio DG97.F2

Farrar, L., Ancient Roman Gardens (Stroud 1998)                                                Senghennydd 712.0937 F

Gowers, E., The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford 1996)PA6029.F66.G6

Hobson, B., Latrinae et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World (London 2009)                               DG78.H6

MacDougall, E. (ed.), Ancient Roman Gardens. Proceedings of the 7th Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (Washington 1981)                                                         Architecture 712.609D

MacDougall, E. (ed.), Ancient Roman Villa Gardens. Proceedings of the 10th Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture (Washington 1987)                                                    folio DG78.D8

Riggsby, A.M., ‘“Public” and “private” in Roman culture: the case of the cubiculum, JRA 10 (1997) 36–56

Roller, M.B., Dining Posture in Ancient Rome: Bodies, Values and Status (Princeton 2006)       DG101.R6

Slater, W.J., Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor 1991)                                                        DE71.D4

von Stackelberg, K., The Roman Garden: Space, Sense and Society(London 2009)                     DG97.S8

Sites

Rome

Ball, L., The Domus Aurea and the Roman Architectural Revolution (Cambridge 2003)             NA320.B2

Ball, L.F., ‘A reappraisal of Nero’s Domus Aurea’, in L. La Follette et al., Rome Papers(JRASupplement 11, Ann Arbor, 1992) 183–254                                                                                                   folio DG68.1.R6

Boethius, A., ‘Remarks on the development of domestic architecture in Rome’, AJA 38 (1934) 158–70PHOTO

Boethius, A., The Golden House of Nero (Ann Arbor 1960)                                     Architecture 720.937B

Coarelli, F., Rome and Environs: An Archaeological Guide (Berkeley 2008)                                DG63.C6

Claridge, A., Rome. Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford 1998)                                                 DG63.C5

Coulston, J. & H. Dodge (eds.), Ancient Rome: The Archaeology of the Eternal City (Oxford 2000)DG63.A6

Frier, B., ‘The rental market in early Imperial Rome’, JRS 67 (1977) 27–37

Frier, B., Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome (Princeton 1980)                                Law 343.49071 F

Hemsoll, D., ‘The architecture of Nero’s Golden House’ in M. Henig (ed.), Architecture and Architectural Sculpture in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1990) 10–38                                                                       folio NA310.A7

Iacopi, I., Domus Aurea (Milan 2001)                                                                                folio ND2575.I2

La Follette, L. et al., Rome Papers: Baths of Trajan Decius, Iside e Serapide nel palazzo, a Late Domus on the Palatine and Nero’s Golden House (Ann Arbor 1994)                                                                folio DG68.1.R6

Packer, J.E., ‘Housing and population in Imperial Ostia and Rome’, JRS 57 (1967) 80–95

Platner, S. & T. Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London 1929)                  DG63.P5

Richardson, L., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore 1992)           folio DG68.R4

Robinson, O.F., Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration (London 1992)                        DG83.R6

Scobie, A., ‘Slums, sanitation and mortality in the Roman world’, Klio 68 (1980) 399–433

Segala, E., Domus Aurea (Milan 1999)                                                                       Senghennydd 937.6 S

Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Emperors and houses in Rome’, in S. Dixon(ed.), Childhood, Class, and Kin in the Roman World(London 2001) 128–43                                                                                                      HQ767.87.C4

Ward-Perkins, J., ‘Nero’s Golden House’, Antiquity 30 (1956) 209–219

Yavetz, Y., ‘The living conditions of the urban plebs in Republican Rome’, Latomus 17 (1958) 500–17PHOTO


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