Roman Urbanism in Italy, Recent Discoveries and New Directions

Author

Launaro; Alessandro

Year

2024

Publisher

Oxbow Books

Language

English

Pages

ISBN

979-8-88857-037-1

Link

Last Update

20-Aug-2025

Keywords

Archaeology ; History ; Classical Studies

Description

Towns and urban life have existed for a very long time, well before the Romans, and yet they came to represent a quintessential feature of the Roman world. Throughout Antiquity most of the population lived in the open countryside, but their settlements and lives almost invariably gravitated around – and indeed supported – a sprawling network of towns. Their relationship was very much symbiotic as urban sites ‘were administrative centres, they were garrison towns, they were centres of exchange both as between towns and regions, and between townsmen and the surrounding countryside’ (Hopkins 1978, 75; also Zuiderhoek 2017, 37–55)....