Developed out of B.’s doctoral dissertation and subsequent work, this book provides an interdisciplinary insight into Rome's mid-republican architecture, building technology, economic and socio-political history. It is based on the results of combined bibliographic and field research, covering the period between the conquest of Veii in 396 bc and the Third Macedonian War in 168 bc.
The book features an introduction, six analytical chapters and a short conclusion. Two useful appendices are included: a cost analysis of tuff ashlar masonry and a catalogue of building projects undertaken in Rome in the mid-republican period. The organisation of the topics is straightforward; readers are given clear indications about the scope of each chapter, and the final index allows them to easily locate the most relevant information. Good-quality photographs, maps and drawings are used to illustrate specific points throughout the text.
The introduction sets out the argument by reviewing previous approaches to the study of urban development in mid-republican Rome. The case study of the sacred area of Largo Argentina is chosen to describe both the potential and the shortcomings of a topographical approach to Roman buildings, with particular regard to the identification of the four temples and the yet unresolved issue of the connection of this urban space with the porticus Minucia. More broadly, this discussion serves to introduce the reader to the (all too often) problematic relationship between textual, topographical and archaeological sources in the city of Rome.
Chapter 2 describes the principal building materials employed in construction projects in the period under analysis as well as the diverse ownership of quarries and other sources of supply. Particular attention is paid to the different types of tuff, from the grey cappellaccio of the Palatine, used in Rome's earliest architecture, to the tufo giallo of Grotta Oscura, peperino (Lapis Albanus) and tufo lionato (Monteverde tuff), attested in later republican buildings.
Chapter 3 engages with one of the most crucial events of Rome's republican history, the Gallic sack of the city in c. 390 bc. Through a careful assessment of the literary and archaeological evidence, B. draws attention to the patchy physical traces of this episode. Indeed, it proves difficult to appreciate the extent of destruction across the city. While F. Coarelli's re-examination of the stratigraphy of the comitium in the Roman forum did not find any evidence of a fourth-century bc fire (Il foro romano [1983], pp. 129–39), the recent excavations underneath Caesar's forum did identify the destruction of some houses by fire in this period (A. Delfino, Forum Iulium. L'area del Foro di Cesare alla luce delle campagne di scavo 2005–2008: le fasi arcaica, repubblicana e cesariano-augustea [2014], pp. 93–124). As to the textual evidence, Livy's account (5.48–55) of the incendium, though representing an indispensable source of information, might have elaborated on similar episodes such as the Persian invasion of Athens or even the Roman sack of Corinth. At the same time, the extensive damage to the city during Nero's fire in ad 64 must have had an impact on how Romans connected this event to the previous Gallic fire and how it shaped their collective memory.
Probably as a direct response to the Gallic sack, the early fourth century bc witnessed the construction of an eleven-kilometre circuit of city walls, an impressive undertaking, which is thoroughly examined in Chapter 4. The debate on whether these were the first walls or rather the reconstruction of an earlier circuit is still ongoing (a useful review was published by B. recently: ‘Continuing the Debate on Rome's Earliest Circuit Walls’, PBSR 80 [2012], 1–44). The presence of cappellaccio tuff alongside tufo giallo in the fourth-century walls’ masonry suggests the recycling of materials from earlier buildings, but this does not seem sufficient to prove the existence of a circuit of similar extension in the sixth century bc (contra G. Cifani, Architettura romana arcaica. Edilizia e società tra monarchia e repubblica [2008], pp. 255–64). The principal aim of this chapter, however, is to look at the construction process and the costs for manpower and the supply of materials, which are then compared to those of the contemporary walls at Syracuse (401 bc). This approach to ancient architecture is well represented by studies of imperial building projects in Rome and Ostia (J. DeLaine, ‘Bricks and Mortar: Exploring the Economics of Building Techniques at Rome and Ostia’, in D.J. Mattingly and J. Salmon [edd.], Economies beyond Agriculture in the Classical World [2001], pp. 230–68) as well as in the provinces of the empire (e.g. P. Barresi, Province dell'Asia Minore: costo dei marmi, architettura pubblica e committenza [2003], pp. 151–204). Extending this line of research to the less explored republican period is a welcome initiative, for which B. must be praised (for another recent attempt see D. Maschek, ‘Quantifying Monumentality in a Time of Crisis. Building Materials, Labour Force and Building Costs in Late Republican Central Italy’, in J. DeLaine, S. Camporeale and A. Pizzo [edd.], Arqueología de la construcción V: Man-made Materials, Engineering and Infrastructure [2016], pp. 317–29). There are obviously various unknowns related to the total costs and duration of this project, but B. convincingly argues that the construction of the city walls was an enormous enterprise for that early period, likely to have provoked debt and subsequent economic disruption.
Discussion then shifts towards matters of social status and building activities, with Chapter 5 outlining the role of Rome's nobilitas in this context and stressing the connection between economic changes and political development. This also relates to questions about the nature of the labour supply in mid-republican Rome, which are explored in Chapter 6. It is undeniable that the expanding slave market had a strong impact on Rome's building projects and on the organisation of this workforce, but B. rejects the idea that slave labour entirely replaced free labour in the city. In contrast, Rome's urban growth from the third century bc onwards must have offered many opportunities to attract workers with different social backgrounds and coming from a range of places in Italy and beyond. For example, the inscription on the ashlar blocks of a third-century bc structure on the clivus Palatinus (long thought to be the temple of Iupiter Stator) mentions two Greek individuals, Pilocrates and Diocles, who had their names written in Latin probably while the building was under construction.
Finally, Chapter 7 addresses the issue of technological changes in ashlar stonemasonry during the third and second centuries bc. The sacred buildings of Largo Argentina, the republican city walls, the temple of Veiovis on the Capitoline and the round temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium are cited as evidence for what B. refers to as a ‘strategic’ use of different tuffs, thus demonstrating the builders’ profound knowledge of materials and of their physical properties. This went alongside the adoption of specific lifting techniques for the stone blocks, such as the ferrei forfices mentioned by Vitruvius (10.2) and the lewis.
To sum up, this is an important book that brings together a wealth of data on the urban development of Rome in the mid-republican period. Its structure makes it accessible to a wide-ranging readership, including archaeologists, classicists, historians and architectural historians. One of the most significant achievements is the fact that it successfully places the architectural process within Rome's republican social, socio-economic and socio-political processes. More broadly, this book fits very well within a recent trend of scholarship dedicated to pre-imperial Rome, such as the study of the city's earlier architectural phases by J.N. Hopkins, The Genesis of Roman Architecture (2016) and the innovative approach to local architecture and history by P.J.E. Davies, Architecture and Politics in Republican Rome (2017).
