After some general observations about the centrality of cities to Roman studies, Alessandro Launaro's editorial introduction gets to the point: archaeological evidence from urban sites in Italy has accumulated considerably in recent years, and this collection showcases some of this work. Between Launaro's introduction and John Patterson's conclusion, thirteen chapters explore Italian sites recently or currently targets of investigation. Several big international research initiatives are described, many not yet fully published, making this a useful aggiornamento. Moreover, it appears soon after a 2022 Cambridge University Laurence Seminar on Roman urbanism in Italy, and has been made freely available as an open access digital publication. There is much to praise here.
Some sites here are less known, others familiar. Launaro notes how Italian urbanism is often studied according to ‘textbook sites’ like Cosa or Fregellae, even as understanding of these settlements shifts, sometimes radically. In part, that shift results from the tools we now employ, and Martin Millett, a pioneer in the application of survey methodologies to urban sites, starts things off in that direction. For him, the problem of Roman urban studies is one of analytical scale: top-down or Empire-wide approaches extrapolate from small samples of often idiosyncratic sites (Ostia, Rome, Pompeii) and often assert broadly similar urban experiences. Instead, he inclines towards regional diversity, advocating for using geophysics to create a wider basis for comparison. He offers illustration from a long generating project at Falerii Novi in the Middle Tiber Valley (Millett et al., Falerii Novi, forthcoming). Geophysics reveals the full plan of the 31-hectare walled site, and Millett discusses the grid-plan, the disposition of public and private spaces and so forth. What geophysics cannot easily reveal is the granular chronology of urban development; for that, we may look forward to integrating this work with ongoing excavations co-directed by the present reviewer (M. Andrews et al., PBSR 91 (2023), 9–34).
Relying on similar non-invasive methodologies, Ian Haynes, Paolo Liverani, Thea Ravasi and Stephen Kay report on a large-scale effort to study Rome's Caelian Hill. Results so far mark turning points (the Severan period) or institutional changes (property rights) that shaped the neighbourhood's transformation. The potential of non-invasive methodologies recurs in Giuseppe Ceraudo's presentation of Aquinum and Frank Vermeulen's reports from Septempeda, a ‘small town’ of 15 hectares emerging from a roadside agglomeration in Picenum. Septempeda became large enough to host typical urban structures and impressive walls, but lacked a theatre or amphitheatre. Christopher Smith, Sophie Hay and Kay describe a different version of urbanism at Lucus Feroniae, an old sanctuary site north of Rome. In the Early Empire, the site was monumentalised, but geophysics reveals no private architecture. The region hosted substantial villas with Lucus Feroniae plausibly functioning as a service and administrative centre for a distributed population. In these cases, diverse urban trajectories depended upon local situations.
Andrea De Giorgi likewise emphasises local factors at Cosa and its ‘twin city’ of nearby Orbetello. This is a fresh perspective for a site which for a long time formed the archetype of a colonial town imposed upon Italian territory. De Giorgi focuses on signs of persistent pre-colonial culture and suggests the colony's early water supply drew upon local knowledge. I note: at 13 hectares, Cosa was smaller than Septempeda, while De Giorgi shows large empty spaces within its walls. In contrast to scholarly interest, Cosa was a rather small place.
Two standout chapters provide updates from other Middle Republican colonies. Francesca Diosono discusses work to bring excavations at Fregellae begun in the 1980s to publication. Readers should consult Diosono's phasing for the public bath complex, one of Central Italy's earliest, and for one of Fregellae's domus, among other structures. Diosono ingeniously connects large quantities of Punic amphorae to the immigration of Punic aristocrats after the Hannibalic War. Cécile Evers likewise offers a superb overview of Alba Fucens’ state of study, relating new evidence for the forum's development. She notes, in case readers are unaware, the sensational discovery of new epigraphic fasti.
Simonetta Menchelli, Paolo Sangriso, Silvia Marini and Rocco Marcheschi's picture of Lunae contrasts De Giorgi's for Cosa, as burials suggest little continuity of Ligurian culture into the colonial period. Livy reports the forced migration of 48,000 Ligurians to Samnium (41.13.4), while I wonder whether the contrast reflects hardening interests in Roman citizenship at a colony founded in 177 b.c., a century after Cosa. Excavations turn up little from the earliest colony, although huts below the forum, perhaps temporary housing for initial colonists, are noteworthy.
Several papers tackle later urban phases: Ben Russell and Girolamo De Simone present Aeclanum along the Via Appia, which began as a roadside village and flourished in Late Antiquity. Patrizia Basso describes transformations of the Republican colony of Aquileia across the fifth century a.d., even after Attila's sack. Alessia Morigi introduces a large project on urbanism in Aemilia Romagna, focusing on a bridge at Parma.
Quality is consistently high, and this well-illustrated book is brimming with new data. It is essential and admirably accessible reading for anyone interested in the topic. Moving beyond the assemblage of case studies, what do we learn about Roman urbanism? Most authors show staunchly empirical interests, avoiding questions of what cities are or what they do. Sites are all assumed to be urban, even if they were clearly so in often very different ways. Of course, readers looking for urban theory can turn to a large literature. Instead, contributors seem to respond to Millett's call for a bottom-up approach attentive to local circumstance and regional variability. How to build upwards from this local perspective? Here, I should acknowledge the editor's own essay on Interamna Lirenas, subject of a new monograph (Launaro and Millett, Interamna Lirenas, 2023). Launaro nods to precisely the issue of generalisability: was Interamna special or not? Probably not, he concludes, but perhaps this undersells things. Interamna was ‘normal’ by comparison to other sites, a framework that starts to produce patterns: it displays Caesarian patronage known also at Alba Fucens; it shows continuity through the third century a.d. like Aeclanum; its 24-hectare size makes it larger than Septempeda, Lucus Feroniae, or Cosa; its modern ‘greenfield’ situation makes it amenable to geophysics, like Falerii or Aquinum. We can thus begin to sort Italy's towns according to size, monumental array, disposition to routes, chronological development, juridical status, and so forth. By no means are these unexpected categories, but they may be identified here inductively from observed qualities, making the volume's version of locally variable urbanism more than an idiographic exercise. Some work putting things together is already undertaken in lucid fashion, if mainly from an historian's perspective, by Patterson's conclusion, which raises issues of mobility, surely consequential to many sites’ fortunes, and ponders the impact of broad changes like veteran settlement or Christianity. In sum, this rich volume provides no singular answer to the question of urban experience in ancient Italy but also suggests that answers are not unlimited, while contributions take important steps towards describing the phenomenon from its constituent parts.
