Roman sumptuary legislation of the Republican Era C. 200-100 B.C.
Between the end of the Second Punic War and the beginning of the Social War the Roman Senate proposed and the voters passed a number of laws and regulations concemed with private life and public display, among them at least four restricting the cost of provisioning and the number of guests allowed at private banquets.
When to say when: wine and drunkenness in Roman society
Not surprisingly, different people offered different opinions on the use of alcohol and the acceptability of drunkenness in Roman society. What certain people said on the subject – and the context they said it in – reveals inherent biases in the authors and the effect of those biases on social structure.
Lead Poisoning in Ancient Rome
Lead was known to the ancients from at least the 4th millennium BC, but its use increased markedly during Roman times, to the extent that it became a health hazard. Mines and foundry furnaces caused air pollution; lead was extensively used in plumbing; domestic utensils were made of lead and pewter, and lead salts were used in cosmetics, medicines and paints.
A life of luxury in the desert? The food and fodder supply to Mons Claudianus
Mons Claudinas, a quarry settlement known for its granodiorite which, as an imperial monopoly, was used for imperial building projects in Rome, lies in a remote part of the Eastern Desert of Egypt, some 500 km south of Cairo and 120 km east of the Nile, at an altitude of c.700 m in the heart of the Red Sea mountains.
Kapeleion: casual and commercial wine consumption in classical Greece
The symposion is consistently referred to as the framework around which all studies of Classical Greek drinking are built, regardless of a body of archaeological and literary evidence to suggest that this type of drinking was enjoyed primarily by a small minority of the elite male, and perhaps predominantly Athenian, population (although various forms of ritualised drinking were widespread throughout the Greek world).
A Lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain
Here, the authors of a multidisciplinary project use a combination of scientific techniques to illuminate Roman York, and later Roman history in general, with their image of a glamorous mixed-race woman, in touch with Africa, Christianity, Rome and Yorkshire.
The Lexicon of Abuse: Drunkenness and political illegitimacy in the late Roman world
This paper will explain why it is significant that an emperor should be characterized as an ebriosus.4 It will show that emperors described in this fashion were not ‘mere’ heavy drinkers, but that allegations of drunkenness were employed to undermine the very legitimacy of their rule.
Grain Distribution in Late Republican Rome
In the scholarly debate, on the basis of judgements which we find in ancient sources, the grain laws are often considered to be, mainly, a political tool used to win approval from theRoman plebs.