Richard Hodges investigates pestilence and climate chaos in the eternal city The trams rumbling along the Viale Trastevere wake me. The bell announcing morning prayers at San Crisogono tolls a little later. From my terrace, I can see the Ponte Garibaldi and the many roofs stretching away to the distant onion dome of Sant’Andrea della […]
Rome
Travel: Rome
CWA’s editor-in-chief Andrew Selkirk takes us on a capital tour. I have been to Rome – again! In March 2016, the city was the location for the annual conference of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. The conference was held in one of Italy’s foremost universities, La Sapienza. This is Rome’s oldest – […]
Book review: Shopping in Ancient Rome: the retail trade in the Late Republic and the Principate
By Claire Holleran Oxford University Press, £65.00 ISBN 978-0199698219 Researching for her PhD thesis, Holleran soon identified a gap in the study of Ancient Rome: retail trade. This excellent monograph fills that niche. The author paints a picture of a densely populated pre-industrial Rome in which most inhabitants were not landowners and so relied […]
Portus – world wonder
An amphitheatre, with a footprint to match the Pantheon in Rome, has been discovered at the 2nd century man-made harbour of Portus, Rome’s ‘gateway to the Mediterranean’.