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This introductory chapter begins with a review of post-classical artistic representations of the myth of Romulus' asylum. It then discusses Roman identity in modern contexts and the frequent linking of the myth of Romulus' asylum with that of the rape of the Sabine women. The main theme of the book is then described, namely, the inseparability of myth, history, and institutions in ancient perceptions of the Roman citizenship.

This chapter considers how the study of Roman baths and bathing customs is related to public latrines and their use. First, public latrines have become more common in baths and within urban settings. The increasing frequency of toilet services in cities was becoming a part of Roman cultural identity, much like baths. Second, the existence of baths and public latrines in Roman cities is very to be related to the social custom of communal living for an expanding urban population. Third, simultaneous improvements in Roman building technology also have contributed to the building of baths and latrines in cities. Developments particularly related to the production of more durable concrete allowed for increasingly larger, more elaborately designed, and more lasting structures. The final and perhaps most important reason for explaining the spread of baths and latrines relates to the influences of trade and travel, since these two are most often the mechanisms for technology transfers.

Hadrian's Wall was constructed in the AD 120s and maintained for almost three centuries before ceasing to operate as a Roman frontier during the fifth century. Its scale and complexity means that it is one of the most important ancient monuments in the British Isles and one the most complex and well-preserved frontier works that once defined the boundaries of the Roman empire. In order to address the continuing life of the Wall, this chapter considers the significance of certain places along its line through an approach to its chorography. The aim of this book is to demonstrate that the Wall's Roman identity has been fundamental to its continuing vitality throughout the centuries, including its role and significance in the region, nation, and world today. At the same time, the monument has acquired a range of broader associations as a result of its long and complex sequence of use. It is a composite Wall, but with a Roman identity at the core of its living spirit.

Using a lesser known source, rescripts mostly from the east, which are preserved in the Justinianic Codex, this chapter examines the domestic conflict that arose between parents and adult children in ancient Rome, and shows how certain social values such as marital happiness were prized above patria potestas, the central doctrine of Roman family law. In raising the question of precisely how ‘Roman’ these 3rd-century families from the Greek east were, this study introduces the problem of Roman identity. The rescripts provide a valuable and underexploited source of information about social relations in ancient Roman society. This chapter also discusses the power of the paterfamilias in arranging suitable marriages for his children as well as in their divorce, and how imperial decisions seemed to disfavor parental attempts to break up a daughter's marriage, particularly if it was harmonious.

This chapter argues that one of the functions of Rome's calendar of rites – the sequence of religious festivals as they occurred throughout the year – was to define and delineate Roman power, Roman history and Roman identity; and that it did this by evoking events from different chronological periods of the Roman past and arranging them in a meaningful sequence of time; but not a sequence defined by linear, narrative, history. The chapter concerns itself principally with the practice of Roman ritual during the late Republic and early Empire; and its argument depends on taking seriously the discussions of the various festivals preserved in the writings of contemporary Romans and Greeks – men who practised or observed the rituals. All the chosen texts refer to the festival of the Parilia, which took place each year on the twenty-first of April.

This paper considers the use of oratory by Roman politicians outside Rome in the presence of an assembly of non-Romans. The figure of the legatus, envoy, became increasingly important from the third century bc onwards, with distinctly different characteristics from those demanded by oratorical performance in Rome. Legati had the senate’s instructions; they often faced a hostile audience; in response, they developed a new type of oratory intended to present Roman identity persuasively. This paper argues that Roman legati had to develop specific elements of diplomatic rhetoric, which show a clear dependence on the Greek tradition, but which, in turn, contain original ideological aspects, typical of Roman political thought.

This chapter explores communication between the Roman elite and the people and, in particular, the ways in which the elite tried to convey a sense of shared community and aims when it addressed the people at contiones. A particular sort of rhetoric, the ‘rhetoric of emphatic direct address’, is omnipresent: the Roman people are addressed as part of, and partner in, an “imagined community” of the Quirites sharing a common universe of ‘Romanness’. The contio invariably, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, aims at the rhetorical construction of a consensus – just as the contio as a ‘place’ represents the performative side of this process. The contio as discourse is based on, and indeed largely consists in, the construction or negotiation, recreation or affirmation of Roman identity or identities, of the exclusiveness of being a Roman, the rôles and privileges, demands and burdens involved in being a true Roman citizen.

This chapter outlines the cultural phenomenon of the luxury villa, assesses previous scholarship, and describes the study's scope. Roman luxury villas articulated a novel architectural language, which designers developed by appropriating the existing stylistic and thematic vocabularies of Hellenistic and Roman architecture. It is argued that the architectural expression of luxury villas was instrumental in the construction of the character of the cultural phenomenon itself, and that it became an agent of Roman cultural identity.

This chapter sets out Roman conceptions of their own and the Greeks' literary history. The Greek conception of literary history as a chronological sequence of authors turns into two sequences, which the Romans artificially separate in time (Greek poetry is made to end around 240 bc, when Roman poetry is to begin). Authors sometimes create asymmetry between the sequences: theirs may be the only work in the Latin sequence within a genre, or may encapsulate the equivalent of the entire Greek sequence. The distinct sequences appear as the generic traditions within works; Latin writers sometimes give primacy in practice to the Latin sequence, to assert their Roman identity and to compete within their own sequence.

This chapter emphasizes the relation of “oral” and “literate” and talks about writing as the predominant oral culture in Rome. It sketches an account of the early use of writing for assertion of status and Roman identity and describes the social risk in the mastery of literate practices. The chapter concludes with an examination of the “embodied” character of writing, by which writing is not seen as a representation of speech but as something material with its own opportunities, criticisms, and constraints.

In Book 4, Juvenal alluded to his advancing age; in Book 5, representing the last phase of his career, he purposely assumes the persona of an old man. Inspired by portraits of old men across ancient literature, and particularly by stereotypes of their emotional attitudes, this persona generates the varied and fascinating Satires 13 through 16. Juvenal is alternately contentious, confident, anxious, and bitter. He mocks a peer for his anger, criticizes the behavior of the younger generations (recalling the epic Nestor), condemns barbaric behavior as a way of clinging to his learned Roman identity and emotional code, and belligerently attacks the very engine of imperial rule, the army. Juvenal’s final performances essentially define satire as the province of the senex.

This Epilogue summarizes the book's main themes and presents some final thoughts. The present study has considered the ways in which material arrived in Rome, how it was cared for, and, through a series of admittedly artificial categories, has tried to excavate to a limited extent how various cultural property was expressive of Roman values and identity. This Epilogue concludes that prestige objects produced by top name artists, women with healing powers as purveyors of magic, idiosyncratic statues, place as conservator of historic memory, all abide in the modern as they did in the ancient city, complete with an extensive bureaucracy to preserve the city's cultural patrimony, rendering the modern city as much a place of memory and wonder as the ancient.