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This chapter examines the urbanization process in Rome based on archaeological evidence. Archaeological attention has been refocused on Rome because the question of the reliability of our sources for early Rome has been reopened and because recent and ancient sources have been found to cohere to a surprising degree. The chapter suggests that the curiae are interestingly urban in their interests and functions, and in the way they participate in conscious and unconscious dialectics across the whole urban landscape. It also discusses the distinction between proto-urban and urban.

This introductory chapter argues that studying Plutarch's interpretations of the philosophy of his past not only allows us to assess his reliability as a source of information for ancient Greek philosophy, but also provides us with valuable and philosophically engaging contextual readings of ancient philosophical theories. The best way to approach Plutarch as a historian of philosophy is by focussing on the Adversus Colotem, a unique text which offers a systematic critical discussion of a number of philosophical theories from the past in the form of a response to Colotes' general polemic against the great Greek philosophers. Despite being itself a polemic against Epicurean philosophy, the Adversus Colotem is a good specimen of a type of philosophical writing in antiquity that operated as a vehicle for conducting the history of philosophy.

This chapter introduces the central role in this rediscovery of a number of recovered ancient texts, including Demetrius. This little bit of lineage sets in high relief how utterly foundational the genre of the so-called familiar letter is to the long heritage of Western literature. This letter only gradually and with difficulty invades the ancient ars rhetorica, grounded as it was in the adversarial nature of the oration, by the seventeenth century, epistolary writing has very nearly captured the larger literary field. It will even change the way early modern Christians read Scripture. Finally, the line of descent from Demetrius to Jonson places front and center the question of style. Renaissance theory adheres to its ancient sources. The intimacy rediscovered refers to a particular style of written communication. Furthermore, this chapter analyzes these practices as theorized by three of the most influential practitioners of the Renaissance, Petrarch, Erasmus, and Montaigne.

This chapter starts by sketching the chequered historiography of Roman migration. The mistaken linkage of migration with modernity has for a long time obscured the fact that mobility and migration are phenomena of all times. In migration studies this realization has led to a virtual explosion of studies of pre-modern mobility, yet the severing of the connection between migration and modernity has also necessitated a search for new interpretative frameworks. It is clear that some societies have characteristics that seem conducive to high levels of mobility. But how exactly do such characteristics relate to migration if modernization is left out of the equation? It is here that ancient Rome can help. It offers a combination of voluntary, forced, and state-organized migration that is well documented by the ancient sources. Yet these sources need to be placed in a framework; it is the aim of the book to provide one.

The introduction orients readers to evidence from the Roman Empire for self-authorized or “freelance” experts in skills, teachings, and practices that were perceived as novel and often exotic from the perspective of certain audiences. After sketching a wider field of freelance expertise that included doctors and some philosophers, the chapter proposes criteria for defining freelance experts in religion specifically. Whereas many of these figures have been characterized as “charlatans” and set apart from Jewish/Christian actors, it argues that such distinctions have much to do with the quality of evidence for their activities. However, the biases of the ancient sources have been received uncritically by many modern scholars, with the result that the significance of this particular form of religious activity has not been fully appreciated in studies of religion in the Roman Empire.

This chapter examines the historical Crassus as reimagined in the STARZ Spartacus series by means of clever adaptations and modifications. It argues that Crassus undergoes a transformation, as he is sexualized by the addition of a tender romance with a slave woman, Kore—an affair turned bitter by the machinations of an invented son named Tiberius—and by his gladiator-style physical conditioning regimen. The result is a compelling characterization that is not a product of its literary and cinematic predecessors but is remarkably consistent with the ancient source material and respectful of at least some of the realities of period.