The influence on Roman archaeological tradition of the link between post-medieval social changes and the popularity of Roman culture should not be underestimated (Ayres 1997: 84-90). This might also explain why prehistorians have been more willing to challenge modern social attitudes in their interpretations of the past. They have criticised perceptions of life in the past that have assumed too much familiarity with our present economically dominated world (e. g., J. D. Hill 1995a; Thomas 1991).
3.3.1 Economics in Roman urban studies
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, influential writings on cities by political economists and sociologists such as Max Weber (1864-1920)39 were also encouraged by their contemporary economic situation. Although Weber’s work was important, its application to the Roman period might be more problematic. The City (1921; translated into English, 1958) argued that the elite in Roman times used the rents from their agricultural estates to pay for their conspicuous consumption within towns; this 'consumer city’ model was different from the 'producer city’, where urban growth was a result of economic production and enterprise (Weber 1958; Grahame 1997: 151). The emphasis on economic aspects within studies of Roman urbanism, and of Roman archaeology more generally, has meant that other areas of Roman life and the way in which the town and its location were experienced have not been given sufficient attention. Influential supporters of Weber’s model in studies of the classical world were Finley in The Ancient Economy (1973), and A. H. M. Jones in The Roman Economy (1974); both had primitivist views of the economy. Wacher’s analysis of towns in Britain (1975), too, envisaged the town as the organiser and exploiter of the countryside and stressed the connection between the urban elite and the countryside and the use of the city to fulfil the elite’s desire for commodities. Although Roman society may have worked in this way to some extent, this approach provides a narrow view of the town. Mattingly (2006b: 286) has also indicated that there would have been many regional differences in economic activity, with no single integrated economy.
Studies of urbanism have also compared ‘industrial’ and ‘pre-industrial’ cities and in many cases have considered the pre-industrial examples of the past as inferior, being similar to the settlements of modern-day pre-industrial peoples (e. g., Sjoberg 1965).Related to the economic emphasis in studies of Roman urbanism is the reliance on modern conceptions of commerce that is often encountered; it is necessary to think beyond the market economy in relation to commerce in the Roman world. The idea of the ‘embedded economy’, as opposed to the ‘market economy’, for past societies was first argued forcefully by Polanyi (1957). He argued that in such societies exchange was ‘embedded’ in social relations and the modern concepts of‘economy’ and ‘economic life’ had no meaning. The modern notion of the economy and the science of its study was more an invention of individuals such as Adam Smith (1723-90) and Thomas Malthus (1766-1834; see Morley 2004: 34). Polanyi’s substantivist viewpoint was opposed to the formalist opinion that economic theory could be applied to all periods and all places (ibid.: 43). This was adopted by Hodder (1979) in his study of the use of pottery and coinage within Iron Age and Roman Britain. The idea of a market economy is also simplistic in the context of Rome, because gift giving and obligations of patronage often played a part in methods of exchange (Salway 1993: 427-9). Economic theory developed as a way for us to comprehend the modern capitalist economy, and it is questionable whether this can be fruitfully applied to non-capitalist and non-Western economies (Morley 2004: 34). Highlighting how twentieth-century attitudes often influence such studies, Greene (2005: 11-13) reminds us that the ways in which production and exchange were conceptualised and undertaken in the Roman period differed from present ideas. Influences will have survived from the pre-Roman period, where production and the movement and acquisition of goods will have been considered and conducted in terms beyond those of modern economics.
Industrial activity and its relationship to towns also require re-evaluation. Until recently such activity has not been the subject of as much consideration as other areas of Roman urban studies and has mainly been perceived through modern perspectives. There are some negative attitudes towards industrial activity in the classical sources, which may have influenced this early neglect of the topic in scholarship.40 41 Finley’s (1973) The Ancient Economy and A. H. M. Jones’ The Roman Economy (1974) concentrate on agriculture, with only limited attention given to metal production. There have, however, been some useful attempts to look at other areas of production in a detailed way (e. g., Mattingly and Salmon 2000). Attitudes against industrial activity have now been shown to be largely idealist rather than representing reality in the Roman period, because the elite of the city seem to have made substantial use of production (Wallace-Hadrill 1991: 245).
In modern Western society, technology exists in a category distinct from religion and ritual, ideology and magic. However, this is a product of centuries of social change from the Middle Ages onwards, including the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and modernism (Bergst0l 2002: 78). Technology is now geared towards maximum production and economic success; indeed, the words 'industry’ and ‘industrial’ themselves have highly modern connotations and are not useful terms for the past. Modernist thinking tends to deny the human component of technology and industry and its symbolic and social role within society (Barndon 2004: 21; Reid and MacLean 1995: 145), which is important in pre-industrial and contemporary non-Western societies. This aspect of industrial activity requires further analysis. Like open spaces, metalworking and other crafts were often a significant part of late pre-Roman Iron Age precursors to many of the town sites in Roman Britain (see Chapter 5). Metalworking was also a significant activity in the public buildings of towns in the late Roman period; this is addressed in detail later (Chapter 7).
Though economic interpretations are important, they have come to dominate our understanding of many aspects of urban life and the interaction between towns and landscape. The emphasis on economic aspects in reconstructing the past has been influential in many areas of Roman archaeology; by recognising this, we can make new suggestions about the way in which urbanisation and urbanism, especially in the late Roman period, can be approached. Concentrating on the city’s economic function neglects social aspects and reduces everything to economic activity. Recognising this emphasis on economic viewpoints is useful for examining towns in the late Roman period from new angles, because arguments for decline are often based on economic perspectives.
3.3.2 Landscape and town location
Economics and rationality have been influential in the consideration of Roman town planning. Some information, ideas, and attitudes concerning these issues are represented in ancient texts. Vitruvius outlines the most suitable locations to build a city (De arch. I.4.1-12),42 whereas Cicero describes reasons of economy, security, and hygiene for the location of the town (Rep. II.2.3). Greek authors such as Plato and Aristotle express similar views in their writings (e. g., Arist. Pol. VII.10.1-8).43 The orthogonal street-grid is often seen to be a symbol of order, advancement, and civilisation. Haverfield (1913: 11) was a strong instigator of the importance of Roman town planning,44 and he emphasised the fact that only certain periods in time had been capable of town planning, including the Roman and the modern day.
Aspects of Roman town planning, however, went beyond technical and practical considerations. Rykwert (1976: 44-60) has documented the myths and rituals mentioned in the classical texts concerning the foundation of towns, which included taking the auspices and ritually outlining the boundaries of the town with a plough. A few important studies have attempted to analyse these in the archaeological evidence, including that in Britain (e. g., Creighton 20oo: 209-13; Woodward and Woodward 2004). The preoccupation with the practicalities of town foundation, however, has meant that there has been less consideration of how pre-Roman ideas and attitudes towards place and landscape influenced the establishment of towns. The town was not simply a physical entity, but also a space that was shaped, invented, and conceptualised by social actors over time (cf. Lefebvre 1991: 73; Rykwert 1976: 24). It was an interactive stage on which inhabitants and visitors orientated themselves through personal experience of their environment (Favro 1996: 227). The significance attached to the locations in which towns were placed in the pre-Roman period, across the Empire, will have influenced in some way the nature, understanding, and use of the towns and their setting.
Like town planning, location has traditionally been studied in terms of rational and economic factors emphasising military strategy, communication, and trade (though there are some important publications moving beyond this; see, e. g., Creighton 2006). In the 1960s and 1970s, central place theory was a popular analytical technique that was used to examine Roman town distribution (e. g., Hodder 1972).23 This approach is now regarded as having a more limited value for studying landscape and settlement patterns in prehistory, but there continues to be an emphasis on rational reconstructions of the landscape in the Roman period, seeing towns as located at sites for optimal commercial value and military considerations (e. g., Qualmann et al. 2004: 90-1; Wacher 1995). These factors were important - Fulford (2002: 55), for example, suggests that the development around Verulamium was related to its location along Watling Street, which created considerable economic power with goods flowing north - but it is unlikely that the landscape would have been understood and experienced solely in these terms. To approach towns, their foundation, and their settings in more complex ways, which is a prerequisite for studying late Roman urbanism (the continuation of these places), we must address the dominance of both economic and modernist concepts of'landscape’ within studies. Figure 3.1 depicts the Brayford Pool in Lincoln, which has now been greatly reduced and confined to an economic and rational setting. In prehistory and the Roman period, however, it was larger and formed part of a highly meaning-laden and ritualised landscape (see Chapter 4; Jones and Stocker 2003).
Roman-period ‘landscape’ is generally assumed to have been understood, experienced, and to have functioned in a similar way to its modern counterpart, including an emphasis on its economic exploitation. This will have influenced the way in which towns and their locations in the Roman period in Britain have been studied, including their development from pre-Roman places. The term ‘landscape’ itself is a specific way of viewing the world originating within Western society amidst the economic and social changes of the post-medieval period (Cosgrove 1984). There has been much written on this subject and it is useful to summarise some of the arguments here. ‘Landscape’ is the product of an arrangement and structuring of the environment in a very specific period of change within society (Lemaire 1997: 5). Its emergence as a concept was heavily intertwined with the growing preoccupations with the economy and consumerism within Western society from the Renaissance onwards. The word ‘landscape’ entered English usage in the late sixteenth century as a painting term from the Dutch landschap (Cosgrove 1984:120; Hirsch 1995: 2),
23 The central place theory was taken from the concept of new geography, putting an emphasis on economic
And rational motives in site location; in archaeology it was used to look at Iron Age hillfort distribution (e. g.,
Clarke 1968; Cunliffe 1984; also see Haselgrove 1992).
An artistic tradition influenced by Cartesian perspectivalism and a product of the Renaissance viewing of space as geometric, rectilinear, and abstract (Chapman 1997a: 4). Painting the land, and terms such as 'picturesque’, objectified and distanced it, separating people from it (Bevan 1997: 181; Hirsch 1995: 11). Common themes of landscape paintings were aristocratic estates, and these were often conceptualised in comparable terms to Roman villas.
There was also an increasing perception of land as a commodity to be exploited to the full, culminating in the enclosure system, drainage operations on wetlands, and new farming techniques and machinery (Darby 1973). The result was that people were distanced further from the land and there was a greater emphasis on the visual landscape (Bender 2001: 3). M. Johnson (2007: 129) notes that even words such as ‘farm’ and ‘farming’ only really took on their modern meanings in the context of this eighteenth-century ideology of improvement. The rationalisation of the landscape led to its secularisation and the neglect of landscape as cosmology and mythical geography (the mingling of landscape, cosmology, and mythology) with ancestors, spirits, and gods, and invoked through memories, myths, rituals, and ceremonies (cf. Derks 1998: 135).
Merrifield (1987: 3-4) has argued that archaeology was too often considered in scientific terms, with an emphasis on measuring and quantification at the expense of other areas of human activity. Studies of landscape have been influenced greatly by the British empirical school, which has been principally concerned with surveying and mapping land (Thomas 1993: 19). Much of this work is of great value, but there has been a tendency to isolate interpretations of the landscape and separate these from the people of the past (C. Evans 1985: 8o); scientific techniques have rationalised the way in which landscape was used and understood. Mapping techniques and aerial photography are ‘reflectionist’, because they impose modern expectations of searching for patterns onto the past as well as emphasising the aesthetic (Chapman 1997a: 10; M. Johnson 2007: 85-95), and they artificially expose everything to academic researchers or ‘spectators’ (Thomas 1993: 25). Space is conceived in terms of its ‘formal essence’ through mathematical spatial analysis (E. Casey 1996: 19-20).
The methodologies of processual archaeology created an artificial surface in which human action occurred (Tilley 1994: 9). Publications on landscape archaeology have tended to neglect the people themselves and the way in which they constructed and perceived the landscape in which they lived (Thomas 1993: 25-6). Survey projects of Roman landscapes and the production of maps of Roman provinces have generally neglected the cultural and social significance of the landscape (cf. Hingley 2006a). For Ingold (2000: 151), the notion of land as a surface to be occupied is a colonial viewpoint and is combined with the belief that the present takes over from the past. In actuality the ‘landscape’ will have been experienced in much more complex terms and with considerable references to the past.
General discussions of the Roman countryside have considered it predominantly in rational terms, with an emphasis on economic exploitation. This is especially noticeable in studies of villa landscapes (e. g., Branigan 1977) and discussions of the relationship between Roman towns and their hinterland (e. g., Wacher 1975). In early excavations, the villa and town mosaics that were found were sometimes placed within the house of the local estate (e. g., Upex 2001: 62-3), projecting modern elite understandings and experiences of landscape as well as perceptions of the classical past into Roman
FiGURE 3.1. Photograph of the Brayford Pool, Lincoln, in its modern setting (photograph by A. C. Rogers).
Times.45 British aristocrats were associating themselves with the Roman past, perhaps to justify their position and power in the present (Ayers 1997: 165; Hingley 2001: 149).
Studies of 'landscape' within prehistory have begun to move beyond preoccupations with the economic by placing an emphasis on humanised and meaning-laden space and attempting to explore how individuals perceived and engaged with the landscape, and constructed their identity within it (Knapp and Ashmore 1999: 9; Tilley 1994: 7-8). Bradley’s (2000) study of'natural places' has suggested that these too played an important part in social and ritual life. He has shown, for instance, that ritual deposition often had a role in negotiating the significance of the landscape in which people lived (ibid.: 5).46 Man-made monuments were important (e. g., Thomas 1993; Tilley 1994), but so were natural features (cf. Insoll 2007; Rogers 2007).
Rather than using the value-laden and economically dominated term 'landscape' for understanding towns and their interaction with pre-existing settlements, it might be preferable to use 'place' - an entity for seeing, knowing, and understanding the world (Cresswell 2004). Places can be considered as foci of human feeling and thought, central to experiences of the environment; they are constructed in human movement, memory, and encounter (Taylor 1997: 193) and they gather and have a hold on what occurs there (E. Casey 1996: 24-5). For Ingold, similarly (2000: 149), a place is created when people
Inhabiting the land are drawn to a particular focus, with the act of movement to and from the sites also forming an important part of their meaning. Meaning can also differ depending on the people who are experiencing it, and their world-view and beliefs (Tilley 1994: ii). Much of understanding the 'landscape’, including hills, rivers, and wetlands, was entwined with religious belief (Muir 2000: 147). The issue of ritual landscapes in Roman Britain, however, has only been briefly, although usefully, discussed (e. g., Hingley and Miles 2002; Rogers 2007; Taylor 1997).
The concept of the ritual landscape can be considered in relation to Roman urbanism by examining the significance and role of water and watery contexts within the landscape and how towns utilised and modified these resources - a topic often preoccupied with 'hard practical considerations’, which are, in many cases, in actual fact 'modern, Western-derived assumptions’ (M. Johnson 2007:129).
3.3.3 Roman and indigenous attitudes to water
Within prehistory it is now generally recognised that water and watery places, including rivers, springs, lakes, bogs, and islands, amongst other natural places, played an important part in the social lives and religious beliefs of the indigenous peoples of Western Europe; they had a numinous quality (e. g., Derks 1998; M. Green 1986: 166; Kamash 2008; J. Webster 1995:449-51).47 These places will have influenced, and been consciously modified by, Roman urban development. It could be argued that anthropological, ethnographic, and archaeological studies of religion has often attempted to explain and comprehend it through a mindset based on the so-called world religions, with written scripture and an identifiable god, as in Christianity and Islam (Bowie 2000: 8, 25). Religion is also often considered a separate entity from everyday life and in terms of beliefs that need to be explained (Asad 1993: 40-4; Dowden 1992: 8; Graddel 2002: 6).
For Iron Age northwest Europe, it has been acknowledged that religion recognised the supernatural in all areas of life, including the natural surroundings. Consequently ritual activity was often associated with 'natural’ features and especially those connected with water (P. J. Casey 1989: 37; M. Green 1986: 167). The source and confluences of rivers were important, with sanctuaries and ritual deposits known, for example, at the sources of the Seine, Marne and Yonne, and at the confluence of the Roer and the Meuse (Derks 1998:138-9). It is unlikely that the role played by water in religious belief and activity in the Iron Age will ever be completely understood. Water is necessary for life and seems to have taken on a special significance, being considered the focus of the life-force and having regenerative powers (Derks 1998:141; M. Green 1986:166). Liminality may also have been a factor, with water being seen as the interface between the earthly and supernatural worlds where communication with the supernatural or entry to the 'other world’ could be made (Cunliffe 1988: 359; Derks 1998:141). Excavated sites such as Flag Fen near Peterborough, Fiskerton in Lincolnshire, and Llyn Cerrig Bach in Anglesey (Field and Parker Pearson 2003; C. Fox 1946; Pryor 2001) have demonstrated that they were foci for ritual deposition with large collections of metalwork. There are also well-known individual items from rivers such as the Battersea Shield from the Thames in London and the Witham Shield from Lincoln. Across Europe, wetlands are recognised as having been significant places throughout prehistory through the discovery of unusual finds (e. g., Coles 200i). Deposition into these contexts, as well as pits, will also have tied in with chthonic beliefs in which, as well as the visible landscape, there was a religiously imbued belowground where gods resided (cf. Cunliffe 1992,2004).
Ritual deposition, of course, need not have been a prerequisite for the appreciation of the significance of natural places in prehistory, but it does seem that watery areas were important contexts for religious expression. Islands were also foci of attention perhaps because of their boundedness and close relationship with water (J. Webster 1995: 451); it is worth thinking about the potential ritual association of such contexts. Islands are mentioned in the classical sources as religious places (Pompon. In.48; Strabo fV.4.6; Tac. Ann. XIV.30; Germ. XL).48 Archaeological research has demonstrated the importance of islands in British prehistory, and continuing into the Roman period, with sites such as the Hayling Island temple (King and Soffe 2001) and Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey (C. Fox 1946). Some Roman towns in Britain closely associated with islands were Lincoln, Winchester and London.
Many accounts of Roman religion have tended to concentrate on the documented gods and the religious activity that took place within structurally defined temples (e. g., Henig 1984; A. Woodward 1992). Watery locations, however, were important in ancient Greece and Rome: 'all water in antiquity was sacred’ (Camp 1988:172). Gods were associated with many forms of water in Roman times, including oceans, rivers, and marshland, and in some aspects they will have invoked veneration for different reasons. The plaque dedicated to Ocean and Tethys, his divine sister-wife, found at York dating to the a. d. 80s, for example, related to the exploration of Britain’s offshore islands at this time and the desire that it be conducted safely (Braund 1996:12). Britain’s location across the ocean will have meant that the land was always considered in special terms by the Romans. Rivers were considered special as local gods, and wetlands, whilst being rich in resources, were also transitional zones between land and water. Here they were being neither one nor the other but a part of both, and constantly transforming - at times water, inhabited by spirits, would dominate the land (Giblett 1996: 3).
The divine presence in springs, pools, and other watery locations is also represented in classical texts such as De aquae ductu urbis Romae by Frontinus, written at the end of the first century a. d., which states that 'esteem for springs still continues, and is observed with veneration’ (I.4); for Servius, who wrote a fourth-century commentary on Virgil, 'there is no spring that is not holy’ (Servius VII.84). Such locations were consequently often incorporated into cult sites (Scheid 2003: 72), as Pliny the Younger records (Ep. VIII.8.5-6) when he describes the shrines connected with the tributaries of the Clitumnus (Ferguson 1970: 66-7). Rome itself was located next to the River Tiber, which was venerated (Braund 1996:19; Creighton 2006:95; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. IL73; Varro Ling. V.83).49 Its flood plain and surrounding meadows required drainage and considerable reclamation, which would not only have been considered in practical terms but also as a demonstration of power and control over nature (Purcell 1996c). This is reflected in the meanings attached to, and uses of, this area as documented in detail by Purcell (ibid.), one use being the construction of monuments. Pliny the Elder states that the flooding in the City of Rome was thought of as 'relating to religion rather than a threat of disaster’ (HN In.55). Flooding was also exacerbated by the natural springs in the surrounding hills (Aldrete 2007; Ammerman 1990: 636-9).
Ammerman’s (1990) study of the Forum Romanum has indicated that the forum basin was likely to flood because it was low lying; it required much reclamation and this may indicate that its location was a deliberate attempt to command nature or to draw upon an association with a religious place. The Circus Maximus was constructed over tributaries of the Tiber and also flooded on a number of occasions (Holland 1961: 34). Flood control and drainage would not have been a straightforward practical issue; it has been argued that the Cloaca Maxima (main sewer) in Rome may even have taken such a winding course through the city because the engineers feared forcing the natural river here from taking its original path (Aldrete 2007: 219; Holland 1961: 32).50 Water and the controlling of water were important features of life in ancient Rome, and this is likely to have had an impact on the way in which watery locations in conquered parts of the Empire were considered.
Studies have demonstrated that the importance attached to water and natural places within prehistory continued into the Roman period in Britain and Western Europe (e. g., Merrifield 1987). Discussions on water in connection with Roman towns in Britain have tended to concentrate on important issues such as the technical and practical aspects of supply and drainage, including pipes and aqueducts (e. g., Burgers 2001; T. Williams 2003). Though not specifically discussing Roman Britain, Ellis (1997) has briefly looked at the religious implications of aqueducts drawing water from sacred places. The objects of Roman date from Fiskerton (Field and Parker Pearson 2003) and Piercebridge, County Durham (P. J. Casey 1989), illustrate the continuing interest in watery locations from the Iron Age into the Roman period.51 The large number of metalwork objects from the Walbrook stream, which ran through Roman London, can also be interpreted as ritual deposition (Merrifield 1995). Although it cannot be certain who deposited the artefacts, it can be inferred from the finds at sites such as Piercebridge and London that incomers to Britain also acknowledged the significance of these locations.
A number of studies have demonstrated the continuation of use or reuse of earlier monuments, indicating the survival of religious places (Dark 1993; Gosden and Lock 1998; Hingley 1999; Miles et al. 2003: 245; H. Williams 1998; A. Woodward 1992: 26; Woodward and Leach 1993). This can also be applied to 'natural’ features such as rivers and marshlands, in relation to Roman towns in Britain, which were venerated. The use of the past helped to reproduce social relations and identities in the present; it was rituals that had the role of‘remembering’ the past from the mythological associations invested in monuments (H. Williams 1998: 71).
Landscapes are not dead or static, but continue to be used in significant ways, with their power surviving and incorporated in different forms, the present being orientated through recognition of the past (Bradley 2002; Gosden and Lock 1998). Places have biographies that shape communal experience and create memories (Alcock 2002: 31). Chapman (1997b: 158) has identified such sites as ‘timemarks’: places where significant social action occurs over time, creating history and mythology; it becomes difficult to break away from these places. One of the strongest expressions of place-value is a people’s choice to live in a particular area, with continued use of the same location over time leading to increasing ancestral power. Roman towns can also be studied in terms of their continuing place-value. Through their ongoing importance, they continued to invoke experiences, interactions, and the creation of memories.
World History
