Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire : Debates in Archaeology - Kim Bowes

Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire

By: Kim Bowes, Richard Hodges (Editor)

Paperback | 1 May 2011 | Edition Number 1

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Houses are often assumed to be reliable mirrors of society, fossils of family structures, social hierarchies and mental maps of worlds now vanished. This is particularly true of the elite houses of the third to sixth centuries AD, which have been read as material symptoms of Rome's decline. The great dining and reception halls of urban houses sound the death-knell of participatory government and the rise of patronage politics, while in their sheer size and splendour later Roman houses seem to encapsulate afin-de-siFcle world of have and have-nots, separated by unbridgeable social chasms.

Kim Bowes debates this image of later Roman houses as reflections of decadence and despotism, suggesting that the principal interpretive model, which reads such houses as reflective of a newly hierarchical, ritualized society, finds little support either from the archaeological evidence or from new readings of historical sources. Drawings on the most recent archaeological data and new theoretical models, she offers instead a less sharply periodized view of later houses, stressing their continuity with houses of the early empire.

Series editor: Richard Hodges

This series of short volumes, each devoted to a theme which is the subject of contemporary debate in archaeology, will range from issues in theory and method to aspects of world archaeology. It is designed to be accessible to students and serious scholars alike.

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