Preliminary Programme

In this paper, I will argue that wealth was probably not the primary barrier for the upward mobility of Pompeiians into the Roman senate. One oddity about the historical record of Pompeii is that it reveals not a single certain senator in the imperial period. A previous model of the local distribution of income offers a possible explanation; it predicts that there were no Pompeian households with senatorial income, suggesting that a lack of wealth kept the Pompeiians outside the senate. However, I will argue that there were at least several Pompeian households with senatorial wealth. My argument is based on combining the archaeological remains of the Pompeian intramural housing stock with a state-of-the-art econometric model which assumes that the distribution of elite wealth follows a distinct mathematical function – a power law. I will further employ probabilistic calculations to account for the plethora of epistemic uncertainties characteristic of this type of cliometric modelling. The results imply that at least several Pompeian households held enough wealth to satisfy the senatorial census qualification, suggesting that a lack of wealth was not the primary barrier for Pompeiians to embark on a senatorial career. Criteria based on gender and legal status probably constituted a more important barrier at Pompeii (Show less)

How can sound be used to study the ancient use of a built landscape, particularly when the buildings have largely vanished? This paper describes the integration of soundscape analysis into archaeological fieldwork at the Hellenic Greek Sanctuary to Zeus on Mount Lykaion in the Arcadian Peloponnese. Here, a Lower Sanctuary was positioned near the summit to host ritualized athletic competitions in the fourth century BC. An extant hippodrome and scattered stone building fragments still provide visual confirmation of the scope of the original constructed landscape and some of its basic components. But intriguingly, the mountainous terrain also allows a spoken conversation over 75 meters in one location, then sonic disconnection only a few meters away. The relatively stable landscape remains isolated and mostly undeveloped in any way today; as such, it retains much of its material, geometric, and spatial attributes likely present in antiquity as well. It thus functions as an intact architectural remnant from antiquity as much as the building fragments.

While scant documentation survives about ritual use patterns at this site, observed synergies between the architectural fragments (building entrances), landscape features (possible processional ways), and acoustic observations suggest the possibility of the sanctuary design having been driven, at least in part, by latent sonic features of the landscape. Employing binaural recordings and psychoacoustic analyses of data recorded in the field allows for technical and experiential phenomena of sound interactions in situ, raising specific questions for our understanding of Mount Lykaion’s past. Could ritual practices have incorporated sonic amplification, isolation, connectivity, or even direct communication between participatory groups? Could such practices have in turn guided ancient Greek architects in later permanent building placements? Furthermore, how could sound have impacted ancient activity, such as determining layers of public and private ritual engagement and implied spatial boundaries between groups or events?

This paper asserts that the history of Mount Lykaion, and perhaps other contemporaneous ritual sites, can only be appropriately understood through the larger framework of sound studies, bringing together sensory archaeology, psychoacoustics, and soundscape studies into a single interdisciplinary project. Bridging methods from acoustic engineering with archaeological survey techniques, this study proposes a methodology that reactivates the remaining original soundscape through a series of calibrated field tests, scrutinizing potential relationships by tracing aspects such as sonic connectivity, clarity of certain frequencies, and perceived loudness of recorded files played from precise positions of interest in the landscape. Audio field samples of test sounds are recorded binaurally to enable their detailed analysis and systematic, objective comparison according to psychoacoustics. This allows for the production of a human perception-based aural study of the entire cultural landscape of Mount Lykaion through a sonically-annotated digital reconstruction of the site and its contributing surroundings, offering new tactics for interpreting ancient architectural designs and ritualized engagements with the landscape that might otherwise remain unconsidered when studying physical remains alone. (Show less)

This paper shows how credit markets would have impacted farmers in the ancient Roman world. An econometric model is presented which takes a ‘bottom up’ microeconomic approach by simulating, in a stochastic way, the financial and family outcomes for two different types of young couples: smallholders and tenants. It follows these families over a generation to see who prospered, fell into debt, had to abandon new-born children or were ultimately ruined.
The results of the model will be presented as expected probabilities of different family outcomes. The impact of changes to the interest rates charged, the propensity of families to save or spend, and the level of mutual support, will then be modelled. The plausibility of the model’s inputs and outputs will be tested. The comparative information provided will help determine whether the credit markets had a positive or pernicious impact on the farming families of the Roman world. (Show less)

The monograph of Simon Price (1984) Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor still exerts a profound influence on scholars and students of Roman imperial cults – the institutionalised habits of worshipping the Roman emperor(s). The (relative) lack of critical engagements with Price’s approach means that most studies of the past 30 odd years have mostly come up with conclusions strikingly similar to Price’s and to each other’s. His overtly Geertzian and Durkheimian take on these religious institutions is manifest through his notion of religious, political and cultural systems prevalent throughout Asia Minor, his assumption that urban communities in their entirety were involved in imperial cult practices, and his ahistorical account of these imperial cults. In this paper, I will lay out three fundamental problems still apparent in current scholarship: 1) the problem of the regional unit of analysis; 2) the problem of ahistoricity; 3) the problem of abstract categories like ‘traditional Greek cult’, ‘the Greek city’, ‘local elites’. Instead, this paper builds upon a dialectical approach to Roman imperial cults (presented at ESSHC 2018) which takes account of concrete spatial, historical and sociological conditions in order to deal with two main questions: 1) how did imperial cults develop in a specific city?; 2) why did these imperial cults develop the way they did (and not otherwise)?
A case study of Ephesos puts this approach into action. It follows through the developments of imperial cults in this city and understands them in light of its spatial, historical and sociological particularities. These particularities include the following: Ephesos was a major commercial hub for merchants and traders creating a substantial yet sometimes ephemeral inward flow of capital and people. The city was the provincial capital of Asia and, hence, a high number of officials of the imperial administration would either reside in or travel to Ephesos. Additionally, it was a key member of the koinon (regional association of cities) of Asia and the koinon of Ionia. Within the religious and political landscape of the city, the sanctuary of Artemis Ephesia and its associated cult officials had played, and continued to play, a vital role. Finally, the growth in population triggered an increase in social interactions as well as an increase in the number of organised citizen groups (associations). Taking account of these concrete specifics of Ephesos – in comparison with other cities – allows to recognise the oft-neglected dynamism and interactivity of imperial cults. (Show less)