Food at the heart of the Empire: dietary reconstruction for Imperial Rome inhabitants

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a broad diet reconstruction for people buried in archaeologically defined contexts in Rome (first to third centuries CE), in order to combine archaeological and biological evidence focusing on dietary preferences in Imperial Rome. A sample of 214 human bones recovered from 6 funerary contexts was selected for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis. The baseline for the terrestrial protein component of the diet was set using 17 coeval faunal remains recovered from excavations at Rome supplemented by previously published data for the same geographic and chronological frames. δ13C ranges from − 19.9 to − 14.8‰, whereas δ15N values are between 7.2 and 10.0‰. The values are consistent with an overall diet mainly based on terrestrial resources. All the human samples rely on a higher trophic level than the primary consumer faunal samples. Certainly, C3 plants played a pivotal role in the dietary habits. However, C4 plants also seem to have been consumed, albeit they were not as widespread and were not always used for human consumption. The environment played a critical role also for Romans of lower social classes. The topographical location determined the preferential consumption of food that people could obtain from their neighborhood.

How Does Diet Influence Our Lives? Evaluating the Relationship between Isotopic Signatures and Mortality Patterns in Italian Roman Imperial and Medieval Periods

“…Feeding the Roman Imperial population was challenging; Rome was then one of the world’s most crowded cities [ 16 , 17 , 42 , 113 , 114 ] and its heterogeneity [ 113 ] was magnified by social stratification [ 16 , 17 , 42 , 115 ].…”

“…Accordingly, we aimed to investigate the relationship between diet and survivorship in a Mediterranean ecological setting, focusing on the Roman Imperial and Medieval periods. To better understand the relationship between diet and life-span in the Roman Imperial and Medieval periods, we considered 616 individuals from 18 Roman and Medieval archeological sites from Latium ( Figure 1 ), which had previously been analyzed at the Centre of Molecular Anthropology for ancient DNA Studies at the Department of Biology of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” [ 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. As explained in detail in the Materials and Methods’ section, however, our research followed a semiparametric statistical model which did not assume a specific shape for the mortality curves.…”

“…Moreover, further studies also provided important evidence about dietary reconstruction of common people living close to the city walls [ 16 , 17 , 70 ]. Recently, more data has been added [ 42 , 71 ], which allowed for a more in-depth analysis regarding the diet of commoners.…”

“…It is clear that supplying the Roman Imperial population with food was far from easy, above all considering its ever-increasing size [ 16 , 17 , 42 ]. Furthermore, it is worth considering that living in an urbanized and heterogeneous context such as “ Urbs ” and its Suburbium may have also had an impact on dietary preferences [ 42 ]. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that people were not allowed to be buried inside the city walls, therefore the Imperial Rome necropolises’ locations needed to be established in the Suburbium [ 16 ].…”

“…Farming, hunting, fishing, and/or breeding produced the vegetables, meat, and cheese to meet the feasible protidic intake needed [ 16 , 17 , 42 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 70 ]. Remarkably, fish exploitation increased in preference among early Christians [ 67 ].…”