Monumental Writing and the Expansion of Roman Society in the Early Empire

Abstract

The vast majority of surviving Roman inscriptions originated in a cultural phenomenon that is characteristic of, and in some senses defines, the early Roman Empire. At the end of the last century B.C. — roughly co-incident, then, with the transition to autocracy, the Roman cultural revolution, and the formative period of provincial cultures throughout the Empire — an epigraphic boom occurred, in Italy and in every province of the Empire. That explosion of new inscriptions, and the subsequent rise and fall of an epigraphic culture, was experienced by eastern and western provinces alike, in Greek as well as in Latin epigraphy. Many regional epigraphies remain to be characterized in terms of their chronology, but such local studies as have been done strongly suggest that, although there was certainly some inter-regional variation in the scale, rate, and timing of this phenomenon, in its broad outlines this pattern was very widespread. Across the entire Empire, the number of inscriptions set up each year began to rise from the Augustan period and increased more and more steeply through the second century. In every region that has been examined in detail, the majority of extant inscriptions were produced in the late second and early third centuries. The peak or turning-point seems to have been reached at slightly different times in each area. But everywhere the subsequent decline was much faster than the original rise, reaching a new low between the middle and the end of the third century A.D. Epigraphy does survive into the fourth century — in most areas of the Empire, if not in most cities — but late imperial inscriptions are very much rarer and differ markedly from early imperial examples in genre, form, and style.

Equites and Senators as Agents of Change: Urban Culture and Elite Self-Representation in Thamugadi and Lepcis Magna (Second-Third Centuries A.D.)

“…habit: The number of inscriptions shrank during the third century A.D. in all regions of the Empire albeit to a different extent (MacMullen 1982;Woolf 1996;Mrozek 1998). Civic and building inscriptions diminished significantly in number.…”

Inuenta est blandae rationis imago : Visualizing the Mausoleum of the Flavii

“…On the stability and changeability of monuments and their meanings, see also Alcock 2002: 28. In recent years the role of the viewer has been given considerable space in the scholarship of epigraphists, historians, and literary critics who are interested in the interactions between texts and buildings. 25 MacMullen's redefinition of epigraphy as always displaying "a sense of audience" has inspired several productive lines of argument, all of which engage with epigraphic writing's twofold visual effect as both text and material object (MacMullen 1982, discussed closely by both Meyer 1990 andWoolf 1996). Woolf, in particular, takes from MacMullen the notion that epigraphy may be glossed as "monumental writing," with the adjective referring not so much to the object on which the writing was inscribed, but to a fundamental aspect of the inscription itself (1996: 24).…”

“…On "Romanization" as a phenomenon manifested and explored through epigraphy, particularly funerary epigraphy, see MacMullen 1982 andMeyer 1990, with Zanker 2000 (on tombs after the Social Wars, 31-32). Some cautionary notes concerning the concept of "Romanization" in this context are sounded by Freeman 1993and Woolf 1996. Hitchner 1995 surveys the contribution made to this debate by the Flavii monument and by the publication of G.R.…”

Ton Derks and Nico Roymans, eds, Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity: The Role of Power and Tradition. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. 344 pp., 45 figs, hbk, ISBN 978 90 8964 078 9)

“…By then, the old practice of ethnic soldiering had long been replaced by local recruitment in the garrison's province. Mrozek 1973Mrozek , 1988MacMullen 1982;Woolf 1996. 38 Heeren 2006Roymans et al 2007.…”