Dirk Booms

Published to coincide with a touring exhibition of the same name across England over the next two years, this slim volume contains within its 160 pages a wealth of information relating to the Roman Empire: the various chapters cover aspects of life such as the army, art and architecture, the propaganda machine, multiculturalism and integration of different cultures and religions, in Italy and especially in the wider empire; but it easily stands as a publication in its own right. The writing is lucid without being dry, but the real revelation is the stunning photography, showing coins, sculptures, glassware, pottery and other artefacts in crisp detail. With a book covering such a wide range of topics, generalisations are inevitable, but the authors have tried every so often to focus on a name or an individual among those on historical record, and there are some touching examples here: a letter (possibly from mother to son), in which she tells him she’s sending him extra pairs of socks and underwear to his posting in the far north of Britannia, or the memorial to a native Briton and former slave whose Syrian husband spared no expense and had a bilingual inscription engraved on her tombstone. The photographs in particular are a unique reminder that the Romans weren’t just the emperors or soldiers known from sculptures, literature or films, but ordinary citizens from all walks of life, with whom we still share the vestiges of the Roman legacy in terms of architecture, language, coinage, cuisine, law and politics (among others), and as such they still exert a timeless fascination on us. Recommended.

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