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Daily Life in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook
"One really must admire Harvey’s achievement in this sourcebook. With just 350 passages (more than half of them consisting of Latin inscriptions, from all over Rome’s empire), Harvey manages to give his readers a real sense of Roman private values and behaviors. His translations of the original texts are superb—both accurate and elegant. And he contextualizes his chosen passages with a series of remarkably economical but solidly reliable introductions. In a word, Harvey’s sourcebook strikes me as the best now available for a single-semester undergraduate course ."
—T. Corey Brennan, Rutgers University–New Brunswick
—T. Corey Brennan, Rutgers University–New Brunswick
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
360 pages, Paperback
Published March 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 25, 2021
It isn’t very frequently that someone my age happens upon a whole new genre of literature, but that is what happened to me after I read Brian Harvey’s Daily Life in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook. I was looking for an account of daily life in a pre-modern society, so I checked out everything I could find from the library. I settled on three books: One on the Inca Empire just before contact with Europeans, one on the Tang Dynasty China, and Harvey’s book on Ancient Rome. I started with the book on the Incas written in 1960, but quickly realized it was too dated with its frequent discussion of ‘the Indian mind’. Next I started the book on the Tang Dynasty, but was put off that the book did not cite its sources. I put that aside as well. I was left with the book on Ancient Rome. It turned out to be a keeper.
A sourcebook, I recently discovered, is a collection of historical original material, possibly in translation. The sourcebook is edited around a particular theme. I suppose that this genre is particularly useful for researchers who need original material to cite for a project. Harvey’s sourcebook would be excellent for that purpose. The book is divided into 21 chapters, each on a different aspect of daily life in Republican and early imperial Roman territory. The beginning of each chapter is a brief discussion of its subject, punctuated with numbers which refer to the translated sources which make up the rest of the chapter. each translated text is preceded by a few sentences explaining its context. The book also contains a number of maps and pictures of archaeological finds relevant to a particular aspect of daily life such as apartment housing, or the layout of a bar.
Harvey probably didn’t intend the reader to start at one cover and read straight through to the other, but his choice of sources is just entertaining enough to make it possible. He includes quite a bit of humor. For example, in his chapter on grafitti from Pompeii, he writes about someone who relieved himself near a tomb, scrawling ‘Here’s a souvenir!’. The final grafitto in the chapter, filed under miscellaneous, is 'On April 19th, I made bread." In the chapter on the baths, it is easy to empathize with Seneca’s 1st century complaints about noise from the bath house under his apartment:
Much in the book is harder to empathize with. Some Roman sentiments are completely foreign to a modern reader. Here is Valerius Maximum from the 1st century:
The book draws on a wide variety of sources, and the translations bring the Romans to life.
After reading Harvey’s book, I discovered that there are many sourcebooks. Routledge, for example, has a series of 28 sourcebooks on the Greco-Roman Mediterranean and Near East. The Inca didn’t have a written language, but there are sourcebooks with European perspectives from the early colonial period. I found several sourcebooks containing writing of the Ancient Chinese. I can’t wait to meet them.
A sourcebook, I recently discovered, is a collection of historical original material, possibly in translation. The sourcebook is edited around a particular theme. I suppose that this genre is particularly useful for researchers who need original material to cite for a project. Harvey’s sourcebook would be excellent for that purpose. The book is divided into 21 chapters, each on a different aspect of daily life in Republican and early imperial Roman territory. The beginning of each chapter is a brief discussion of its subject, punctuated with numbers which refer to the translated sources which make up the rest of the chapter. each translated text is preceded by a few sentences explaining its context. The book also contains a number of maps and pictures of archaeological finds relevant to a particular aspect of daily life such as apartment housing, or the layout of a bar.
Harvey probably didn’t intend the reader to start at one cover and read straight through to the other, but his choice of sources is just entertaining enough to make it possible. He includes quite a bit of humor. For example, in his chapter on grafitti from Pompeii, he writes about someone who relieved himself near a tomb, scrawling ‘Here’s a souvenir!’. The final grafitto in the chapter, filed under miscellaneous, is 'On April 19th, I made bread." In the chapter on the baths, it is easy to empathize with Seneca’s 1st century complaints about noise from the bath house under his apartment:
The muscle men work out and throw around lead weights with their hands. I hear their groans as they exert all their effort (or pretend to do so). Every time they release their breath, I can hear their hissing and become extremely annoyed with their grunts...And now I hear the man who loves the echo of his own voice in the bathhouse. And now those who jump into the pool with a great splash.
Much in the book is harder to empathize with. Some Roman sentiments are completely foreign to a modern reader. Here is Valerius Maximum from the 1st century:
Egnatius Mecenius killed his wife by beating her with a club because she had been drinking wine. Not a single person came forward to accuse him of murder. It was impossible, in fact, to find someone who felt that he had done anything wrong. Everyone believed that her punishment for her lack of sobriety was exemplary.
The book draws on a wide variety of sources, and the translations bring the Romans to life.
After reading Harvey’s book, I discovered that there are many sourcebooks. Routledge, for example, has a series of 28 sourcebooks on the Greco-Roman Mediterranean and Near East. The Inca didn’t have a written language, but there are sourcebooks with European perspectives from the early colonial period. I found several sourcebooks containing writing of the Ancient Chinese. I can’t wait to meet them.
April 11, 2021
Excellent source book
This book provides lots of information from a variety of primary sources. The passages are arranged according to topic. There are a number of illustrations, a glossary, and a bibliography of sources as well as a general bibliography of books that would interest readers who want to further their studies. My only criticism is that it could use better editing.
This book provides lots of information from a variety of primary sources. The passages are arranged according to topic. There are a number of illustrations, a glossary, and a bibliography of sources as well as a general bibliography of books that would interest readers who want to further their studies. My only criticism is that it could use better editing.
April 16, 2018
Gave this a look while trying to cover material on a large range of topics about ordinary life in Rome as it relates to law and order. The attention to material not covered in other texts is impressive. I'll hvae to remember this if I teach a class on this material.
January 2, 2022
Life is Hard
I gave it five stars for being accurate, even if a lot was misspelled. It serves well as a text book.
I gave it five stars for being accurate, even if a lot was misspelled. It serves well as a text book.
December 7, 2024
Hits different when reading in Italy
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews