Dining Posture in Ancient Rome

Dining Posture in Ancient Rome PDF

Author: Matthew B. Roller

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-11-21

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1400888247

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What was really going on at Roman banquets? In this lively new book, veteran Romanist Matthew Roller looks at a little-explored feature of Roman culture: dining posture. In ancient Rome, where dining was an indicator of social position as well as an extended social occasion, dining posture offered a telling window into the day-to-day lives of the city's inhabitants. This book investigates the meaning and importance of the three principal dining postures--reclining, sitting, and standing--in the period 200 B.C.-200 A.D. It explores the social values and distinctions associated with each of the postures and with the diners who assumed them. Roller shows that dining posture was entangled with a variety of pressing social issues, such as gender roles and relations, sexual values, rites of passage, and distinctions among the slave, freed, and freeborn conditions. Timely in light of the recent upsurge of interest in Roman dining, this book is equally concerned with the history of the body and of bodily practices in social contexts. Roller gathers evidence for these practices and their associated values not only from elite literary texts, but also from subelite visual representations--specifically, funerary monuments from the city of Rome and wall paintings of dining scenes from Pompeii. Engagingly written, Dining Posture in Ancient Rome will appeal not only to the classics scholar, but also to anyone interested in how life was lived in the Eternal City.

Roman Dining

Roman Dining PDF

Author: Barbara K. Gold

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2005-06-17

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9780801882029

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This special issue of the American Journal of Philology illuminates the nature and function of food and dining in the Roman world, offering historical, sociological, literary, cultural, and material perspectives. The articles collected here explore topics from diverse fields to analyze Roman culture and material practice, including the dietary practices and nutritional concerns of the Romans, dining and its links to ideology during the early imperial period, public banqueting and its social function in Roman society, and the emphasis placed on the waiting servant in both domestic and funerary settings. The American Journal of Philology is renowned for its role in helping to shape American classical scholarship. Today the Journal has achieved worldwide recognition as a forum for international exchange among classicists by publishing original research in Greco-Roman literature, and culture.

A Companion to Food in the Ancient World

A Companion to Food in the Ancient World PDF

Author: John Wilkins

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2015-06-29

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1118878191

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A Companion to Food in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive overview of the cultural aspects relating to the production, preparation, and consumption of food and drink in antiquity. • Provides an up-to-date overview of the study of food in the ancient world • Addresses all aspects of food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption during antiquity • Features original scholarship from some of the most influential North American and European specialists in Classical history, ancient history, and archaeology • Covers a wide geographical range from Britain to ancient Asia, including Egypt and Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, regions surrounding the Black Sea, and China • Considers the relationships of food in relation to ancient diet, nutrition, philosophy, gender, class, religion, and more

A writer's guide to Ancient Rome

A writer's guide to Ancient Rome PDF

Author: Carey Fleiner

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2020-02-28

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1526135256

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‘A really fun idea for a book - and full of great stuff.’ Greg Jenner, Public Historian This is the perfect guide for any writer who wants to recreate the Roman world accurately in their fiction. It will aid any novelist, screenwriter, games designer or re-enactor in populating their story with authentic characters and scenes, costumes and locations. Written from a historian’s perspective, this guide pulls back the curtain to show the reader what life in Ancient Rome was really like: what they wore, what they ate, and how they spent their time at work, at home, at war, and at play. Individual chapters focus on different aspects of Romans’ lives, to give you specific knowledge of what they looked like and how they behaved, as well as a broad appreciation of what held their civilisation together, from religion, to the economy, to law and order. You may wish to work your way through the book from cover to cover, or focus specifically on individual chapters as you hone your creative writing skills. Covering the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE, A writer’s guide to Ancient Rome surveys the vast amount of sources and scholarship on the Classical world so you don’t have to! It outlines current scholarly debates and changing interpretations, suggests further reading, and recommends particular resources to mine for each topic. It gives you plenty to consider while you construct your own Roman world.

T&T Clark Handbook to Early Christian Meals in the Greco-Roman World

T&T Clark Handbook to Early Christian Meals in the Greco-Roman World PDF

Author: Soham Al-Suadi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-02-21

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 0567666417

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This handbook situates early Christian meals in their broader context, with a focus on the core topics that aid understanding of Greco-Roman meal practice, and how this relates to Christian origins. In addition to looking at the broader Hellenistic context, the contributors explain the unique nature of Christian meals, and what they reveal about early Christian communities and the development of Christian identity. Beginning with Hellenistic documents and authors before moving on to the New Testament material itself, according to genre - Gospels, Acts, Letters, Apocalyptic Literature - the handbook culminates with a section on the wider resources that describe daily life in the period, such as medical documents and inscriptions. The literary, historical, theological and philosophical aspects of these resources are also considered, including such aspects as the role of gender during meals; issues of monotheism and polytheism that arise from the structure of the meal; how sacrifice is understood in different meal practices; power dynamics during the meal and issues of inclusion and exclusion at meals.

Communal Dining in the Roman West

Communal Dining in the Roman West PDF

Author: Shanshan Wen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-06-27

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 9004516875

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Communal Dining in in the Roman West explores why the practice of privately sponsored communal dining gained popularity in certain parts of the Western Roman Empire for almost 300 years. This book brings together 350 Latin inscriptions to examine the benefactors and beneficiaries, the geographical and chronological distributions, and the relationship between public and collegial dining practices. It argues that food-related euergetism was a region-specific phenomenon which was rooted in specific social and political cultures in the communities of Italy, Baetica and Africa Proconsularis. The region-specific differences in political cultures and long-term changes in these cultures are key to understanding not only the long persistence of this practice but also its ultimate disappearance.

Food and Drink in Antiquity: A Sourcebook

Food and Drink in Antiquity: A Sourcebook PDF

Author: John F. Donahue

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1441122230

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Amid growing interest in food and drink as an academic discipline in recent years, this volume is the first to provide insight into eating and drinking by focusing on what the ancients themselves actually had to say about this important topic. A thorough and varied sourcebook, it is structured thematically and is a unique asset to any course on food and foodways. The chronological scope of the material extends from Greece of the 8th century BCE to the Late Roman Empire of the 4th century CE. Each chapter consists of an introduction along with a concluding bibliography of suggested readings. The excerpts themselves, rendered in clear and readable English that remains faithful to the original Latin or Greek, are set in their proper social and historical context, with the author of each passage fully identified. An unparalleled compilation of essential source material for Classics courses and with a wide range of evidence, drawing upon literary, inscriptional, legal and religious testimony, Food and Drink in Antiquity will also be particularly well suited to the interdisciplinary focus of modern food studies.

From Vines to Wines in Classical Rome

From Vines to Wines in Classical Rome PDF

Author: David L. Thurmond

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-12-05

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9004334599

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David L. Thurmond’s From Vines to Wines in Classical Rome is the first general handbook on winemaking in Rome in over 100 years.

A Cultural History of Food in Antiquity

A Cultural History of Food in Antiquity PDF

Author: Paul Erdkamp

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-05-22

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1350995355

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From Archaic Greece until the Late Roman Empire (c. 800 BCE to c. 500 CE), food was more than a physical necessity; it was a critical factor in politics, economics and culture. On the one hand, the Mediterranean landscape and climate encouraged particular crops – notably cereals, vines and olives – but, with the risks of crop failure ever-present, control of food resources was vital to economic and political power. On the other hand, diet and dining reflected complex social hierarchies and relationships. What was eaten, with whom and when was a fundamental part of the expression of one's role and place in society. In addition, symbolism and ritual suffused foodstuffs, their preparation and consumption. A Cultural History of Food in Antiquity presents an overview of the period with essays on food production, food systems, food security, safety and crises, food and politics, eating out, professional cooking, kitchens and service work, family and domesticity, body and soul, representations of food, and developments in food production and consumption globally.

Music at Social Meals in Greek and Roman Antiquity

Music at Social Meals in Greek and Roman Antiquity PDF

Author: Charles H. Cosgrove

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-12-01

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 100920484X

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This is a captivating story of music-making at social recreations from Homeric times to the age of Augustine. It tells about the music itself and its purposes, as well as the ways in which people talked about it, telling anecdotes, picturing musical scenes, sometimes debating what kind of music was right at a party or a festival. In straightforward and engaging prose, the author covers a remarkably broad history, providing the big picture yet with vivid and nuanced descriptions of concrete practices and events. We hear of music at aristocratic parties, club music, people's music-making at festivals, political uses of music at the court of Alexander the Great and in the public banquets of Roman emperors in the Colosseum, opinions of music-making at social meals from Plato to Clement of Alexandria, and much more, making the book a treasure-trove of information and a fascinating journey through ancient times and places.