Shopping in Ancient Rome: The Retail Trade in the Late Republic and the Principate - Hardcover

Holleran, Claire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019969821X ISBN 13: 9780199698219

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2012

Synopsis

Shopping in Ancient Rome provides the first comprehensive account of the retail network of this ancient city, an area of commerce that has been largely neglected in previous studies. Given the remarkable concentration of consumers in ancient Rome, the vast majority of which were entirely reliant on the market for survival, a functioning retail trade was vital to the survival of Rome in the late Republic and the Principate.

In this volume Holleran provides the first systematic account of Rome's retail sector through a comprehensive analysis of the literary, legal, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence together with wide-ranging and innovative comparative studies of the distributive trades. Investigating the diverse means by which goods were sold to consumers in the city, and the critical relationship between retail and broader environmental factors, Holleran places Roman retail trade firmly within the wider context of its urban economy. In considering the roles played by shops, workshops, markets, fairs, auctions, street sellers, and ambulant vendors in the distribution of goods to the inhabitants of the city, the volume sheds new light on the experience of living in the ancient city and explores the retail trade of Rome in its totality.

About this title

Review

a conceptual point of reference that will certainly be of great value to studies on similar and related topics ... an important point of reference in future discussions on ancient urban economies. (Annalisa Marzano, Journal of Roman Studies)

Holleran gathers together an impressive range of material from all over the Roman Empire ... The forum in Rome itself was obviously buzzing with trade as much as with law and politics. A wonderfully vivid range of epitaphs introduce us to some of the shopkeepers, craftspeople and characters who made their living out of retail in, or very near to, that ceremonial heart of the empire. (Mary Beard, London Review of Books)

... engagingly written yet thoroughly researched, this book is as relevant to the serious academic as it is accessible to the general enthusiast. (World Archaeology)

Holleran's book is the first analytical monograph in this oft-neglected field ... it is to be hoped that Holleran 2012 will become a widely used standard reference for years to come. (Miko Flohr, Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

[Shopping in Ancient Rome] is a work to be applauded for its innovation, scholarship and depth and will long remain required reading on the urban economies of the ancient world. (Benedict Lowe, The Classical Journal)

About the Author

Claire Holleran currently holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Liverpool. She is the co-editor of Demography and the Graeco-Roman World: New Insights and Approaches (Cambridge, 2011) with April Pudsey, and A Companion to the City of Rome (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) with Amanda Claridge, and is the author of several articles on the social and economic history of Rome.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 019969821X
• ISBN 13: 9780199698219
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 322