Paul Erdkamp - The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome

Rome was the largest city in the ancient world. As the capital of the Roman empire, it was clearly an exceptional city in terms of size, diversity and complexity. While the Colosseum, imperial palaces and Pantheon are among its most famous features, this volume explores Rome primarily as a city in which many thousands of men and women were born, lived and died. The thirty-one chapters by leading historians, classicists and archaeologists discuss issues ranging from the monuments and the games to the food and water supply, from policing and riots to domestic housing, from death and disease to pagan cults and the impact of Christianity. Richly illustrated, the volume introduces groundbreaking new research against the background of current debates and is designed as a readable survey accessible in particular to undergraduates and non-specialists.

Paul Erdkamp is Professor of Ancient History at the Free University of Brussels (VUB). Previously, he was Research Fellow at the University of Leiden. He has published two monographs, Hunger and the Sword: Warfare and Food Supply in Roman Republican Wars (1998) and The Grain Market in the Roman Empire (2005), and is editor of The Roman Army and the Economy (2002), A Companion to the Roman Army (2007) and A Cultural History of Food in Antiquity (2012). His research interests include the ancient economy, army and warfare, ancient historiography, in particular Polybius and Livy, and social and cultural aspects of food in classical antiquity. Professor Erdkamp is currently co-chair of the Roman Society Research Centre, in which various departments of ancient history and archaeology at European universities participate.