Roman Landscape: Culture and Identity

by Diana Spencer

Overview

This book tackles how and why 'landscape' (farms, gardens, countryside) set the scene in the first centuries BCE and CE for Romans keen to talk up and about (but also to scrutinize and understand) what it meant to be a citizen. It investigates what 'landscape' means now and reflects upon how contemporary approaches to 'landscape' can enrich our understanding of ancient experience of the interface between natural and artificial space. It encourages examination of 'landscape' from a range of angles, suggesting alternative ways of thinking about what landscape represents. These methodological approaches (presented initially via a set of key terms and definitions and then deployed thematically across four chapters), combined with a detailed interdisciplinary bibliography and a series of case studies of literary texts and material sites, enable readers to use this survey as a starting point for developing their own in-depth study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107400245
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/24/2011
Series:	New Surveys in the Classics , #39
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.40(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: surveying the scene; 2. Landscape and aesthetics; 3. Those happy fields: aborious landscapes and DIY self-help; 4. Landscape: time and motion; 5. Italy and the villa estate, or, of cabbages and kings; 5.1. Philosophical landscapes: Cicero, loca, and imagines; 5.2. Varro's exopolis: landscape and Italy; 5.3. Columella: landscape and the body of history; 5.4. Statius, landscape, and autarky: between authenticity and delight; 5.5. Ekphrasis: Pliny's artful landscapes; 6. Spaces and Places; 6.1. Landscape as background and foreground; 6.2. Landscape and scale: gardens; 6.3. Imagined landscapes: the Villa 'Farnesina'; 6.4. Total immersion: Livia's garden room (Villa ad Gallinas Albas, Prima Porta); 6.5. Landscapes encircling the city: the Horti Sallustiani and Porticus of Pompey; Envoi. Getting (away from) it all at Hadrian's villa; Bibliography; Webography.

Editorial Reviews

"The book is well made, with useful illustrations, and attractively priced." —BMCR

From the Publisher