Water in the Roman World: Engineering, Trade, Religion and Daily Life (Archaeopress Roman Archaeology, 91)

Water in the Roman World: Engineering, Trade, Religion and Daily Life offers a wide and expansive new treatment of the role water played in the lives of people across the Roman world. Individual papers deal with ports and their lighthouses; with water engineering, whether for canals in the north-west provinces, or for the digging of wells for drinking water, and for multiple other purposes; with baths for swimming; and with spas. Further papers explore religion in water-sanctuaries and the deposition of objects in rivers as well as deities connected with water, including river gods and nymphs. A final chapter provides an overview of subjects not fully covered elsewhere, including warships and naval battles, trade and navigation, aqueducts, fishing and fish-farming, and literary response to watery landscapes, rivers and lakes. The latter include works by great landowners such as the younger Pliny with his Laurentine villa beside the sea west of Rome or by poets, among them Catullus enjoying Lake Garda and Ausonius with his loving description of the River Moselle. The contributors address the subject in a variety of different ways, as Classicists drawing largely on literature, archaeologists with experience of excavating the watery environment, and art-historians. The papers range from the theoretical, with particular interest in materiality, to more lyrical approaches which address the Romans with their problems as well as their pleasures. Water in the Roman World: Engineering, Trade, Religion and Daily Life offers a wide and expansive new treatment of the role water played in the lives of people across the Roman world. Individual papers deal with ports and their lighthouses; with water engineering, whether for canals in the north-west provinces, or for the digging of wells for drinking water, and for multiple other purposes; with baths for swimming; and with spas. Further papers explore religion in water-sanctuaries and the deposition of objects in rivers as well as deities connected with water, including river gods and nymphs. A final chapter provides an overview of subjects not fully covered elsewhere, including warships and naval battles, trade and navigation, aqueducts, fishing and fish-farming, and literary response to watery landscapes, rivers and lakes. The latter include works by great landowners such as the younger Pliny with his Laurentine villa beside the sea west of Rome or by poets, among them Catullus enjoying Lake Garda and Ausonius with his loving description of the River Moselle. The contributors address the subject in a variety of different ways, as Classicists drawing largely on literature, archaeologists with experience of excavating the watery environment, and art-historians. The papers range from the theoretical, with particular interest in materiality, to more lyrical approaches which address the Romans with their problems as well as their pleasures.-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Title Page 3 Copyright Page 4 Contents Page 5 Preface 6 Water and Why Materiality Matters in Roman Studies 7 Jason Lundock 7 Iconography of the Lighthouse in Roman Antiquity: Symbolism, Identity and Power Across the Mediterranean 12 Federico Ugolini 12 Roman Offensive Planning: Shaping the Lower Rhine Waterscape 32 Stijn Heeren and Mark Driessen 32 ‘Springs Sumptuously Equipped’: Meanings of Water at Bath 45 Eleri Cousins 45 If Swimming was Not a Serious Activity for the Greeks and Romans, They Would Not have had Swimming Pools 59 Jenny Amphaeris and Martin Henig 59 The Social-Lives of Wells in Roman Britain and Beyond 83 James Gerrard 83 Aspects of the Iconography of River Gods in Roman Britain 111 Penny Coombe 111 What Lies Beneath? Interpreting the Romano-British Assemblage from the River Tees at Piercebridge, County Durham. 133 Philippa Walton and Hella Eckardt 133 Water and Liminality in Pre-Roman Gaul 150 Aaron Irvin 150 Worship of the Nymphs at Aquae Iasae (Roman Pannonia Superior): Cognition, Ritual, and Sacred Space 163 Blanka Misic 163 An Empire Written on Water: A Personal View 181 Martin Henig 181 Author Biographies 207 Back cover 211 Offering a wide and expansive new treatment of the role water played in the lives of people across the Roman world, papers consider ports and their lighthouses; water engineering, whether for canals in the north-west provinces, or for the digging of wells for drinking water; baths for swimming; and spas.