1st Edition
Cities and Territories of the Western Roman Empire 4th Century BC to the 3rd Century AD
This book showcases the unique shape of urban development that took hold during the Roman Empire, beginning in the Mediterranean basin before spreading out across Europe, and offers a fresh perspective on the cities and territories of the Roman West.
With the expansion of Rome came a particular form of social organisation: the Roman city. This book provides a basic introduction to Roman cities, not through the lens of architecture and urbanism, but from a social, legal, cultural, spatial, and functional perspective. It focuses on the Roman civitas – the city and its territory – as the spatial model par excellence of Roman colonialism and expansion. Exploring primarily the cities and territories of the Western Empire, such as the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, and Britain, González-Villaescusa revives from their ruins those central places that facilitated the circulation of people, goods, and information, forming the large urban network of a unified imperial territory.
Cities and Territories of the Western Roman Empire: 4th Century BC to the 3rd Century AD is suitable for school and university students, as well as the general reader interested in the subject of Roman cities in the Western Empire.
Preface to the English edition, by M. Philippe Leveau; Author's Foreword; Introduction; 1. From City-State to Empire; 2. The Western Territories of Roman Expansion; 3. The Colonial Myth; 4. The Empire’s Urban Relays; 5. Economic Autonomy; 6. The City and Its Spaces; 7. Life and Death in the City; Epilogue: The End of the Civitas.
Biography
Ricardo González-Villaescusa is a former member of the School of Higher Hispanic Studies at Casa de Velázquez; he worked as a full professor at the universities of Reims – Champagne Ardenne, and Nice-Sophia Antipolis (France). Since 2019, he has been Professor of Archaeology in the Gaul and North-West Europe and member of UMR 7041 ArScAn – Archaeology and Sciences for Antiquity.
