Rome, Ostia, Pompeii ― Movement and Space

Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement and Space demonstrates how studies of the Roman city are shifting focus from static architecture to activities and motion within urban spaces. This volume provides detailed case studies from the three best-known cities from Roman Italy, revealing how movement contributes to our understanding of the ways different elements of society interacted in space, and how the movement of people and materials shaped urban development.

The chapters in this book examine the impressions left by the movement of people and vehicles as indentations in the archaeological and historical record, and as impressions upon the Roman urban consciousness. Through a broad range of historical issues, this volume studies movement as it is found at the city gate, in public squares and on the street, and as it is represented in texts. Its broad objective is to make movement meaningful for understanding the economic, cultural, political, religious, and infrastructural behaviours that produced different types and rhythms of interaction in the Roman city.

This volume's interdisciplinary approach will inform the understanding of the city in classics, ancient history, archaeology and architectural history, as well as cultural studies, town planning, urban geography, and sociology.

Ray Laurence, Professor of Roman History and Archaeology, University of Kent,David J. Newsome, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham

Ray Laurence is Professor of Roman History and Archaeology at the University of Kent. In 2006 he won the 'Longman-History Today New Generation Prize for book most likely to inspire the young to study history' for his volume Pompeii The Living City.


David J. Newsome was awarded his PhD in 2010 from the University of Birmingham. He won the BABESCH-Byvanck Award in 2008 for his innovative research on traffic and urban change at Pompeii. Both have published widely on the Roman city.