One of the greatest consequences of Rome’s expansion across the Mediterranean world in the course of the Republic and the earliest years of the Empire was an exponential growth in the population and extent of the city itself. The emperors of the first three centuries AD faced major strategic challenges in ensuring a regular annual supply of food to the city, as well as other goods. This volume brings together various contributions, to assess how far Portus, as the maritime port of Imperial Rome from the mid-first century ad, was the principal conduit for supplying Rome and the extent to which the commercial links that fed Portus were part of a single overarching network or a series of interlinked networks that extended across the Mediterranean. The volume begins with a detailed reconsideration of Portus and its relationship to Ostia and Rome, which is complemented by studies considering aspects of the commercial roles of Portus and Ostia, and of transport up the Tiber to Rome. It continues with studies that deal with a range of broader issues concerning the relationship of Mediterranean ports to Rome, Portus and Ostia, routes of commerce, and the archaeological evidence for commercial activity at a selection of ports (in Italy, Sicily, Hispaniae, Africa and the East); before returning to more general considerations of connectivity, networks, coastal geo-archaeology and computational methods.
1. Introduction
Portus and Ostia
2. The Port System of Imperial Rome (Simon Keay)
3. Il ruolo di porto nella ridistribuzione dei marmi nel Mediterraneo (Patrizio Pensabene)
4. Rome e Ostia, un binomio ancora possible? Di alcuni generi trasportati in anforna in eta tardo-antonina (Giorgio Rizzo)
5. La sirga en el Tiber en epoca romana (Antonio Aguilera Martin)
Ships and Navigation
6. L'homme, le Temps et le Mer: Continuite et Changement des Routes Maritimes de et Vers Portus (Pascal Arnaud)
7. Central Mediterranean Islands and Satellite Ports for Ancient Rome (Timothy Gambin)
8. Les Epaves Comme Sources pour l'Etude de la Navigations et des Routes Commerciales: Un Approache Methodologique (Giulia Boetto)
Italy and Sicily
9. 'Fructuosissima atque opportunissima provincia' (Cicerone, In Verrem II.3.226): Il sistema 'Sicilia' ed il ruolo economico delle citta nella Sicilia romana. Il contributa dell'evidenza ceramica (Daniele Malfitana & Carmela Franco)
10. From suburb to port: the rise (and fall) of Classe as a centre of trade and redistribution (Andrea Augenti & Enrico Cirelli)
Hispaniae
11. El puerto romano de Gades. novedades arquelogicas (Dario Bernal Casasola)
12. Hispalis (Sevilla, Espana) y el comercio mediterraneo en el alto imperio romano. El testimonio de las anforas. (Enrique Garcia Vargas)
13. El control administrativo de la navegacion fluvial en la Betica y sus conexiones con Roma (Jose Remesal Rodriguez)
14. Explotacion y rutas de comercializacion de los marmora heticos (Jose Beltran Fortes)
15. El marrmol de Luni-Carrara en la fachada mediterranea de Hispania (Anna Gutierrez Garcia-Moreno & Isabel Roda de Llanza)
Africa
16. Les reseaux de la ceramique africane (Ier-Ve siecles) (Michel Bonifay & Andre Tchernia)
The East
17. The methodology of pottery comparison: a case-study from Roman Egypt (Roberta Tomber)
18. The Roman Red Sea port network (David Peacock)
19. I porti di Efeso e Smirne come terminali della diffusione del marmo colorato asiatico in eta romana imperiale (Paolo Barresi)
Broader Isles
20. Roman Ports and Mediterranean connectivity (Andrew Wilson, Katia Schorle & Candace Rice)
21. Thoughts on the archaeological residue of networks. A view from the East (Jeroen Poblome, Philip Bes & Rinse Willet)
22. Coastal geo-archaeology in the Mediterranean~: A French perspective (Christophe Morhange, Nick Marriner & Guenaelle Bony)
23. Computational methods on the Roman Port Networks Project (Graeme Earl, Leif Issaken, Simon Keay, Tom Brughmans and David Potts)
