To date, Rome’s intervention to the West from the mid-2nd century BC has not really been looked at with any sense of overview. Instead, there has been an unconnected series of micro-regional studies looking at particular areas, from the River Ebro in Spain round to Italy on the land front, and from the Balearic Islands to Corsica, Sardinia and even Sicily as regards the seaborne aspect. In contrast, this volume pushes the historical and archaeological debates about Rome’s expansion beyond these traditional geographical boundaries and the discipline-based previous research.
The entire north-western Mediterranean is treated as a micro-region and is addressed using various interdisciplinary approaches. The result is to provide an innovative and comprehensive overview of the north-western Mediterranean in a period of historical crossroads, aided particularly by focusing on the connectivity and integration within this region as two interrelated issues. While Republican Rome enforced itself as an expansive power towards the West, all sorts of polities, military operations and individuals also played a significant role in creating interconnectivity and integration of the north-western Mediterranean into a new hybrid reality. In order to uncover such processes of hybridisation, contributors to this volume were encouraged to focus on the historical, archaeological and numismatic material from several areas within the region, and to incorporate aspects of interdisciplinary methodologies in order to address the region’s military, political, social and economic interconnections with Italy, Rome and each other within the overall period.
List of contributors
Introduction: The Agency of Integration and Connectivity in the North-Western Mediterranean
Toni Ñaco del Hoyo, Jordi Principal and Mike Dobson
ROME, ITALY AND THE WEST
1. Rome and the Western Mediterranean (150–70 BC): Empire and War
François Cadiou
2. Non-Roman Coins in Italy: the Influence of Western Connections (3rd–1st Centuries BC)
Marleen K. Termeer
3. Military Connectivity between Romans and non-Romans in the West
Fernando Quesada
4. Transactions, Trading Practices and Structures in the Western Mediterranean: the Impact of Roman Hegemony
Alexis Gorgues
5. Ligurians, Gatekeepers of the West 197–118 BC
Gerard R. Ventós and Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán
HISPANIA CITERIOR AND TRANSALPINE GAUL
6. Initial Indications of a Roman Presence East of the Pyrenees: a Possible Transition Zone between Gaul and Iberia in the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BC
Étienne Roudier, Ingrid Dunyach and Jerôme Bénézet
7. Numantia. A Green and Pleasant Land. Not once the Romans arrived!
Mike Dobson
8. Trading Networks in Transalpine Gaul before and after the Conquest of 125 BC
Corinne Sanchez
9. Late Iron Age .Iberians from Coastal North-Eastern Hispania and Rome
Josep Burch, Ana Costa, Neus Coromina, Josep M. Nolla, Lluís Palahí, Marc Prat, Jordi Sagrera, Josefina Simon, David Vivó and Jordi Vivo
10. Late Iron Age Iberians and Rome in the Segre Valley (North-East Hispania): Transformation and Integration
Ignasi Garcés and Borja Martín
11. Tolosa Tectosagum: a Wide-Ranging Connectivity Hub between Transalpine Gaul, Aquitania and Hispania Citerior
Pierre Moret
12. Coinage from North-East Hispania Citerior and Rome, c. 150–70 BC
Marta Campo
13. A Fistful of Denarii. Coinage, Conquest and Connectivity in Southern Gaul (c. 150–c. 70 BC)
Eneko Hiriart and Charles Parisot-Sillon
SEABORNE CONNECTIVITY
14. Shipwrecks and Trade in the North-Western Mediterranean during the Third and Second Centuries BC: the Sea as an Agent of Connectivity
Franca Cibecchini
15. Emporion and its Port during the Second Century BC
Pere Castanyer, Marta Santos, Joaquim Tremoleda and Elisa
16. Exploring the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in Ancient Sicily between Hellenisation and Romanisation: a Reassessment
Daniele Malfitana
17. Between Carthage and Rome: Artisans, Businessmen and Colonists in Roman Republican Sardinia (150–50 BC)
Antonio Ibba
18. Rome and the Political Dimension of Piracy in the North-Western Mediterranean
Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio
19. Between Traders and Pirates. Connectivity in the Balearic Islands from the Second Punic War to the Mid-First Century BC
Bartomeu Vallori-Márquez
20. Rome and the North–Western Mediterranean: Ports-of-Call and Sea Routes
Gerard Cabezas-Guzmán and Gerard R. Ventós
EPILOGUE
21. The Roman and Italian Economic Diaspora as a Factor of Connectivity between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean, 150–70 BC
Sophia Zoumbaki and Michalis Karambinis
22. A Message in a Bottle Crossing the North-Western Mediterranean
Jordi Principal and Toni Ñaco del Hoyo
Index
Toni Ñaco del Hoyo is an ICREA Research Professor in Ancient History (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) currently based at Universitat de Girona. He is a Roman Republican historian interested in warfare in Iberia and the Hellenistic east, crisis management, taxation, international relations and war-peace studies.
Jordi Principal is Curator of the Classical Collection at the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia (Barcelona). His research interests are pottery studies and the archaeology of the Roman Republican army, including directing fieldwork and excavation projects, such as those at El Camp de les Lloses and relating to the Battle of Emporion.
