The Remarkable Life, Death, and Afterlife of an Ordinary Roman

What was life like for an ordinary Roman? In this book, Jeremy Hartnett offers a detailed view of an average Roman, an individual named Flavius Agricola. His funerary monument, adorned with a 15-line poetic epitaph and a life-sized marble image of the deceased reclining at table, takes readers to fascinating corners of everyday Roman life.

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When we think of Romans, Julius Caesar or Constantine might spring to mind. But what was life like for everyday folk, those who gazed up at the palace rather than looking out from within its walls? In this book, Jeremy Hartnett offers a detailed view of an average Roman, an individual named Flavius Agricola. Though Flavius was only a generation or two removed from slavery, his successful life emerges from his careful commemoration in death: a poetic epitaph and life-sized marble portrait showing him reclining at table. This ensemble not only enables Hartnett to reconstruct Flavius' biography, as well as his wife's, but also permits a nuanced exploration of many aspects of Roman life, such as dining, sex, worship of foreign deities, gender, bodily display, cultural literacy, religious experience, blended families, and visiting the dead at their tombs. Teasing provocative questions from this ensemble, Hartnett also recounts the monument's scandalous discovery and extraordinary afterlife over the centuries.