Peter Garnsey
Biographic Data
| ID | 159498 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Garnsey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Garnsey |
| SIGNATURE | GARNSEY P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 72 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 484 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 63 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 9 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Patronage of the rural poor in the Roman world
We begin with two paradoxes. The first is to do with the existence of the poor in antiquity, the second with their survival. The poor were ubiquitous but are more or less invisible. The poor you will have always with you’ are words spoken by an unusually sympathetic observer. The regular spokesmen for ancient society, the standard-bearers of Greco-Roman urban culture, were less concerned with the poor and disinclined to broadcast their presence
The Middle Stoics and Slavery
Mountain Economies in Southern Europe.
Against the Death Penalty
Against the Death Penalty
In 1764, a Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published On Crimes and Punishments . At its centre is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless. Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal law reform, yet he was not the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. This book presents the first English translation of the Florentine aristocrat G…
Trade and Famine in Classical Antiquity
Non-Slave Labour in the Greco-Roman World
The Science of Roman History
Capturing Roman dietary variability in the catastrophic death assemblage at Herculaneum
The Roman Empire
During the Principate (roughly 27 BCE to 235 CE), when the empire reached its maximum extent, Roman society and culture were radically transformed. But how was the vast territory of the empire controlled? Did the demands of central government stimulate economic growth or endanger survival? What forces of cohesion operated to balance the social and economic inequalities and high mortality rates? How did the official religion react in the face of t…
The Album of Herculaneum and a model of the town’s demography
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Roman patronage
A PECULIAR INSTITUTION? There is a problem about patronage. Patronage has traditionally been viewed as a defining feature of Roman society, an institution of pivotal importance, offering a vital clue to the relative stability of that society over time. It was an institution as quintessentially and centrally Roman as patria potestas , the authority of a Roman male head of household. Nowadays, however, historians are saying that patronage was much …
Water‐related occupations and diet in two Roman coastal communities (Italy, first to third century AD)
The reconstruction of dietary patterns in the two Roman imperial age coastal communities of Portus and Velia (I–III AD) by means of stable isotope analysis of bone remains has exposed a certain degree of heterogeneity between and within the two samples. Results do not correlate with any discernible mortuary practices at either site, which might have pointed to differential social status. The present study tests the hypothesis of a possible connec…
Cities, Peasants and Food in Classical Antiquity
Stable isotopic evidence for diet at the Imperial Roman coastal site of Velia (1st and 2nd Centuries AD) in Southern Italy
Here we report on a stable isotope palaeodietary study of a Imperial Roman population interred near the port of Velia in Southern Italy during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses were performed on collagen extracted from 117 adult humans as well as a range of fauna to reconstruct individual dietary histories. For the majority of individuals, we found that stable isotope data were consistent with a diet high i…
Isotopic and dental evidence for infant and young child feeding practices in an imperial Roman skeletal sample
This study integrates isotopic, palaeopathological, and historical evidence to investigate infant and young child feeding practices in a Roman period (1st to 3rd centuries AD) skeletal sample from the Isola Sacra necropolis (Rome, Italy). Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen from 37 rib samples indicates that transitional feeding began by the end of the first year and weaning occurred by 2–2.5 years of age. Both δ 15 N and δ 13 C data clearly…
Les Lois religieuses des empereurs romains de Constantin à Théodose II (312–438) , I
Les Lois religieuses des empereurs romains de Constantin à Théodose II (312–438), I: Code Théodosien. Livre XVI. Latin text by Theodor Mommsen, translated by Jean Rougé, introduction and notes by Roland Delmaire (with François Richard). (Sources Chrétiennes, 497.) Pp. 533. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2005. €46 (paper). 2 204 07906 5; 0750 1978 - Volume 58 Issue 2
Isotopic evidence for age‐related immigration to imperial Rome
Oxygen stable isotope ratios (δ 18 O) have been determined in carbonate in paired first and third molar teeth from individuals ( N = 61) who lived in the town of Portus Romae (“Portus”) and who were buried in the necropolis of Isola Sacra (First to Third centuries AD) near Rome, Italy. We compare these analyses with data for deciduous teeth of modern Roman children. Approximately one‐third of the archaeological sample has first molar (M1) values …
Roman Citizenship and Roman Law in the Late Empire
This chapter shows that Roman citizenship in the days of Augustine, while widely possessed (though not universal), was still to some extent a social divider, marking off Romans from external barbarians and foreigners within several categories, not to mention slaves. Its use among citizens and usefulness to them was uneven. The general function of citizenship was, and always had been as, an enabling mechanism, offering access to the judicial proce…
The Cambridge Ancient History
This volume covers the history of the Roman Empire from the accession of Septimius Severus in AD 193 to the death of Constantine in AD 337. This period was one of the most critical in the history of the Mediterranean world. It begins with the establishment of the Severan dynasty as a result of civil war. From AD 235 this period of relative stability was followed by half a century of short reigns of short-lived emperors and a number of military at…
Food and Society in Classical Antiquity
Food and Society in Classical Antiquity
Introduction
The transition from Classical to Hellenistic philosophy coincided with the passage from a Greek world in which the polis was the dominant political formation to one presided over by large central states. The first of these was the kingdom of Macedon. The advance of Macedon was swift. In no more than four decades, beginning with the rise to power of Philip II in 359 bc , Greece was subdued, the massive Persian empire conquered (334–327), and democ…
The land
In the Graeco-Roman world land was the source of subsistence and of wealth. Land was looked to primarily for food. This chapter begins with an assessment of the food-producing capacities of the territories making up the Roman empire and the manner in which they were tapped, against the background of the opportunities offered and constraints imposed by the physical environment. Consideration is given to developments in the agrarian economy in our …
The Cambridge Ancient History
Volume XI of the second edition of The Cambridge Ancient History covers the history of the Roman empire in the period from AD 70 to 192, from Vespasian to the Antonines. The volume begins with the political and military history of the period. Developments in the structure of the empire are then examined, including the organisation and personnel of the central government and province-based institutions and practices. A series of provincial studies…
The Roman Empire
During the Principate (roughly 27 BCE to 235 CE), when the empire reached its maximum extent, Roman society and culture were radically transformed. But how was the vast territory of the empire controlled? Did the demands of central government stimulate economic growth or endanger survival? What forces of cohesion operated to balance the social and economic inequalities and high mortality rates? How did the official religion react in the face of t…
Trade in the Ancient Economy
Isotopic and dental evidence for infant and young child feeding practices in an imperial Roman skeletal sample
This study integrates isotopic, palaeopathological, and historical evidence to investigate infant and young child feeding practices in a Roman period (1st to 3rd centuries AD) skeletal sample from the Isola Sacra necropolis (Rome, Italy). Stable isotope analysis of bone collagen from 37 rib samples indicates that transitional feeding began by the end of the first year and weaning occurred by 2–2.5 years of age. Both δ 15 N and δ 13 C data clearly…
Stable isotopic evidence for diet at the Imperial Roman coastal site of Velia (1st and 2nd Centuries AD) in Southern Italy
Here we report on a stable isotope palaeodietary study of a Imperial Roman population interred near the port of Velia in Southern Italy during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analyses were performed on collagen extracted from 117 adult humans as well as a range of fauna to reconstruct individual dietary histories. For the majority of individuals, we found that stable isotope data were consistent with a diet high i…
Isotopic evidence for age‐related immigration to imperial Rome
Oxygen stable isotope ratios (δ 18 O) have been determined in carbonate in paired first and third molar teeth from individuals ( N = 61) who lived in the town of Portus Romae (“Portus”) and who were buried in the necropolis of Isola Sacra (First to Third centuries AD) near Rome, Italy. We compare these analyses with data for deciduous teeth of modern Roman children. Approximately one‐third of the archaeological sample has first molar (M1) values …
Peasants in ancient Roman society
The political power of the smallholder in democratic Athens was without parallel in the ancient world. The Roman peasant was a 'peasant of obligation', charged with the duty of supporting a militarist and oligarchic state with supplies and manpower, but without security of tenure over his land. The failure of successive governments under the Republic to protect peasant proprietors against the incursions of large landowners, and to resettle them o…
Water‐related occupations and diet in two Roman coastal communities (Italy, first to third century AD)
The reconstruction of dietary patterns in the two Roman imperial age coastal communities of Portus and Velia (I–III AD) by means of stable isotope analysis of bone remains has exposed a certain degree of heterogeneity between and within the two samples. Results do not correlate with any discernible mortuary practices at either site, which might have pointed to differential social status. The present study tests the hypothesis of a possible connec…
Where did Italian peasants live
Until recently this was a question that was not asked. It was not asked because there was a prior question that was asked, and that received a negative answer: Did peasant proprietors survive in significant numbers in the late Republic or early Empire? The consensus of opinion has been that they were always to be found, but that they were relatively few. As the traditional rural economy of which they had been the characteristic feature gave way u…
Hellenistic Constructs
CONTRIBUTORS: S. Alcock, R. Bagnall, K. Bringmann, P. Cartledge, A. Eckstein, P. Garnsey, P. Green, E. Gruen, G. Herman, J.L. Ferrary, H. Mattlingly, F. Millar, D. Thompson
Imperialism in the Ancient World
Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World
Capturing Roman dietary variability in the catastrophic death assemblage at Herculaneum
The Album of Herculaneum and a model of the town’s demography
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers
Research Article| January 01 1970 Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers Peter Garnsey Peter Garnsey Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California Studies in Classical Antiquity (1970) 3: 45–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/25010598 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite…
The Science of Roman History
Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World
The Generosity of Veyne
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus
One of the measures carried by Gaius Gracchus in the course of his first tribunate in 123–2 B.C. provided for the regular sale of grain to citizens of Rome at the price of 61⁄3 asses per modius. Gracchus also, presumably by the same law, provided for the construction of state granaries. The sources for the law are meagre. None of them is contemporary, and those later writers who do comment on the law furnish few details. What is known of its cont…
Thessaly and the Grain Supply of Rome during the Second Century B.C
In a speech attributed by Xenophon to Jason of Pherae, Thessaly is described as an exporter of grain, in contrast with Athens which was obliged to supplement its own foodstocks with the surplus of others. The ancient sources record the dispatch of Thessalian grain to a few Greek cities; but Thessaly must have been a resource for other Greeks in peacetime, as it was in wartime to Roman armies operating in the region in the middle and late Republic…
The Criminal Jurisdiction of Governors
I will begin this investigation by summarising Mommsen's views on the powers of governors, as I understand them. According to Mommsen, the task of the Republican governor was to administer civil justice and to maintain the obedience of subjects and slaves. He was as little a criminal judge as the Roman praetor, whose title he originally bore. His capacity to employ coercitio against non-citizens (and citizens also, until the appeal laws and the S…
Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire
LEGAL PRIVILEGE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE: INTRODUCTION Get access Peter Garnsey Peter Garnsey University of CaliforniaBerkeley Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 41, Issue 1, December 1968, Pages 3–24, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/41.1.3 Published: 01 December 1968
Famine and Food Supply in the Greco-Roman World
Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity
Toleration Implies disapproval or disagreement coupled with an unwillingness to take action against those who are viewed with disfavour in the interest of some moral or political principle. It is an active concept, not to be confused with indifference, apathy or passive acquiescence. In this paper I reexamine, in the light of this strong definition of toleration, the contrast commonly drawn for the world of classical antiquity between a tolerant …
Taxatio and Pollicitatio in Roman Africa
Numerous inscriptions from different parts of the Empire, and particularly from North Africa, testify to the munificence of the urban aristocracy. By munificence I mean the spending of wealthy individuals on, for example, monuments or projects of construction of one sort or another for their cities, or handouts of money, food or other commodities to their fellow-citizens. The significance of munificence from an economic viewpoint can be readily a…
Adultery Trials and the Survival of the Quaestiones in the Severan Age
In the late Republic and early Empire special courts were established by statute, largely by Sulla and Augustus, to deal with the following crimes: treason, adultery, murder, parricide, embezzlement, forgery of wills, public and private violence, corrupt practices in elections, extortion, injury, and interference with the corn-supply. It is commonly thought that at least some of these quaestiones were still active in the Severan period. In a rece…
The Lex Iulia and Appeal under the Empire
The aim of this article is to challenge a theory which is current about the operation of criminal appeal under the Principate. Since the important essays of Professor Jones on the subject, it has been commonly accepted that there were two separate and distinct systems of appeal in the period from Augustus to the Severans. In the first century, appeal, provocatio , was lodged before trial . The judge did not try the case at all, but at most made a…
Adultery Trials and the Survival of the Quaestiones in the Severan Age
In the late Republic and early Empire special courts were established by statute, largely by Sulla and Augustus, to deal with the following crimes: treason, adultery, murder, parricide, embezzlement, forgery of wills, public and private violence, corrupt practices in elections, extortion, injury, and interference with the corn-supply. It is commonly thought that at least some of these quaestiones were still active in the Severan period. In a rece…
The Criminal Jurisdiction of Governors
I will begin this investigation by summarising Mommsen's views on the powers of governors, as I understand them. According to Mommsen, the task of the Republican governor was to administer civil justice and to maintain the obedience of subjects and slaves. He was as little a criminal judge as the Roman praetor, whose title he originally bore. His capacity to employ coercitio against non-citizens (and citizens also, until the appeal laws and the S…
Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire
LEGAL PRIVILEGE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE: INTRODUCTION Get access Peter Garnsey Peter Garnsey University of CaliforniaBerkeley Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 41, Issue 1, December 1968, Pages 3–24, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/41.1.3 Published: 01 December 1968
R. A. Bauman, The Crimen Maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate. Johannesburg
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers
Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers
Research Article| January 01 1970 Septimius Severus and the Marriage of Soldiers Peter Garnsey Peter Garnsey Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar California Studies in Classical Antiquity (1970) 3: 45–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/25010598 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite…
Taxatio and Pollicitatio in Roman Africa
Numerous inscriptions from different parts of the Empire, and particularly from North Africa, testify to the munificence of the urban aristocracy. By munificence I mean the spending of wealthy individuals on, for example, monuments or projects of construction of one sort or another for their cities, or handouts of money, food or other commodities to their fellow-citizens. The significance of munificence from an economic viewpoint can be readily a…
Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire
Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire
Journal Article Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire Get access Garnsey Peter, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford, England. Oxford University Press (Clarendon Press), 1970. xiii, 320 pp. $10.50. E. J. Weinrib E. J. Weinrib Assistant Professor Department of Classics, University of Toronto Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 16…
Studien zur Sklavenflucht im Romischen Kaiserreich
Urban Property Investment
When historians of the Roman economy write of investments in land, they normally have in mind rural property. The role of investment in urban property in the economy is seldom discussed. Moreover, what little has been said on the subject suggests that its significance is inadequately understood. The standard works on economic history might be expected to place urban property firmly in its economic context. Tenney Frank recognizes the following so…
Economy and Society of Mediolanum under the Principate
Strabo called Mediolanum (Milan) an ἀξιόλογος πόλις and classed it above all other cities in the region of Cisalpine Gaul, with the exception of Patavium (Padua). Patavium in its prime, the Augustan period, could register five hundred equestrians in a census, a number equalled only by Gades (Cadiz) among cities in the West. The presence of so many equestrians indicates a substantial population-base. Cisalpine cities as a whole impressed Strabo as…
Peasants in ancient Roman society
The political power of the smallholder in democratic Athens was without parallel in the ancient world. The Roman peasant was a 'peasant of obligation', charged with the duty of supporting a militarist and oligarchic state with supplies and manpower, but without security of tenure over his land. The failure of successive governments under the Republic to protect peasant proprietors against the incursions of large landowners, and to resettle them o…
Money in the Age of Tiberius
Imperialism in the Ancient World
The economics of imperialism, its political background and institutional frameworks, the material benefits it conferred, the ideologies of ruler and ruled - these are some of the more important aspects of imperialism discussed in this volume. In presenting the evidence for ancient imperialims and suggesting concepts and methods of interpretation these articles, which are the work of the Cambridge University Research Seminar in Ancient History, ra…
Where did Italian peasants live
Until recently this was a question that was not asked. It was not asked because there was a prior question that was asked, and that received a negative answer: Did peasant proprietors survive in significant numbers in the late Republic or early Empire? The consensus of opinion has been that they were always to be found, but that they were relatively few. As the traditional rural economy of which they had been the characteristic feature gave way u…
Africa and Europe
Imperialism in the Ancient World
Grain for Rome
Trade in the Ancient Economy
Religious Toleration in Classical Antiquity
Toleration Implies disapproval or disagreement coupled with an unwillingness to take action against those who are viewed with disfavour in the interest of some moral or political principle. It is an active concept, not to be confused with indifference, apathy or passive acquiescence. In this paper I reexamine, in the light of this strong definition of toleration, the contrast commonly drawn for the world of classical antiquity between a tolerant …
Thessaly and the Grain Supply of Rome during the Second Century B.C
In a speech attributed by Xenophon to Jason of Pherae, Thessaly is described as an exporter of grain, in contrast with Athens which was obliged to supplement its own foodstocks with the surplus of others. The ancient sources record the dispatch of Thessalian grain to a few Greek cities; but Thessaly must have been a resource for other Greeks in peacetime, as it was in wartime to Roman armies operating in the region in the middle and late Republic…
Trade in the Ancient Economy
The Background to the Grain Law of Gaius Gracchus
One of the measures carried by Gaius Gracchus in the course of his first tribunate in 123–2 B.C. provided for the regular sale of grain to citizens of Rome at the price of 61⁄3 asses per modius. Gracchus also, presumably by the same law, provided for the construction of state granaries. The sources for the law are meagre. None of them is contemporary, and those later writers who do comment on the law furnish few details. What is known of its cont…
History (47 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (41 works) · Political science (32 works) · Geography (24 works) · Ancient history (22 works) · Law (22 works) · History (21 works) · Archaeology (18 works) · Economics (18 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (17 works)