Mountain Society

In the present chapter, the first task is to identify what were really the preoccupations of ancient authors: for example, it will become clear that modern preoccupation with pastoralism in the Central Apennines is not echoed by ancient authors for our period. Ancient authors were, however, interested in the mountainous landscape of the Central Apennines, the social organization of the area, and in the effect of the environment on moral character. When peoples of the Central Apennines were incorporated within the Roman citizenship, it became possible for their ‘rough landscape’ to function as a moral ideal for the city of Rome. In the final sections of this chapter, I shall consider evidence which suggests that the social structure of the Central Apennines was rather different from that in the much more profoundly urbanized areas of Tyrrhenian Italy.

Aesthetics · Character (mathematics) · Epistemology · Function (biology) · Geography · Ideal (ethics) · Pastoralism · Period (music) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Philosophy