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The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Why are the small and unimportant relics of Roman antiquity often the most enduring, in both material form and our affections? Through close encounters with minor things such as insects, brief lives, quibbles, irritants, and jokes, Emily Gowers provocatively argues that much of what the Romans dismissed as superfluous or peripheral in fact took up immense imaginative space. There is much to learn from what didn’t or shouldn’t matter. It was often through the small stuff that the Romans most acutely probed and challenged their society’s overarching values and priorities and its sense of proportion and justice. By marking the spots where the apparently pointless becomes significant, this book radically adjusts our understanding of the Romans and their world, as well as  our own minor feelings and intimate preoccupations.

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The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Why are the small and unimportant relics of Roman antiquity often the most enduring, in both material form and our affections? Through close encounters with minor things such as insects, brief lives, quibbles, irritants, and jokes, Emily Gowers provocatively argues that much of what the Romans dismissed as superfluous or peripheral in fact took up immense imaginative space. There is much to learn from what didn’t or shouldn’t matter. It was often through the small stuff that the Romans most acutely probed and challenged their society’s overarching values and priorities and its sense of proportion and justice. By marking the spots where the apparently pointless becomes significant, this book radically adjusts our understanding of the Romans and their world, as well as  our own minor feelings and intimate preoccupations.

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The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

by Emily Gowers
The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity
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The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

by Emily Gowers

Overview

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Why are the small and unimportant relics of Roman antiquity often the most enduring, in both material form and our affections? Through close encounters with minor things such as insects, brief lives, quibbles, irritants, and jokes, Emily Gowers provocatively argues that much of what the Romans dismissed as superfluous or peripheral in fact took up immense imaginative space. There is much to learn from what didn’t or shouldn’t matter. It was often through the small stuff that the Romans most acutely probed and challenged their society’s overarching values and priorities and its sense of proportion and justice. By marking the spots where the apparently pointless becomes significant, this book radically adjusts our understanding of the Romans and their world, as well as  our own minor feelings and intimate preoccupations.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780520413153
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication date: 01/21/2025
Series: Sather Classical Lectures , #77
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 191

About the Author

Emily Gowers is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and author of Rome’s Patron: The Lives and Afterlives of Maecenas. 
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