Shipwrecks and the Transport of Luxury in the Roman Mediterranean

Authors

Carrie Atkins, University of Toronto, Mississauga

Files

Description

During the late Republic and early Empire, Rome had a voracious appetite for importing luxury objects from around the Mediterranean: spices from the Arabian Peninsula, sculptures and bronzes from Greece, glassware from Egypt and the Levant, and textiles from India, to list a few examples. Some of these so-termed luxuries have been preserved in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, yet these objects only represent a small portion of the overall cargoes. By examining several Roman shipwrecks (ca 200 BCE – 200 CE) that were transporting such luxury objects, I discuss how these assemblages force us to re-evaluate static definitions of luxury and assess the impact of mobility upon shifting social importance in multi-scalar networks. In particular, through considering cargoes as assemblages, I discuss agents who were often overlooked in literary accounts, and I de-centralize Rome as the main consumer of luxuries by showing the transportation of these goods to the western Mediterranean.

Publication Date

3-3-2021

Relational Format

archival material

Disciplines

Classics

Recommended Citation

Atkins, Carrie, "Shipwrecks and the Transport of Luxury in the Roman Mediterranean" (2021). Lecture Series. 33.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/classics_lectures/33