AWRC-OCLW Joint Seminar Approaching Ancient Lives

Abstract Men at Work: Lives of Roman Builders Janet DeLaine Architecture was fundamental to Roman culture - a culture which was essentially urban in nature, and which found expression in, and was structured by, the built environment. While the commissioning of buildings was almost entirely the privilege of the political and economic elite, the realization was in the hands of ordinary Romans, from the highly skilled specialists to the simple labourers, who worked in the extraction and production of buildings materials, in their transport to the building sites, and in act of construction. This lecture looks at the varied evidence, from inscriptions, painted and mosaic depictions, legal codes and literary texts, which combine to give rare insights into the lives of the people who built ancient Rome.