Sources for Social Class and Public Display

Books: (see also General Reference Works)

• Flower, Harriet I. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
• MacMullen, Ramsay. Roman Social Relations, 50 B.C. to A.D. 284. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.

External Links:

• Roman Civilization: Tombs and Funerals (Margaret Imber)
• “The Significance of Imagines,” a chapter in Acrobat format from Harriet Flowers’ book
• Review of Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture by Thomas Stevenson (Electronic Antiquity 4.2, 1998)
• “The Scopic Regime of Ancient Rome: Section 1—Political Power and Visual Display in Republican Rome,” an E-Lecture by Shadi Bartsh (Note that the full presentation, with video and sound, only works on a Windows platform with appropriate plugins. However, a text transcript of this portion of the talk can be accessed directly here.)

Image List: The following images from the pages on this topic are available through the VRoma Image Archive; further information can be found by consulting the various slide indices. Images in the VRoma Archive may be used for non-commercial purposes, either by downloading the images or by linking to them; it is not necessary to write for permission, but we do ask that you credit the VRoma Project.

Capitoline temple in Dougga	replica of statue of Eumachia	“Barberini statue”	“Barberini statue”
with addition of social class diagram	Pompeii, Forum, first century CE	Rome, Montemartini Museum, first century BCE	Rome, Montemartini Museum, first century BCE

detail of funerary relief with imagines	drawing of Roman funeral	sarcophagus of aristocratic woman
Rome, Montemartini Museum, first century BCE	Museum of London	London, British Museum, c. 80 CE

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