The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

Download or read book The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity written by Emily Gowers and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2025-01-21 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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"--