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Details of the RAC/TRAC Conference session 'Urban Structures, Inscriptions and Interaction in Imperial Rome: new approaches.'
Conference Sessions and Abstracts - Saturday 13 April 2024
2. Urban Structures, Inscriptions and Interaction in Imperial Rome: new approaches
Barbara Borg – Scuola Normale Superiore
Francesca D’Andrea – Scuola Normale Superiore
Rome as the first‐ever mega‐city possibly reaching c.1 million inhabitants in the early empire, still remains an enigma regarding the way it organised itself and maintained that size for over three centuries despite intensive research on many relevant aspects. Having long outgrown the 4th‐century BCE city walls, the urbanistic structures that developed outside of these, and especially outside the later Aurelian Wall, have never been studied holistically and topographical patterns have rarely been translated into patterns of social interaction. The Project ‘The Inscribed city: urban structures and interaction in imperial ROME’ (IN-ROME, ERC-Adv-101054143, PI B.E. Borg), aims to fill that gap using both traditional sources of information (esp. literary, archaeological and archival) and new digital resources. Linking the Epigraphic Database Roma to the Catasto Gregoriano and other maps allows us to automatically map c.35,000 inscriptions from CIL VI onto the (archaeological) map of Rome, thus covering the suburbium to about the 9th milestone. The panel we propose will introduce the project, its sub-projects dedicated to specific under-researched aspects of the Roman topography, new methodologies developed to automatise the vectorisation of the Catasto Gregoriano and other maps, as well as first results.
Session schedule
Abstracts
IN-ROME - The INscribed city: urban structures and interaction in imperial ROME
Barbara Borg – Scuola Normale Superiore
Rome as the first-ever mega-city reaching c. 1 million inhabitants in the early empire (1st century BCE), remains an enigma regarding the way it organised itself and maintained that size for over three centuries. Having long outgrown the 4th century BCE city walls, the urbanistic structures that developed outside of these, and especially outside the late Aurelian Wall, have never been studied holistically in a systematic way. Considering that the built environment in any city both shapes and is being shaped by the everyday lives of those inhabiting and using it, we are missing out on some crucial evidence for understanding how Rome’s society worked. The ERC-funded project IN-ROME aims to fill this gap by mapping different parts of the population and their varied activities onto the city’s and its suburbium’s landscape. The presentation will describe its research objectives in greater detail and how it will approach them through a combination of traditional as well as innovative methodologies. The latter include the unlocking of the enormous potential of inscriptions for our understanding of Rome’s urban development and social fabric through virtual re-contextualisation and statistical analysis with the help of a newly created GIS system and map of 17th-20th-century properties and toponyms.
AI-Supported Vectorization in the IN-ROME project: A Scalable Approach to Historical Map Digitization
Michela Vignoli – Austrian Institute of Technology
Michael Seidl – Austrian Institute of Technology
The IN-ROME project employs advanced machine learning techniques for the vectorization of Catasto Gregoriano map sheets. The vectorization process commences with manual georeferencing of the map sheets, followed by the extraction of key features such as cadastral boundaries and building footprints. These extracted features are then converted into a GIS vector data layer. The project is developing an AI model, trained on a manually annotated subset of the corpus, to automate the vectorization of the remaining sheets. This machine learning approach involves the AI model learning to identify and differentiate between various types of features, thereby enabling the automatic extraction and vectorization of these features on the remaining map sheets. This innovative method promises not only significant time savings but also enhanced quality of results, as more time can be allocated for quality control and fine-tuning. The results of this process will be incorporated into the project’s tailored WebGIS map and Gazetteer Database, enhancing its user-friendly interface. The progress made in this project demonstrates the feasibility and efficiency of using AI in the digitization of historical maps.
Digital infrastructures for the understanding of Roman archaeological landscapes
Julian Bogdani – Sapienza Università di Roma Michael Seidl – Austrian Institute of Technology
Eleonora Iacopini – Sapienza Università di Roma Michela Vignoli – Austrian Institute of Technology
The Digital Information System of the IN-ROME project is about creating a topographic connection between the historical cartography of the city of Rome and the inscriptions contained in the Epigraphic Database Rome (EDR database). The georeferencing of the epigraphic data, which currently amounts to around 50,000 specimens, will allow us to obtain an enormous amount of data, essential for a comprehensive understanding of urban and social development in space and time. This new geographical-epigraphic approach enables us to explore the distribution of human activities on the territory, and to develop new models with respect to the population and topography of the city. From a methodological point of view, the project involves cross-referencing the topographical data archived in EDR with those contained in the maps and documents of the Gregorian Cadastre. A web-based database system, desktop and web-based GIS platforms and a dedicated web-portal for the publication of the results will form the infrastructure of the INRome project, as well as its main operative tools. Using this platform, the different data sources can be explored jointly via an interactive and modern interface, including real world mapped views of the historic cartographic material.
Villa dei Gordiani: some new epigraphic evidence
Chantal Gabrielli – Sapienza Università di Roma
The complex archaeological context of the 'villa dei Gordiani', located at the third mile of the via Prenestina, has recently been the subject of an in-depth publication, which has highlighted its topographical importance in the urban context, and where particular attention has been paid to the wide and heterogeneous epigraphic evidence (D. Palombi (ed), La 'villa dei Gordiani' al III miglio della via Prenestina. La memoria e il contesto, Monte Compatri 2019). The research conducted within the framework of the ERC Advanced Grant project 'IN-ROME: The INscribed city: urban structures and interaction in ROME', has increased the epigraphic texts from this archaeological area. A dossier of thirteen unpublished inscriptions, found in the bibliographic and photographic archive updating the 6th volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum of the Institute of Latin Epigraphy in Rome, set up by Prof. Silvio Panciera, allows us to further increase our knowledge of the urban environment both on a social and prosopographical level.
New approaches to the study of the manuscript tradition of Roman epigraphs
Umberto Michele Soldovieri – Scuola Normale Superiore
To date, any attempt to re-examine the manuscript tradition of the epigraphs of Rome has essentially resulted in the study of a few auctores or the revision of a few collections. However useful it may be, this modus operandi has led to a more or less thorough and up-to-date knowledge of specific sections of the manuscript epigraphic tradition, which nevertheless continue to be largely unconnected. My communication aims to demonstrate with examples how a new systematic approach is needed and the potential of such a study. The results of a preliminary investigation of a number of important testimonies from the 16th to the 18th centuries will also be presented.
From the Euphrates to the Tiber: The Arsacids in Rome
Davide Maria Meucci – Scuola Normale Superiore
The Parthians have been documented in Rome since the first century BC, but their presence has never been studied in the context of the city’s urban history. Modern analyses of Roman-Arsacid relations have often exaggerated certain episodes by taking them out of context, thus proposing celebratory interpretations sympathetic to the Romans. At the same time, they have failed to take into account the presence of the Arsacids in Rome, reducing them to extras in the history of the city. The partial nature of the documentation proves to be an obvious limitation in understanding the historical reality, which appears to be complex. In fact, the criteria used for interpretation assign to Rome the role of sole actor on a passive stage, relegating the Parthians to the status of mere extras. There is, therefore, a clear need to study the events with a multidisciplinary and egalitarian approach in order to place the Romans and the Arsacids on an equal footing. Therefore, this paper will attempt to analyse and study the presence of the Parthians in Rome, making them active “citizens” in segments of the city’s urban history and not just “tourists”.
Mapping ritual: towards a contextual understanding of religious practice in the Roman Suburbium
Consuelo Manetta – Scuola Normale Superiore
For the Romans who lived in a world full of gods, the rhythms of private, collective and public life were carefully articulated by ritual. Sacred installations represented a familiar and connotative element of both urban and rural landscapes throughout every period of Roman history, whether at the scale of monumental temples or more modest shrines and altars. These installations were stages for the rituals that maintained balance in diverse dynamics of daily life, e.g. in the forces of nature, or among families and other social structures including, ultimately, the state itself. They were also staging-grounds for the negotiation of identity through political self-promotion and cultural integration amongst the elites and other social groups. I will introduce my sub-project within the INROME project through the lens of a selected case-study. My goal here is twofold: to illustrate the distribution and nature of religious devotion and cults in the project area, and to begin to explore questions relating to patronage and cult-participation, based on analysis of epigraphical evidence within its archaeological and topographical context.
Continentia and Suburbium: the eastern periphery of Rome and its suburbs between the Servian Wall and the 9th mile
Francesca D’Andrea – Scuola Normale Superiore
This paper provides an overview of the IN-ROME sub-project dedicated to the eastern suburbs of Rome. The main objective of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of development and functioning of the landscape extended eastward between the city boundaries (continentia) and the suburbium within the ninth mile. The investigation is predominantly concerned with the expansion of the city across the Servian Wall, the development of the Esquiline and adjacent areas over time and the question of how exactly the built-up area gradually faded into a more rural countryside. After a brief introduction to the history of the studies, the first part of the paper will introduce the research questions and the methodology used to achieve the objectives. The second part will present some case studies that are particularly relevant for a more comprehensive understanding of the eastern periphery of Rome. Particular attention will be paid to the Late Republican necropolis and the changes it underwent during the Imperial period, as well as to the distribution of monumental tombs and private residences on the outskirts of the city.