Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome: An Introduction
Edition: 2
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 520
Edition: 2
Copyright: 2026
Pages: 520
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Today’s classical archaeologist is likely to be versed in Greek and Latin, computer technology, ancient history and art history, great monuments, various hard sciences such as physics and astronomy, GPS, GIS, surveying, mapping, digitizing, artistic rendering, numismatics, geo-science, environmental studies, and material culture analysis.
It is not necessary for each scholar to know everything about each discipline, but a basic knowledge is becoming indispensable. Art and Archaeology of Ancient Rome: An Introduction lays out the basic information and steps necessary to fuel the beginning archaeologist’s search for knowledge of the classical world that can lead him or her to the adventures of the future.
About the Authors
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
CHAPTER I The Early Romans and Their Ancestors (2000–700 BCE)
CHAPTER II The Etruscans (700–500 BCE)
CHAPTER III Etruscans in Rome
CHAPTER IV Early Republican Rome (500–300 BCE)
CHAPTER V The Middle Republic (300–100 BCE)
CHAPTER VI Rome in the Revolutionary First Century BCE
CHAPTER VII The Age of Augustus
CHAPTER VIII Julio-Claudian Successors of Augustus
CHAPTER IX The Flavian Emperors
CHAPTER X Trajan and Hadrian—The Empire at Its Zenith
CHAPTER XI The Antonine Emperors and the Severans
CHAPTER XII The Third Century CE—Years of Crisis
CHAPTER XIII Rome in Late Antiquity
CHAPTER XIV Greece in the Roman Period—The Evolution of a New Culture
CHAPTER XV Ephesos—How a City Functioned in the Roman Empire
APPENDIX I The Importance of Roman Pottery
APPENDIX II Excavating a Roman Archaeological Site
Glossary
Maps
Bibliography
Dr. David Soren is a world renowned archaeologist who has been credited with making one of the top 75 discoveries in the history of world archaeology: finding the source of the Great Mediterranean Earthquake of A.D. 365 on the island of Cyprus and detailing the events that led to the rise of Christianity and the fall of Roman paganism on the island (Source: Oxford University Press).
He is a fellow of Great Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs and of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies as well as a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, an honorary Italian citizen and the author of more than 25 books on archaeology and entertainment.
His archaeological excavations have discovered the lost sacred spings of the emperor Augustus in Tuscany and he has explained the decline of the Roman Empire in Italy through his discovery of a burial ground of infants believed to have died from a malaria epidemic in A.D. 450. Dr. Soren holds a B.A. in Greek and Roman Studies from Dartmouth College, an M.A. in Fine Arts from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology also from Harvard.
At the University of Arizona where he is Regents Professor of Classics and Anthropology, he regularly teaches as many as 1000 students per year. After finishing his most recent book on his new evidence that a pandemic stopped Attila the Hun from daring to attack Rome, he decided to turn to something different: an archaeologist looking at the life and art of Taylor Swift.
Converted to becoming a Swiftie by his own students, Dr. Soren became fascinated by how much students could learn from studying Taylor’s lyrics and self-created videos and Eras Tour presentations and his new book invites Swifties to do a deeper dive and learn the implications of Swift’s work in Surrealism and the Paranoiac-Critical Method, Steampunk Culture, Retro-Futurism, Art Deco, Expressionist-Cubism, Caligarism, Star Wars, Plato and Neo-Platonism, Aristotle’s Poetics and numerous other topics and he has put all of this into his new book America’s Superstar: A Deeper Dive.
Soren, who has designed and produced multi-million-dollar exhibitions for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (and a Star Wars show coproduced with the film’s original production designer Harry Lange at the Hayden Planetarium in New York), is a major fan of Swift’s talents and in this textbook, written in clear non-jargony prose especially for Swifties, and featuring 180 illustrations and more than 300 online sources to consult for further deep diving, he shares why he finds Swift’s work such a stepping stone to advanced intellectual engagement.