Recovering Rural Non-Elites: Commoner Landscapes and Rural Infill in the Roman Middle Republic

Abstract

In this dissertation, I examine the process of rural infill in central Italy– a pattern of regional change that saw an increase in dispersed material culture in rural areas across the Mediterranean between 500 and 200 BCE. In particular, I examine the role of rural commoners in this landscape transformation – commoners made up the majority of the central Italian population, but this group has seldom been considered in the various processes of change that occurred during this period. Legacy data from archaeological field surveys carried out over the last forty years furnishes a large corpus of data that has not been used to discuss Republican-period commoners. I develop a methodology for comparing diachronic trends in commoner activity drawn from field survey, informed by recent excavations. Throughout, I argue for a dynamic commoner presence in the middle Republican countryside and suggest that rural infill, while a pattern of change visible outside of central Italy, is best understood at a regional level as a series of shifting dynamics in material visibility, changes in networks of exchange, fluctuations in commoner surplus production, more visible commoner-commoner interactions, and evolving commoner-elite relationships. Old models, linking rural infill to the Roman conquest do not hold up to increased scrutiny. The first chapter provides context for this inquiry by reviewing previous studies of non-elites in the Roman world and suggesting that commoners and commoner studies provide a useful heuristic category for the focused examination of non-elites from the Republican period. Chapter 2 addresses rural infill at a “global scale” and synthesizes evidence from survey archaeology and rescue excavations across the Mediterranean region that show increased rural activity between 500 and 200. These explanatory models offered for this regional trend provide possible explanations for the central Italian case. While larger-scale transformations likely played a role in changes in rural material in central Italy, a focus only on the supraregional level elides the people and material that underlie the pattern of change. Chapter 3 discusses the comparison of data from survey archaeology and the various issues with this technique. This chapter focuses especially on issues of site classification in light of recent excavations that have called into question the relationships between surface and subsurface archaeological remains. This chapter also acts as a catalog of excavated commoner sites from central Italy, a small but informative corpus. Chapter 4 outlines my methodology for approaching survey comparison, suggesting a reanalysis of legacy data from the sherd up in order to reclassify rural evidence based on consumption categories structured around the commoner-elite heuristic divide discussed in Chapter 1. On a survey-by-survey basis, trends in commoner activity can be drawn out, and then these trends can be compared to examine regional patterns. Chapter 5 operationalizes this methodology, examining nineteen intensive field surveys from central Italy, elucidating trends in commoner activity, and reading these trends against the surveyors’ own interpretations. Chapter 6 compares trends and teases out conclusions, while also suggesting the importance of more focused new work to nuance our understanding of commoners in the Roman world. This project takes a bottom-up approach to rural change in the middle Republic, demonstrating the ubiquity of rural infill and seeking to shed light on the role of an oft-silent majority during this period of transition.