Constructing Roman identity: Funerary monuments and social structure in the Roman world

Abstract

Hundreds of thousands of tombstones survive from the Roman period. This paper explores the value of this source to the Roman social historian, using historical and sociological studies of funerary evidence, particularly of the Victorian period, to provide comparative models. It is argued here that information drawn from Roman tombstones does not allow the development of simple demographic assertions about the population of the Roman Empire. Instead it is suggested that Roman tombstones were a medium for communicating social status and as such had a particular appeal to specific groups within Roman society. To illustrate this the chronological variations detectable in the use and construction of tombstones are described and related to changing patterns in the expression of status and social mobility. In particular the funerary monuments erected to freed slaves and auxiliary soldiers are examined to illuminate how the identity of the deceased was constructed and communicated through both text and images. The memorials of these groups were a medium for expressing integration, both real and aspired to, into the Roman world. But there was no simple or one-dimensional definition of what it was to be Roman, and thus those on the periphery of Roman society were able to negotiate their identity, and the identity expressed in their tombstones, according to flexible concepts.