‘The City of Rome Revisited: From Mid-Republic to Mid-Empire’

Abstract

This survey article provides an update for the Journal's readers on research relating to the City of Rome in antiquity since The City of Rome: from Republic to Empire' appeared in 1992. 1 Extensive archaeological investigations have continued to take place in the city in recent years, given additional impetus by special funding from the Italian state in preparation for the 'Giubileo' (or Millennium) in 2000; while more generally the topography of ancient Rome has continued to be central to the work of historians writing about the city. Recent archaeological work in the city can be roughly divided into three categories: (i) the process of conservation and restoration of the individual monuments, under way since the 1980s; (ii) investigations in areas of the city due to be affected by new building or other infrastructural projects, and unexpected discoveries in similar circumstances; and (iii) research-led excavations in areas of the city hitherto not fully explored.2 Perhaps most striking of the restoration projects, in terms of the debate it has generated, has been the work on the Arch of Constantine. The restorers concluded that the surviving monument had replaced a demolished Flavian arch on the same site, and was constructed in two phases, one dating to the Hadrianic period, and the other to the early fourth century a.D. The sculptural panels of Hadrianic date on the Constantinian arch might therefore come from an earlier phase of the same monument, rather than having been brought from