Order and Disorder in Late Pompeian politics
Year: 1996
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The paper attempts to draw attention to some of the conceptual and evidential problems attached to the prevaling theory of a social disorder in late Pompeii, supposedly a period characterized hy the decline of the old nobility and the ascendance of new commercially based families, often of servile origins. The underlying assumption of trade and agriculture being incompatibles is questioned, and weaknesses in the prosopographical evidence adduced in support of a political change are pointed out. As an alternative to the antagonistic class perception of social mobility, the appearance of new families among the decurions - not merely in the last decades but throughout the first century A.D. -is seen as a logical consequence of the demographic and institutional structure of the Pompeian elite.
Author: Henrik Mouritsen
Institution: University of Copenhagen
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2804199645