Crisis and Ambition: Tombs and Burial Customs in Third-Century CE Rome (Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture & Representation) - Hardcover

The thorough treatment of surviving evidence ensures that this study will endure as the primary point of reference for its subject. (John Pearce, Gnomon Vol.90)

In this important new study Borg shows the importance of the much neglected thirdcentury to the study of classical archaeology. By a meticulous examination of the periods tombs and burial customs she throws new light on some of the most fundamental concerns of the study of Roman material culture, from how to analyse sarcophagus iconography to the possible iconographical interpretations of catacomb decoration... This book will be essential reading not only for specialists in the field of Roman archaeology but also for graduates and undergraduates. (Helen Ackers, Pegasus)

a thoughtful re-assessment which draws together a vast range of scholarship to present a holistic picture. (Zahra Newby, Sehepunkte)

This ambitious and daring monograph on a deserving subject is likely to stimulate discussion among specialists in Roman funerary culture and imperial history, but it also provides a welcome synthesis for graduate students and scholars who look for an immersion in the funerary monuments and artistic conventions of the time period. (Dorian Borbonus, Bryn Mawr Classical Review)

Tombs and burial customs are an exquisite source for social history, as their commemorative character inevitably expresses much of the contemporaneous ideology of a society. This book presents, for the first time, a holistic view of the funerary culture of Rome and its surroundings during the third century AD. While the third century is often largely ignored in social history, it was a transitional period, an era of major challenges - political, economic, and social - which inspired creativity and innovation, and paved the way for the new system of late antiquity.

Barbara Borg argues that during this time there was, in many ways, a return to practices known from the Late Republic and early imperial period, with spectacular monuments for the rich, and a large-scale reappearance of collective burial spaces. Through a study of terraced tombs, élite monuments, the catacomb nuclei, sarcophagi, and painted image decoration, this volume explores how the third century was an exciting period of experimentation and creativity, a time when non-Christians and Christians shared fundamental ideas, needs, and desires as well as cemeteries, tombs, and hypogea. Ambition continued to be a driving force and a determining factor in all social classes, who found innovative solutions to the challenges they encountered.