Lecture | Global Questions Seminar
All Roads Lead to Rome? New Reflections on Ecology and Mobility in the Roman Empire
- Date
- Thursday 13 March 2025
- Time
- Series
- Global Questions Seminar 2024-2025
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- TBA
Global Questions Seminar
Institute for History
Abstract
In his Roman Antiquities, Dionysius of Halicarnassus (ca. 60 BCE–7 CE) famously wrote that “The extraordinary greatness of the Roman Empire manifests itself above all in three things: the aqueducts, the paved roads, and the construction of the drains.” Although Dionysius could have opted for Rome’s mighty armies, the spectacle of its arenas, or the greatness of its generals, he referred to the remarkable feats of engineering that the Romans were capable of. While the Romans did not invent any of the named infrastructures, they had perfected them to a degree that would remain unsurpassed well into the early modern era. It is therefore no surprise that many people still associate the Roman Empire with its intricate hydraulic systems or road networks, both of which are well researched; but even though we do know a great deal about the material fabrics, social dimensions and cultural meanings of the Roman water supply or roads, it also remains true that the wider environmental or ‘ecological’ implications of these infrastructural features have hardly been studied so far.
Starting from this observation, my presentation will look at the environmental history of the Roman road network. Looking at how and where roads were built, the shapes and forms they could take, and how they integrated into the wider landscapes in which they were set, the talk will consider in how far roads interacted with (and altered) the respective ecologies of the Roman Empire – both in terms of the natural resources that were needed for their construction and maintenance and in terms of how they affected the vegetation and wildlife.
The presentation will also examine how and in what way the experience of the mobility engendered by the roads generated what we may refer to as a mobile environmental knowledge that shaped how ancient writers perceived their surroundings and the interrelationship between built and natural environment, and between imperial power and the natural world. In general, the presentation tentatively attempts to look for the ways in which Roman roads created distinct modes of environmental awareness that can help us in reconceiving ancient environments and also in reflecting on our own modes of mobility and their ecological constraints and problems today.
About the speaker
Christopher Schliephake is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at the University of Augsburg. His research interests include environmental history and the environmental humanities as well as the history of knowledge and religion in the ancient world. He is the author of "The Environmental Humanities and the Ancient World: Questions and Perspectives" (Cambridge UP, 2020) and co-editor of "Conversing with Chaos: Writing and Reading Environmental Disorder in Ancient Texts" (Bloomsbury, 2024).
Global Questions Seminar
The motto of the Institute for History’s research programme is ‘Global Questions, Local Sources’. Across all areas and time periods, researchers of the Institute focus on important processes such as migration, colonialism, urbanization, and identity formation.
The ‘Global Questions Seminar’, for which we invite distinguished international colleagues to discuss the interplay between global and local issues from the past, brings all staff members of the Institute for History together.
