A couple of weeks ago I delivered the annual joint British School at Rome / Institute of Classical studies lecture, on ‘Thinking about encroachment in the cities of the Roman west’. Alas for me, it was via Zoom rather than in Rome ðŸ˜, but on the plus side that means it was recorded and you can watch it here!
I am thrilled that they made the title slide purple for me, without me having said anything to suggest such a preference.
The paper basically argues that encroachment happens in every society which recognises property-ownership, that it has become seen as characteristic of late antiquity but actually occurred in the high empire too, and that we could do with reflecting on what we mean by it anyway.
There are examples from Timgad, Pompeii, Caerwent and Bulla Regia, covering ‘encroachment’ clearly done with the knowledge and permission of the local authorities, more clandestine appropriations of space (what most people really mean by ‘encroachment’) and one case which the perpetrator may have been forced to remove.
I enjoyed giving the lecture and a very lively discussion afterwards (not included on the recording) and it was a huge honour to be asked. I quaked hearing the names of the UK scholars who’d gone before me during the intro, though: Michael Crawford, John North, Roy Gibson, Greg Woolf, Catharine Edwards. These are some of the foremost eminences in my field, so quite a set of acts to follow.
However, the hosts were lovely and the questions (and a few emails over the next few days) expressed a lot of appreciation for the talk, so I think I delivered as expected. Just a bummer that I missed out on dinner and drinks in Rome afterwards!
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