Trade and taboo : disreputable professions in the Roman Mediterranean / Sarah E. Bond.

Author
Bond, Sarah E. [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2016]
Description
xv, 318 pages ; 23 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Classics Collection HD4844 .B66 2016 Browse related items Request

    Details

    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    Trade and Taboo" investigates the legal, literary, social, and institutional creation of disrepute in ancient Roman society. It tracks the shifting application of stigmas of disrepute between the Republic and Late Antiquity by following groups of professionals - funeral workers, criers, tanners, mint workers, and even bakers - and asking how they coped with stigmatization. The goal of this book is to reveal the construction and motivations for these attitudes, and to show how they created inequalities, informed institutions, and changed over time. Additionally, the volume shows how political and cultural shifts mutated these taboos, reshaping economic markets and altering the status of professionals at work within these markets. Sarah E. Bond investigates legal stigmas in the form of infamia and other marks of legal disrepute. Her volume expands on anthropological theories of pollution by exploring individuals who regularly came intocontact with corpses and other polluting materials, then considers communication and network formation through the disrepute attached to town criers called praecones. Ideas of disgust and the language of invective are brought forward looking at tanners, while the book closes with an exploration of caste-like systems created in the later Roman empire. Collectively, these professionals are eloquent about the economies and changes experienced within Roman society between 45BCE and 565 CE.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-310) and index.
    Contents
    • Introduction: Roman pride and prejudices
    • Quamvis indignus: criers, status, and soundscapes
    • Touch, pollution, and the mortuary trades in the Roman Mediterranean
    • Scent and sensibilities: tanners in the ancient Mediterranean
    • Currency and control: legal disrepute and associations of mint workers
    • Catering to pleasure: sensual trades in the later Roman Empire
    • Conclusion: inheriting the prejudices of Rome.
    ISBN
    • 9780472130085 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
    • 0472130080 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016027232
    OCLC
    953985413
    Other standard number
    • 40026647200
    • 10.3998/mpub.8224993
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