This small book provides a convenient introduction to the state of research in the field of late Roman domestic architecture. It summarizes the historiography of the study of late antique houses and offers interesting theoretical questions that can be taken up by anyone wishing to investigate this current topic further. Divided into four chapters — 1. ‘Inventing the Later Roman House’; 2. ‘The Archaeology of Later Roman Houses’; 3. ‘Houses and History’; 4. ‘New Directions’ — the book is a handy introduction to a fascinating subject and follows upon the author's dissertation and previous publications, which are all similarly oriented toward the territories of Western Europe, the western Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Balkans. The book lays out the basic inventory of late Roman houses in these regions and the theoretical frameworks that have been used by scholars, both past and present, in their analyses.
The book's first chapter ‘Inventing the Later Roman House’ presents a condensed literature review that breaks down the historiography of the field according to past approaches and methodologies. It emphasizes that the study of the late Roman house was at first used to point to the development of medieval architectural forms. Later, the layout of spaces in domestic architecture was seen to reflect hierarchization, privatization and ritualization in late antique society. These approaches developed from an assumption that late Roman houses are fundamentally different from their predecessors. Bowes would like to contend, however, that continuities with earlier houses are as striking as their novelties.
The second chapter on ‘The Archaeology of Later Roman Houses’ explains how difficult it can be to provide a careful analysis of late Roman houses when the archaeological evidence is either fragmentary or incomplete. For example, there are no artifacts or small finds to accompany plans of late Roman houses published at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although the buildings can be placed physically in space, they are missing a large part of their associated contexts. As with anyone hoping for a contextual approach to archaeological material, B. believes that careful analysis of more recently emerging archaeological evidence can serve to shift interpretive paradigms in the understanding of late Roman houses.
The third chapter on ‘Houses and History’ relates the disciplinary trends in social history to the study of archaeology and its impact on the study of late Roman houses. B. frequently refers to the dangers inherent in making assumptions about history and imposing them on the material culture of the era without critiquing the sources first and utilizing a contextual approach. The highly complex social systems at play in the late antique period may or may not be reflected in the architecture of domestic spaces, and the historical models suggested thus far for late antique society that have deeply influenced the study of late antique houses are out of date.
Throughout the book, the author often repeats the paradigm she seeks to unravel: that enlarged and elaborated triclinia have been seen to indicate ritualization in society; that large apsed audience halls have been used as evidence for civic activities unfolding in the house so that rituals formerly part of civic life are understood to be taking place increasingly within the realm of the private household; and that separation of dining and reception areas reserved for different social classes as they relate to the head of the household have been considered as a reflection of social separation and hierarchization. Calling for a more nuanced approach to the understanding of provincial élites and the relationship of urban construction and house construction, B. shows that the decline of urban forms does not necessarily influence the rise of domestic life. In fact, the two may not even be related, and in many instances there is evidence for growth and rebuilding of urban fabrics in tandem with the growth and refurbishment of both urban and rural villas. Ultimately she seeks to understand whether it is possible to find in the late Roman house the material evidence for the less pretentious élite of Roman society, and suggests that the available evidence may point to a more nuanced and less stratified set of social classes.
A brief fourth chapter on ‘New Directions’ restates the need to recognize the limitations of both the archaeological evidence and the assumptions made by previous scholars who see late Roman houses as an imprint of a social history garnered from the analysis of textual sources. In her exclusive focus on the late Roman house, B. missed an opportunity to explain how the study of domestic architecture in Late Antiquity relates to the study of other art historical, architectural, and archaeological evidence from the same period. For example, all aspects of Late Antiquity, not just late antique houses, have been used as evidence for a transition from the ancient to the medieval worlds. More generally, classical archaeology was founded as a discipline that took texts as the primary point of departure, using material evidence to show the validity of information found in written sources. This methodology has been generously critiqued in other areas of scholarship over the past decades and is vastly different from many new and current approaches to art historical, archaeological, and cultural studies. It would have been interesting to see how the author situates her proposed new approaches to the study of late Roman houses within other current trends in the study of Late Antiquity as well as new methodologies in archaeological and art historical inquiries specifically.
