The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Why are the small and unimportant relics of Roman antiquity often the most enduring, in material form and in our affections? Through close encounters with minor things such as insects, brief lives, quibbles, irritants, and jokes, Emily Gowers provocatively argues that much of what the Romans dismissed as superfluous or peripheral