Book review of The Republican Aventine and Rome's Social Order, by Lisa Marie Mignone , 2016. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press; ISBN 978-0-472-11988-2 hardback $70.00; 264pp., 12 figures, 2 table

Jeffrey Becker

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ReviewThe Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order, by LisaMarie Mignone, 2016. Ann Arbor (MI): University ofMichigan Press; ISBN 978-0-472-11988-2 hardback $70.00;264pp., 12 figures, 2 tablesJeffrey A. BeckerDogmatic and oft-repeated interpretations of Roman antiq-uity are of late experiencing a round of needed reassess-ment. Some of these paradigmatic readings are so commonthat they are simply accepted as immutable, universal facts.Lisa Marie Mignone does Roman studies a great service bychallenging one such dogmatic reading of the Republicancity of Rome, namely the characterization of the AventineHill as a ‘plebeian district’. Mignone’s bold book aims to as-sess the evidence and thought processes that led to the char-acterization of the Aventine as a working-class neighbour-hood, as well as to attempt to contextualize the reading ofthe Aventine better in both modern socio-political ideationand current scholarship.Mignone’s investigation of the Aventine and its char-acterization begins by confronting the standard treatiseon the southernmost of Rome’s hills (Merlin 1906). Theargument that proceeds from there is largely negative, inthat the author aims to disprove Merlin’s reading of theAventine by assembling a range of evidence that demon-strates that the idea of an urban district that is strictlysegregated in socio-economic terms is not tenable. Mignoneintroduces the Aventine Hill (pp. 3–6) in order to situateit topographically with respect to the city of Rome. Theintroduction also gives the reader a preview of topics onwhich the author will expand further, namely the natureof the ‘plebeian Aventine’ construct (pp. 6–10) and theproblematic issue of using the term plebeian to describe adistrict of an urban centre (pp. 11–13).If the Aventine is known in the popular consciousness,it is likely due to its long connection to the so-called ‘seces-sion of the plebs’ (secessio plebis), a political phenomenon ofthe fifth through third centuries bc that might be describedas a general strike of sorts, in which the working-classRomans quit the city en masse, leaving aristocratic patri-cians to their own devices. In carrying out these secessions,the plebeians sought better conditions for themselves,including better legal terms for the plebeians and accessto magistracies (p. 17). In chapter 1, Mignone examinesthe secessions themselves from a literary point of view.The spatial dynamics of these secessions represent a keyaspect of this discussion, since the plebs were thought tophysically quit the city (urbs) of Rome and go elsewhere.Where, in fact, they went proves to be critical to Mignone’sdiscussion of the nature of the Aventine. The first secession(in 494 bc) has the plebs removing to theMons Sacer [SacredMountain], returning only after an aristocrat named Mene-nius Agrippa negotiates with the patricians on their behalf.The most likely location of theMons Sacer is a hill along thecourse of the Anio river, some three miles from the centre ofRome. While most of the textual sources situate this eventon that hill, other versions—notably that of Piso—locatethese events on the Aventine Hill (p. 21). This seems to be amistake, but one that nonetheless has had its implications.The second secession (449 bc) saw the plebs quit Rome andmarch to the Mons Sacer, only then to march through thecity again en route to the Aventine Hill, thereby occupy-ing it. Mignone reminds the reader that the first-centurybc readership of the historian Livy’s telling of this eventwould be quite familiar with the martial history of the PortaCollina, through which the plebs would have marched ontheir way to the Aventine (pp. 29–30). With the resolutionof the second secession, the reintegration of the plebs intoRoman society is significant and brings about a strongconnection between the plebs and the Aventine itself, atleast within theminds of ancient authors (p. 32). This stronglink does not survive close analysis, however, as it seemsthat much stronger associations could be drawn betweenplebeian secession and other hills—namely the Mons Sacerand the Janiculum Hill (p. 35). Mignone even allows that,given available sources, historians may have played a rolein overemphasizing the plebeian nature of the Aventine(p. 38) and that ancient authors like Livy himself mayhave been aware that it was Piso who authored the mythof plebeian secession to the Aventine (p. 43). Since LateRepublican authors provide the textual accounts of earlierRepublican history, it is of interest that their awareness ofcontemporary events also colours their interpretation of thepast. For instance, the flight of Gaius Gracchus to the Aven-tine in 121 bc represents a significant event in the traditionof the Aventine as a landscape of resistance, since it occurscloser to the time of late Republican historians like Livy.The second chapter focuses on the Lex Icilia deAventino, a Roman law of 456 bc. This law, promulgatedby one Lucius Icilius, aimed to create land parcels on theAventine that were assigned to plebeians, at least accord-ing to the ancient sources. This narrative, preserved in thetext of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, is central to the notionof a plebeian Aventine (p. 51). Mignone analyses this law inthe context of Roman land confiscation and later Republi-can laws. The fifth-century bc law and its details may wellCAJ page 1 of 2 C© 2017 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Researchdoi:10.1017/S09597743170007491https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000749Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Binghamton University, on 13 Jan 2018 at 18:49:33, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.Reviewbe unknowable, but Mignone argues against the validity ofthe notion that the Lex Icilia converted the Aventine into aplebeian district.The third and fourth chapters move away from theearly Republic to the final two centuries of the first millen-nium bc. A combination of literary, epigraphic and archae-ological evidence is examined, with the goal being to arguethat the Aventine was not homogeneous at all, but rather aheterogeneous urban district. Chapter 3 focuses on famousresidents of the Aventine, including the poet Ennius as wellas the family of the Sulpicii Galbae. The analysis here isstrong and the interweaving of evidence is cleverly done, inthat it paints a picture of the later Republican Aventine thathelps us envision its realities. The available sources suggesta close integration of various socio-economic groups onthe Aventine. In chapter 4, Mignone addresses the archaeo-logical remains of domestic architecture on the RepublicanAventine and in the city of Rome more broadly. Of partic-ular interest is the Roman domus located at Largo ArrigoVII that is commonly referred to as the ‘Casa Bellezza’. Ofthis ancient structure, parts of the crypto-porticus surviveand they are indicative of what was once a substantialstructure with high-quality decorations of the first centurybc. The fact that this well-appointed house is located on theAventine furthers Mignone’s argument that the hill is notan exclusively plebeian district and that its socio-economywas heterogeneous. Indeed, the review of the orbit ofRepublican elites combined with the presentation of elitedomestic architecture makes this point quite strongly.In chapter 5 the difficult issue of Rome’s urbanorganization—or lack thereof—is addressed with respectto the Aventine Hill. This discussion ranges from thelamentations of ancient authors who objected to Rome’sseemingly disorganised layout to a review of twentieth-century city planning models. Since Mignone is interestedin demonstrating heterogeneity in urban layouts, the lay-out of Pompeii is used as a surrogate for Republican Rome.This comparison demonstrates that Pompeii exhibits adecided admixture of elite and non-elite establishmentswithin its urban fabric, and Mignone reminds us that Sci-pio Africanus himself had a butcher’s shop at his frontdoor (Livy 1982, 44.16.10). The imperial evidence of the Re-gionary Catalogues and the Severan Marble Plan are dis-cussed, demonstrating further how fragmented the archae-ological record of RepublicanRome actually is. The questionof how a peaceful balance was maintained in an ancient citylike Rome is addressed and the ‘integration of elite and non-elite’ offers the potential for fruitful future studies that aimto contextualize the sociology and planning of the ancientcity (p. 179). In the epilogue, the Aventine Hill is framed asa touchstone of resistance within the context of modern dis-sident movements. This includes the self-styled fourteenth-century tribune of Rome Cola di Rienzo, Simon Bolivar,French revolutionaries of the nineteenth century and oppo-nents of Benito Mussolini in 1924. In the case of Bolivar itis indeed interesting that willful disregard of the historicalsources led scholars ‘to insert the Aventine into the culturaltopography of LatinAmerican liberation’ (p. 196). Thiswishto render the Aventine as the archetypal plebeian landscapeis indeed strong and cuts acrossmany temporal and culturalboundaries. As Emilio Gabba noted (1981, 13), places andmonuments assume a legitimizing valence in legendary andhistorical events narrated by historians like Livy and clearlythese assumed meanings are long-lived.Mignone’s monograph on the Aventine Hill isthought-provoking and examines a range of source ma-terial. The author arrives early at the notion that Merlin’scharacterization of the Aventine as the Roman plebeiandistrict par excellence should be rejected by scholarship andthat more contextualized readings of the Aventine Hill (andRepublican Rome) should be sought. The case studies thatare offered in support of this claim are effective and it seemsthat the notion of the Aventine as the ‘plebeian hill’ oughtto be banished from our discourse and be taught instead asan artefact of howwe study ancient Rome. Mignone’s workperforms an even greater service, not only in reexaminingdogmatic notions of ancient Rome, but also prodding us tooffer more nuanced and holistic readings of the ancient cityas a whole. The author’s critiques of the state of scholarshipwith respect to the remains of domestic architecture in theRepublican city is but one area where more work must bedone. In a recent review Mary Beard noted that the fieldof Roman topography ‘can seem narrowly arcane’—a fairpoint about a field that has its beginnings in the ItalianRenaissance (Beard 2017, 18). Lisa Mignone shows us thatRoman topography is indeed still relevant for those whowish to understand the city of Rome and the wide array ofdiverse and heterogeneous people who lived in it.Jeffrey A. BeckerDepartment of Classical and Near Eastern StudiesBinghamton University – SUNYBinghamton, NY 13902–6000USAEmail: beckerj@binghamton.eduReferencesBeard,M., 2017. Reading the ruins of ancient Rome.NewYork Reviewof Books 64.12 (July 13), 18–20.Gabba, E., 1981. True history and false history in Classical antiquity.Journal of Roman Studies 71, 50–62.Livy, 1982. T. Livi Ab urbe condita libri. Pars III, libri XXXI–XL(eds. W. Weissenborn & M. Mul̈ler). Stuttgart: B.G. TeubnerVerlag.Merlin, A., 1906. L’Aventin dans l’antiquité. Paris: A. Fontemoing.2https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774317000749Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Binghamton University, on 13 Jan 2018 at 18:49:33, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms.

The Republican Aventine and Rome's Social Order, by  Lisa Marie Mignone, 2016. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press; ISBN 978-0-472-11988-2 hardback $70.00; 264pp., 12 figures, 2 tables

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The Republican Aventine and Rome's Social Order, by Lisa Marie Mignone, 2016. Ann Arbor (MI): University of Michigan Press; ISBN 978-0-472-11988-2 hardback $70.00; 264pp., 12 figures, 2 tables

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