The Central Missouri Society of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), in co-sponsorship with the University of Missouri, is proud to present the annual Anita Krause Bader Lecture in Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology.
Lecturer: Dr. Lindsey A. Mazurek, Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Indiana University Bloomington
Abstract:
Part of Rome’s main port city of Ostia Antica, the Square of the Corporations (or Piazzale delle Corporazioni in Italian) was built in the reign of Hadrian on the site of an Augustan-period quadriporticus behind the city’s main theater. The U-shaped complex featured small offices decorated with mosaics that described the civic origins of their users, all arranged around an open square that held a Flavian-period temple, a garden, and portraits. The offices housed various firms engaged in a range of trades that supported the city’s grain trade, and featured mosaics and inscriptions that identified their occupants as migrants from across northern Africa and the western Mediterranean.
In this talk, I examine this evidence to think about how the tradesmen of the Square of the Corporations identified themselves within this historical and archaeological context. The offices themselves, I argue, highlighted specific civic origins for each group in connection with products, keeping with a broader Roman tradition of using geographic origin as a proxy for product quality. But the dedications of portrait statues set up in the center of the Square of the Corporations employ language that emphasizes collective action as Africani. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the occupants of the Square created and used a collective Africani identity at specific moments for political and economic gain. This group action had limited use, suggesting it was only deemed valuable for a few activities within the broader social landscape of Roman Ostia.

Reception before the event: 5:00 PM
Lecture starts at 5:30 PM