Join us for a lecture by Dr. Kevin Dicus, University of Oregon at Eugene, discussing investigations at Rome’s Esquiline Hill.

Abstract:
Archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani captivated the public with his account of excavations on Rome’s
Esquiline Hill. No doubt influenced by Horace’s Satire 1.8 about the same region, his portrayal
of mass graves (puticuli) embedded within a vast field of municipal waste offered a thrilling,
dystopian vision that continues to resonate nearly 150 years later. Ancient Rome’s reputation has
yet to recover, as his report continues to shape perceptions of the metropolis as filthy and
mismanaged.
This talk revises Lanciani’s portrayal of the Esquiline as a wasteland of rotting corpses and
garbage and offers a new interpretation of Horace’s Satire 1.8. I argue that Horace describes not
mass graves on the hill but rather a modest cemetery where multiple graves shared the same plot
of land that also received the city’s refuse. The misreading that these were instead puticuli
originated with his imperial scholiasts and persisted to directly influence Lanciani.
Archaeological comparanda from across the Roman world demonstrate that individual, modest
graves dug into suburban municipal dumps were a common and legitimate form of burial for the
urban poor. This intersection between the city’s dumps and its dead provides new insight into
Roman attitudes toward waste: although the disposal of refuse beyond the city walls transformed
the suburban landscape, it did little to alter the cultural meaning of the extramural zone. People
continued to use these areas much as they had before their appropriation for refuse, including the
symbolically charged act of burying loved ones.