Risk in the Roman World

"How did the Romans handle risk, from uncertainty about food supply and dangerous travel to survival itself? Modern risk studies view the ancients as dominated by fate, but the reality was different. A range of techniques, from dream interpretation and oracles to logistics and law, all served to control risk"--

List of contents

Acknowledgements; 1. Risk and uncertainty; 2. A world full of risks; 3. A risk culture; 4. Risk management; 5. Moral hazards: constructing risk; 6. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

JERRY TONER is a Fellow, Tutor and Director of Studies in Classics at Churchill College, Cambridge. He is a cultural historian whose work has a focus on history 'from below'. His book, Popular Culture in Ancient Rome (2009), analyses the life of the non-elite in Roman society. He has also written on Roman leisure and the Games, including The Day Commodus Killed a Rhino: Understanding the Roman Games (2014). He is interested in the use of Classics to create imagery and stereotypes relating to subordinate groups, a theme explored in Homer's Turk: How Classics Shaped Ideas of the East (2013). Other areas of research interest include the sensory history of Rome and mental health in Antiquity. He came to the idea of risk from looking at how ordinary people developed coping strategies but also from his study of ancient disasters (Roman Disasters, 2013). There have been over thirty translations of his books into sixteen languages.

Product details

• Authors: Jerry Toner, Jerry (Churchill College Toner, Toner Jerry
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2023
• EAN: 9781108481748
• ISBN: 978-1-108-48174-8
• No. of pages: 160
• Series: Key Themes in Ancient History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Antiquity; HISTORY / Ancient / Rome, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Ancient Rome, Social and cultural anthropology, Ancient History, Ancient history: to c 500 CE