Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper focuses on the imports in Rome and its hinterland of transport amphorae from northern Africa and/or we- stern Sicily in the period between the Republican and Augustan age. It is an ongoing research, based on the one hand on bibliography and on the other on the preliminary analysis of some contexts still under study. The documentation is poor from the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE, while a first increase of imports is recorded at the end of the 3rd/beginning of the 2nd century BCE.

The in-depth analysis of the epigraphic record from Rome related to the restoration of thermal baths and other water structures seems to reveal two so far neglected aspects, which emerge from the end of the third century A.D.: firstly, the frequent use of specialised technical terms to describe the parts of the buildings involved in the restoration works, occasionally including details of the decoration and the materials used. Secondly, reference is often explicitly made to the needs and requests of citizens, the ultimate recipients of these public works.