The aim of this project is to analyze one of the most relevant vice in Roman society: luxuria. From a Roman point of view, luxuria is a passion, not different from anger or love, in that it is grounded on desire: the desire for pleasures, for luxury in its widest sense. Indeed, it includes lust, gluttony, greed, and sloth. Luxuria expresses a way of life which is the exact opposite of the sober frugality ¿ the mos maiorum - on which the Romans built their self-representation. This mix of moral, literary, economic issues makes it an ideal field for an interdisciplinary research. We would like to focus on the period between the late Ist and the early IInd century CE, because it is in these years that luxuria switch from being labelled as the archenemy of philosophical life (Seneca) to being implicitly accepted as matter of fact, at least from a part of the society (Pliny the Younger). The project is rooted in the literary study of these two authors, which represent two opposite ways of facing this attitude, and of Pliny the Elder, who shows a moralistic attitude similar to Seneca¿s but also provides a sort of vocabulary of luxuria in its material manifestations. In fact, it is crucial to understand the social, political and economic context which determined this cultural turning point. From a historical and economical point of view, we will investigate what really meant to be a wealthy man in those years, and to what extent this way of life was effectively spread in Roman empire. The archaeological inquiry will enrich this research with the focus on objects, houses and places where luxuria expressed itself; at the same time, papyrological documentation will offer evidences of properties and commercial exchanges between Rome and the provinces.
The project is innovative, and will put forward the state of art.
The innovative element of the project lays on the interdisciplinary approach, focused on a specific period of Roman Empire. Luxuria is a nuanced vice, which is strictly linked to appearance and material culture; so, it is crucial to study it from both a theoretical (philosophical and literary) and a factual (historical and archaeological) point of view. Furthermore, this double approach is relevant to weigh the distance between narrative and reality, in other words between the moralists¿ storytelling and real life. Indeed, in this gap lies the construction of the Romans¿ cultural identity. This study will also contribute to enlighten similarities and differences, continuity and discontinuity, in the relationship between Roman culture and its Greek heritage. Furthermore, our work will shed light on the dynamics of the Roman empire from the point of view of the senators¿ daily life, which is not taken into account so often. Finally, the analysis of the evolution of Luxuria as a more or less tolerate passion in Seneca, Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, will stress the relevance of these authors as sources not only for the later Christian taxonomy of the so-called Capital Sins, but also for the renewed consideration for material pleasures of the Reinassance, and for its modern rethinkings.
As for the state of art, our project will improve it both on a specific and on a general level. On a specific level, each participant will give an original improvement of his field of research: we will make the first systematic study on luxuria in Seneca and Pliny the Elder, and of this attitude in Pliny the Younger, but also the first work on this topic in papyrus documentation and epistles, a new archaeological approach in this terms to wall decorations, and a fresh reading of Imperial discourses in I-II centuries in the light of the dialectic between wealth and moralism. On a general level, the interaction of these different perspectives will offer a new picture of society in the first two centuries of the Empire: a picture in which literature, moral philosophy, economy, politics, and wealth are combined, showing at the same time the factual and material roots of moralistic prescriptions, and the actual distance between `to be¿ and `should be¿.