The main objective of this research is to map out the cities of the Roman Near East in the imperial period, with a focus on location, city size and urban features, in order to study the form the urban system and its levels of integration.

In the History of the Roman Emperors, what does Herodian’s method of composition consist of and how does it relate to his writing intention, particularly in terms of political and moral idea(l)s?

The main research objective is to map the cities of Roman Asia Minor in terms of location, size, urban amenities and juridical status, with the specific aim to understand the reasons how this urban settlement pattern arose.

This volume, featuring sixteen contributions from leading Roman historians and archaeologists, sheds new light on approaches to the economic history of urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the imperial period.

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

To what extent was labour-induced migration important to the functioning of the towns and cities of Roman Italy?

How do we explain the fact that certain areas had many large cities, while other areas were studded with large numbers of small towns and yet other areas had very few urban agglomerations of any kind?

The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

How can theories about modern disinformation help to understand how Roman documentary fictions functioned?

The central aims of this project are to establish the shapes of the various urban hierarchies existing in the provinces of the Roman Empire and (especially) to use the quantitative properties of these hierarchies to shed new light on levels of economic integration.

This book argues that the combined literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence supports the theory that early-imperial Italy had about six million inhabitants.

This volume presents fourteen papers by Roman archaeologists and historians discussing approaches to the economic history of Pompeii, and the role of the Pompeian evidence in debates about the Roman economy.

This project focuses on urban commercial space in Roman Italy and deals with the impact of economic growth on urban communities in the late Republic and the Imperial period (200 BCE – 300 CE).

The first objective is to create a catalogue raisonée, i.e. a structured database that will store the main attributes of each town in a standardized format database, which will be freely accessible when completed; the second objective is to exploit theories and methods that can help us to understand…

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

Numismatic research of Roman coin hoards in the Netherlands. The use of numismatic sources is incorporated in Claes’s research project “Dialogues of Power”. This project aims to analyse the legitimising dialogue between Roman emperors and their Germanic legions during the so-called “crisis of the third…

This monograph by dr. Kim Beerden compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome.

Chrissoula Tzanetea is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Dr. Bettina Reitz-Joosse, postdoctoral researcher in the Classics department, has received a Niels Stensen Fellowship.

Banquets for the rich, porridge for the poor and a standard diet of bread, olive oil and wine. Just a few assumptions about the Roman diet.

Matthew Hobson is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Karolien Pazmany is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

Associate professor Rens Tacoma has won the 2021 Research Prize for Historical Sciences. The prize is awarded annually by the Italy Studies Working Group for the best scholarly publication in the field of Italy Studies in Dutch or Flemish academia.

Paul Kloeg is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).