Empire itself an important factor in the history of Rome is how it gained
the great empire. This can only be researched by examining the remains
of the provinces and even if the opportunity arises the remains of the
inhabitants themselves as this can often reveal the wealth, social structure
and general health of the people that were living at that time.
The disadvantage of this comes when the graves of only one large family
can be found, these family graves are usually of wealthy aristocracy who
had pro-consuls as members. This isn’t a great example of that entire
society and it isn’t always clear which are the remains of the important
family head member.
However the puzzle becomes clearer when a memorial has survived
usually these are Greek styled grave stelie with a memorial epitaphs or
epigram which describes the actions of that person during there life time
this comes as another good source of history building as it often shows
even the smallest attributes of leaders who didn’t make much of a mark
otherwise such as the one made by Lucius Metellus to his father Quintus
Metellus as described by pliny.7.43-44 this is a good reflection of the
historical social status that the Romans held so high and shows in context
the public displays important role in their lives .
Another public display that was important was the forms of entertainment
in the city itself and the provinces in a why the provinces had to have the
right buildings other wise it wasn’t considered a city at all. So the
standard provincial towns usually are found to have bathes and at least an
amphitheatre such as the newly excavated ruins in lower Germany of a
town called Colonia Ulpia Traina at Xanten; it has an amphitheatre a
forum sewers and street griding .The standard layout of a Roman town is
useful for two reasons firstly it’s a clear indication that the town was that
of Roman in origins also the lay out can let us date the settlement usually
because the buildings will have on then some sort of dedication
inscription that tells us who had it commissioned this is because the
governors were interested in proving that they were meant to be in charge
by giving the people what they wanted this was the best form of
proper gander in roman times other than giving shows of gladiators and
chariots, it was good to give the plebeians the buildings to have these
shows in. So the buildings often have some sort of sign that they were
commissioned by an emperor or pro-consul and this combined with
literal sources can give us a time in which the building was constructed.
Literal sources often tell us when somebody did something that is
memorable and then links it to the actions of another person so then even
if we don’t have a clue when the initial event took place we can find out.
The most obvious source to date an archaeological find is often over
looked, as it seem as mythology in our modern ways of thinking however
it is what we base our own calendar on still today I am of course talking
about the Bible .The place were the dead sea scrolls were found and were
many scrolls which are either copies or original scripts of the Hebrew
Bible were found is a place in Israel called Qumran for years after its
Discovery in 1947 it was believed that the building had been a monastery
however recently the theory has been revised and the site is thought to be
a fortress or a winter villa for some rich equite no dought .This is were
we meet the conundrum of interpretation this has long been the test of an
Archaeologist’s mettle, the ability to investigate, make a well rounded
evaluation of a site, artefact or source of evidence. his is the main point
were the disadvantages can be at there most potent for instance you find
an inscription that indicates that an emperor for instance Tiberius has
built a temple in carthage but then you find evidence in a book that says
that the temple had been there since 69BC how do you find the truth the
answer is scientifically analysis such as radiocarbon dating or electron
microscopy .These methods are just some that are used to discover the
truth about artefacts and building remains others that are used are
metallurgy and flint napping, simple typological sequences often put
things into perspective as you would start to see the patterns of necessity
breeding invention. This means tools would get more refined buildings
would grow to gain more features, and boundaries would change and
expand toaccomodate new provinces these are the various ways in which
we can build a scientifical analysis of the history of the empire and then
we would use the information that it gives us and compare it to the other
sources physical and literal and build a more objective picture to try and
gain a common ground .
The disadvantages of reconstructing the history of the roman empire
remain that of interpretation from the archaeology and literal sources the
fact is many of the literal sources are very properganderist, which means
the advantage of archaeology is that it is actually there were as the written
word could easily be false the only disadvantage comes when the remains
aren’t sufficient as they could be damaged or trapped in a terminus post
/anti qwem position which mean that the roman occupational layer is
between two other historical significant layers that would mean it cant
be disterbed. This is rare and usually the archaeology is the best way to
discover the history of the roman empire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PLINY
RESEARCH UNIT PROVINTICIAL-Roman archaeology web site
Archaeology in the bible –Qumran website