Invisible Romans: Prostitutes, outlaws, slaves, gladiators, ordinary men and women ... the Romans that history forgot [Kindle Edition]

The vast majority of evidence about the life of the Romans comes from, and reflects, lives of the elite. Knapp has attempted, with a degree of success, to look at the lives of the `ordinary' as opposed to this elite. He examines the ordinary man and woman in the street, the poor, slaves, freedmen, soldiers, prostitutes, gladiators, bandits and pirates. The sources he uses are partly predictable, gravestones for example, but others less so. He uses, quite extensively, Artemidorus of Daldus The Interpretation of Dreams. This worried me a little until I read Knapp's final chapter on his sources. He explains that Artemidorus `gives extensive treatment to a wide variety of dreams, all, he claims, based on actual experience.' If this is accepted then using the text as evidence of the mind-set of the non-elite is perfectly valid. And it is mind-set that Knapp is looking for, the way the ordinary people, invisible in the elite sources, actually thought about their lot. Each chapter deals with a different set of people. There has been a lot of work done in recent years about Roman women, but most of this has related to the elite. Knapp concentrates on the `ordinary', using epigraphy amongst other things. I always worry a little about the accuracy of this sort of evidence. When something is being erected for posterity a very sanitised version of life would surely appear. It does, however, show how they would like to be remembered, the ideal. Other sources used include such fiction as The Golden Ass and fables, and the New Testament. Any one source would be questionable, but taking them together adds more weight. I would have liked a proper bibliography, and better referencing, and found the writing style less than stimulating, but on balance found it both enlightening and interesting.

Knapp's book addresses one of the biggest problems we face with ancient history; we only know about the people at the top of society. Millions of silent voices in the Roman world have been given a voice by this book as Knapp goes from group to group (gladiators, prostitutes and outlaws etc) and looks at their lives. He tries to look at their 'mind worlds' (a term that admittedly irritates me) and attempts to recreate their concerns and how they thought. The amount of research is impressive with countless sources being referred to although I did think that there were too many references to The Golden Ass. I realise the work might contain a treasure trove of information about the average poor Roman but Knapp wanders into dull repetition through overuse of the source.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading this book and was grateful for the extra touches of a glossary, a word on the sources and index. This book is a very important and unique work in that I believe this is the first time someone has dedicated such effort into solely concentrating on the average joe on the street. The poor man (or woman) just trying to get by. I particularly found the outlaw chapter interesting, especially the discussion on the almost democratic nature of pirates. While this book is not as immensely readable as works by other academics like Mary Beard, it is nevertheless an interesting read and a must for people who just want an idea of what life was like for the average person.

Ok, I've read the excellent reviews thus far and don't disagree. So, you may ask, why only 3 stars?

Well, for those of us avid lovers of anything ancient Rome, each new book that gives an insight into what it was really like to live in 'those times' (accepting that 'those times' were several hundred years in duration) is something which is snapped up to feed our voracious appetitites. It sat there on my bookshelf for a good few months and I was, in my own sad way, looking forward to reeding it.

Within several pages I started to get a sense of disappointment: it was a bit of a slog. And it stayed a bit of a slog all the way through.

Now don't get me wrong, it is enjoyable and entertaining, but you have to do a bit of work to get the pleasure out. THe author has obviously put in a lot of effort and of course this should attract our approval. But there is a 'but', and it goes like this: he pretty continuously quotes the sources he has been using. Now I'd prefer the author to have read all the background material and then to kind of paint a picture for us - that's what popular historians do. To read this you are repeatedly required to read the same source material as he has read.

It may be that you are happy with this or even prefer it - that's fine, but if you're lke me (perhaps lazy, I don't know) I'd rather the aurthor conjures up this believable world that I can then really sense, that I can get a real feel of.

The consequence of all this is that, to me, it come across as a little sterile...

Perhaps it's just me, and I wouldnt want to detract fromn the educational/historical value of the book. Perhaps it really is me, because at the other extreme I'm bored by what I see as a lack of authenticity in novels about Rome. Perhaps that's my problem: in novels about ancient Rome I want more authenticity, but in non-fiction I want some readability...

Finally, I couldnt help thinking at times that the author makes a meal of his points and labours them somewhat. Perhaps this is because of the relative lack of source material, so he had to spend more tme over-analysing to the point of repeating the obvious.

So, overall, there is good information and learnig and insight in this book. For me though, it wasn't quite as entertaining as I would have liked.