The emergence of Rome’s far-flung territorial empire resulted in a sophisticated regime for the storage and distribution of foodstuffs to feed the city of Rome. How did the orchestration of this colossal apparatus impact the people living in the shadow of the epicenter of a Mediterranean empire? This talk examines the storage and packaging containers for agricultural commodities in west-central Italy to study the artisans, skills, techniques, and organization of labor required to propel an imperial food supply.

Caroline Cheung is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellow in Ancient Studies at the American Academy in Rome and a PhD candidate in the Graduate Group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley.