Mastering the Body

Daily Life, Inequality, and Slavery in Roman Homes and Society

Mastering the Body offers an innovative exploration of the intimate, bodily routines that shaped – and were shaped by – Roman society. From kitchens to chamber pots, F. Mira Green uncovers how eating, digesting, and excreting were not just biological necessities but deeply embedded social practices that reinforced hierarchies and power structures in Roman households.

Drawing on archaeological evidence and material culture from Pompeii and Herculaneum and literary works from the Latin authors Seneca, Juvenal, and Apuleius, Mastering the Body reveals how elite Roman men used dietary habits and domestic labor to assert status and mastery. Domestic tools and spaces – designed for bodily care – encoded nonverbal messages of dominance and submission, and when considered with theories of embodiment, materiality, and sensory experience, illustrate the feedback loops between daily routines and the perpetuation of slavery and inequality. Ultimately, Mastering the Body is an invitation to rethink the role of the digesting body in ancient history by asking not only what digestion has to do with Roman society, but also how the body's most basic functions were central to its social order.

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