Privata Luxuria

Privacy is a widely debated concept today, and a paramount concern for modern societies: the ideas and prerogatives that it encapsulates are considered, nowadays, to be essential human rights and key issues when defining the mutual relationship between the individual and society at large. In order to investigate the boundaries and nuances of privacy in the Roman society, the city of Pompeii provides a rare case in point, due to the extraordinary concentration and readability of contextual archaeological data. The aim of this volume which originated from an International Workshop held at the Center for Advanced Studies of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, is to contribute to a better knowledge of the domestic space in Pompeii and other cities of the Roman world as mirrored by the interplay between individual and social spaces. To this purpose, a small group of researchers from a variety of backgrounds and traditions have been invited to contribute papers on different aspects of privacy, emphasizing diversity in methodologies and approaches.