Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome by Brian Campbell (review)

It is not surprising that ancient historians and writers cite rivers so frequently: a key element in the physical landscape of the Roman world, rivers defined space and established boundaries—cultural and emotional, as well as geographical—but they also connected distant communities, promoting communication and commerce and facilitating Rome’s expansion of imperial power. In this massively detailed study, based largely on literary sources but also treating artistic and epi-graphical evidence, Campbell invites readers to look at rivers from all of these perspectives.

Such a huge subject demands careful organization, and Campbell’s is well thought out. He begins with the hydrology of river environments, focusing in particular on the Tiber’s role in the shaping of Rome as a city, and the problems of using what ancient sources tell us about rivers (chapters 1–2). Ancient writers often describe particular situations or events in which rivers figure prominently; such notices are certainly valuable but also require careful analysis and interpretation, and our sources seldom provide comprehensive accounts of a river environment. He then moves on to the ancient writers who mention rivers more frequently, with special attention to geographers and writers of natural history as well as to lawyers and land surveyors who sought to manage the assets of rivers and streams and control their potentially harmful features (chapter 3). He next treats the representations of rivers in literature, religion, and art, their roles as powerful divinities shaping historical events, and the aura that river spirits enjoyed (chapter 4).

Campbell then turns to the military role of rivers, which could function either as natural barriers to defend a region or city or as a means of access and attack (chapter 5). His primary focus, however, is on river navigation and the Romans’ exploitation of river environments under their control (chapters 6–8). The source of many economic benefits, rivers supplied water for drinking and agriculture, made possible the movement of goods and people, and contributed to commerce, both locally and throughout the Mediterranean world. He adds a particularly interesting discussion of Roman beliefs in the cleansing power of running water, and the exploitation of springs as spas (chapter 9). A final chapter reviews Roman control of waterways, with its military political, administrative, and economic ramifications; although their control of rivers, like Caesar’s bridging of the Rhine, gave the Romans mastery over their larger natural world, they were smart enough to exploit and develop the resources of rivers effectively to extend their own influence over their empire.

This bare-bones summary can hardly do justice to a richly detailed treatment of an enormously interesting topic. In his preface, Campbell warns readers that the book is “not meant to be definitive” (xiv), but the body of evidence he has amassed is staggering: Campbell knows his material and displays a masterful control of the extensive literary, epigraphical, and artistic evidence. There are appendices cataloguing spas and navigable rivers in the Roman world, almost one hundred pages of endnotes, a fifty-page bibliography, and nineteen detailed maps prepared by the Ancient World Mapping Center at the University of North Carolina, as well as twenty figures and diagrams. Some of the figures, many of them the author’s own photographs, might have been a bit clearer, but they do not detract from the handsome presentation of this book. Campbell has written, and the University of North Carolina Press has produced, a most worthy addition to its Studies in the History of Greece and Rome series, and a book definitely worth owning for any serious Romanist. Make sure that your university library has at least several copies, for you will be recommending it to students as required reading whenever rivers come up for discussion, as they certainly will.