FREEDMAN IN ROMAN ART AND ART HISTORY

the long version

"In this study, Lauren Hackworth Petersen critically investigates the problematic notion of "freedman art" in scholarship, dependent as it is on elite-authored texts that are filled with hyperbole and stereotypes of freedmen, such as the memorable fictional character Trimalchio, a boorish ex-slave in Petronius's Satyricon. She emphasizes integrated visual ensembles within defined historical and social contexts and aims to show how material culture can reflect preoccupations that were prevalent throughout Roman society. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book explores the many ways that monuments and artistic commissions usually ascribed to freedmen spoke to a much more complex reality than that presented in literature."--Jacket.