A recent surge of interest in network approaches to the study of the ancient world has enabled scholars of the Roman Empire to move beyond traditional narratives of domination, resistance, integration and fragmentation. This relational turn has not only offers tools to identify, map, visualize and, in some cases, even quantify interaction based on a variety of ancient source material, but also provides a terminology to deal with the everyday ties of power, trade, and ideology that operated within, below, and beyond the superstructure of imperial rule. Thirteen contributions employ a range of quantitative, qualitative and descriptive network approaches in order to provide new perspectives on trade, communication, administration, technology, religion and municipal life in the Roman Near East and adjacent regions.

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction: Sinews of empire and the relational turn in classical scholarship
• 1 Going mental: Culture, exchange and compromise in Rome’s trade with the East
• 2 Sinews of belief, anchors of devotion: the cult of Zeus Kasios in the Mediterranean
• 3 Numismatic communities in the northern South Caucasus 300 BCE–300 CE: A geospatial analysis of coin finds from Caucasian Iberia and Caucasian Albania
• 4 The diffusion of architectural innovations: Modelling social networks in the ancient building trade
• 5 Texture of empire: Personal networks and the modus operandi of Roman hegemony
• 6 Sinews of the other empire: The Parthian Great King’s rule over vassal kingdoms
• 7 Speech patterns as indicators of religious identities: The Manichaean community in Late Antique Egypt
• 8 Networking beyond death: Priests and their family networks in Palmyra explored through the funerary sculpture
• 9 Trade networks among the army camps of the Eastern Desert of Roman Egypt
• 10 Palmyrene merchant networks and economic integration in competitive markets
• 11 Businessmen and local elites in the Lycos valley
• 12 The social networks of Late Antique western Thebes