Maintenance and restoration of road and hydraulic infrastructures in the Roman world and the Late Antiquity: a juridical, practical and political approach

Exposed to daily use and passage, the maintenance and restoration of road and water infrastructures constituted a permanent concern for the public authorities, the local communities and the individual users. Although the subject is rarely studied, written and archaeological sources display numerous evidence of its importance and of the frequent interactions between private and public initiative it generated. The subject is particularly meaningful in the context of the Late Antiquity cities and territories, when the responsibility for the infrastructures gradually changed hands. This project aims to pursue the reflection initiated by the workshop “Umnutzung von Grundbesitz, Gebäuden und Infrastrukturen”, held next June within the research group (B-1) Routes-Water-Knowledge. It additionally benefits from the support of the Paris-10 research group ArScan (UMR 7041). As such, it is conceived as a Franco German project, for which a simultaneous translation seems highly beneficial.

Program