Samuli Simelius

Cover image for edited volume 'Women, Wealth and Power in the Roman Republic'. Depicts detail of a gilt bronze statue of a Roman woman. Pergola, Italy. c. 70-30 BCE.

Book description: In the Roman Republic, elite women were legally permitted to control substantial assets – and many demonstrably were in direct control of their wealth. They were also the mothers, wives and daughters of the politicians who built Rome's empire and, in a time of high mortality, could find themselves running households that did not contain adult men. This volume explores the political and social consequences of elite female wealth. It combines case studies of individual women, such as Licinia, wife of C. Gracchus, Mucia Tertia, Fulvia and Octavia Minor, with broader surveys of the institutional frameworks and social conventions that constrained and enabled women's wealth and its consequences. The book contributes to the recent upsurge of interest in re-evaluating the role of women in Republican Rome and will be invaluable for scholars and students alike.

Catherine Steel and I are thrilled to announce the publication of our edited volume 'Women, Wealth and Power in the Roman Republic': www.cambridge.org/core/books/w...
@universitypress.cambridge.org
#AncientBlueSky #ClassicsBlueSky #BlueSkyClassics

Yhteishaku mielessä?
Haluatko oppia ymmärtämään maailmaa syvällisesti? Kehittää kriittistä ajattelua? Hankkia relevanttia kielitaitoa ja muita tulevaisuuden taitoja?
Lähde opiskelemaan antiikintutkimusta!
Ks. vinkkejä os. antiikintutkimus.fi/yliopisto-op...

#Call for #Applications: #HumanPast #SCAS #Fellowships 2027-28 for both #early-career and senior #interdisciplinary researchers. Deadline: 1 June 2026. More information on our web: shorturl.at/VAAfl #humanpast #opportunity #genetics #archaeology #linguistics #prehistory @haam-community.bsky.social

Mapping Inequality in Roman Cities Tomorrow I will give a talk at the Seminar in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Gothenburg. I will discuss the framework of Roman inequality and the new methods I am de…

I morgon i Göteborg

romanurbaninequality.wordpress.com/2026/03/01/m...

Conference: "Dynamics of urbanity. Configurations of boundaries in pre-modern cities" Organised by the Subcluster “Urban ROOTS” | Call for papers open until 28 February 2026

On 17 + 18 July, a conference organised by our "Urban ROOTS" subcluster will focus on "Dynamics of urbanity. Configurations of boundaries in pre-modern cities". If you are conducting research in this area and would like to submit your own contribution, you can do so until 28 February!
#CallForPapers

Tuntiopettajia kreikan kursseille Tuntiopettajia kreikan kursseille

Teologinen tiedekunta hakee tuntiopettajia kreikan kesäkursseille 2026.

Bluesky Map Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Todellinen identiteettisi on paljastunut!

Abstract deadline approaching!

Tieteessä tapahtuu -lehden mainio juttu Suomen Rooman-instituutin merkityksestä (by @uulis.bsky.social). Koko juttu suositeltavaa luettavaa. Tähän lainaan jutusta vain itseäni, koska tietenkin: 1/2

Tutkijalehtoriksi Suomen-Ateenan instituuttiin! Suomen Ateenan-instituutin säätiön hallitus ilmoittaa haettavaksiSuomen Ateenan-instituutin tutkijalehtorin toimenajalle 1.1.2027 – 31.12.2029 Toimi on suunnattu tutkijanuran alkuvaiheessa olevalle h...

Tutkijalehtorin paikka auki Suomen Ateenan-instituutissa!

SCAS Seminar Last week ended up being so busy that I forgot to write this earlier. Now it might be too late, but I guess it’s better late than never. Tomorrow, I will present a paper at the Swedish Collegium fo…

I was supposed to write this earlier but I forgot. A blog post about my SCAS seminar.

romanurbaninequality.wordpress.com/2026/01/26/s...

Haettavana tutkijatohtorin paikka instituutissa Suomen Rooman-instituuttia ylläpitävä säätiö Institutum Romanum Finlandiae hakee tutkijatohtoria Roomassa sijaitsevaan tiedeinstituuttiin yhden vuoden määräaikaiseen työsuhteeseen. Työsuhde alkaa 1.6....

Määräaikainen tutkijatohtorin paikka haettavana Suomen Rooman-instituutissa.

Kuznets at -7000: Is there a really long-term relationship between growth and inequality? We use archaeological data on house sizes to generate estimates for economic inequality and economic growth from the Early Holocene to about the first…

Is #inequality the price of "development"?

Many economists have long been guided by the idea that as societies become more "developed" they become more unequal. Our new paper challenges this idea.

History is not a one-way street. #Archaeology 🧵(1/4)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ave on mukana Tieteiden yössä! Torstaina 22.1. klo 18.00 järjestettävässä tilaisuudessa kuullaan, miten leijonat, temppelien pyhät kissat ja nykypäivän katukissat ovat kulkeneet ihmisen rinnalla antiikista meidän aikoihimme. Mukana myös valokuvanäyttely Kyproksen katukissoista. Ks. ohjelma:

Ostia-by-the-Sea: Society, Population, and Identities in Rome’s Port Abstract. The book is a historical study of the population of Rome’s harbour town Ostia, the society in which the Ostians lived, and the identities of thes

Professori Christer Bruunin uusi tieteellinen monografiajulkaisu 𝘖𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘢 – 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺, 𝘗𝘰𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘦’𝘴 𝘗𝘰𝘳𝘵: academic.oup.com/book/61735

Scoperta Basilica di Vitruvio, Giuli: “A Fano il cuore della più antica sapienza architettonica dell’Occidente” È la Basilica descritta da Vitruvio nel 'De Architectura' quella emersa dagli scavi di piazza Andrea Costa a Fano: l’unico edificio...

Well, this is something!

cultura.gov.it/comunicato/2...

Check out this post-doc in landscape #archaeology here in York! This looks like amazing chance to engage with an understudied region, and build up critical African datasets, which can be used to address a whole host of #sustainability challenges.

jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese...

CFP: Dynamics of Inequality in the Ancient Mediterranean I organize the workshop “Dynamics of Inequality in the Ancient Mediterranean,” which will take place in Helsinki on 22–23 October 2026. The event responds to growing scholarly interest in past ineq…

A short blog post on my forthcoming workshop "Dynamics of inequality in the Ancient Mediterranean"

romanurbaninequality.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/c...

This could be largely avoided if no one was allowed to give papers in their native language 🙃

En valitettavasti. Tässä on niin paljon kaikenlaista ensi vuodelle, että ei vaan mahtunut ohjelmaan, vaikka kaikkea mielenkiintoista siellä olisi.

This could be the ending of my next grant application.

”The present age is marked by rapid changes, humanitarian crises and cultural transitions, and requires that we not only draw on ancient and new knowledge, but also search for a profound wisdom capable of preserving and passing on to future generations what is truly essential.”

On the importance of archaeology

www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

MODERNIT TUTKIMUSMENETELMÄT JA ANTIIKIN AINEISTOT FT Samuli Simelius, Helsingin yliopiston yliopistotutkija ja antiikintutkija Tutkimusprojektissani tarkastelen roomalaisten kaupunkien eriarvoisuutta erityisesti talouden ja terveyden näkökulmasta.…

Kirjoitin hieman antiikin - ja miksei muunkin - eriarvoisuuden tutkimisesta. #gini

fenestrafinnorum.com/2025/12/17/m...

Call for papers: ”Dynamics of Inequality in the Ancient Mediterranean” workshop 22-23 October 2026, Helsinki

I’m organizing a workshop called ”Dynamics of Inequality in the Ancient Mediterranean” (22-23 October 2026, Helsinki)

Here’s the CfP:

Feelings and the Roman house: A sentiment analysis of Pompeian graffiti This article introduces a new digital method for studying Roman domestic spaces: sentiment analysis. The first objective is to test how sentiment anal…

Link:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Abstract This article introduces a new digital method for studying Roman domestic spaces: sentiment analysis. The first objective is to test how sentiment analysis can be used to study Roman graffiti, while the second is to examine what the results reveal about the functions of the Roman and Pompeian house and people's behavior within it. The article focuses on one house in Pompeii, the Casa delle nozze d'argento (V,2,i), which offers a well-documented context for the purposes of this work. The article combines the study of textual and material sources and introduces new innovative methods for studying life in the ancient world. The use of sentiment analysis as a tool makes it possible to identify sentiments via computational methods, where the text is provided with values that define its sentiment polarity. Pompeian graffiti has not been previously studied using this method. Additionally, the article makes use of Space Syntax analysis – a mathematical tool used to calculate the relationships between rooms and spaces – to assess how the results of the sentiment analysis correlate with the visibility of the graffiti and their makers. Such an analysis will provide information on the location of negative, neutral, and positive examples of graffiti in relation to the scale of public and private spaces in the Casa delle nozze d'argento.

Together with Liisa Jalkanen we wrote an article ”Feelings and the Roman house: A sentiment analysis of Pompeian graffiti”. The goal was to test sentiment analysis for Pompeian graffiti, and hopefully, further research using this methodology and graffiti will follow.

Research Assistant Research Assistant

A job in Helsinki at the ERC Advanced Grant Project "Work without End: Informal Taxation and Forced Labor within Persian Southern Levantine Temple Economy and Society (WORK-IT)" @workit-hki.bsky.social