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Shops, Workshops, and Suburban Commercial Life

“Shops, Workshops, and Suburban Commercial Life” focuses on the commercial structures that proliferated in Italy’s suburbs in the Augustan and early Imperial periods, with case studies highlighting Rome, Pompeii, Patavium, and Puteoli. Echoing a pattern also evident inside city walls, shops and workshops arose in the busiest areas of suburbs, where they took advantage of traffic to attract customers. At the same time, the chapter identifies suburban resources that encouraged commercial investment and distinguished the zone from the center. Suburbs brought opportunities for profit and display, not least due to the presence of tombs, which were absent in the center. Placed alongside funerary monuments, shops and workshops benefited from incorporation into prestigious neighborhoods that stimulated traffic and activity while also encouraging visitors to linger. Moreover, a location among tombs invited owners and workers to participate in types of communication and monumentalization that often were unavailable to them in other parts of the city.