Richard H. Teverson

“The Art of Future Romans” is the first book to explore how Roman art represented the future. It applies this new approach to a set of periods in which the future was most fraught: the decades surrounding the assimilation of allied kingdoms into the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire in the first century BCE relied on client kingdoms in the Alps, the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East. Before they were annexed into the Empire, these kingdoms produced some of the most innovative art to survive from the period. The visual representation of time, and the role artworks played in imperial systems, are two of the foundational questions of art history. By showing how they connect in artworks from Roman frontier kingdoms, “The Art of Future Romans” provides a new perspective on the history of communities facing Roman conquest and generates insights applicable to the study of other empires.