“This mule will ruin me”. The economy of mobility in Roman towns

This paper will investigate how the needs of transport and mobility arising from the economic processes impacted on Roman cities, and to what extent these activities connected to transport and mobility shaped the material fabric and the social structure of the urban space. The analysis will highlight the economic implications of the processes of production, consumption and trades inside the city, specifically for the related aspects of transport and distribution. Indeed, these factors generated a parallel economy that could be labelled as transport & logistics, or - as defined here, mostly referring to movement of people - “economy of mobility”. The social and spatial characteristics of this important production sector will be questioned, whilst architectural features and material culture of some of these “places of business” will be analysed in the light of a few case studies, starting from the best preserved archaeological sites of Ostia and the towns on the slopes of the Vesuvius, and expanding to lesser-known examples from northern Italy and Gaul.