T.P. Wiseman The Lost History of Roman Theatre review, recensie en informatie boek over de vergeten geschiedenis van het Romeinse theater. Op 25 november 2025 verschijnt bij Princeton University Press het boek van T.P. Wiseman, de Britse professor en historicus oude geschiedenis aan de University of Exeter. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar.

T.P. Wiseman The Lost History of Roman Theatre review en recensie

• “Peter Wiseman has been writing brilliantly about Roman literary culture for over fifty years, and this latest book is no exception: his views on the history of Roman theatre are challenging and controversial, and this will be a landmark publication in the field.” (Christopher Pelling, University of Oxford)
• “Peter Wiseman’s book, drawing on a wealth of textual and material evidence, offers a characteristically learned and provocative reimagining of Roman theatrical traditions. This collection of studies will be essential reading for anyone interested in the place of theatre in Roman society.” (Catherine Edwards, author of Death in Ancient Rome)
• “In this book, Peter Wiseman blends meticulous scholarship with disciplined historical imagination to throw light on different aspects of the history of Roman theatre. The picture that emerges is convincing and illuminating.” (Armand D’Angour, author of How to Innovate: An Ancient Guide to Creative Thinking)

The Lost History of Roman Theatre

• Auteur: T.P. Wiseman (Engeland)
• Soort boek: Romeinse geschiedenis, theatergeschiedenis
• Taal: Engels
• Uitgever: Princeton University Press
• Verschijnt: 25 november 2025
• Omvang: 328 pagina’s
• Uitgave: paperback / ebook
• Prijs: $ 45,00
• Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst van het boek over het theater van de Romeinen

Theatre was an integral part of Roman civic, religious and political life for nearly a thousand years, but our understanding of it is skewed by the haphazard survival of usable evidence. The widely accepted date for the beginning of Roman drama is 240 BC, but that is only the date of the first known dramatic works. Theatre as a public spectacle was created in Athens and in Greek Sicily at the end of the sixth century BC, when the culture of Rome, to judge by the archaeological evidence, was itself thoroughly Greek. There is therefore no need to imagine that the Romans knew nothing of drama until centuries after its inception. In The Lost History of Roman Theatre, the distinguished classics scholar T. P. Wiseman reexamines the often-obscured origins of Roman theatre.

In a series of detailed investigations, Wiseman explores material ignored or inadequately treated in the modern literature, including previously overlooked information in Cicero’s letters, speeches and dialogues about what theatre meant to Romans of his era. He further shows that the various styles of drama presented on the Roman stage were listed by grammarians in late antiquity who were using well-informed histories of drama now lost, and brings to light a wide range of evidence, visual as well as textual, from all that thousand-year stretch of time, to offer a new sense of the range and richness of the Romans’ experience of theatre.

Timothy Peter Wiseman was born on 3 February 1940 in England. He has been professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Exeter for nearly fifty years. He is the author of Catullus and His World, The Roman Audience, The House of Augustus and many other well-known works. In 2022 he was awarded the British Academy’s Kenyon Medal for classical studies.

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