About the Book
Latin Inscriptions from Central Spain by Robert C. Knapp brings together, translates, and analyzes an extensive body of epigraphic material that illuminates the history and society of Hispania Tarraconensis and Lusitania. Drawing on inscriptions from cities, towns, and rural areas, Knapp reconstructs the lives of communities that flourished under Roman rule. The volume includes funerary epitaphs, honorific dedications, milestones, and religious texts, each annotated and contextualized to reveal the intertwining of local traditions with the broader imperial system. By systematically cataloging this evidence, Knapp opens a window onto the daily lives, beliefs, and identities of provincial populations, while also tracing patterns of Romanization in central Spain.
The work is both a reference tool and a historical narrative. It demonstrates how inscriptions preserve voices often absent from literary texts—soldiers, freedmen, women, and local elites—who together contributed to the dynamic cultural blend of the Roman provinces. Combining philological precision with historical interpretation, Knapp highlights the inscriptions’ linguistic features, their legal and social dimensions, and their role as public expressions of status and community. This volume thus serves as an essential resource for classicists, historians, archaeologists, and epigraphers, while also underscoring the vitality of epigraphy in reconstructing the complexity of life in the Roman West.