Thinking with Dogs in Roman Britain: Lived Experience, Inequality, and Ritual in a Roman Province

Robin Fleming uses the lives and remains of dogs to reconsider Roman Britain from the perspective of ordinary experience rather than imperial institutions. Archaeological evidence for dogs—their bodies, treatment, working roles and ritual use—opens questions about inequality, household life and relationships between humans and animals within the province.

But the dogs in this study are not only animals that once lived and died. Fleming also considers how Roman writers used them as metaphors for hierarchy and enslavement, and how they appeared in rituals at temples, shrines and in domestic settings. Following those different traces brings into view relationships, beliefs and social divisions that are easy to miss when Roman Britain is studied chiefly through its governors and garrisons.