Current Season: 2026 – 2027

06/10/2026 – 17:00 BST – The Sound of Slave Labour:  utilising ‘auditory peopling’ to analyse Marcus Aurelius’ depiction of ideal mastery at Villa Magna

Daniel Connelly, University of Edinburgh

This presentation employs the method of ‘auditory peopling’ to examine in a novel fashion the depiction of the slave-owning persona of the emperor-to-be Marcus Aurelius at Villa Magna. Based on Marcus’ own descriptions, it establishes the spatial proximity between the estate’s slave labourers and Marcus via a theoretically-based sound profiling. Marcus’s seemingly casual description emerges from this as a shrewd effort at sketching himself as the perfectly watchful enslaver. The analysis extends across several cognate disciplines. First, through philological analysis, it defines the nature of the sound heard by Marcus. Second, through a study of the archaeology at Villa Magna, Marcus is located within the built environment. Third, through methodological innovation – ‘auditory peopling’ – the distance between Marcus and the enslaved workers is quantitatively evaluated.

Primarily, approaches to the ancient soundscape have involved placing known sounds (e.g., the beating of a worker’s hammer) within a built environment (i.e., a street with a metalworking workshop), then analysing the effects of these sounds within a setting. With auditory peopling, I begin with the sound receiver (Marcus) and work backwards from his location to understand the spatial properties of the sound emitters (the estate workers). This quantifies the distance between Marcus and the estate workers, providing a theoretical, data-led approach to the question of proximity between master and slave. 

The results demonstrate the physical proximity between Marcus and these workers, often assumed to have been spatially distant. The new understanding of physical proximity reveals Marcus’s self-fashioning as a model dominus, one subscribed to the ideology of mastery known from Columella and Pliny and its republican, Catonian roots. Based on auditory peopling, I suggest in conclusion that, drawing on this theme of the watchful dominus, Marcus effectively uses his correspondence to present himself as the model emperor-to-be, a new perspective on both text and author. 

REGISTER AT https://www.ticketsource.com/theoretical-roman-archaeology-conference/trac-2026-27-webinar-lecture-the-sound-of-slave-labour/e-ljolro