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Biography

Laurens Ernst (Rens) Tacoma studied History at the University of Leiden, where he graduated cum laude in 1994 in Ancient History. Having spent a year as visiting fellow in Columbia University, New York, he became in 1995 Assistent in Opleiding at Leiden University, a position he combined later onwards with a position as Researcher at the Leiden Papyrological Institute. From 2002 to 2005 he was Director of Studies of the History Dept. at Leiden. In 2003/2004 he was also lecturer in ancient history at Groningen University. He is lecturer in Ancient History at Leiden University, a position that he combines since Sept. 2010 with that of Research in the Moving Romans project.

Fields of interest

The social and economic history of the ancient world, including ancient demography, the ancient city and slavery, all with an emphasis on the first three centuries A.D. Areas of interest include Roman Egypt, the city of Rome, and Roman Athens.

Current research comprises two projects. A series of smaller studies will be devoted to further research on the urban elites of Roman Egypt, as a sequel to Fragile Hierarchies. A larger research project is devoted to Roman Migration in the Principate, aiming to offer a comprehensive overview of an hitherto hardly explored subject on the basis of a study of migration to and from the city of Rome in the first two centuries A.D. This research forms part of the project Moving Romans. Urbanisation, migration and labour in the Roman Principate.

Fragile Hierarchies. The Urban Elites of Third-Century Roman Egypt (Brill, Leiden, 2006).

Work in progress

(Not to be cited or circulated without written permission of the author).

with A.M. Eschauzier, 'Why the rich raise sons. Exploring the Trivers-Willard model in ancient Rome'

'Imperial wealth in Roman Egypt. The Julio-Claudian ' (submitted dec 2011), to appear in: P. Erdkamp, K. Verboven and A. Zuiderhoek (eds.), Land and Natural Resources in the Roman World.

'Migrant quarters at Rome?' (submitted nov 2011), to appear in: S. Benoist and G. de Kleijn (eds.), Les voies de l'integration a Rome et dans le monde romain (Brill, Leiden).

‘Roman Elite Mobility under the Principate’ (2009; rev. 2011), to appear in: H. van Wees and N. Fisher (eds.), Aristocrats, Elites and Social Mobility in Ancient Societies (Classical Press Wales)

Review of Tom Boiy, (Leuven 2010) (2010), to appear in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis

'The labour market' (2010), to appear in: A. Claridge and C. Holleran (eds.), A companion to the city of Rome (Wiley-Blackwell)

'Settlement and population' (2010), to appear in: C. Riggs (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt (Oxford University Press).

‘Imperial estates (Egypt)’ (2010), to appear in: Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Blackwell-Wiley)

'Migratie in de Romeinse wereld. Een onderzoeksagenda' (2010)

‘Graveyards for Rome. Migration to the city of Rome in the first two centuries A.D.’ paper read at European Social Science History Conference, Lisbon march 2008

Migration and the Roman Family

Praise for Fragile Hierarchies

Keith Hopkins (†), emeritus prof. of Ancient History, Kings College, University of Cambridge, author of Conquerors and Slaves, Death and Renewal and A World full of Gods.

Fragile Hierarchies is “clearly written, well argued and persuasive. It shows a detailed mastery of a very considerable body of ancient evidence from Roman Egypt. But that knowledge is combined with and lightened by an imaginative use of analytical models.”

“Methodologically, [it is] is a delicate and sophisticated balance between conservative inductivism and radical model-building. Conservatives will, I think, be satisfied by the detailed papyrological knowledge and the wealth of examples. Structuralists will be seduced by the careful wording of the argumentation and parametric thinking. For example, Tacoma does not try to solve (the unsolvable) problem of Roman Egypt’s total population, but leaves the reader to choose within a range of options. In this sense, it is important to note what the thesis is not. It is not, as so many articles on Roman Egypt are, a near random parade of information. It is a disciplined set of arguments with appropriate illustrations from a wide range of contemporary sources.”

“It is an excellent piece of work, which establishes the stability of elite structures and ideology in Roman Egypt against a background of ceaseless and significant individual mobility and vulnerability. Its importance, as Tacoma himself suggests, goes far beyond Egypt. It seems likely that urban elites throughout the Roman empire had similar characteristics.”

Ramsay MacMullen, emeritus prof. of Ancient History, Yale University, author of Roman Social Relations; Changes in the Roman Empire; Christianising the Roman Empire; Paganism in the Roman Empire; Feelings in History, Ancient and Modern and many other books on Roman history

"Laurens Tacoma does two things for his readers that are most unusual. First, he takes his readers into his mind, there to see what doubts he had, what deficiencies of evidence he had to confront, how he handled them and with what degree of confidence in his results. All this is instructive both as to method and product. Second, having a remarkably active curiosity, like an AK47, he directs on his chosen subject a barrage of penetrating questions which not only open it up to understanding but provide readers with the means of understanding other, similar population groups in the ancient world or elsewhere. The whole study is of great value."