Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

PART I. ROMAN EPIGRAPHY : INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE -- The epigrapher at work / Christer Bruun and Jonathan Edmondson -- Epigraphic research since its inception : the contribution of manuscripts / Marco Buonocore -- Forgeries and fakes / Silvia Orlandi, Maria Letizia Caldelli and Gian Luca Gregori -- The major corpora and epigraphic publications / Christer Bruun -- Epigraphy and digital resources / Thomas Elliott -- PART II. INSCRIPTIONS IN THE ROMAN WORLD -- Latin epigraphy : the main types of inscriptions / Francisco Beltrán Lloris -- Inscribing Roman texts : officinae, layout, and carving techniques / Jonathan Edmondson -- The epigraphic habit in the Roman world / Francisco Beltrán Lloris -- PART III. THE VALUE OF INSCRIPTIONS FOR RECONSTRUCTING THE ROMAN WORLD -- INSCRIPTIONS AND ROMAN PUBLIC LIFE -- The Roman Republic / Olli Salomies -- The Roman emperor and the imperial family / Frédéric Hurlet -- Senators and equites : prosopography / Christer Bruun -- Local elites in Italy and the western provinces / Henrik Mouritsen -- Local elites in the Greek East / Christof Schuler -- Roman government and administration / Christer Bruun -- The Roman state : laws, lawmaking, and legal documents / Gregory Rowe -- The Roman army / Michael Alexander Speidel -- Inscriptions and narrative of Roman history / David Potter -- Late antiquity / Benet Salway -- INSCRIPTIONS AND RELIGION IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE -- Religion in Rome and Italy / Mika Kajava -- Religion in the Roman provinces / James Rives -- The rise of Christianity / Danilo Mazzoleni -- INSCRIPTIONS AND ROMAN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LIFE -- The city of Rome / Christer Bruun -- Social life in town and country / Garrett G. Fagan -- Urban infrastructure and euergetism outside the city of Rome / Marietta Horster -- Spectacle in Rome, Italy, and the provinces / Michael Carter and Jonathan Edmondson -- Roman family history / Jonathan Edmondson -- Women in the Roman world / Maria Letizia Caldelli -- Slaves and freed slaves / Christer Bruun -- Death and burial / Laura Chioffi -- Communications and mobility in the Roman empire / Anne Kolb -- Economic life in the Roman Empire / Jonathan Edmondson -- INSCRIPTIONS AND ROMAN CULTURAL LIFE -- Local languages in Italy and the West / James Clackson -- Linguistic variation, language change, and Latin inscriptions / Peter Kruschwitz -- Inscriptions and literacy / John Bodel -- Carmina latina epigraphica / Manfred G. Schmidt.

"Inscriptions are for anyone interested in the Roman world and Roman culture, whether they regard themselves as literary scholars, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, religious scholars or work in a field that touches on the Roman world from c. 500 BCE to 500 CE and beyond. The goal of The Oxford Handbook of Roman Epigraphy is to show why inscriptions matter and to demonstrate to classicists and ancient historians, their graduate students, and advanced undergraduates, how to work with epigraphic sources"--