bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Silver Find from South-West Asia Minor
Authors: Jacobsthal P. , Jones A. H. M.
Published: May 2006

The objects published here with the kind permission of Dr. Jacob Hirsch are said to have been found at ‘Seki Bazar between Makli and Elmali’: the place is probably to be identified with the village Sekia, shown on the map in O. Benndorf and G. Niemann, Reisen im südwestlichen Kleinasien i, four miles north of the site of Oinoanda. Sekia lies about half-way along the road between Makri (Makli is unknown and is probably a mispronunciation of Makri) and Elmali. The internal evidence of the inscriptions confirms that the find must come from somewhere in SW Asia Minor. The find consists of two inscribed plaques with busts and fragments of a wreath. We first describe the objects, then comment on the inscriptions, and finally discuss the problems which arise from a study of them.
The Memoriae Apostolorum in Roman North Africa
Authors: Frend W. H.
Published: May 2006

A certain number of extant inscriptions and oral traditions which still linger in remote places, as in the Djebel Nefouca, to the south of Leptis Magna and Oea, indicate that there was a time when the cult of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul existed in Roman Africa; but the distribution of evidence, which is largely derived from the fringes of the Roman province, in Mauretania and in southern Numidia, invites the question why places so far removed from the Latin influence of the proconsular province should show such interest in the see of Rome and its founders.
Aspects of Imperialism in Roman Spain
Authors: Sutherland C. H. V.
Published: May 2006

The two following notes deal with parallel and interrelated aspects of imperial policy noticeable in Spain after the institution of the Principate, namely, the attitude of the provincials to the Princeps and his house, and the survival of Nationalism. Under the first head are included both religious and non-religious institutions, showing in each case not only the reactions of the Spanish provincials to the Principate but also the personal efforts made by the Princeps to ingratiate himself and his dynasty, while in the second note an attempt is made to demonstrate that the imperial administration, so far from aiming at a paralysis of nationalism, went out of its way to encourage it.
The Genesis Of Diocletian's Provincial Re-Organization
Authors: Anderson J. G. C.
Published: May 2006

More than a local military interest attaches to an inscription found in the fort at Birdoswald during the excavations of 1929, which records the restoration of the praetorium, the principia and the bath-house under Aurelius Arpagius, vir perfectissimus praeses, in the period A.D. 297–305. It sheds a fresh ray of light on the evolution of Diocletian's provincial re-organization, while another ray comes from the East in the shape of a fragmentary inscription which Sir William Ramsay copied at Laodiceia on the Lycus in 1926 and has. kindly placed at my disposal. A companion stone from Hierapolis, on the other side of the valley, was published with a few comments by Prof. Judeich in Altertümer von Hierapolis, 1898, p. 87, no. 43, from which it is reproduced in IGRR, iv, no. 814, but its significance has not been perceived. The two inscriptions supplement each other in a happy manner. They clearly relate to the same governor, whose name was afterwards erased.
Dedications to Zeus Hypsistos in Beroea
Authors: Cormack J. M. R.
Published: May 2006

In a garden, stated to have been formerly a Turkish cemetery, belonging to Ἰωάννης Ὑφαντίδης, situated on a hill to the SW of Beroea, part of a grey stone column, broken away at the bottom (fig. I); found with a considerable number of ancient marbles and grey (granite ?) stone columns, many of which were subsequently buried in a spot said to be to the left of the walk leading to the back-door of the house.
Notes on the Building Materials of Pompeii
Authors: Carrington R. C.
Published: May 2006

I. Introduction.—The dating of building materials at Pompeii presents a problem which is in several ways peculiar. Although more than half the city has by now been uncovered and has provided a wealth of epigraphic material almost without parallel among Italian towns, yet the number of buildings which it is possible to date from such evidence can be counted on one hand, since for the most part the inscriptions concern events which are too trivial, or persons who are too obscure, to offer any indication of their date. Furthermore, the procedure adopted in the past for excavating the town has precluded all but the most meagre help being given by pottery. Till a few years ago, Pompeian excavators for the most part stopped digging as soon as the uppermost (and latest) level had been reached, and earlier buildings, of which the foundations presumably survive under the later floors, were left unexplored. Hence, the pottery which is most useful for purposes of dating (that occurring in association with structural foundations) is not forthcoming. Pompeii, in fact, has been too much a show-piece for visitors, too little a site to be scientifically explored.
The Nothia Dignitatum and the Western Mints
Authors: Salisbury F. S.
Published: May 2006

Two sharply contrasted views are held about the duration of Roman government in Britain and in the West generally. The traditional view, which I believe to be substantially correct, dates the abandonment of Britain early in the fifth century. The late Professor Bury put forward in 1920 a theory that the occupation was maintained down to A.D. 438. The theory was based primarily on a later dating of the Notitia Dignitatum, and on a mistaken estimate of the numismatic evidence.
A Few Notes on the Currency of Britain
Authors: Milne J. G.
Published: May 2006

In connexion with the preceding paper, a summary of the numismatic evidence as to the currency of Britain, in its relation to that of the Continent, till the establishment of the Saxon scheme, based on the silver penny, may be found useful. It is derived almost entirely from published material.

1. Greek and Roman coins of the third to first centuries B.C. are found sporadically in England: there is no sign that they were used for the purpose of currency, or related in any way to the British and Gaulish money.

2. Late Republican and Augustan coins occur fairly often, and their types are borrowed by British mints.
‘Tribvnicia Potestate’
Authors: Mattingly Harold
Published: May 2006

The problem of the reckoning of the tribunician power of the Roman Emperors leads us along thorny paths; but they are paths which the seeker after a true chronology must tread. The method usually followed by historians to-day—that of Eckhel, as developed and amplified by Mommsen—certainly approximates to the truth and seldom leads one far astray. There remain, however, sufficient evidences to show that it is not the whole truth; and, where exactness in dating really matters, nothing but the whole truth will do.
Massinissa
Authors: Walsh P. G.
Published: May 2006

In ancient historiography, characterization of leading statesmen was often the central preoccupation. A Berber prince was an irresistibly exotic subject, and the composite portrait of Massinissa, king of Numidia between 201 and 148 B.C., well exemplifies this focus of historia. There is abundant detail of personal attributes—his handsome bearing, his extraordinary strength, his unrivalled powers of endurance. We read how at the age of eighty-eight, sans teeth but with other faculties unimpaired, he led his troops on horseback to decisive victory over the Carthaginians. His love-life attracted admiring attention; his affair with Sophoniba, invested with a historical significance quite fictitious, was depicted by historians and painters of both the ancient world and the Renaissance. The achievements of his virility were enthusiastically recounted; he sired a son at eighty-six, and forty-four (? fifty-four) children are said to have survived him. Nor did his interest in children end with procreation. He reared his grandchildren in his own residence, and Ptolemy Euergetes cherished his query to the Greeks who sought to purchase Numidian monkeys as household pets: παρ΄ ὑμῖν, ὦ οὗτοι, αἱ γυναῖκες οὐ τίκτουσι παίδια; There is detail of the luxury of his court-life: δεῖπνα ΄Ρωμαϊκῶς ἦν κατεσκεσκευασμένα, with Greek musicians, golden baskets, silver tableware.
A Note on Res Gestae Divi Augusti, 34, 3
Authors: Adcock F. E.
Published: May 2006

The Latin text of the final sentence of chapter 34 of the Res Gestae is now beyond any serious doubt. It runs ‘Post idtempus auctoritate omnibus praestiti potestatis autem nihiloamplius habui quam ceteri qui mihi quoque in magistratu conlegae fuerunt’.(The Greek version, as preserved in the Monumentum Ancyranum is quoted later.) The purpose of this note is to determine as precisely as possible what these Latin words mean and to discuss their significance.
A Lex Sacra from Lavinium
Authors: Weinstock Stefan
Published: May 2006

An important find, quickly and competently published by Professor Margherita Guarducci, deserves immediate comment, however provisional it may be. It is the inscription on a bronze-tablet, found at Pratica, the site of ancient Lavinium, together with some clay objects (female heads, parts of the human body, oxen and pigs, the hoof of an ox), the remains of a stips votiva, all of the third century B.C.
Theta Nigrum
Authors: Watson G. R.
Published: May 2006

The remarkable resemblance between Rufinus,adv. Hieron., 2, 36 ( = Migne,PLxxi, 392, col 614 f.) and Isidorus,Etym.1, 24, was noticed by the Renaissance scholars, but no explanation of this resemblance appears to have been attempted. The purpose of the present note is to elucidate certain points of difficulty in the two passages, and to assess the value of their evidence on the practice of Roman military bookkeeping.
Queen Cartimandua
Authors: Richmond I. A.
Published: May 2006

Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes is the first queen in British history to play a determining part in a policy for the whole island. She does not hold the stage with the outraged fury of Boudicca: no description of her appearance, terrifying or otherwise, has come down to us. But until the moment when the neglectful terms of a husband's will and the tactlessness and bestiality of Roman officials drove Boudicca and her nobility into revolt, Cartimandua was in her own right much the more important figure and certainly counted for very much more in Roman eyes. Nor in reality is the story of Cartimandua less dramatic: but its elements are at once more peculiar to Britain and more personal to the Queen.
A Bust of an Antonine Boy
Authors: Toynbee J. M. C.
Published: May 2006

In 1944 Father Joseph Jarzebowski, M.I.C., now headmaster of a school for Polish boys at Fawley Court, near Henley, acquired, at an antique-dealer's (Galeria Ordáz) in Mexico City, a draped marble bust of an Antonine boy, which is now displayed in the hall of the Court. It is by Father Jarzebowski's kind permission that I am able to publish the portrait here (pls. 1, 1, 2, 11, 1, 2).

The piece is certainly antique, cleaned, but not reworked, and carved, it seems, in Luna (Carrara) marble. It stands 1 ft. 11 in. high, including the base and pedestal, which appear to be modern. At the back a new portion has been inserted at the bottom of the column that runs up inside the hollow of the bust, so that the sculpture can rest steadily upon the base.
The Significance of the Consular Tribunate
Authors: Staveley E. S.
Published: May 2006

Livy preserves two explanations of the Senatorial decision of 445 B.C. to suspend the election of consuls and to confer imperium consulare upon tribuni militum. One, which he himself accepts, is that it was a political compromise designed to appease agitation for plebeian representation in the consulship. The other is that the military situation demanded the appointment of at least three holders of imperium. Until some forty years ago the majority of scholars, even if ready to admit that the reform had military advantages, joined with Livy in laying the chief emphasis on the political motive. More recently, however, the tendency has been to disown the connection between the innovation and the struggle for office. The change is explained as necessitated wholly by growing military commitments or administrative needs. My purpose here is merely to defend once again the traditional account that the decision of 445 B.C. marked an important stage in the Struggle of the Orders and to remove the major difficulties which have discouraged its acceptance.
Polemic in Polybius
Authors: Walbank F. W.
Published: May 2006

When ancient historians wanted to take cognizance of what their predecessors had written, they seem usually, though not always, to have preferred an anonymous reference to one by name. To this practice the most noteworthy exception is Polybius. In his Histories he mentions about a score of previous writers, including philosophers, orators and historians, a large number of whom are the object of quite bitter self-righteous polemic. This harsh trait in Polybius' character appears slightly odd, when one considers his generally sanguine and optimistic view of the world he lived in and of the advantages which he himself enjoyed over his predecessors.
The Wrong Marcius Turbo
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: May 2006

Comparable to the legates who govern the consular provinces of Caesar, and standing at parity or sometimes above them, the high equestrian dignitaries, by their careers and promotions, serve to explain how a whole system worked. They also illuminate a process. Enormous benefit accrues to the study of social history. The men themselves can seldom be grasped as personalities, given the dearth of literary evidence, nor do they often impinge on great events.
Some Pisones in Tacitus
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: May 2006

At this late date there is not much prospect of producing new and cogent emendations in Tacitus. ‘Hoc artificium periit.’ Past excesses counsel sobriety, and there has been a strong revulsion. Among the items which scholars unjustly impugned and prematurely corrected were a number of proper names, their sole offence often being rarity or an unusual shape. However strange a name may look, it should not lightly be altered. The vast and vivid nomenclature of ancient Italy invades the lower orders of the Roman Senate well before the Republic ends, and proliferates under the Caesars.

Names of a more familiar contour can still be a source of perplexity. The senatorial annals of Tiberius' principate carry a plethora of persons, among them the recurrent and aristocratic members of a few families. The consular historian, however, was adequately equipped for his task. He knew the methods of documentary inquiry, he was ferociously accurate, and he was interested in all the characters of his narrative, down to the most obscure—‘originem non repperi’ (VI, 7, 4). That being so, two Aemilii Lepidi, a Marcus and a Manius (the consuls of 6 and of 11), gave him no trouble. That he could avoid error everywhere, too much to hope. There are slips. And he might be held guilty of inadvertence. For example, it is an annoyance that the same person should appear as ‘Cotta Messallinus’ in the year 16 (11, 32, 1), as ‘Aurelius Cotta consul’ in 20 (III, 17, 4).
Some Reflections on Hannibal's Pass
Authors: Walbank F. W.
Published: May 2006

Few historical problems have produced more unprofitable discussion than that of Hannibal's pass over the Alps. But if there is still no clear answer, some headway had at least been made in defining the question—which is half the battle. Kahrstedt put the matter as succinctly as anyone. ‘Mit Topographie ist nicht zum Ziele zu kommen, weisse Felsen and tiefe Schluchten, Flusstäler und steile Abhänge gibt es uberall. Das Problem ist literarhistorisch, nicht topographisch.’ Hence a feeling of dismay at finding the question reopened without, apparently, any realization of what sort of question it is. For in fact Sir Gavin de Beer's forthright and attractive little book, despite its ingenious attempt to introduce new kinds of evidence, never comes to grips with the fundamental issue—the relationship between Polybius' account and Livy's. This central question is dismissed with a fatal facility : ‘each account complements and supplies what was missing from the other ‘(p. 33). If one is to get anywhere with this problem one must treat it more seriously than that; and it may therefore perhaps be worth while, yet again, to reconsider the evidence and to indicate the limits within which the answer is to be sought (without any guarantee that it will necessarily be found). Such a survey can offer none of the ‘certainties’ or the excitement to be found in Alps and Elephants; it will propose no novelties; and if it is not to become unreadable, it had better avoid all but the most obvious and necessary references to a fantastically inflated modern literature.
Martianus Capella and the Cosmic System of the Etruscans
Authors: Weinstock Stefan
Published: May 2006

What the Roman tradition, literary and artistic, has to tell us of the heavenly spheres is of Greek and Oriental origin, and it would be futile to go behind hellenized Rome: early Roman religion, though it had an extensive worship of heavenly gods, ignored the universe entirely. An examination of the Etruscan tradition leads to different conclusions. It offers, roughly speaking, three larger complexes to such an examination. One is the bronze model of a liver from Piacenza, used for extispicy and divided into many sections. The second is the doctrine about lightning, mainly to be found in Pliny and Seneca. The third is a list of gods, distributed among the sixteen regions of the heavens, in Martianus Capella (fourth-fifth century A.D.). The aim of this paper in its first part is to analyse this third complex (with occasional reference to the other two).
The Process ‘De Repetundis’
Authors: Henderson M. I.
Published: May 2006

In JRS XXXV, 1945 (p. 98), Mr. Hugh Last proposed that any further discussion of the SC Calvisianum appended to the fifth edict of Cyrene should start from a review of the Republican law of repetundae and of Mommsen's doctrines in Röm. Strafrecht (SR) 705 f. This service was performed by Mr. A. N. Sherwin-White in PBSR 1949, 5 f. The object of the present article is not to re-argue the controversy (Mommsen's errors have too often been the dragon's teeth), but to inquire into the terms of the problem.
On some Romano-British Place-Names
Authors: Jackson Kenneth
Published: May 2006

For over fifty years the standard source for the form and meaning of ancient Celtic names has been Holder's Altceltischer Sprachschatz. As usual with such encyclopaedic works, the result has been to endow it in the eyes of non-specialists with an authority sometimes greater than it deserves, fine piece of scholarship though it was in its day; for there is a good deal in Holder which Celticists now know to be mistaken. He made much use of the opinions of Stokes, Rhys, and Arbois de Jubainville; and these are by now often out of date. It is important that historians should realize this. The study of British place-names has made remarkable progress of late years, but the Celtic side of it has not kept pace with the rest; for place-name scholars very rarely have any first-hand knowledge of Celtic historical grammar. Hence even in the best recent works on our place-names the Celtic etymologies are sometimes unsound, because the authors put too much reliance in obsolete or untrustworthy authorities. The present article is a short list of addenda and corrigenda to Holder and other such works, in respect of a few Romano-British names whose Celtic etymologies seem particularly to need revision. The forms taken as the starting points are those given in the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain; or, failing that, in Holder. References to Ptolemy are from C. Müller's edition, Paris, 1883; to the Antonine Itinerary from Otto Cuntz's, Leipzig, 1929 (also to K. Miller, Itineraria Romana, Stuttgart, 1916); to the Peutinger map from Miller's edition ibid.; to the Notitia Dignitatum from O. Seeck's, Berlin, 1876; and to Ravennas from J. Schnetz's, Leipzig, 1930.
Was Roman Art of the First Centuries B.C. and A.D. classicizing?
Authors: Richter Gisela M. A.
Published: May 2006

As our knowledge and understanding of ancient art increase it is possible to discard old theories that impede the proper appreciation of a certain period. I should like to place in this category of outworn creeds what is commonly called the classicizing or neo-classical art of the first centuries B.C. and A.D., as well as later. It has been thought that during that time there was a reaction from the baroque taste of the late Hellenistic period and a return to the quieter, serener spirit of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.; and that this is indicated both by the many famous works of the classical epoch that were copied and recopied in the late Republican and early Imperial periods and by the sculptures in that general style that were created at that time. Pasiteles and his school have been credited with being pioneers in this neo-classical style.
Some Early Examples of the Composite Capital
Authors: Strong D. E.
Published: May 2006

The Composite capital was described by D. S. Robertson in his Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture (2nd ed., 1945) as ‘essentially a mixture of four-sided Ionic and Corinthian, in varying proportions. The invention is probably Augustan, but the earliest strictly datable examples are perhaps to be found at Rome in the Colosseum, dedicated in A.D. 80, and in the slightly later Arch of Titus: both these have a double row of acanthus leaves which gives them a more Corinthian look’.

Since the Handbook was written, very little has been added to the history of the Composite capital. Robertson's explanation of the origin of the type, which seems to have been pointed out first by Patroni, is still the accepted one.
Ten Tribunes
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: May 2006

Gabinius, tribune of the plebs in 67, procured for Pompeius the great command against the Pirates, defying the ‘principes’ and incurring the bitter resentment of the Optimates. When the Imperator wanted to have Gabinius as one of his legates, men of ill will duly brought up impediments. Cicero rebukes them in the oration for the Lex Manilia the year after. Their conduct, he says, is an affront to Pompeius. Other commanders who by contrast went out to rob the provinces have taken with them any legates they liked—‘cum ceteri ad expilandos socios diripiendasque provincias quos voluerunt legatos eduxerint’. It is also an affront to Gabinius, whose law has ordained ‘salus ac dignitas’ for Rome and the whole world. Nor can any objection hold against Gabinius. Cicero goes on to name four senators who had employment abroad as legates in the year following their tribunates— ‘C. Falcidius, Q. Metellus, Q. Caelius Latinianus, Cn. Lentulus, quos omnis honoris causa nomino’.
Imperial Deportment: Two Texts and Some Questions
Authors: Charlesworth M. P.
Published: May 2006

A scholar usually manages at some period in his life to read Xenophon's Cyropaedia, but probably rarely re-reads it. For the Cyropaedia has suffered from a change of fashion; once it was regularly read, and an admirable school commentary upon it by H. A. Holden is still purchasable. Now it is certainly not a school book, and it was mere chance brought me upon a passage which seems to raise questions about the development and propagation of a tradition, which may interest the great and friendly scholar to whom this volume is dedicated. But the topic ranges over so many territories into which I have no right to enter that I must ask him to forgive me for offering him a short essay rather than a rigorously reasoned and documented statement; I wish merely to put before him two texts, with brief observations.

In the Cyropaedia Xenophon depicts an ideal ruler. One important thing about that ruler is that he must not only be in every way a better man than those whom he commands, but must be admittedly and visibly so.
Theurgy and its Relationship to Neoplatonism
Authors: Dodds E. R.
Published: May 2006

The last half-century has seen a remarkable advance in our knowledge of the magical beliefs and practices of later antiquity. But in comparison with this general progress the special branch of magic known as theurgy has been relatively neglected and is still imperfectly understood. The first step towards understanding it was taken more than fifty years ago by Wilhelm Kroll, when he collected and discussed the fragments of the Chaldaean Oracles. Since then the late Professor Joseph Bidez has disinterred and explained a number of interesting Byzantine texts, mainly from Psellus, which appear to derive from Proclus' lost commentary on the Chaldaean Oracles, perhaps through the work of Proclus' Christian opponent, Procopius of Gaza; and Hopfner and Eitrem have made valuable contributions, especially in calling attention to the many common features linking theurgy with the Greco-Egyptian magic of the papyri. But much is still obscure, and is likely to remain so until the scattered texts bearing on theurgy have been collected and studied as a whole (a task which Bidez seems to have contemplated, but left unaccomplished at his death). The present paper does not aim at completeness, still less at finality, but only at (i) clarifying the relationship between Neoplatonism and theurgy in their historical development, and (ii) examining the actual modus operandi in what seem to have been the two main branches of theurgy.
The Wicked Guardian
Authors: Jolowicz H. F.
Published: May 2006

Counsel often open their address with the words ‘May it please your Lordship’, though they doubt whether their client's merit justifies such conventional optimism. In submitting this slight tribute of admiration and gratitude to Norman Baynes, I have similar feelings, but I hope that the subject at least will find favour with one who, as lawyers are proud to remember, is one of themselves as well as a famous historian.

It may not be actually stated that the wicked uncle of the fairy tale was also a guardian, but probably he was; for uncles are the commonest guardians in all ages, and their perfidy is a typical example of human wickedness. Among those who suspected them most were, according to our tradition, the ancient lawgivers of Greece; for guardianship and the connected subject of second marriages occupy quite a noticeable place in the scanty records of both Solon and Charondas. Solon, according to Diogenes Laertius, laid down that a guardian must not marry the mother of his ward, and that the person who would inherit from the ward must not be his guardian.
Rome and the Ager Pergamenus: The Acta of 129 B.C.
Authors: Tibiletti Gianfranco
Published: May 2006

The so-called Senatus Consultum of Adramyttium, a fragmentary inscription which was found in that city and has been known for some eighty years, contains part of a letter sent by a Roman authority. This letter records the report of a κρῖμα emanating from a praetor ex S.C., περὶ χώρας, ἥ|[τις ἐν ἀντι]λογία(ι) ἐστὶν δημοσιώ|[ναις πρὸς] Περγαμηνούς, and its terminus post querm was generally held to have been the Lex Sempronia de provincia Asia (123 or 122 B.C.), on which the excellent discussion by Hugh Last in Cambridge Ancient History should be consulted.

Twenty years ago A. Passerini published and discussed some other fragmentary texts, which had been found together in the Agora of Smyrna and had received only brief notice. The first contains two fragments of the Senatus Consultum and of the κρῖμα περὶ τῆς χώρας already mentioned.
St. Augustine's Attitude to Religious Coercion
Authors: Brown P. R. L.
Published: May 2006

Augustine had to face the issue of religious coercion throughout his episcopate, and especially in his dealings with the Donatist schism. As far as I know, he is the only writer in the Early Church to discuss the subject at length. He even changed his mind on the issue, and he has told us of this ‘conversion’ with characteristic disarming frankness. It is a change which cannot fail to interest us, for whom the problem remains acutely relevant. He went on to justify religious coercion with a thoroughness and coherence which is quite as much part of his character as is his candour: and so Augustine has appeared to generations of religious liberals as ‘le prince et patriarche des persécuteurs’
The Elections under Augustus
Authors: Jones A. H. M.
Published: May 2006

The Tabula Hebana already has a bibliography more than six pages long, in which figure the names of most of the eminent scholars of Europe. It may seem, therefore, both superfluous and presumptuous to add to it. But very few of the studies hitherto produced have attempted to deal with the political implications of the document, and of these few only one, Professor Tibiletti's monograph, Principe e magistrati repubblicani, has tackled them seriously. As will appear, I owe much to Professor Tibiletti's acute analysis of the procedure laid down in the Tabula, but as I differ profoundly on several points from his interpretation of the political background, I have thought it worth while to propound my views.

It is almost accepted doctrine that Augustus throughout his reign systematically gerrymandered the elections, those at any rate for the higher offices, especially the consulate. What I may call the prosopographical school of historians, in particular, assume that the consuls were de facto the nominees of Augustus, and regard the consular fasti as a barometer of his personal policy or that of the narrow group which controlled affairs. I would challenge this view. The liberty of the elections was, I would agree, to some extent limited by the predominant influence of the Princeps, but the evidence, I maintain, strongly suggests that genuine electoral contests continued, not only for the lower offices, but for the praetorship and the consulate, with which alone the Tabula Hebana is concerned.
Diocletian's Price-Edict at Ptolemais (Cyrenaica)
Authors: Caputo Giacomo , Goodchild Richard
Published: May 2006

Introduction.—The systematic exploration of Ptolemais (modern Tolmeita), in Cyrenaica, began in 1935 under the auspices of the Italian Government, and under the direction of the first-named writer. The general programme of excavation took into consideration not only the important Hellenistic period, which gave the city its name and saw its first development as an autonomous trading-centre, but also the late-Roman age when, upon Diocletian's reforms, Ptolemais became capital of the new province of Libya Pentapolis and a Metropolitan See, later occupied by Bishop Synesius.

As one of several starting-points for the study of this later period, there was selected the area first noted by the Beecheys as containing ‘heaps of columns’, which later yielded the monumental inscriptions of Valentinian, Arcadius, and Honorius, published by Oliverio. Here excavation soon brought to light a decumanus, running from the major cardo on the west towards the great Byzantine fortress on the east. Architectural and other discoveries made in 1935–36 justified the provisional title ‘Monumental Street’ assigned to this ancient thoroughfare. In terms of the general town-plan, which is extremely regular, this street may be called ‘Decumanus II North’, since two rows of long rectangular insulae separate it from the Decumanus Maximus leading to the West Gate, still erect. The clearing of the Monumental Street and its frontages revealed the well-known Maenad reliefs, attributed to the sculptor Callimachus, a late-Roman triple Triumphal Arch, and fragments of monumental inscriptions similar in character to those previously published from the same area.
Some Flavian Connections
Authors: Townend Gavin
Published: May 2006

Before the accession of Vespasian it is rare to find anyone outside the imperial family holding the consulate more than once. From A.D. 70 onwards the pattern is established whereby prominent lieutenants of the emperor are distinguished in this way. Mucianus, of course, is outstanding: consul first c. 64, he appears in the Fasti again in 70 and 72, as a fitting honour for the architect of Flavian supremacy. The great general Plautius Silvanus, consul as long before as 45, is consul again in 74, on his return from governing Tarraconensis, a province which Vespasian evidently wished to render secure beyond doubt. In the inscription of Silvanus' career (ILS 986), Vespasian states his reasons, apparently based simply on a recognition of merit long unrewarded, rather than for services to the Flavian cause. A more obvious supporter is Q. Petillius Cerealis, consul in 70, probably after his departure to the Rhine, and again in 74, after settling the Batavian revolt and governing Britain: he had taken an active part in hostilities against the Vitellians, and was also connected to Vespasian by a propinqua affinitas (Tac., Hist. 111, 59). Eprius Marcellus, a less clearly military figure, but active on behalf of the Flavians, in opposition to the intransigent Helvidius Priscus, likewise goes straight to an important province, Asia (CIL X, 3853; XIV, 2612; P-W VI, 263–4; PIR E, 84), and returns to a second consulate in 74.
Propertius and the Unity of the Book
Authors: Hutchinson G. O.
Published: May 2006

How, in books of Roman poetry, are poems related to each other and to the book as a whole? The question is approached with divergent preconceptions. On the one hand, many assume that the design of a book will be symmetrical, and should be represented in a diagram. In such a scheme, every connection must be plausible—which is never the case; and it must be supposed that ancient readers were given to making diagrams, through which alone such symmetry can be perceived. It is also remarkable how seldom such schemes illuminate the most salient questions about the books. Thus in Book I of Propertius it is the last three poems whose presence most needs to be explained. Skutsch detaches them from his scheme and refers to them as a ‘coda or superstructure’.
Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King
Authors: Wallace-Hadrill Andrew
Published: May 2006

When the emperor Claudius decided, at the instigation of his freedman Pallas, to make a highly unconventional marriage with his niece, he manoeuvred the senate, through the agency of his staunch amicus Vitellius, into passing an ‘unsolicited’ request that he marry Agrippina. He declared that his hesitations would be overcome if the senate put pressure on him: who was he to resist the will of the community, being but a citizen like the rest? Some senators even rushed to the palace promising to compel him by brute force. The incident encapsulates an ambivalence in the emperor's role familiar to all readers of Tacitus. On the one hand the autocratic reality: a decision of high political moment (it was no surprise that Agrippina's son subsequently acceded to the throne) taken in the palace on the counsel of freedmen, potent and resented, involving a violation of the mos maiorum. On the other hand the elaborate and yet transparent republican façade: the senate decrees, the princeps submits to the will of the citizen body.
The Aphrodisias Copy of Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices
Authors: Erim K. T. , Reynolds Joyce , White K. D. , Charlesworth Dorothy
Published: May 2006

One group of fragments from the Aphrodisias copy of Diocletian's Edict on Maximum Prices has already been published in this Journal; and the discovery of some 150 new pieces in the Portico of Tiberius during the campaign of excavation in 1970 has also been announced; more in fact came to light in the same area in 1971 and 1972. Work has proceeded meanwhile on the assembly of what may be described as an enormous jig-saw puzzle in which many of the pieces are too heavy to move freely, and others too heavy to move at all without tackle. It will take some time to complete, but there seems a case for publishing now the somewhat idiosyncratic version of the imperial titles which headed the copy and one substantial section of the price list which it has been possible to recompose in large part. All the fragments used are stored in the Aphrodisias Depot.
Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations
Authors: Brunt P. A.
Published: May 2006

The work we call the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius was entitled in the lost manuscript that Xylander used for the first printed edition (1559) Μάρκου Ἀντωνίνου αὐτοκράτορος τῶν εἰς ἑαυτὸν βιβλίων. This title was apparently unknown to a Byzantine historian of the fourteenth century, and may rest merely on the impression the work made on one reader, who affixed it to his copy. But that impression was surely just; even Book I, of which more later, is an intimate document, and Books II to XII a kind of spiritual diary, which Marcus wrote in moments of leisure, probably with his own hand, just as he continued to the end of his life to send autograph letters to his friends (Dio lxxi, 36, 2), and on parchment books, to which he could most easily refer, like those used by Aelius Aristides (xlviii, 8 K) to record his dreams; such books, intended for his own eyes alone, need have had no title. If this view is correct, the Meditations provide evidence unique in antiquity and perhaps in any age for the inmost thoughts of a ruler. The most cursory perusal will indeed show that Marcus was mainly concerned with the divine order of the universe and with the place of man in that order; overt personal allusions are rare. Yet it would be strange if his reflections were not on closer inspection to reveal traces of his own personal experience. I shall argue later that the very frequency with which he recurs to certain topics indicates the preoccupations of the ruler and has historical implications that have not been recognized, even by those who see the work as a spiritual diary and not in any sense as a philosophical treatise. But since that interpretation has not gone without challenge or modification, more must be said to justify it. I shall first discuss Books II to XII and then Book I.
TheLibellusProcedure and the Severan Papyri
Authors: Williams Wynne
Published: May 2006

When Saint Chrysostom's Prayer asks that the petitions of the Lord's servants be fulfilled as may be most expedient for them, it expresses what, in traditional autocracies, was expected of every ‘good king’ by his subjects. St. Louis, the model of a medieval king, would go regularly with his courtiers to the Bois de Vincennes, there to hear his subjects' petitions, seated under an oak. Dr. Millar has pointed out that Roman emperors were expected to be accessible to their subjects, especially those of humble station, in much the same way. The evidence shows that much of the emperors' time was taken up with answering petitions (in the form oflibelli) from private individuals or from groups of humbler people, and that it was only ‘bad’, lazy emperors who neglected this task. Not only was there a secretarial department for handling petitions, as distinct from epistles, but its head, thea libellis, was, according to Seneca, deluged with work. Literary sources, however, tell us little or nothing of value about the actual methods of accepting and handling petitions. For information on such topics we have to turn to the surviving texts of the ‘subscripts’ (subscripttones), the imperial replies to petitions (very few actual petitions survive). By far the largest number of these from the period of the Principate is to be found in the Code of Justinian, and they are mainly the work of the Severan and later third century emperors. In the process of transmission many of these texts have been abbreviated, and the formal elements have been omitted or garbled as a result, and it is from these formal elements that most can be learned about the procedures for handling petitions. One is therefore thrown back on the epigraphic and papyrus texts, in which these formal elements are often preserved.
Puteoli in the Second Century of the Roman Empire: a Social and Economic Study
Authors: D'Arms J. H.
Published: May 2006

τὰ γὰρ τὸ πάλαι (sc. ἄστεα) μεγάλα ἦν, τὰ πολλὰ σμικρὰ αὐτῶν γέγονε. The period of high prosperity in Roman Puteoli extended from the late Republic until the early years of the second century A.D., after which economic primacy in Italy passed from the great port city on the Bay of Naples to Ostia at the Tiber's mouth. Or so, at any rate, it is now commonly believed: Charles Dubois was the first scholar to develop the thesis that Puteoli declined in the second century, and his arguments have been accepted, with modifications, both by economic and social historians and in most recent investigations of the two Roman cities. But inevitably, given the nature of our sources, there are elements of subjectivity in the criteria used to measure historical change; ‘decline’, ‘prosperity’ and ‘growth’ are relative, and therefore often ambiguous, terms, particularly when applied to pre-industrial cities and towns. In this article I hope to modify the prevailing opinion by a closer scrutiny of the evidence for social and economic conditions in second-century Puteoli. In part one the various arguments for a decline are critically reviewed; parts two and three are attempts to exploit a substantial body of local evidence, which is largely inscriptional, to shed light on the nature of Puteolan society and on the economic conditions prevalent in the city; the results of the study are set forth in a brief conclusion.
Emperors at Work
Authors: Millar Fergus
Published: May 2006

One of the most revealing single items of evidence on the political character of the Empire is an anecdote told by Dio about Hadrian; a woman approached the Emperor on a journey and demanded his attention; Hadrian said he had no time and moved on—καὶ μὴ βασίλευε shouted the woman after him, ‘then stop being Emperor’. The point is clear; the ideology—and the practice—of the Empire was that the Emperor was personally accessible to his subjects in a way which now seems incredible, and which most books on the Empire tend to ignore, or regard as trivial. One may recall, for instance, Maecenas struggling to get through the crowd surrounding Augustus as he gave judgement, the advocati trying to hold Claudius by physical force on the tribunal to hear their pleas, or the story of how a muleteer of Vespasian was bribed to stop and shoe a mule, giving time for a litigator to approach.
The Chronology of Polybius' Histories, Books I and II
Authors: Errington R. M.
Published: May 2006

Two important recent studies have independently tried to show that Polybius was consistent in his use of accurate Olympiad chronology in his introductory books I and II. Werner uses his demonstration as a means to his reconstruction of the early years of the Roman Republic, Pédech uses his as part of his attempt to show that Polybius, throughout the whole of his work, consistently used accurate Olympiad dating. As the arguments of each are independent and have a different ultimate purpose, it will eventually be necessary to discuss each separately. But before starting the discussion it is important to make the purpose of this article clear. The view under discussion seems to me to be fundamentally misconceived and the arguments used to support it either inconclusive or erroneous. Whatever the case may be elsewhere in his work, I can find no indication that Polybius, in his two introductory books,consistentlyused any system of chronology apart from that which he was able to find in his various sources. The few Olympiad dates which he does give refer without exception to the beginning or end of series of events, and are given in the form of synchronisms as an attempt to make his terminal points fixed and comprehensible to his readers.
Free Labour and Public Works at Rome
Authors: Brunt P. A.
Published: May 2006

Some years ago I maintained that the common people in the city of Rome had to earn much of their living in casual employment, partly for instance in the unloading and porterage of goods that arrived by sea, partly in the building trade. This hypothesis cannot be established by the accumulation of literary or epigraphic testimony, nor from archaeological material, though I shall argue later that none the less it must be accepted; however, I did adduce two texts which, I thought, did not so much confirm as illustrate the use of free labourers in building. Professor Lionel Casson, who seems to disbelieve the hypothesis altogether, has recently shown that my inference from one of these texts (Cicero, ad Atticum XIV, 3, 1) was novel and somewhat arbitrary; though I do not concede that it was necessarily incorrect, I therefore withdraw it from the debate. I might of course have cited certain other texts considered below (n. 89); there remains in any case, however, the famous passage in Suetonius, of which I took a conventional view and of which he now proposes a quite new interpretation. This seems to me impossible. Let us start by examining it, before coming to more general considerations.
Church and State in the Notitia Galliarum
Authors: Harries Jill
Published: May 2006

Lists of provinces and cities of the Roman Empire were compiled and used for administrative or juridical purposes from as early as the time of Augustus, whose survey of Italy and the provinces formed the basis of the Elder Pliny's description of the Empire. The late Roman period is especially rich in such survivals, the proliferation of which can be ascribed to two tendencies prevalent in the fourth century. The first was the increasing bureaucratization of the Empire, reflected in the most famous and comprehensive of all official lists, the Notitia Dignitatum. The second was the urge to store information on a wide variety of topics in an economical and accessible form. Many lists, which may originally have had an official purpose, survive in literary forms alien to their inception, and which are the work of private individuals.
Amicitia and the Profession of Poetry in Early Imperial Rome
Authors: White Peter
Published: May 2006

This paper deals with the relationship between Latin poets and their wealthy friends at Rome, and it has a mildly polemical aim. I will begin by noticing some embarrassments which arise when one approaches the subject in the light of conceptions like ‘patronage’ and ‘patron’. Then I will show that poets and their great friends conducted themselves according to a characteristically Roman code of manners, and will argue that this familiar code of amicitia fully explains the treatment of poets in Roman society. In part two I will describe the advantages—social visibility, literary backing, and material support—which poets sought by associating themselves with the life of the upper classes, and I will try to connect these objectives with the equestrian status which so many Roman poets seem to have held.
The Criminal Jurisdiction of Governors
Authors: Garnsey Peter
Published: May 2006

I will begin this investigation by summarising Mommsen's views on the powers of governors, as I understand them. According to Mommsen, the task of the Republican governor was to administer civil justice and to maintain the obedience of subjects and slaves. He was as little a criminal judge as the Roman praetor, whose title he originally bore. His capacity to employ coercitio against non-citizens (and citizens also, until the appeal laws and the Sempronian law were issued) was derived from his military imperium and was quite distinct from criminal jurisdiction. Criminal justice was dispensed for aliens by the local communities and for Roman citizens in the provinces by the courts in Rome.

With the Empire came two innovations (Mommsen thought). First, local autonomy was restricted. Subject cities lost to the governor their prerogative of imposing serious penalties; even Roman municipia surrendered much of their criminal jurisdiction. Secondly, military imperium, already checked by Republican laws (above), was further limited by the Augustan law on public violence. This development, implying in itself that the governor had become a fully-fledged criminal judge, ensured that capital jurisdiction over citizens was concentrated, as before, in Rome.