bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Epictetus and the Imperial Court
Authors: Millar Fergus
Published: May 2006

What we know of Roman political life under the early Empire we owe mostly to senatorial writers, and to an eques, Suetonius; a single Imperial freedman, Phlegon of Tralles, has left some scraps of information about the Court in his own time and before. It is therefore worth paying some attention when we have a lengthy text which reproduces the observations on human life and fortune of a man who was himself the slave of an Imperial freedman. Epictetus has been little used as a historical source; it is the aim of this paper to bring out both the extent and the value of his references to Roman society and politics in his own time.

Before we can assess the value of these references, we must examine both the experience on which they are based and the authenticity of the text in which they occur. Epictetus originated from Hierapolis in Phrygia; according to an inscription he was born a slave. Either by birth or sale, he belonged to Epaphroditus, the freedman and a libellis of Nero, who after Nero's death survived unharmed until relegated, and then (in 95) executed, by Domitian. Whether Epaphroditus remained a libellis under the Flavians is not clear, though the likelihood is that he did not. This view would be supported if we could be sure that it was the same Epaphroditus who encouraged Josephus in the writing of his Antiquitates, completed in 93–4.
The Republican Municipal Laws: Errors and Drafts
Authors: Frederiksen M. W.
Published: May 2006

Any knowledge of the municipal system evolved in Italy after the Social War must turn, however we might wish it otherwise, upon the four bronze inscriptions found respectively at Tarentum, Veleia, Ateste and Heraclea. They have been much discussed, and it may seem that there is nothing more useful to be said; but the present state of opinion leaves room for doubt. To Mommsen and scholars of his generation they were at least ingenuous documents, but poorly engraved and in places obscure and inexplicable. Even that was challenged by Gradenwitz, who in a remarkable series of articles turned upon them an eye sharpened in the pursuit of interpolation in legal texts, and declared that at least two—the Lex Rubria and the Tabula Heracleensis—were products of inept draftsmen who inserted glosses and interpolations in defiance of style and sense. A. von Premerstein went further; like the Spanish charter from Urso, the Heraclea inscription was an unfinished draft of Caesar's published, after his murder, by Antony with reckless additions of his own; and more recently, the same has been urged by G. Beseler, F. Schulz and others of the Lex Rubria. The internal problems of these inscriptions are thus met by questioning their evidential value, but this seems, like a conjuror's explanation, to raise deeper mysteries than it solves.
The Shrine of St. Peter and its Twelve Spiral Columns
Authors: Perkins J. B. Ward
Published: May 2006

Among the individual objects of antiquity that have been seen and copied by the artists of later generations, few have had a stranger history than the columns that once formed a screen in old St. Peter's, around the site of the tomb of the apostle. Their singular and distinctive form was in itself enough to attract attention; and the fact that, since the later Middle Ages, they were universally believed to have come from the Temple of Solomon, secured them an important place in the art and iconography of the Renaissance. Their character and early history, however, have never been adequately discussed; and now that the publication of a part of the results of the excavations undertaken since 1940 underneath St. Peter's has cleared up several important points that were previously obscure, the time seems to be ripe for such a discussion. It is the purpose of this article to try to determine their place in the history of classical art, and to say something of their significance in the history of the art of later times.
Tacitus and the Visurgis. A Gloss in the First Book of the Annals
Authors: Brink C. O.
Published: May 2006

In a paper on Justus Lipsius and the text of Tacitus's Annals, published in the last issue of this Journal, the present writer did not touch upon the difficult question of interpolations. It has been asserted that ‘there are not many glosses in Tacitus’. This can hardly hold for the Histories and Annals XI–XVI, that is, for the works contained in the Second Mediceus. In fact, the two codices unici differ in this as in other respects. As for the Med. no. II, that is, for Histories and Annals XI–XVI, I still feel convinced by W. Heraeus's and C. D. Fisher's arguments. Arguments are indeed hardly needed in a case like Hist. II, 98, where a snatch of verse has been thrust into the text, cutting one Tacitean word in two. There are not a few cases where interpolation of glosses can be proved, and the whole subject might usefully be gone over again in its own context.
Cicero's Cum Dignitate Otium: a Reconsideration
Authors: Wirszubski Ch.
Published: May 2006

In his political Apologia, the letter Ad Fam. 1, 9, addressed to Lentulus in the year 54 B.C., Cicero observed that, as he had repeatedly preached, the goal at which statesmen like himself and his correspondent ought to aim in the conduct of affairs of State was cum dignitate otium. The obvious example of this preaching is the well-known passage in the Pro Sestio, 96 ff., which is Cicero's fullest extant statement of cum dignitate otium as the aim and purpose of the Optimates. The political import of this statement is, for the modern student at any rate, somewhat vague, its vagueness being due to the variety of different meanings of which both dignitas and otium admit.
Latins and the Roman Citizenship in Roman Colonies: Livy, 34, 42, 5–6
Authors: Smith R. E.
Published: May 2006

The meaning and implication of this passage of Livy have been so generally misunderstood, that it is worth translating and explaining it; for its true meaning is important both in itself and, perhaps, for understanding one aspect of Roman colonial policy between 190 and 180 B.C.

The passage runs as follows: ‘nouum ius eo anno a Ferentinatibus tentatum, ut Latini qui in coloniam Romanam nomina dedissent ciues Romani essent. Puteoleos Salernumque et Buxentum ascripti coloni qui nomina dederant et cum ob id se pro ciuibus Romanis ferrent, senatus iudicauit non esse eos ciues Romanos.’
Rome and Macedon, 205–200 B.C.
Authors: Balsdon J. P. V. D.
Published: May 2006

This article has no more ambitious purpose than to sow doubt. As an inquiry into the policy of Rome in declaring war on Philip V in 200 B.C., it cannot pretend to be anything but superficial.

In England at least, studies of the question are based nowadays on the brilliant writings of M. Holleaux and the scholarly work of F. W. Walbank and A. H. McDonald, which in the main derives from Holleaux. Within thirty years or so what started as paradox has become respectable orthodoxy—which De Sanctis has resisted, but few others.
Vasa Murrina
Authors: Loewental A. I. , Harden D. B.
Published: May 2006

Vasa murrina are a type of costly vessel mentioned by various ancient authors of the last century B.C. and later. The best account of them is given by the elder Pliny, who had ample opportunity of seeing and using these vessels, though his description of them is difficult to reconcile with any known product, natural or artificial, of the ancient or modern world. References in other authorities, of whom the earliest is Propertius, add little to the information given by Pliny.
Annius Plocamus: Two Inscriptions from the Berenice Road
Authors: Meredith David
Published: May 2006

Without attempting a serious commentary at this stage, I present two short inscriptions in Greek and Latin, from the Eastern Desert of Egypt. They are from the 1936–7 field notes of the late Dr. H. A. Winkler, author ofRock Drawings of Southern Upper Egypt(1938–9), and are published by courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society, the Latin on fig. 14, the Greek from Winkler's facsimile which is clear and complete.

These two inscriptions come from a typical Eastern Desert cave-shelter, in the west rock-face of Wādi Menīh at the point in the Berenice road where it is crossed by the line of latitude 25° 37′ N.
Roman History, 65–50 B.C.: Five Problems
Authors: Balsdon J. P. V. D.
Published: May 2006

Under the late Republic (after Sulla) a province was normally administered by a proconsul (an ex-consul or an ex-praetor) and, in subordination to him, a quaestor. If a quaestor died in the province or left it before the arrival of a replacement, the proconsul might appoint one of his legati or perhaps even one of his cohors praetoria to be acting-quaestor—‘pro quaestore’, ‘ἀντιταμίας’; and this was strictly the title also of a quaestor who remained at his duty in the province after the year of his magistracy had come to an end (either because his tenure had been extended by the government at Rome, or because he was awaiting the arrival of a successor).
Recent Archaeological Discoveries in Rome and Italy
Authors: Lugli G.
Published: May 2006

In JRS vol. XXIX (1939), 45 ff., Mr. C. A. Ralegh Radford reported on a considerable number of the discoveries of recent years in Rome and Italy. To these have been added others made in the period from 1938 to 1945. They are in part already published, but others still await publication. I wish to give a complete picture of all these in a rapid and general survey, to show how greatly our knowledge of Roman archaeology has been increased in the last few years.

Among the discoveries in Rome mentioned by Mr. Radford, there are several which deserve a fuller description in the light of-later information provided by the excavators, namely the Domus Augustana on the Palatine, and the reliefs of the Cancelleria, whereas the accounts of the temples in the Largo Argentina (p. 46), the Mausoleum of Augustus (p. 47), the Ara Pacis (p. 48), the theatre of Marcellus (p. 49), the Barberini Mithraeum (p. 50), the Senate House (Curia) (p. 51), and the Castra Severiana of the Equites Singulares (p. 52), can be considered complete.
The Terminal Date of Caesar's Gallic Proconsulate
Authors: Elton G. R.
Published: May 2006

The question of the date on which Caesar's command in Gaul expired has recently been reopened by Mr. Stevens (below, n. 10). His bold and original theories more than justify yet another contribution to the interminable controversy, but they also excuse this attempt at refuting them. This paper is concerned with re-establishing the view, which seemed so obvious to Mommsen and Hardy, that Caesar's governorship was to end on 28th February, 49 B.C. Since the last defence of this theory appeared (n. 6), scholars have more and more inclined to the view that the terminal date was in 50, and it will therefore be my task first to discuss in turn their refutations of the ‘traditional’ view. I propose to deal last with Mr. Stevens's theories, and then to suggest a new explanation of the important words of Caelius inFam. 8, 8, 9, since I find it hard to accept either Mommsen'ssanctioor Stevens's ‘appointment-period’. It is hoped that some light may be thrown on the events of 55–50 B.C., and on the motives and actions of the principal actors. I do not, of course, pretend to have found the final answer to the puzzle, but perhaps some useful points may be established.
The Peregrine Praetor
Authors: Daube David
Published: May 2006

It is universally assumed that the peregrine praetor from the outset had jurisdiction (a) in lawsuits between peregrines, and (b) in lawsuits between a peregrine and a citizen. This view is indeed supported by Pomponius, provided we regard him as saying that the second praetor was called peregrine ‘because his jurisdiction was mostly between peregrines’, i.e. mostly in case (a). On this rendering the author would imply that the praetor in question always had jurisdiction in case (b) as well. However, for one thing, the words ‘quod plerumque inter peregrinos ius dicebat’ conceivably mean:‘because his main business was jurisdiction between peregrines ‘—sc, though he was often used by the Senate for entirely different purposes.
A Roman Decorated Helmet and other Objects from Norfolk
Authors: Toynbee J. M. C. , Clarke R. R.
Published: May 2006

On 15th August 1947 there came to light, during dredging operations in the River Wensum at Worthing, 15 miles N.W. of Norwich (fig. 2), a Roman decorated helmet, which is possibly the first military object of the Roman period to be found in Norfolk. The site and circumstances of the discovery, and the other finds made nearby, are described below (p. 26). To the fact of its having been sealed in a bed of peat under several feet of shingle we doubtless owe the remarkably fine state of preservation in which the helmet has survived.

Dr. A. A. Moss, who analysed the helmet in the Research Laboratory of the British Museum, has pronounced it to be of brass low in zinc content and corresponding approximately in composition to the alloy now called gilding metal. It weighs 1 lb. 5⅝ oz. and is 25·1 cm. in height, including the crest, 24·2 cm. in length, from back to front, and 20·2 cm. in its greatest width. The average thickness of the metal is from 1 to 1·5 mm.
Some Observations on the ‘Origo Gentis Romanae’
Authors: Momigliano Arnaldo
Published: May 2006

I. Two manuscripts of the fifteenth century—Cod. Bruxellensis (Pulmanni), bibl. regia 9755–63 and Cod. Oxoniensis (Bodl. Canon. Class. Lat. 131)—have preserved for us a ‘corpus’ including three pamphlets: (1) the so-called ‘Origo gentis romanae’ (a title, we shall see, not supported by evidence); (2) the ‘Liber de viris illustribus urbis Romae’; (3) ‘Aurelii Victoris Historiae abbreviatae,’ more commonly known as ‘Caesares’. The ‘Liber de viris illustribus’ has also been transmitted to us in a different tradition which omits the last nine lives (Caesar, Octavianus, Cato, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Sextus Pompeius, Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra) and differs in other respects as well.
Piso Frugi and Crassus Frugi
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: May 2006

Civil wars are not always murderous to the upper order in society. Many of thenobilesmanaged to weather the storm and prosper thereafter in the years of peace, happily exploiting the new dispensation. Some had ancient pedigree and nothing else to commend them, but the stock of the dynasts Sulla, Pompeius, and Crassus enjoyed high prestige and carried dynastic pretensions: peers and rivals to the Caesars of the Julian and Claudian line. Their alliances and vicissitudes are a large chapter in the annals of the first imperial epoch. Discreet, obscured or held down by Caesar Augustus, the descendants of Pompeius Magnus begin to come up again in the last decade of the reign (after A.D. 4), and enjoy favour with his successor.
Pelagius and the End of Roman Rule in Britain
Authors: Myres J. N. L.
Published: May 2006

The circumstances in which Roman rule over Britain came to an end have always been something of a puzzle to historians. There is of course no contemporary record giving a continuous narrative of the relevant events, and the few brief notices in ancient sources about British affairs in the first two decades of the fifth century come from writers of various dates and degrees of authority, none of whom seems to have had any first-hand knowledge of what took place. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that what they say should be subject to wide differences of interpretation, differences all the wider because some of the interpreters have been viewing the events from the standpoint of later English history and without an intimate knowledge of the Roman Empire in the fifth century. And it must further be admitted that, among scholars familiar with the conditions of this age, there has been something of a gap between those concerned with matters of history, whether political, administrative, social, or economic, and those concerned with thought and opinion, and primarily, of course, as theologians with the development of Christian doctrine in the great age of Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. It is easy for theologians to forget that the immense creative achievement of these thinkers was carried out at a time when the foundations of the society they knew were collapsing under external pressure and internal strain, and it is easy for historians to forget that a society riddled with corruption and precariously held together by the barbarous methods of a repressive tyranny was yet the seed-bed for an extraordinary flowering of the human spirit. It is difficult for either to remember that the forms which that flowering took and the imagery within which it found expression inevitably reflected the social and political conditions, the legal and judicial practices, familiar to those who gave it birth.
Procopiana
Authors: Jenkins Claude
Published: May 2006

“What great profit and delight is like to arise to the Reader in perusing this History, let himself imagine, when he shal meet here with Prudent Letters & Dispatches from Princes and Generals; Wise Laws and Provisions for the publique Safety; Politick Leagues and Confederacies to secure Interests; Elegant Speeches and Exhortations to animate the Souldier; Notable Examples of Vices and Virtues; Inevitable Stratagems to circumvent Adversaries; Lively Descriptions of the Scituations of Countries, Cities, Buildings, Hils, Seas, Rivers, and Fountains; Various and Interchangeable Turns and Inconstancies of Wars and Fortunes; in a word, all the Treasury and Wardrobe that can inrich and beautifie a History.”

Such is the preface to Holcroft' version of Procopius' History (1653), in which he himself enumerates ‘Deinotes’, ‘Mythopoiia’, ‘Aletheia’, as proper characteristics of orator, poet, and historian respectively, announcing the intention of concealing nothing of delinquencies even of closest friends.
The Nativity Drama of the Byzantine Church
Authors: Wellesz Egon
Published: May 2006

The service books of the Eastern Church contain a large number of monostrophic hymns, or Troparia, which originally followed a verse (στἰχος) from a psalm or canticle, and were therefore also called Stichera. As hymnography developed, their connexion with the content of the Stichos was loosened, and their number increased. The term ‘Sticheron’ was, however, maintained for this new type of Troparion, which was inserted into the Office so freely that it is not surprising to find a great authority on Eastern liturgy speaking of ‘the ivy of poetry’ which had strangled psalmody.

Investigations into the Stichera have not been carried out on a large scale by students of Byzantine hymnography, because they were mainly interested in the study of the two major forms, Kontakion and Kanon. These two, indeed, offered so many problems, both of structure and content, that the study of the vast number of short hymns was set aside. The prevailing opinion that the Stichera were of little or no poetic value contributed to this neglect; and, in fact, many of them are nothing more than slight variations of the text of the preceding verse, and it would be a long task to sort out those Stichera which have literary merit.
The Aerarium and the Fiscus
Authors: Jones A. H. M.
Published: May 2006

Early imperial arrangements must have been to some extent based on late Republican practice. I will therefore first set out the financial machinery of the last half-century of the Republic, as revealed in Cicero's speeches and correspondence, supplemented by secondary sources. The Aerarium at Rome was the central repository of the moneys of the Roman People. It was managed by the two urban quaestors, or rather by a body of scribae quaestorii under their nominal direction. Normally the Polybian rule that no payment might be made save under the authority of a senatusconsultum seems to have held: it does not appear that the old right of a consul to draw of his own initiative still survived. Magistrates proceeding to a province were voted a block grant to cover their estimated expenses: ornare provinciam is the technical term. On leaving his province a magistrate was obliged to account to the Aerarium for this sum. These accounts seem to have been somewhat summary. Those which Verres sent in on laying down his quaestorship were no doubt unusually brief, but if it was possible for a proconsul to distribute the unexpended balance of his grant among his staff—and Cicero's refusal to follow this practice was resented by his subordinates —auditing cannot have been very exact.
A Fragment of a Diploma from Cirencester
Authors: Atkinson Donald
Published: May 2006

Among a group of ten mirrors B2864 found together at the corner of Church Street and Watermoor Road in 1926 is a bronze disc 0·053 m. in diameter (fig. 7). During recent treatment of these at the Ashmolean Museum, traces of letters became visible on both sides of it. From these it was evident that the disc had been cut from the second of the two bronze plates forming the certificate of honourable discharge and grant of privileges to a time-expired soldier of an auxiliary regiment. It may be recalled that these tabulae honestae missionis contained on the first of their four pages a memorandum repeating the certified copy of the decree, on the second and third pages this certified copy, ending with the name of the recipient and on the fourth page the names and seals of the seven witnesses which made the document a legal instrument.
A New Roman Mosaic Pavement Found in Dorset
Authors: Toynbee J. M. C.
Published: May 2006

The Roman polychrome mosaic, which forms the subject of this paper, came to light on 12th September, 1963, at the village of Hinton St. Mary in northern Dorset, 1½ miles north of Sturminster Newton. The field in which the pavement lies is the property of Mr. W. J. White, general engineer, blacksmith, and welder, who recognized as Roman the tesserae revealed by the postholes that were being dug for the foundations of a building near his forge. Mr. White immediately reported the discovery to the authorities of the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, and invited them to direct the clearance of the whole mosaic with the help of a group of local archaeologists and amateurs. Mr. R. A. H. Farrar, of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), also took part in the work of clearance; and the vertical photographs reproduced here, of which Mr. White holds the copyright, were taken at his request by the Commission with the aid of an 18-foot gantry.
Vesper Adest (Catullus LXII)
Authors: Fraenkel Eduard
Published: May 2006

Vesper adest: iuvenes, consurgite: Vesper Olympo

expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit.

surgere iam tempus, iam pinguis linquere mensas:

iam veniet virgo, iam dicetur hymenaeus.

Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee !

Cernitis, innuptae, iuvenes ? consurgite contra:

nimirum Oetaeos ostendit noctifer ignes.

sic certest; viden ut perniciter exiluere ?

non temere exiluere: canent quod vincere par est.

Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee !

Non facilis nobis, aequales, palma parata est:

adspicite, innuptae secum ut meditata requirunt.

non frustra meditantur: habent memorabile quod sit.

nee mirum, penitus quae tota mente laborant.

nos alio mentes, alio divisimus aures;

iure igitur vincemur: amat victoria curam.

quare nunc animos saltem eonvertite vestros:

dicere iam incipient, iam respondere decebit.

Hymen o Hymenaee, Hymen ades o Hymenaee !
Air Reconnaissance in Britain, 1951–5
Authors: St. Joseph J. K.
Published: May 2006

Accounts of air reconnaissance in Britain have already been printed in this Journal (XLI, for north Britain; XLIII, for south Britain): the present paper records recent discoveries, bringing the previous records up to date.

Of the last five summers only in 1955 was there a marked drought favourable to the development of crop marks; but it has been possible to observe different parts of the country under a wide variety of conditions. These have allowed advantage to be taken of different combinations of weather, crops, and soil, so that a buried site invisible one year might be seen in another. Moreover, opportunities for reconnaissance in March and April have meant that large areas could be observed soon after spring ploughing, when soil-patterns in bare fields often reveal disturbances in the ground. These conditions have been particularly valuable for studying Celtic field-systems on the chalk downs and traces of ancient agriculture in the Fenland.

In the north, reconnaissance has revealed an interesting new group of military works, apparently of early date, at Troutbeck on the margin of the Lake District, besides yielding much fresh information at sites already known. This is particularly true of the extensive Roman sites in Scotland that often now lie within several different fields, not all of which are under suitable crops in any one year. Two forts, two signal-stations, and some sixteen temporary camps may be added to the list of discoveries given in JRS XLI.
Thessaly and the Grain Supply of Rome during the Second Century B.C.
Authors: Garnsey Peter , Gallant Tom , Rathbone Dominic
Published: May 2006

In a speech attributed by Xenophon to Jason of Pherae, Thessaly is described as an exporter of grain, in contrast with Athens which was obliged to supplement its own foodstocks with the surplus of others. The ancient sources record the dispatch of Thessalian grain to a few Greek cities; but Thessaly must have been a resource for other Greeks in peacetime, as it was in wartime to Roman armies operating in the region in the middle and late Republic. A newly published inscription from Larisa indicates that on one occasion in the middle of the second century B.C. the Thessalians actually provided grain for the Roman populace itself, in response to a request delivered to the Thessalian koinon by a Roman magistrate. Our main objective in this paper is to place this inscription in a suitable historical context and explain its significance for Rome and Thessaly.
Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves
Authors: Saller Richard P. , Shaw Brent D.
Published: May 2006

Tombstones furnish perhaps three-quarters of the entire corpus of Latin inscriptions. Many of these give no more than the name of the deceased, but tens of thousands also offer the historian a few additional details, such as age at death and the name and relationship of the commemorator. Previous studies of the tombstones en masse have focused on nomenclature and age at death. In this study we wish to ask what conclusions can be drawn from the data about the commemorator's relationship with the deceased.
Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire: New Evidence from Aphrodisias
Authors: Roueché Charlotte
Published: May 2006

This article has been engendered by yet another important discovery made during the current excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria, of a unique series of acclamatory texts in honour of a local benefactor, Albinus. The texts were inscribed, probably in the first half of the sixth century, on the twenty columns of the west portico of the Agora, nineteen of which survive. They provide relatively little information either about Albinus or about the history of Aphrodisias; but they are of outstanding interest as the fullest series of inscribed acclamations which has yet been identified anywhere. The purpose of this article is to consider the status and function of acclamations in late Roman society, and their relationship to earlier practice, in order to assess the full significance of the texts presented here.
Trajan's Canal at the Iron Gate
Authors: Šašel Jaroslav
Published: May 2006

‘Magnum est stare in Danubii ripa’, wrote Pliny in his panegyric to Trajan. The significance of his words can only be appreciated by the sight of the Danube's gorges: Struden, Wachau, Devin, Esztergom, Iron Gate, either fairytale-like in their beauty or gloomy and menacing, through which the movements of European prehistory forced their way. The prestige of the great river can be felt in Augustus's proud words protulique fines Illyrici ad r[ip]am fluminis Dan [u]i.

Trajan spent the winter of 98 and the whole of 99 with the Moesian armies. He paid special attention to military discipline; together with the army leaders he worked out careful plans for a preventive attack on the Dacians. Some of the measures he undertook, then and later, are in process of being recovered. Relevant items are: 1: The construction of the famous fortified bridge at the old fording-point at Kostol. 2: the mobilization on a war-footing of the military river flotilla. 3: the reorganization of military bases on the northern bank of the Danube. 4: the creation of an intelligence-espionage service. 5: co-ordination and organization of the troops to be used in the assault. 6: a large-scale building programme to provide accommodation for the invasion force and to increase the capacity of ports in the winter months. 7: the modernization and reconstruction of the towing-path along the river, especially the rock-cut sections in defiles. 8: the engineering of navigable canals beside sections of the river with rapids.
The Plancii in Asia Minor
Authors: Mitchell Stephen
Published: May 2006

In elucidating the history of Asia Minor it has always been profitable to examine the origin, background and influence of the wealthy families of the Greco-Roman cities, and the connections they established between themselves. As more information comes to light it becomes increasingly obvious how complex the relationships between the various families were, and how far the influence of any one family could extend. From this evidence we are beginning to be able to form a convincing, if sketchy, picture of a power structure, based on a close-knit network of dominant families, which produced the ruling élite of the cities, the dynasts of the Hellenistic period, and the senators and consuls who made careers for themselves in the eastern provinces and maintained their family traditions of power and influence within the framework of the Roman Empire. Fresh evidence now allows us to weave more threads into the pattern, linking two important families of the city of Perge on the south coast, one certainly of Italian descent, with the cities and families of the vast Anatolian hinterland, and suggesting an important source for the wealth which enabled members of these families to rise from a mercantile background to become senators in the first and second centuries A.D.
Genre and Real Life in Latin Poetry
Authors: Griffin Jasper
Published: May 2006

As long as poetry has existed, men. have wondered and argued about its relationship to reality. The Muses, meeting Hesiod beneath Mount Helicon, told him that they knew how to tell many lies that sounded like truth; Solon and Pindar echo the chastening refrain, and Plato and Aristotle are concerned to find new answers to the hoary problem. Poetry is in fact a very slippery stuff, which seems to turn into something else as we try to comprehend it; like Proteus, it can turn under our grasp into a raging fire—the revolutionary Marxist view, perhaps; or a wild beast—the Freudian id, as it might be; or, most commonly, into a stream of water, which flows away to nothing between our hands.
Caesar, Etruria and theDisciplina Etrusca
Authors: Rawson Elizabeth
Published: May 2006

In investigating the workings of the Romanclientelasystem in the first century B.C., we are accustomed to finding a complex pattern. Within a province or other area, different cities or even different families inside a city may look to different Roman magnates, or even have a plethora of patrons, who can be played off against each other. For example, Sicily in Cicero's time was particularly richly provided: various branches of the patrician and plebeian Claudii, notably the Marcelli, also Pompey, Cicero himself, and others. After the Mithridatic War, as I have tried to argue, Pompey's view of his influence and responsibilities in the East clashed head-on with that of the patrician Claudii, who had long-established interests in many parts of the area. A great dynast might indeed control a city, though he would probably have some opponents in it; given inter-city and other rivalries he would find it hard to control a whole province, though his influence might be strong and widespread within it.
The Marriage of Soldiers under the Empire
Authors: Campbell Brian
Published: May 2006

Roman soldiers were forbidden by law to contract a marriage during their period of military service, at least until the time of Septimius Severus. This restriction seems anomalous, especially in the context of the legal privileges conferred on soldiers, in the making of a will, in the relative freedom from some of the restraints of patria potestas, and in court. Some of these privileges were in part an attempt to protect soldiers against and compensate for the rigours of military life with its enforced lengthy absences from home, often in remote areas of the empire. And so it is strange that a soldier was prevented from obtaining the solace of normal family life through wedlock, by a law that was virtually unenforcible and which caused the authorities trouble from the start. The ways in which emperors reacted to the marriage ban and the uncertainty created by it, and sought to ameliorate its consequences, provide a useful study of the working of imperial ‘government’—how and why decisions were taken on a matter that was perhaps sensitive for the emperor's relationship with the army. Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate that the marriage prohibition was eventually lifted by Septimius Severus, and that this was an important part of the improvement in the material position of the army in the reign of this emperor—who used his troops to fight his way to power and allegedly proclaimed to his sons on his deathbed, ‘Enrich the soldiers and scorn the rest’. In what follows, section I considers the problems suffered by soldiers as a result of the marriage ban, and section II the attempts made before the reign of Severus to mitigate these. Section III examines the evidence of the literary sources for the removal of the ban by Severus, section IV the evidence of legal sources, and section V the evidence of military diplomata for the position of soldiers after Severus. Section VI provides a summary of the conclusions and their importance.
Development of Language and Style in the Annals of Tacitus
Authors: Goodyear F. R. D.
Published: May 2006

The most fascinating aspect of the language and style of Tacitus is that they may be seen in evolution. If we set aside the Dialogus as a special case because of its subject matter, for which a Ciceronian style was virtually obligatory, we may follow Tacitus' style through a continuous process of development from the two monographs to the Histories and then to its culmination in his most mature work, the Annals—though to use this word ‘culmination’ may be to prejudge the issue. Of course stylistic change and development may be found in the works of many writers, Cicero and Propertius for instance, but in few writers if any is the development so clear to see, yet also so complicated, as in Tacitus.

E. Wölfflin, who began the systematic investigation of Tacitus' language and style, maintained that there is in Tacitus' writings a persistent and continuous movement away from normal, hackneyed and colourless expressions towards novelty, colour and dignity, towards what the Greeks called σενότης—or, as some have chosen to put the matter, Tacitus in diverging more and more from the ‘normal’ became progressively more ‘Tacitean’.
Christianity and Local Culture in Late Roman Africa
Authors: Brown Peter
Published: May 2006

The task of this paper is, in part, an invidious one: for I shall have to begin by looking a gift-horse in the mouth. I shall have to question a group of opinions that link the rise of Christianity in Africa with a resurgence of the local culture of the area. This resurgence, it is said, explains not only the rapid collapse of Roman rule at the time of the Vandal invasion of 429, but the disappearance of Roman civilisation and of Christianity itself in Africa in the early Middle Ages.

Discussion of this suggestion, however, tends to be jeopardised from the start because claims for the honour of being the resurgent local culture of Late Roman Africa have been enthusiastically advanced on behalf of two distinct and mutually-exclusive local cultures, associated with the two native languages—with Punic, on the one hand, and with ‘Libyan’ (which is often described by a convenient if perilous anachronism as ‘Berber’), on the other. What is more, these claims have been advanced by two equally distinct groups of scholars, handling different evidence. The evidence for the survival of Punic—or, so as not to prejudge the issue, of a lingua Punica—is literary: Augustine of Hippo and Procopius are the sole authorities for the period. The evidence for ‘Berber,’ by contrast, is largely confined to the interpretation of Libyan inscriptions and of traces of unchanging habits of worship and craftsmanship allegedly betrayed in the remains of the Christian Churches of Central Numidia.
The Roman Military Occupation of North-West Spain
Authors: Jones R. F. J.
Published: May 2006

The north-west corner of Spain was long neglected by Roman archaeologists, who have tended to concentrate on the more spectacular remains to be found in the south and east. However, recently more attention has been directed there by workers of several nationalities, who have now produced a quite extensive literature on the gold mines, as well as on wider aspects, chiefly in connection with the activities of the legion VII Gemina. Yet there has been little attempt in all this to examine why a substantial military force was maintained in the region for so long. This paper aims to review that problem to about the end of the second century A.D. The evidence available is almost entirely epigraphic, chiefly consisting of epitaphs and religious dedications. Building inscriptions are scarce. For convenience all the epigraphic material from the north-west of Spain that is relevant to the disposition of the army is collected in the appendix, and in the main text reference will be made to the numbers given there. In addition a few historical passages are of importance, but the archaeological site evidence is very slight. The nature of the evidence is such that most attention must be devoted to the units attested in the region and their deployment, with little to be said about their actual bases. Previous work on the subject has been dominated by the late Antonio García y Bellido in several masterly papers. However it has tended to concentrate more on the history of the units themselves than on questions of topography and the reasons behind their presence.
The Rental Market in Early Imperial Rome
Authors: Frier Bruce Woodward
Published: May 2006

In Rome of the early empire, most of the residential population lived in rented apartments (cenacula). Only the privileged few could afford single-family dwellings; the character of this minority is vividly illustrated in Juvenal's famous line on Nero's persecutions: ‘rarus venit in cenacula miles’ (10. 18). Almost all of the non-privileged many, if they could afford accommodation, were obliged to dwell in buildings that they did not own, in exchange for rent that our sources agree was exorbitantly high.

However, not everyone in the tenant class was on equal footing, despite recent suggestions to the contrary. The range of accommodation regularly available to the urban masses was, as will be shown below, quite varied, though this range was often effectively limited by the wealth and other social characteristics of the prospective tenant. The rental market of Rome can be reconstructed from three kinds of sources: literary references to rental; the types of rental situations described in legal texts; and the archaeological remains of apartment houses, particularly those in Ostia. These sources converge to suggest a model of the urban rental market that is rather more complex than the one which has appeared in recent scholarship. It must be stressed, however, that the new model suggested below is still just a model, and that variations from it must have been numerous. For instance, no ancient authority conclusively demonstrates that a lease like the typical modern American lease (an apartment taken on a year term for exclusive occupancy of the tenant and his dependants, with monthly payment in advance and many services supplied by the landlord) was legally impossible in antiquity, or was not in fact developed; but the Roman leases actually described in the extant sources are markedly different, and the ruins of Ostian apartment houses seem to accord well with the leases to which these sources refer.
The Family and Early Career of T. Quinctius Flamininus
Authors: Badian E.
Published: May 2006

There is hardly a more important character in the history of the Roman Republic than the young Patrician who first laid down the lines of Roman policy in Greece and the East—and hardly a more mysterious one, despite frequent discussion. It is only the first and perhaps the most puzzling of the problems concerning him that will occupy us here; but the very fact that it is the first gives it an importance quite independent of other considerations: we are not likely to solve the others as long as this one is ignored.

How did a young man of about twenty-nine come to be elected to a consulship and entrusted with a major war that had been going badly for Rome, after holding no office higher than the quaestorship—and holding even this lowly charge so inconspicuously that Livy does not even mention him in it? The very facts make it clear that we cannot give a certain answer: the evidence is not good enough.
Taxatio and Pollicitatio in Roman Africa
Authors: Garnsey Peter
Published: May 2006

Numerous inscriptions from different parts of the Empire, and particularly from North Africa, testify to the munificence of the urban aristocracy. By munificence I mean the spending of wealthy individuals on, for example, monuments or projects of construction of one sort or another for their cities, or handouts of money, food or other commodities to their fellow-citizens. The significance of munificence from an economic viewpoint can be readily appreciated: it would not be an exaggeration to say that the prosperity of the cities rested in large part on the generosity of their leading citizens. In this paper, however, I will be concerned with some of the political and institutional implications of munificence. If the cities were financially dependent on their aristocracies, then the possession of wealth and the willingness to spend would clearly hold the key to both the acquisition and the retention of power. At the same time, we might expect some form of public control to have been exerted over aristocratic spending. In this connection, it may be significant that much of the expenditure of which we have record was incurred by individuals when they assumed magistracies or priesthoods or entered the local council. When would the wealthy have more readily submitted to financial levies than in the context of election victories? On the other hand, would it have been necessary to exact contributions from successful politicians, who would perhaps have shown their gratitude—and self-esteem—without any prompting through some form of public expenditure ? If any were inclined to hesitate, would they not have responded when reminded of the liberality of their predecessors ? In fact, it is not difficult to show that the dictates of the law, the weight of custom, and personal considerations and motives are all relevant; to determine the relative importance of the three factors is a more formidable task.
The Senatus Consultum from Larinum
Authors: Levick Barbara
Published: May 2006

A bronze tablet found at Larinum (near modern Larino), in the territory of the Frentani, and published in 1978, carries part of an SC of A.D. 19 that embodies measures against public performance on stage or in the arena by members of the upper classes.

This tablet poses a variety of interrelated problems which are the concern of this paper: it is itself incomplete; there are gaps in the history of the measures taken against public performance by members of the upper classes (the offence dealt with on the tablet); it is uncertain whether that was the only offence it dealt with or whether, as the testimony of Suetonius might suggest, it catered for the sexual misconduct of matrons; and there is a paradox about the penalty voluntarily incurred by would-be performers, in that it does not seem to have differed from the original penalty for performing. The solutions to each of the problems are mutually dependent, but I shall deal with them in the above order.
Towards A Chronology of Plutarch's Works
Authors: Jones C. P.
Published: May 2006

The belief is widespread that the majority of Plutarch's works was written after the death of Domitian in 96, when the author was a comparatively old man. So far, however, the foundations for this belief have not been firmly laid. The latest study of Plutarchean chronology, that of Ziegler, omits much, and new evidence is constantly accruing. The following study is an attempt to make use of all the material now available that bears on the dating of Plutarch's works. It cannot be definitive: there may be omissions, certain problems (such as that of Plutarch's marriage and the number of his children) appear insoluble, and new data, particularly new inscriptions, that affect the question are sure to turn up.
Denarii and Aureiin the Time of Diocletian
Authors: Sperber Daniel
Published: May 2006

InDeuteronomy Rabba Ki Tezesection 2, (ed. S. Liebermann, p. 103) we read the following passage: ‘R. Abba b. Kahana said: …. It is like unto a king who hired for himself workers and put them into his orchard, without revealing to them the wages for looking after the orchard, so that they should not pay no attention to that for which they would be paid little and concern themselves only with that for which they would be paid much. In the evening he called for each of them. He said to the first, “Under which tree did you work ?” The worker replied, “Under the pepper-tree.” “The rate for this one is one gold piece (=aureus),” [said the King]. He called to the second and asked him, “Beneath which tree did you work ?” “Under that one,” he replied. He (the King) said, “This is aperach-lavantree [literally, a white-flower tree], and the rate for it is half a gold piece.” He called the last one and said to him, “Under which tree did you work ?” “Under this one,” he answered. “It is an olive-tree, and its rate is two hundredmana.”’

Since in this parable we begin with one gold piece and then go down to half a gold piece it would appear likely that the final sum mentioned is a quarter of a gold piece. If this albeit hypothetical supposition be accepted then it follows that ¼aureus= 200mana, ∴ 1aureus= 800mana.