bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Consular Provinces under the Late Republic
Authors: Balsdon J. P. V. D.
Published: May 2006

(i) Introduction

For a hundred years, ancient historians have been seeking to determine the date at which Caesar's Gallic command legally expired—a date which, curiously, no ancient writer has troubled to record. Little has been added, save repetition, to the arguments used by Mommsen in favour of 1st March, 49 B.C., by Zumpt in favour of 13th November, 50 B.C., and by Hirschfeld in favour of 1st March, 50 B.C. A few ‘freaks’ have sprouted, 29th December, 50 B.C., from Judeich, and an uncertain date between 31st July and early October, 50 B.C., from Stevens. And now, instead of offering a strange or even a familiar device for untying the Gordian knot, I want to suggest that it should be cut; that there was no exact terminal date for Caesar's tenure of his command. This I can only do by challenging what most scholars are content to accept, the foundations on which Mommsen placed his own discussion of the problem. Before I proceed to the problem itself, I hope to establish, in order, the following three points : (1) that Sulla did not, as Mommsen thought, make a clean severance between magisterial office and provincial government; (2) that it was not in the nature of long-term commands under the Republic to have a specific terminal date ; and (3) that sections 36 f. of Cicero's De provinciis consularibus do not supply incontrovertible evidence for certain facts and constitutional principles, for which their evidence is often assumed to be authoritative.
‘Terra Marique’
Authors: Momigliano Arnaldo
Published: May 2006

The importance of Lycophron's Alexandra for the history of the relations between Rome and the Hellenistic world hardly needs emphasis. The date of the poem depends on the interpretation of 11. 1229–30, where the Romans are described as γῆσ καὶ θαλάσσησ σκῆπτρα καὶ μοναρχίαν λαβόντεσ. It seems, therefore, necessary to inquire whether these lines imply a real world-power of the Romans, as many, following Niebuhr, have said, or whether they repeat a formula applied to several States with no pretence at literal truth. We have first to reconsider some other Hellenistic texts.
Notes on the Parthian Campaigns of Trajan
Authors: Longden R. P.
Published: May 2006

These notes are designed to supplement, rather than to supplant, existing accounts of the Parthian campaigns of Trajan. I have therefore not tried to include an account of such matters as did not seem to me to be essential for an understanding of the main course of events and which are adequately and picturesquely reproduced elsewhere. But it is not too much to say that the times, places and purposes of Trajan's campaigns are alike obscure. The evidence is, of course, fragmentary; it is scattered, and much of it is of inferior quality; but since the scope of general histories has not allowed their authors to present a detailed argument, their handling of these important campaigns has of necessity been somewhat cursory. There is thus some reason to look at the evidence again. The first of these notes reviews the difficulties of the chronology, and continues with a partial reconstruction of the sequence of the campaigns based on the chronology adopted. The second discusses the antecedents of the war and attempts to probe the causes which were at work both before and during the campaigns.
The Praetorship of the Younger Pliny
Authors: Harte R. H.
Published: May 2006

In attempting to fix the date of Pliny's praetorship there are three passages from his works which we must bear in mind:—

1. Ep. 3, II, 2–3: ‘equidem, cum essent philosophi ab urbe summoti, fui apud ilium (the philosopher Artemidorus) in suburbano et, quo notabilius, hoc est periculosius, esset, fui praetor, pecuniam etiam, qua tunc illi ampliore opus erat, ut aes alienum exsolveret contractum ex pulcherrimis causis, mussantibus magnis quibusdam et locupletibus amicis mutuatus ipse gratuitam dedi. atque haec feci, cum septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis, occisis Senecione, Rustico, Helvidio, relegatis Maurico, Gratilla, Arria, Fannia, tot circa me iactis fulminibus quasi ambustus mihi quoque impendere idem exitium certis quibusdam notis augurarer.’

2. Ep. 7, 16, 1–2: ‘Calestrium Tironem familiarissime diligo et privatis mihi et publicis necessitudinibus implicitum. simul militavimus, simul quaestores Caesaris fuimus. ille me in tribunatu liberorum iure praecessit, ego ilium in praetura sum con secutus, cum mihi Caesar annum remisisset.’

3. Pan. 95, 3–4 : ‘vos modo favete huic proposito et credite, si cursu quodam provectus ab illo insidiosissimo principe, antequam profiteretur odium bonorum, postquam professus est, substiti; si cum viderem, quae ad honores compendia paterent, longius iter malui.’
The Character of the Gallienic Renaissance
Authors: Mathew Gervase
Published: May 2006

It is at least a tenable hypothesis that the acute phase of transition from classical to post-classic culture lies in the third century A.D. rather than in the fifth. The confused and tangled epoch between the accession of Septimius Severus and the accession of Diocletian seems either to foreshadow or to shape the future both for the Western Provinces and for the East. So much that had marked the civilisation of the Antonines, the sense of gravitas and the restraint of form, the tranquil acceptance of the interplay of individual privilege and obligation within a social structure conceived as effortlessly stable, the solid bourgeois standard of what was perhaps essentially a small-town culture, went down in the chaos of an economic collapse. The emergence of Neo-Platonism, the creation of the new conventions in Imperial portraiture and the triumph of the cult of Sol Invictus all seem to symbolise a change in the conception of the functions of personality and of the relationship of man with the Divine and of man with men.
The Allegiance of Labienus
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: May 2006

Ill fortune bore down the family of the Labieni, and an ill repute hangs over their memory. Q. Labienus, an ally of Saturninus, perished miserably, cut down in the Curia by good citizens. His nephew, T. Labienus, Caesar's legate in Gaul from the first campaign to the last, deserted to Pompeius Magnus at the outbreak of the Civil War, conveying promises which he failed to implement, was held in scant honour by his new allies, and met his death at Munda. The son of Caesar's marshal, a renegade styling himself ‘Parthicus imperator,’ invaded the provinces of the Roman People and swept through Syria and Cilicia into Asia with an army of Parthian cavalry: he was defeated in battle and killed by Ventidius the Picene and the Marsian Poppaedius, generals of Antonius.
The Fiscvs: a Note
Authors: Last Hugh
Published: May 2006

In the first part of his comments on Mr. P. W. Duff's study of Personality in Roman Private Law (Cambridge, 1938) Dr. Daube remarks (JRS 33, 1943, 88) that ‘the Fisc, as Mr. Duff explains,… was owned by the emperor. (This view, established by Mommsen, was attacked by Hirschfeld who maintained that the Fisc from the first belonged to the State. Mr. Duff, pp. 51 ff., argues convincingly in favour of Mommsen.).’ Dr. Daube's summary of Mr. Duff's account may be accepted; for Mr. Duff, though he is less dogmatic than Mommsen, begins his attempt ‘to reconstruct the Roman view’ (o.c. 59) with the words ‘it seems clear that Augustus regarded as his all taxation, confiscated property and the like, which did not go into the aerarium’. He is unmistakably on Mommsen's side; and his adhesion to a doctrine, entitled indeed by its authorship to respectful consideration but still somewhat surprisingly described by Mr. Duff (o.c. 51) as ‘orthodox’, invites some brief notice. The observations which follow will not be long; for they may be unnecessary.
The Date of the Golden Gate at Istanbul
Authors: Davies O.
Published: May 2006

Scholars have long discussed whether the Golden Gate is a monument of Theodosius I, as the inscription which formerly adorned it strongly suggests, or whether if was built at the same time as the walls under Theodosius II. The inscription must in the latter case apply to a minor rising of the Primicerius Iohannes in 423. However, Schneider, the last scholar who has examined the walls, points out that they were nearly complete in 422, when a rescript assigned to travelling soldiers the lower stories of the towers. Iohannes' rising was not crushed until 425; and not even Schneider has maintained that the Golden Gate was built later than the walls.

It seems more natural to suppose that the inscription refers to the conquest of Maximus by Theodosius I. In this case the gate may be assumed to have been comparable to the triumphal arches of Roman colonies, and to have stood on the original pomerium. Its existence may account for the line of the wall, which joins the Sea of Marmara after the shore has turned south-west; for the line of the fortifications is thus made considerably longer without much gain of interior space.
Alexander Helios and the Golden Age
Authors: Tarn W. W.
Published: May 2006

Vergil's fourth Eclogue, foretelling a child whose coming would usher in the golden age, has often been supposed to be based upon eastern material; and it has even been suggested that, in the period of Roman history which ended with Octavian's final success at Actium, both East and West alike were expecting the Roman world to pass under the rule of one man, whether a Roman or a king from the east, to be followed by the birth of a child with whom should come the final kingdom of peace. But the ideas of the East in this matter have been deduced from western and Jewish material; and I hope in this paper to do a little toward ascertaining the view of the Greek East from a contemporary Greek document which has never been seriously examined, and considering its relation to the ideas of Vergil. I can only do a little, for most of the material vanished when Augustus later burnt 2,000 prophecies; but the secondary historians from whom we derive our current ideas of the East in the crucial years before Actium are so extraordinarily tendencious that every scrap of contemporary material, outside the circle of the victors' version, must be of value. My aim is to treat the matter solely from the historical standpoint; and the name of the boy Alexander Helios, son of Cleopatra and Antony, in whom East and West met, will serve to unite the two aspects of what I have to say.
Violation of Sepulture in Palestine at the Beginning of the Christian Era.
Authors: De Zulueta F.
Published: May 2006

The considerable literature that has already gathered round the Palestinian inscription on violation of sepulture published by M. Cumont in 1930 leaves little new to be said. There is, however, a gap to be filled for the English reader; moreover discussion has now cleared away certain initial misconceptions, so that a restatement may be useful. I have tried to acknowledge all substantial obligations, but beg to be excused the tedium of meticulous citation. Here, once for all, are the previous publications known to me; subsequent reference will generally be by author's name only.
Gaius and the Grand Cameo of Paris
Authors: Balsdon J. P. V. D.
Published: May 2006

The Grand Cameo of Paris has generally been supposed to depict either Tiberius' reception of Germanicus on his return from Germany in A.D. 17 or the dispatch of Germanicus by Tiberius to the East in the same year. The scene is surveyed by Augustus and others from the heavens above; below is depicted the humiliation which Germanicus is diplomatically supposed, on the one hypothesis, to have inflicted on Germany, on the other hypothesis, to be about to inflict on the East. These interpretations have now been challenged and Dr. Ludwig Curtius 1 offers in their room a novel interpretation of which M. Gagé writes, ‘elle peut ouvrir (aux historiens) d'apercus neufs et saisissants’ 2 and Professor H. M. Last, ‘if he (Curtius) is right in dating the work to the principate of Gaius, the results are serious, both for the plans about the succession to Tiberius and for other matters… This theory needs much examination.’ 3 I wish to show, as briefly as possible, that, however great its merits may be in respect of iconography, the theory so seriously violates established historical facts as to be in large part untenable.
M. Titius and the Syrian Command
Authors: Taylor Lily Ross
Published: May 2006

The date when the Parthian king Phraates surrendered his four sons and their wives and children to the Romans has been fixed by the statement of Strabo (xvi, 748) that they were consigned to the Syrian legate Titius (τὸν ἐπιστατοῦντα τότε τῆς Συρίας). The only means of determining when Titius was in Syria is provided by Josephus, who says (Ant. xvi, 270) that, through the good offices of Herod, Titius was reconciled with Archelaus of Cappadocia, from whom he had previously been estranged. This reconciliation must be placed between 12 or possibly 13 B.C. and 8 B.C. and modern scholars have been practically unanimous in accepting the view of Mommsen that it was during this period, perhaps because of some fresh difficulty with the Parthians, that Phraates surrendered his sons.
The Economic Crisis in Egypt under Nero
Authors: Bell H. I.
Published: May 2006

In a recent review of Professor A. C. Johnson's Roman Egypt to the Reign of Diocletian, Dr. J. G. Milne, after issuing a very apposite warning against too implicit reliance on the evidence of papyri and inscriptions, remarks:

‘The well-known rescript of Tiberius Julius Alexander is often quoted as proof of the misgovernment of Egypt under Nero and the reform under Galba: but the date of its issue, when news of the death of Nero could only have reached Alexandria by exceptionally speedy transmission … and certainly no communication could have been received from Galba, makes it probable that the rescript was really a manifesto of the anti-Neronian party at Alexandria, headed by the prefect, which was designed to paint the administration of Nero as black as possible and to hold out bright hopes for the future; and its value as economic evidence is about that of a modern election address.’

This verdict is so contrary to the impression I had formed when preparing my chapter for volume x of the Cambridge Ancient History that I felt bound to re-examine the evidence ; and this Congress offered a convenient opportunity for presenting my conclusions. I must confess that, apart from one unpublished papyrus, I have no new evidence to submit ; but a re-statement of existing knowledge may be useful.
The ‘Philippus’ Coin at Rome
Authors: Milne J. G.
Published: May 2006

In two papers published in 1933, ‘The Philippus in the West and the Belgic invasion of Gaul’ (Num. Chron. 1933, 88) and ‘The distribution of Gaulish and British coins in Britain’ (Antiquity 1933, 268), Dr. G. C. Brooke put forward, in explanation of the imitation in Gaul of the gold staters of Philip II of Macedon two centuries after their original issue, the theory that these coins were introduced into Central Gaul by the Romans about 120 B.C. when they came into contact with the tribes in that region, and that the Philippus had been ‘brought into normal currency in Rome’ in the second century B.C. after the arrival of great numbers of Philippi in the spoils of war from Greece and Asia Minor in the first half of that century. As Dr. Pink has pointed out, Dr. Brooke's date is several years too late to suit the literary evidence; but it need not be questioned that the gold stater of the type of Philip did not reach Gaul till long after the first issue in Macedon. That it came through Rome, however, does not seem to be supported by any archaeological facts, and involves a serious misconception of Roman monetary economics.
Antinoopolis: A Hadrianic Foundation in Egypt
Authors: Bell H. I.
Published: May 2006

The city state was the most characteristic expression of the Hellenic way of life; and it is appropriate that the most Philhellenic of Roman emperors should have been distinguished as a founder of cities and an encourager of civic institutions. We are ill informed about the constitution and history of most of his foundations, but concerning one, which was in Egypt, a country whose soil preserves so perfectly the antiquities which it covers, we have a considerable amount of evidence. Antinoopolis is thus of interest not only to the historian of Roman and Byzantine Egypt, but also for the light it may throw on Hadrian's aims and ideals as a founder of cities.
The Legal Policy and Reforms of Hadrian
Authors: Pringsheim Fritz
Published: May 2006

The reign of Hadrian marks the beginning of a new epoch in Roman administration and in the history of Roman Law. Hadrian's visit to Britain is immortalised by the Wall which he built from Tyne to Solway. Its construction is characteristic of the Emperor's willingness to renounce further conquests and even to abandon land which had been Roman. The Wall marked the limit of the districts which he was prepared to retain and administer. It followed, not the shortest and easiest route, but a line beyond the fortified area whence a look-out could be kept over the barbarians outside, and its object was the completion and definition of the fortified frontier region whereby it became easier to civilise and to pacify the country which lay to the south. Hadrian's aim was to bring order and peace to the land bounded by the new frontiers of the Roman world. Thus Hadrian may be sharply contrasted with his predecessor Trajan, the soldier on the throne, who owed his elevation to his successful wars in the Rhine region, and who as Emperor extended the frontiers of the Empire on the lower Danube and in the East. On Hadrian's accession the Empire was more powerful than ever before or afterwards, but its financial and military resources were strained to the utmost, and indeed frequently had been overstrained. The small peasant owners and small towns, sources of Roman culture and prosperity, had begun to suffer and disappear.
Roman Engineering Works and their Aesthetic Character: The Pont du Gard
Authors: Brown G. Baldwin
Published: May 2006

Many years ago it was the fortune of the writer to be present as a listener at a conversation between the architect, Sir Rowand Anderson, then at the height of his reputation, and a civil engineer of good standing in his profession. The Tay Bridge was the subject, and Sir Rowand was trying to make his interlocutor see that the existing bridge lacked one little touch, the addition of which would be of incalculable value but the absence of which made the bridge the most depressing thing of the kind that these islands hold. It must be explained that the bridge makes no pretension to be anything else but a pure work of utility and the following is its simple scheme. Starting from each bank of the Tay long ranges of girders, supported on simple metal piers, approach each other to within a short distance, the interval corresponding to the width of the main stream of the river. To give ample head room for the river traffic the trains are carried across the space of this interval on a special girder of suitable length, which is laid across this central gap, each end of it resting on the top of the other girders first described. In this position the bottom level of the special girder corresponds to the top level of the other girders, and the trains when they pass along this bottom level are at a greater clear height above the water than elsewhere on the bridge and so there is a free water-way for craft with masts.
Epitaph of a Legionary of the Legio XVI Flavia Firma from Macedonia
Authors: Cormack J. M. R.
Published: May 2006

In a clearing outside a newly built church in the village of μττραΪνάταις, near Beroea, lies a large marble grave-stele, in the upper portion of which is a relief with a moulding above and below: beneath the relief is the inscribed surface with mouldings on all sides (fig. 3). Relief: 1. centre, standing full-face, Roman soldier, probably bearded, clad in short military tunic and cloak, holding in r. hand long indeterminable object (pilum ?); 1. hand rests on hilt of sword with folds of cloak draped over 1. forearm. In lower r. corner, shield on base; above shield, a helmet.
A Note on the Embassy of Q. Marcius Philippus, 172 B.C.
Authors: Walbank F. W.
Published: May 2006

Fifty years separated the Declaration of Corinth in 196 and the destruction of Corinth in 146, two milestones in the history of Graeco-Roman relations. Exactly midway between these two events comes the embassy of Q. Marcius Philippus, notorious for a piece of sharp practice which aroused the compunction of a section of the Roman Senate itself, and as the prelude to a war regarded by many in Greece as the first step in a policy which was to end in the ruin of two of the greatest cities of the Mediterranean world. The object of the following note is to examine in some detail the date and purpose of this embassy.
The Augustan Vita Aureliani
Authors: Fisher W. H.
Published: May 2006

Many sections of the Vita Aureliani are clearly based upon earlier sources of considerable historical value, which, unfortunately, are no longer extant. These sections lie embedded in large quantities of matter which do not possess the historical virtues to which they pretend but which, nevertheless, seem to have been written with a purpose. This article is an attempt to disentangle these two elements in the Vita; to reconstruct and discuss the sources followed by the historical parts; and to examine and determine the purpose of the others.

The writer of the Vita, as every one must admit, was not a good or original historian. He did nothing but copy or distort statements in the sources which he used. From this it follows that, in any attempt to separate his worthless additions from the passages which deserve consideration as sources for the history of Aurelian, we must adhere to one or other of two canons of criticism. These may be stated as follows:

(a) Passages which can, by comparison with relevant passages in other authorities, be traced to the sources used by the Vita and the other authorities, or which can be shown to give the kind of information which these sources may have contained, must be supposed to be derived from them.

(b) Statements which are intrinsically plausible, or which can be supported by inscriptional or other good evidence, must be accepted as being derived from these early lost sources, even though the connexion cannot be traced.
A Note on the Monument and Tomb of a Vestal Virgin at Tivoli
Authors: Hallam G. H.
Published: May 2006

The monument and tomb of a Vestal Virgin have recently been brought to light at Tivoli through a small landslide caused by heavy rain, on the edge of the lake formed in the bed of the Anio above the great waterfall. They lie between the river and the ancient Via Valeria, within a stone's throw of the railway station, and are about a quarter of a mile from the temple of Vesta, which crowns the rock of the citadel overlooking the Fall, and is perhaps the most beautiful and romantic of all the beautiful ruins of Italy.
Palladas and Christian Polemic
Authors: Cameron Alan
Published: May 2006

Eduard Norden's well known claim that pagans only read the New Testament when they wanted to refute it has never been seriously challenged. During the first four centuries of the Christian era the only pagans who can be shown to have had a thorough acquaintance with Christian writings and knowledge of Christian teachings are Celsus, Porphyry, and the Apostate Julian —all of whom wrote detailed refutations of Christianity.

Yet it has often been alleged that there are allusions to Christian doctrines and even echoes of New Testament phrases in the epigrams of Palladas of Alexandria. Now this, if true, would be of great interest and importance; for although it has, from time to time, been contended that Palladas was a Christian, there can in my opinion be little doubt that, like so many other schoolmasters in fourth and fifth century Egypt, he was a pagan. It is sufficient to refer to his caustic couplet on the monks, his numerous poems on Τύχη so characteristic of pagan writers of the day, and his ironic comments on the ‘conversion’ of the statues of the old Olympians, and on some Victories adapted to herald the victory of Christ (further evidence is adduced in § II).
Philodemus on the Good King According to Homer
Authors: Murray Oswyn
Published: May 2006

In 1844 Italy was in travail; even the subjects of Ferdinand II Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies, knew it. The previous year had seen the failure of the ‘Moto di Savigno’, an attempt at a combined rising in Romagna and Calabria. In March occurred the massacres of Cosenza; on 12th June the Bandiera brothers set sail for the kingdom, only to be arrested on arrival and executed. The martyrdom inflamed liberals throughout Europe.

It was appropriate that the scholars of the Reale Officina de' Papiri Ercolanesi, engaged in the task of publishing the papyri found in 1752 in the Villa dei Pisoni at Herculaneum, should have reached a work of Philodemus called (so the editor Cirillo believed) περὶ τοῦ καθ΄ "Ομηρον ἀγαθοῦ λαῷ:

‘Hinc fit, Rex Augustissime, ut tomus hic quasi suo iure se Tibi tradat, cui divinitus fuit mandata Tuorum populorum cura, atque incolumitas (quae adeo acriter sancteque tueris) hoc praecipue tempore, quo vana quaedam, falsa, et perniciosissima philosophandi ratio caecas hominum mentes, animosque invasit.’
The Hadrianic Inscription from the Caesareum at Cyrene
Authors: Smallwood E. Mary
Published: May 2006

In the Journal of Roman Studies, XL, 1950, 88–90, Mr. S. Applebaum published a number of inscriptions from Cyrene recording Hadrian's work in restoring the city after the devastation caused by the Jewish revolt late in Trajan's reign. One of these (D 1) consists of fragments of an inscription from the Caesareum, which Mr. Applebaum read as follows:—

[– –DIVI N]ER[V]AE NE[POS] TRAI[AN]VS H[ADRIANVS] AVGV

[STVS – –]/TP I[I COS] II BASILIC[AM – –]

The inscription was carved on the re-used limestone blocks of the Doric architrave which crowned the longitudinal porticos of the Basilica. But traces of the earlier, erased inscription are still visible in several places between the letters of the inscription now under discussion, and it is in the light of this fact, which was not noticed by Mr. Applebaum, that two alterations are here suggested in his reading of the inscription.
Vasa Murrina and the Lexica
Authors: Whittick G. Clement
Published: May 2006

Recent discussion in this Journal has reviewed the evidence for the material of which vasa murrina were composed, and few will wish to appeal against the triumviral judgement there given in favour of fluorspar. But perhaps something further may be said from the literary and linguistic side. It is now clear that (apart from the difficulty that glass imitations existed and are sometimes referred to in the ancient texts) the identification of vasa murrina as natural in origin or as manufactured articles has been unduly complicated because they do in fact fall within both classes; they were composed of a natural substance—as Pliny's statement suggests—but that substance could only be given artistic shape by a very highly skilled and extremely laborious process, namely, the recurrent surface treatment of the fluorspar by heating and impregnation with natural gum-resin in order to prevent the splitting of the crystals along their natural lines of cleavage, as would otherwise happen.
Roman Emperors in the Sassanian Reliefs
Authors: MacDermot B. C.
Published: May 2006

The purpose of this paper is to put forward a new interpretation of five rock-reliefs in the province of Fars, S. Persia, which have been held to commemorate the capture of the Emperor Valerian near Edessa in A.D. 260. These reliefs may be grouped according to the number of Romans present.
The Lower Danube under Trajan
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: May 2006

A papyrus in the British Museum (2851) furnishes detailed information about an auxiliary regiment in Moesia Inferior, a cohors equitata, namely Cohors I Hispanorum veterana. Conveniently known from its first editor as ‘Hunt's Pridianum’, the document has much to reveal about military life, army book-keeping—and imperial history. A revised text had long been needed. It is now to hand, with new and decisive readings, edited with exemplary care by R. O. Fink. Further, a new date appears to emerge. Not 115, but 99.
Athenian Twilight: A.D. 267–600
Authors: Thompson Homer A.
Published: May 2006

The excavations that have been conducted since 1931 by the American School of Classical Studies in the Athenian Agora have illumined virtually all phases in the development of the civic centre from its modest beginnings in the time of Solon to its dramatic end in the third century of our era. The exploration has also made it possible to trace the history of habitation in the area from Neolithic times down to the present day. One of the periods for which the excavations have yielded especially abundant documentation is late antiquity, more specifically the centuries from the third through the sixth. The new evidence has led to the correction of various misapprehensions that had arisen because of the paucity of evidence previously available for the study of this period. The results are the more interesting because our detailed knowledge of what happened in the Agora now helps in understanding contemporary developments in the city as a whole. Athens in fact has become a useful ‘case history’ for the study of the actual way in which ancient civilization went to pieces in one of the best known and most characteristic communities of the ancient world.
Church and State in the New Testament
Authors: Knox Wilfred L.
Published: May 2006

The attitude of the New Testament writers towards the Roman Empire presents a curious picture, varying as it does from a quite remarkable enthusiasm to a violent hostility. The hostility is natural enough in view of the hostility of wide circles of Palestinian Judaism to the supposed oppressors of the chosen people; the earliest generation of Christians regarded themselves as loyal members of the nation, while the later writers of the New Testament had lived through the persecution of some at least of the churches outside Palestine under Nero and Domitian. The enthusiasm is not so easy to explain, especially as it survives both these persecutions.
Titus and Alexandria: A New Document
Authors: Roberts C. H.
Published: May 2006

The genesis and character of the texts commonly known as the Acta Alexandrinorum or Acts of the Heathen Martyrs are still so much in question that a new fragment, however small, has some claims to attention. The papyrus published below from the Rendel Harris collection introduces a new episode in the Historia Calamitatum. Hitherto there has been a gap between the Acta Isidori set in the reign of Claudius and the Acta Hermaisci set in that of Trajan; that the brief reign of Titus (whose character would not easily lend itself to the part normally assigned the Emperor in these documents) was made to supply material for propaganda suggests that few if any of the emperors of the first two centuries escaped the pillory. Of the contents of the papyrus there is not much to be said; Titus appears to be defending the procedure of this or some other trial against Hermias (presumably the leader of the Alexandrians) who demands (whether in sympathy or malice is not clear) that a third party, perhaps a Roman, be allowed to make his defence; however, the latter declines.
Census Records of the Later Roman Empire
Authors: Jones A. H. M.
Published: May 2006

There survive from a number of places in Western Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean inscriptions recording census registrations. They are undated, but were probably engraved in the late third or early fourth century A.D., when Diocletian and his colleagues and successors are known to have been active in carrying out censuses to serve as the basis of their new system of taxation. All are fragmentary, but some are of sufficient length to yield results of some statistical value on the distribution of landed property, on the density of the agricultural population, and on the proportion of slave to free labour. In view of the extreme paucity of any statistical data for the ancient world they are worth analysis.
The Consulate of the Elder Trajan
Authors: Morris John
Published: May 2006

Fragment XI of the Ostia Fasti relates to the early years of Vespasian. It contains a few letters entire from four lines, with the upper half of a fifth line, and reads:—

.. Caesarem Vespasianum…

…Sallinius…

..Vespasian…

(vacat) Licin…

…iusTr..

The fragment is one of the few which Degrassi was unable to trace, and the text depends on a MS. copy supplied to Wickert by Kristoferson.
Waiting for Sulla
Authors: Badian E.
Published: May 2006

There are many periods of history—and unfortunately not always the least important—that survive, for us, entirely or mainly in one version. Ever since the development of modern critical historiography it has been recognized that it is the historian's duty to test that version, and highly skilled methods in the use of evidence have been worked out in order to enable him to do so. We all know some of the outstanding results in our field: the age of Augustus, once seen through the eyes of court literature; the ages of Tiberius and Claudius, once known only through the resentment of those who had suffered under tyranny; one could name many other periods that have gained a new reality in the last few generations and that now stand out in three dimensions.
A Roman Writing Tablet from Somerset
Authors: Turner Eric G.
Published: May 2006

The find in Roman Britain of a Latin writing tablet bearing a still legible ink inscription is of so unusual a nature that it has seemed worthwhile to offer a provisional account of it to readers of the Journal. It is probable that more of the text will eventually prove readable than I have managed to decipher; for I have failed to obtain a continuous text. Apart from the difficulties inherent in reading Latin cursive writing, the faintness at many places of the ink, discoloration of the surface, and above all, the frequently misleading horizontal grain of the wood offer obstacles that I have failed to surmount. It is also possible that laboratory treatment will succeed at some future date in separating the ink more clearly from its background, at least for photographic purposes. Experiments to achieve this are in progress, but they must inevitably proceed cautiously and therefore slowly. I believe, however, that enough of the writing has been made out to establish with reasonable certainty the type of text concerned, and that further success in decipherment, while it will fill in details, will not change the essential framework into which those details are to be fitted. It has seemed right, in consequence, not to delay longer but to submit the results achieved so far to the judgment of colleagues and hope that their criticisms and suggestions will make good the writer's failings. The accompanying plate (XII) will supply a means of check and supplement.
Boreum of Cyrenaica
Authors: Goodchild R. G.
Published: May 2006

Two localities of ancient Cyrenaica bore the name Βόρειν. The first, recognized by the ancient geographers as the eastern extremity of the Greater Syrtis, was a promontory and harbour which, from the evidence of the Stadiasmus Marts Magni, lay 131 stades (23·5 km.) south of the city of Berenice. It has been convincingly identified with the modern Ras Taiúnes, a small headland at precisely that distance from Benghazi. There is no evidence that this promontory was ever the site of permanent settlement in the form of a village or fort.
On the Style of Tacitus
Authors: Löfstedt Einar
Published: May 2006

When we speak of the style of an author, and especially of a great author, we mean the sum total of his linguistic, stylistic and artistic means of expression; we thus do not think purely of the literary tendency or school to which he belongs, or even only of his linguistic usage, his grammar and vocabulary. None the less these last-named factors are of great importance, and it will perhaps be appropriate to start with them.

I need not remind you that the style of Tacitus, taken as a whole, bears the general impress of the so-called Silver Age in its most typical form as developed by Seneca. We all know that by that time the long Ciceronian and Livian periods had been given up; in their place we find short, concentrated sentences, often joined to one another asyndetically, and in the more important passages these sentences are condensed into telling, emphatic, sententiae. So, too, in the choice of words all commonplace and popular expressions are avoided; instead, expressions and constructions from poetry are borrowed to a much greater extent than in Cicero's time.
Gradations in Later Municipal Society
Authors: Norman A. F.
Published: May 2006

The legislation of the Roman Empire, as exemplified in the two great Codes, may often be regarded as the consolidation in law of practices already current. This tendency, however, is most obvious in respect of those practices which were of administrative utility in the eyes of the government. Thus, while there is much information concerning the organization or regimentation of certain sections of the population in which the government, for good or ill, showed its interest, the more unofficial expressions of bias and prejudice arising from existing social convention tend to escape notice. Yet even the convention of snobbery has its place in the history of a society, and the purpose of this paper is to examine it, in certain aspects, in the life of the East in the fourth century.
Tradition and Personal Achievement in the Philosophy of Plotinus
Authors: Dodds E. R.
Published: May 2006

The collected philosophical essays of Plotinus—to which we still unfortunately give the senseless and unplotinian title Enneads—constitute a nodal point in the evolution of Western ideas. In this book converge almost all the main currents of thought that come down from 800 years of Greek speculation; out of it there issues a new current, destined to fertilize minds as different as those of Augustine and Boethius, Dante and Meister Eckhart, Coleridge, Bergson, and Mr. T. S. Eliot. And the historian cannot but ask himself what is the secret of this transmutation by which the old is taken up in the new and given a fresh direction and significance. Such a question admits of no complete answer and none is offered here. The present paper seeks merely to illustrate a few aspects of the problem for the benefit of readers who are not deeply versed in Plotinus. It omits much that a Plotinian specialist would rightly think important; and it uses broad terms where an expert might well insist on the need for qualification.
Ne Quis Iudicio Circumveniatur
Authors: Ewins Ursula
Published: May 2006

In a recent paper N. J. Miners has challenged the view that Gaius Gracchus' law ‘ne quis iudicio circumveniatur’ should be interpreted as part of his attempt to reform the quaestio de rebus repetundis and has maintained that it cannot therefore be used as evidence for a stage in Gaius' legislative activity when he envisaged the retention of senators as indices in this court. Mr. Miners states well the principal objection to this theory, that Gaius' law, to judge from the references to it in Cicero, pro Cluentio, was concerned with unjust condemnations, while Gaius' preoccupation, as far as the extortion court was concerned in 123–2 B.C., was with unjust acquittals. Mr. Miners shows that our scanty information about the law will bear a very different interpretation and he returns to the view of Mommsen, that it should be associated with the Gracchan law de provocatione (and perhaps even identified with it).
Inscriptions and Roman Studies 1910–1960
Authors: Reynolds Joyce
Published: May 2006

Both the value of inscriptions to Roman studies and the basic techniques of epigraphy were, of course, well-established long before our fifty years began. The record of those years is, therefore, essentially one of development along lines already indicated—aided by the chances of discovery that have from time to time suggested new interpretations of texts published in the past, as they have added new items in very considerable numbers to the stock.
The Establishment of the Equester Ordo
Authors: Henderson M. I.
Published: May 2006

A new moneyed class, thrusting rapidly to public estate in an ancient society, needed the enhancement of symbols and titles. Most Roman titles were military in origin, and it was natural to borrow the name of the old Roman cavalry, with its associations of high rank and property-census, antique tradition, and decorative imagery. Not less naturally, the military metaphors of the new civil equites concealed change and misled some secondary authors into anachronism. Modern historians too have been apt to assume the perpetuity of forms or conditions appropriate to the Servian Army, and long afterwards retailed in antiquarian descriptions of the ‘exercitus urbanus’. In general outline, indeed, the comitia centuriata may have retained its archaic structure; nevertheless, both Dionysius and Livy warn us plainly enough that changes had taken place. However modern hypotheses may attempt to reconcile the difference, the stark fact remains that two discrepant versions of the Servian system were current in the first century B.C. Such institutions were perhaps not as static as the terminology which attached to them.
Imperivm Maivs: A Note
Authors: Last Hugh
Published: May 2006

Twenty years ago the publication of the Augustan edicts from Cyrene (now SEG 9, 8) was widely believed to have brought final proof that, as Dio asserts (53, 32, 5), Augustus held an imperium which was maius than that of other proconsuls and so enabled him with constitutional propriety to intervene in a senatorial province like Crete and Cyrene. But it may still be thought that the debates which led to this conclusion left certain unnecessary obscurities. If so, the present may perhaps be an appropriate time for an attempt to remove them, because the whole issue has lately been reopened by Mr. Michael Grant in his notable study of the base-metal coinages of the Roman world from 49 B.C. to A.D. 14.

As his is the most recent treatment of the matter, and one which will call for close consideration, it may be well to begin by noticing his conclusions, although the purpose of what is said below does not include any general discussion of the imperium conferred on Augustus. He writes (p. 412) that ‘Caesar's dictatorial imperium which began in 49 B.C. was an imperium maius’, and that ‘an imperium maius … controlled the provinciae of others, and subordinated imperia to an imperium’; and consistently with this he goes on to describe an imperium maius as ‘the revolutionary element which permitted the un-Republican subordination of imperia to an imperium’ (p. 422).
Hadrian's Wall, 1939–1949
Authors: Richmond I. A.
Published: May 2006

In the annals of archaeology on Hadrian's Wall the decade 1929-1939 will always stand out as the time when the principal periods in the history of the monument were firmly fixed and the complicated relationship between its component parts was securely defined. The decade which has followed and is now due for summary, broken by war and still hampered by peace, cannot claim to rival the preceding ten years. Nevertheless, the fixing of the main lines of the design has made it possible to establish some important secondary points which present their own special problems, some solved and others yet to be so, and all much affecting the interpretation of the remains.
Papyrus 40 ‘della Raccolta Milanese’
Authors: Turner E. G.
Published: May 2006

With considerable topicality A. Vogliano published in 1940 a scrap of papyrus describing an engagement between Romans and Ethiopians. Since his book is difficult to procure I reproduce his text and restorations:—

Vogliano jumps to the conclusion that π is a fragment of a literary work (to be fathered on to the historian Nicolaus of Damascus), from which it follows that it deals with the Ethiopian expedition under Augustus. He paraphrases its sense thus: ‘The Ethiopians are in line. The Romans advance, the infantry under command of a certain Rufus, cavalry under a certain Trogus. Other persons must have been named first.’
The Aerarium and its Officials Under the Empire
Authors: Millar Fergus
Published: May 2006

No analysis of the political character of the Empire can avoid the question of finance. The various sources of revenue of the Emperor and the res publica, the role of the private wealth of the Emperor, the nature of his control over public funds, the question of how and when various public revenues were taken by him—a satisfactory political interpretation of the early Empire must take account of all these.

This article attempts merely to take a second preliminary step towards such an interpretation. Its aim is to set out as clearly as possible the evidence as to the nature of the Aerarium and the functions of its officials, and, above all, to avoid the anachronistic approach which our language itself so readily invites. Not all anachronistic views of the subject have had the beautiful obviousness of Ramsay's contribution: even to speak of the ‘world-wide financial administration’ of the Aerarium will prove to be misleading.
Q. Marcius Philippus andNova Sapientia
Authors: Briscoe John
Published: May 2006

‘Nova ea minus placebat sapientia’: that was the view that the ‘veteres et moris antiqui memores’ took of the diplomatic activity of Q. Marcius Philippus and his colleagues during their embassy to Greece and Macedonia in 172/1. For once we have evidence of a definite division in the Senate on a matter of policy, and if the political groupings established by prosopographers are to have any meaning beyond mere manoeuvring for office, it should be possible to discover the protagonists on each side, and to trace the division in theFasti. Such an inquiry should make it possible to write a coherent political history of the years leading up to the Third Macedonian War. It has long been recognized that the decade after 180 was a period of sharp disagreement among thenobiles, but no satisfactory interpretation of the whole period between 179 and the end of the Third Macedonian War has yet been given. In this paper I shall attempt an analysis of the problem in two sections: firstly I shall discuss the diplomatic career of Q. Marcius Philippus and some related questions; secondly, I shall try to relate the conclusions of the first section to the political history of Rome in the 170's.