This paper revises current understandings of the rôle of land in the economy of the Italian diaspora in the Greek East in the second and first centuries b.c., arguing that these Italians owned more land than has previously been assumed and that many of these Italian landowners practised a highly commercialized form of agriculture that focused on high-end products. This strategy shaped what empire meant both locally and in Italy and Rome, where the products they marketed fed into the ongoing consumer revolutions of the time. After discussing the evidence for the extent of Italian landholdings and examining their exploitation in three case studies, we conclude by reflecting on the long-term history of such landholdings in the provinces and the implications for our understanding of Roman imperialism more generally.

This is not intended to be a full discussion of the sources of Pliny's description of Spain: it will attempt only to establish certain limits of date for the purposes of the article which follows. Among other sources Pliny used Agrippa's survey (probably finished about 7 B.C.) and official documents—formulae provinciarum—which included lists of towns with indications of their municipal status. I am chiefly concerned with the dating of these lists.

The Emperor Julian stood to the Roman world of the fourth century as the personification of the older faith, and with him died the hopes of a pagan restoration. His death came at a critical moment, and both pagan and Christian felt that it could have been no human hand which dealt the fatal blow. To Kallistos Julian was the victim of a demon : Κάλλιστος δέ, writes Socrates, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οἰϰείοις τοῦ βασιλέως στρατευόμενος (i.e. as one of the imperial domestici), ἱστορήσας τὰ ϰατ᾿ αὐτὸν ἐν ἡρωιϰῷ μέτρῳ, τὸν τότε πόλεμον διηγούμενος ὑπὸ δαίμονος βληθέντα τελευτῆσαι ϕηαίν. The comment of the Christian historian is interesting : ὅπερ τυχὸν μὲν ὡς ποιητὴς ἔπλασε, τυχὸν δὲ ϰαί οὕτως ἔχει· πολλοὺσς γὰρ ἐριννύες μετῆλθον. Libanius pictures the blessings which men anticipated under Julian's rule and adds ταῦτα ϰαὶ ἔτι πλείω προσδοϰώμενα χορὸς φθονερῶν ἀφείλετο δαιμόνων. To the Christian similarly it was the saints who had fulfilled the will of Heaven in removing the Apostate persecutor of the Church, though a human assassin could hardly have been condemned—σχολῇ γε ἄν τις ϰαὶ αὐτῷ μέμψαιτο διὰ Θεόν ϰαὶ θρησϰείαν ἣν ἐπῄνεσεν ἀνδρείῳ γενομένῳ.

In 23 B.C. the first three books of Horace's Odes appeared. In the years which followed, up to the completion of Epistles 1, his work took a new direction, and the ethical themes which had had a marked place in his lyric verse became his entire concern: in his own words (Ep. 1.1.10–11),

nunc itaque et versus et cetera ludicra pono;

quid verum atque decens euro et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum.

What Horace describes in this context, at the very beginning of the book, is a kind of conversion to philosophy; and so the reader is at once drawn to ask what philosophy means to the poet. Before considering this question by scrutiny of the poems, two more general ones should be raised: first, what are the dominant features of ancient ethics as a whole and how far does it differ from modern ethical systems or moral thinking? Second, what part did moral philosophy play in the life of Romans in Horace's time? The answers I shall give to these very large questions are pragmatic and limited: they are meant simply as preparation for considering Horace's Epistles.

The reign of Gratian marked a turning-point in the conflict between Christianity and Paganism in the Roman Empire. One of the more spectacular manifestations of this change of emphasis which culminated in the anti-pagan legislation of Theodosius was Gratian's ostentatious repudiation of the title of pontifex maximus, held by every Emperor from Augustus down to Gratian's own father, Valentinian. The Christian Emperors had tolerated it hitherto as a purely formal element of their titulature. But Gratian refused the pontifical robe, ἀθέμιτον εἶναι Χριστιανῷ τὸ σχῆμα νομίσας.

Zosimus, our only authority for the event, dates it to the beginning of Gratian's reign. If he means 367, when Gratian was created co-Augustus by Valentinian, then he is certainly wrong, for pontifex maximus is attested among Gratian's titles in an inscription of the year 370 (CIL VI, 1175). And even if his accession proper in 375 is meant, when Valentinian died, this is still wrong, for Ausonius addressed him as pontifex in his Gratiarum Actio of January 379.

On the basis of a random sample of English-language internet websites about empires, we can now formulate the first law of comparative imperialisms as follows: as an online discussion of empire grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the Roman Empire approaches 1. (This is a variant of the general law that states that ‘as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1’.) The comparative study of empires is thriving, and the recent intensity of interest is connected, at least in part, to the international military interventions of the United States. But comparisons between empires are nothing new, and, in the 1960s, Peter Brunt wrote an insightful article on British and Roman imperialism. That analysis was the product of the age of decolonization, an age which also acted as a spur to comparative approaches within classical scholarship: witness Nicole Loraux's suggestion that it was anti-colonial movements associated with the Algerian and Vietnam wars that led Jean-Pierre Vernant to embark on his series of comparative investigations into Greek thought and religion. Brunt's article was written in a retrospective key at a time when it was possible to look back to the completion, or the near completion, of a major period of European colonialism and arrive at a sort of reckoning. Some two generations prior to Brunt, in the early twentieth century and at the apogee of the British Empire, Lord Cromer delivered an address to the Classical Association on ‘Ancient and Modern Imperialism’ in which he found it unimaginable to think of independence for Britain's overseas colonies. Francis Haverfield responded sympathetically to Cromer and in his own writings associated the British and the Roman empires. Any discussion of comparative imperialisms, therefore, will need to consider not just the recent concentration of debates over empire but also a lengthy trajectory that extends back to Cromer and Haverfield and indeed further beyond into the eighteenth century. None of the books under review reflects in detail on the intellectual history in which they may be situated, but this is a subject that at least needs to be acknowledged and that we shall have occasion to return to later.

This article is the first publication of a Greek inscription from Akmoneia in Phrygia, dated to a.d. 6/7. The monument is an honorific stele for a priestess by the name of Tatia, and was voted by a body of ‘Greek and Roman women’. As a document of collective political activity by a female corporate group, the inscription has no real parallels in either the Greek or Roman world. The monument is set in the context of the Roman mercantile presence in central Phrygia in the late Republican and early Imperial periods, and some proposals are offered concerning the identity and significance of the honouring body.

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

The shift from a traditional polytheistic dispensation for empire to a Christian-oriented ‘commonwealth’ is unarguably one of the most significant historical processes that took place in the Roman world. Its ramifications were manifold, and not least in the arena of how empire and its territory would come to be conceived within Late Roman and Byzantine culture. In this paper I want to explore the ways one text, written in the lifetime of Constantine, takes a series of traditional forms within the established genres of Graeco-Roman travel-writing and transforms them into a new Christian paradigm not only of travel (in the form of Christian pilgrimage) but also of empire as a territorial concept defined by particular privileged places and their privileged mythologies. The surprise lies, in part, in how swiftly a Christian author was willing implicitly to re-arrange and redefine deeply entrenched institutional norms, while none the less writing on an entirely traditional model. The text I shall be exploring, the Itinerarium Burdigalense (henceforth IB), is an account of a journey to the Holy Land made by an anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux in A.D. 333.

To the student of the art of imperial Rome, and in particular to the student whose views are founded on the monuments of Rome itself, the age of the Severi is often felt to be one of promise rather than fulfilment. It is not until the latter part of the third century, on the eve of the new age, that the pagan architecture of the imperial capital comes to its final, rich flowering in such monuments as the Aurelian Walls, the Baths of Diocletian, and the Basilica of Maxentius. The Baths of Caracalla, the additions to the Flavian Palace on the Palatine and the vanished Septizonium remind us that in the meanwhile monumental architecture was dormant only; but the centre of interest and of experiment has shifted to more practical fields; and it is rather to the houses and warehouses of Ostia that we have to look for evidence of the continued development of Roman architectural ideas. In the field of sculpture we are somewhat better served.

Horace, reflecting on his relationship with Maecenas and the top men or ‘gods’ in Rome, complained that passers-by asked him questions about affairs of state, expecting him to be privy to the deliberations of the great. One question was: ‘What about the land allocations (praedia) that the emperor promised to the soldiers? Will they be on the three-cornered island (Sicily) or on Italian soil? When I swear that I know nothing about it they are amazed at me as the only mortal who knows how to keep a vital unfathomable secret’ (Serm. 11.6.51–8).

The poet strikingly illustrates how land distribution was a familiar and important aspect of Roman life and of great interest not only to soldiers but also to many citizens, perhaps partly because of their apprehension about expropriations, which had created great anguish during the civil wars. We see too how the whole business was viewed as under the personal direction of the emperor and his entourage, and incidentally how difficult it was for people to find out about decisions taken behind the scenes.

During the Republican Period a number of mining districts were exploited in the territory that the Romans annexed. Mines in conquered countries that had belonged to the former rulers became the property of the Roman people, and others were acquired by confiscation or forced purchase from private owners. But the industry was not entirely a State monopoly: on the contrary, a number of mines remained in private hands, more particularly those yielding the base metals—copper, lead and tin—whereas those that yielded the precious metals—gold and silver—were retained by the State. Under the Empire the mines became a special object of bureaucratic concern: as mineral wealth had been the spoil of conquest, so in due course it became the prize of usurpation.

The inscription here published was first seen by Mr. Applebaum in 1945, when he was in charge of Antiquities in the newly-acquired territory of Cyrenaica. It was at that time standing by the Museum at Cyrene, and its provenience is unknown.

The Roman master who visited the slave-market to buy a new slave had little difficulty in solving the important question of nationality. He could read the label attached to each man, on which name and origin were recorded, or listen to the crier who announced the nationality of every slave in turn, as the law required; and if he feared the ‘tricks of the trade,’ which were innumerable, he could observe for himself whether the appearance and speech of the slave chosen corresponded to the place of origin ascribed to him. Our difficulties in approaching the same problem are much more formidable. A very large number of Roman slaves and freedmen are known to us by name, but of these only a small minority come to us with labels attached in the form of an explicit statement of origin; and though these ‘labelled’ examples have been collected, and form a body of evidence which is not without interest and value, they are too accidental and isolated, and too widely diffused chronologically and otherwise, to bear the weight of very far-reaching conclusions. Are there then any other indications which may throw light upon servile nationality, and help us towards a more vivid and accurate picture of the slave population of the Roman empire?

It is generally recognized that the first cohort of a legion in the Principate was larger than the other nine cohorts. It consisted of five centuries, each double the size of each of the six centuries of cohorts II to X. Literature, epigraphy and archaeology all agree over this point. Vegetius, in the Epitoma rei militaris, probably quoting a third-century source, says that the first cohort was twice as large as each of the other cohorts, but he disagrees with himself over the number of men in the cohort. At one stage (II, 6) he states that the first cohort had 1,105 pedites and 132 equites and was called a cohors miliaria, compared to the 555 pedites and sixty-six equites of each of the other nine cohorts, cohortes quingenariae. But two paragraphs later (II, 8) this number has been reduced to 1,000. This is made up of 400 men in the first century, 200 in the second, 150 in the third and fourth and 100 in the fifth. Although none of Vegetius' figures is to be trusted, his basic point remains—the first cohort of a legion was double in size. This is supported by epigraphic evidence. III, 6178, dated to about A.D. 134, lists, by cohort, the soldiers of legio V Macedonica discharged at one time. The first cohort contains at least forty names, the second seventeen, the third at least fourteen, the fourth at least ten and the ninth at least twelve. A similar situation is found on III, 14507, a laterculus, which is a dedication by veterans of VII Claudia discharged in 195. In this case the first cohort discharged forty-seven men, the second twenty-two and the third eighteen. These two inscriptions point to the fact that the first cohort was about twice as large as each of the other nine. Excavations at Inchtuthil have provided the most eloquent testimony. Here the barracks of the first cohort, ten in number, compared to the six of each of the other nine cohorts, have been revealed, in association with five large centurions' houses, situated next to the headquarters building. This is where it is placed by ‘Hyginus’ in the liber de munitionibus castrorum (3; 4), probably dated to the sole reign of Marcus Aurelius.

Was the verism of Roman Republican portraits due to Italic, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian, or Greek influence? This question has been much discussed, especially of late. Of particular interest is the recent theory that late Egyptian portraits played a decisive part. In this article I want first to discuss the evidence for the various influences that have been considered potent in the creation of Roman verism, and then try from this evidence to deduce which factor, or which factors, were the most potent. I shall examine in particular the Egyptian and the Greek theories, for in these fields I may perhaps have something new to say, whereas the Italian side has been thoroughly explored.

The question at issue is an important one; for, as Schweitzer has said, the birth of Republican Roman portraiture was as momentous a happening in the history of art as was the birth of individualistic representation in Greek art. The many different views that have been held regarding the origin testify to the complexity of the question. If a convincing solution could be obtained, it would clarify, I think, our whole understanding of that great phenomenon—the origin of Roman art.

First I must define the word ‘verism’, which has only comparatively recently entered our archaeological vocabulary. Verism I take to mean a somewhat dry realism, a realism which shows the person portrayed as he really is, without idealizing tendencies, with wrinkles and warts and other physical defects, and also, what is more important, with an expression not of a philosopher or poet or visionary, but of what might be called a man of affairs.

This paper aims to illustrate the practical application of myth in public life under the early Principate. It begins by sketching the deep historical affection of the people of Rome for the twins Castor and Pollux, and the great posthumous popularity of Nero Claudius Drusus for generations after his death in 9 b.c. Concentrating on the dedicatory inscription of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome, the paper argues that Tiberius Caesar, notoriously addicted to mythology, crafted a potent public association between the heavenly twins and himself and his brother Drusus, and it goes on to examine the effect of that association.