Gli scavi recentemente effettuati presso S. Giacomo degli Schiavoni (CB) hanno portato alla luce un complesso di carattere industriale, con zone lavorative, magazzini ed un sistema idraulico di pozzi, contenitori e fogne, centrato su di una cisterna.

Il riempimento di questa cisterna conteneva una grande quantità di ceramica (400 vasi circa), databile agli anni 420–440 sulla base della terra sigillata chiara africana e focese ivi rinvenuta. Inoltre erano presenti anfore da trasporto dell'Africa e del Mediterraneo orientale, lucerne di produzione locale e molta ceramica dipinta e comune (anche quest'ultima, in parte, inportata dal Mediterraneo orientale).

La presenza di scarti di fornace di ceramica dipinta e comune e l'alta percentuale di ceramica importata suggeriscono che il sito avesse un ruolo economico abbastanza importante durante il tardo impero. La qualità delle importazioni dal Mediterraneo orientale suggerisce la presenza di un sistema economico apparentemente diverso da quello dell'Italia tirrenica.

Lo scavo della cisterna ha messo in luce anche un piccolo campione faunistico di estremo interesse.

La relativamente ampia varietà di specie, la inusuale (per questo periodo) predominanza degli ovicaprini sui suini e la presenza di una scapola di cammello (o dromedario) sembrano rappresentare gli elementi di maggiore interesse di questa fauna.

Interessante è anche la presenza di ossa di equidi (sia cavallo che asino) il cui ipotetico utilizzo come animali da trasporto fa supporre che il sito avesse un ruolo in un sistema economico di più ampia scala, nel cui ambito anche la presenza del cammello potrebbe essere interpretata.

Seppure l'incompleto recupero del materiale (dovuto ad assenza di setacciatura) e la piccolezza del campione invitino alla cautela, sembra lecito ipotizzare la presenza di un sito dalle molteplici attività economiche: allevamento (probabilmente per carne, latte e lana), agricoltura, caccia, commercio.

It is impossible for us, even in these days of land-rovers and jeeps, to imagine a North African landscape without a camel in it, yet the animal is nowhere to be found on the numerous Roman mosaics with scenes of country life in the museums of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania. Only two ancient writers before Ammianus Marcellinus refer to the camel in North Africa, one specifically, the other by implication. The fact that the camel spread over this region—Africa Proconsular is, Numidia and Mauretania—some time during the Roman period is, however, generally accepted. What is not clear is when and how this happened. The purpose of this note is to publish the photograph of a relief from a Tripolitanian tomb (Pl. XVIII), in the hope that it may be a small contribution to the discussion of the problem, at least as far as Tripolitania is concerned.

The evidence has often been studied. The earliest mention of the camel in the Maghreb is the note in the Bellum Africanum to the effect that twenty-two camels belonging to King Juba were captured during the skirmishing in the campaign which led up to the Battle of Thapsus (45 B.C.). It is not known how Juba obtained his twenty two camels, or whether other rich Numidians owned any, and there is no hint of the presence of the beast in Punic times. The second notice comes in the work of the late third-century African Christian, Arnobius of Sicca, who writes of the camel kneeling down when it is being loaded or unloaded.

This paper aims to bring to the fore an aspect of Italian history between the end of the sixth century and the first half of the eighth century which has been considered rarely to date: that is, the continuity of the strong economic ties between Rome and some regions of the Mezzogiorno, in particular Sicily and, to a lesser extent, Calabria. Thanks to the large papal estates in these regions, Rome continued throughout these centuries to secure for herself a considerable part of her own food supply through long distance provisioning, as she had done before the end of the Roman Empire in the West. In the context of extremely marked contractions of exchange and commerce, which were affecting all of western Europe at that time, this system appears to be an anomalous anachronism. However, it continued to function until external factors intervened (fiscal measures adopted by the Emperor of Byzantium, Leo III, between 724 and 733). The laborious reorganisation of the papal economic interests was probably one of the reasons why the popes were compelled to think of the idea of creating a regional political seigniory.

The best illustrations of the army which extended and protected the Roman Empire are to be seen on Trajan's Column. They are not, however, thoroughly known to classical students, for reasons which are worth stating. The primary reason is undoubtedly the scarcity of Cichorius's reproductions of the reliefs and the still greater rarity of plaster casts; but an important contributory factor is the bewildering quantity and peculiar quality of the material. The reliefs tell the story of two wars, the first a series of expeditions leading up to great battles, not unlike Agricola's campaigns in Britain; the second an organised conquest, ending in the burning of the hostile capital, the suicide of the nobles and their King and the enslavement of a people. This narrative picture, as dramatic as the Bayeux tapestry but unprovided with a text, has attracted historians, because it seems to fill a gap in their literature, and students of art, as being among the most extensive and detailed examples of such Roman sculpture.

This article forms part of a larger study of Roman architectural ornament undertaken during two years of residence in the British School. The subject was first suggested to me by the Director, to whom I am grateful both for his constant encouragement of my work and for a great deal of practical advice and help in the preparation of this article for press. My friend, Dr. Enrico Paribeni, has been an unfailingly generous source of information, and I wish to thank him especially for drawing my attention to the fragments in the Via del Banco di Santo Spirito and for identifying some fragments from the Hadrianeum. Mrs. Sheila Rizzello has shown great patience and skill in the preparation of the drawings and tracings; and the text could not have been completed without the help of Miss Shirley Twallin.

Ever since the discussion of Orpheus in Bosio's Roma Sotterranea (1632, 627 ff) the problem of pagan mythological figures in early Christian art has aroused much attention. Until quite recently, however, it was generally believed that Orpheus was the only such figure to appear, so that discussion naturally centred on his peculiar acceptability to the Christians. But the discovery of important new material and the renewed interest amongst scholars in the pagan element in early Christian art have recently led to the consideration of other pagan gods and heroes in this light. Some of these characters appear only once or twice in Christian settings, or may have a Christian significance only on isolated occasions. But for all the five figures that will be studied here—Orpheus, Bellerophon, Sol, Ulysses, and Hercules—some kind of sustained Christian interpretation has been proposed, and in each case several representations are involved. The purpose of this paper is to collate the claims made for these various mythological figures, to re-assess some of the conclusions which were reached in earlier studies and have now been rendered out-of-date by the discovery of new examples, and to attempt some general conclusions about the role of these pagan mythological figures in early Christian art up to the mid sixth century.

Quattro campagne di ricerca sono state eseguite tra il 1978 e il 1981 nella zona immediatamente circostante la città Romana abbandonata di Luna (Luni) in Liguria. Lo scopo della ricerca era di contribuire a spiegare come una grande città sia fiorita qui in epoca Romana, e perchè sia sparita agli inizi del Medioevo. La ricerca archeologica di superficie (parte 2) ha rivelato poco dell'epoca preistorica e medievale, ma ha individuato resti sparsi di fattorie Romane, specialmente nelle collinette che sovrastano la città. Queste fattorie collinari, una delle quali è stata scavata (Parte 3), sembra siano state abbandonate verso la fine del I sec. d.C, e viene ipotizzato che esse dipendessero per la loro sussistenza dalla produzione e dall'esportazione di vino e olio. La Parte 4 esamina in dettaglio i problemi connessi con la scoperta di insediamenti altomedievali in questa zona. La Parte 5 è il resoconto di una ricognizione geomorfologica nella zona del porto di Luna, che ha messo in luce l'esistenza a ovest della città di un bacino portuale poco profondo, e ha documentato il suo processo graduale di riempimento in epoca post-classica. Nella Parte 6 sono illustrate alcune conclusioni generali e i rapporti tra la città e il suo entroterra.

How far there was ever in classical antiquity a public health service, organised and paid for by the state, has been often debated by both doctors and classical scholars, with conflicting results. For fifth and fourth century Greece the amount of evidence available is insufficient to permit any certainty, but there can be no doubt that in the Hellenistic age individual cities offered special privileges in order to secure the residence of a qualified physician. But whether and in what ways such a system was carried over into the very different society of the Roman empire, and still more into that of late antiquity, are questions which have never been satisfactorily answered, and the authority of the Roman part of Pohl's dissertation De graecorum medicis publicis, despite its increasing age, has never been seriously challenged—indeed, some more recent studies have only highlighted by contrast its high level of accuracy, judgement and, for its time, comprehensiveness. However, the discovery of three new inscriptions of archiatri from Aphrodisias affords an opportunity to re-examine the institution of public doctors in the Roman empire and thereby to throw light upon a professional designation, archiatros/archiater, which has troubled scholars ever since Herodian the grammarian attempted to settle the position of its Greek accent. By surveying the evidence according to the varied societies in which the archiatri practised—the courts, the Eastern cities, the West and Rome in late antiquity, Constantinople and Roman and Byzantine Egypt—a much clearer picture of the spread of public doctors can be obtained without introducing anachronistic or extraneous attitudes and institutions to provide a single uniform pattern of development.

La prima metà di questo articolo è una raccolta di tutta le disposizioni testamentarie reali concernenti Roma dal III secolo a.c. al I secolo d.c. Questi testamenti comprendono lasciti di interi regni nonchè legati minori, e la nomina del popolo romano a tutore degli eredi del re.

La seconda parte esplora la logica che si trova dietro queste disposizioni: perchè i re le prendevano? Vengono studiate varie possibilità, ma tutte sono considerate più o meno insoddisfacenti: particolare attenzione viene dedicata alla possibilità che i re facessero lasciti a Roma per rendere più sicura la loro posizione mentre erano in vita. Si sostiene che i re facessero questi testamenti nel contesto della loro amicizia e alleanza con Roma. I re coinvolgevano l'amica Roma nel testamento quasi come i privati nominano gli amici nel testamento. Così, quando un re non aveva figli che gli succedessero, poteva fare un lascito del suo regno a Roma. Se aveva figli, poteva nominare l'amica Roma loro tutrice. Similmente, poteva lasciare legati a Roma, come chiunque può fare con un amico.

The present report deals with excavations which have been spread over a considerable period of time, and is the work of various hands. For the greater part of the introduction, and for sections I., III., V., VII., IX. XIII., I am myself responsible; the note on the affinities of the Maltese pottery, and sections II., IV., VI., X., XII., are the work of Mr. T. E. Peet; section VIII. of Professor N. Tagliaferro, I.S.O.; and section XI. of Mr. R. N. Bradley. The difficulties of correcting the MSS. and plans, at some distance of time and space, have not been inconsiderable.

L'edificio sul Campidoglio conosciuto attualmente come tabularium è uno dei pochi monumenti esistenti della Roma repubblicana ancora ben conservati e studiati relativamente bene. Ciononostante la sua funzione non è ancora chiara. Lo stesso nome ‘Tabularium’ è stato sottoposto a discussione in molte occasioni e quasi certamente è sbagliato. Vengono valutati i recenti srudi di Nicholas Purcell, Henner von Hesberg e Pier Luigi Tucci. Avendo esaminato in dettaglio l'evidenza storica e archeologica, l'autore propone che questo complesso capitolino sia la base (substructio) di un triplice tempio dedicate a Venus Victrix (il più importante situate al centro), al Genius publicus populi Romani e a Fausta Felicitas. Supporto per questa interpretazione va cercato nei fasti fratrum Arvalium del 9 ottobre. Esso rappresenta una chiara testimonianza del potere e della ideologia di Silla, che dominavano gli spazi delle politiche tradizionali con immensa forza.

Questo articolo forma la prima parte di una duplice indagine di documenti del periodo 700–1200, con lo scopo di sviluppare una documentazione medievale controparte alle indagini della BSR sull'Etruria Meridionale, per una regione comprendente la zona di indagine di Ager Veientanus le cui estensioni si allungano verso ovest a Cesano e verso est al Tevere. La regione è più o meno inclusa in una lista di chiese del 11° secolo, lista che sopravvive in una copia nel registro di Papa Gregorio IX, ci dà una base per l'analisi documentaria di esempi di insediamenti medievali nel 11° secolo. In questo articolo le zone intorno all'Isola Farnese, Cesano, Fanello, Sacrofano e le pianure a est dell'Isola sono analizzate. Nel 11° secolo i castelli della pianura sembrano essere stati luoghi per sistemazioni in nuclei, ma lungo le strade consolari e negli altopiani gli insediamenti sparsi sopravvissero. Per la maggior parte, la proprietà in quel periodo era molto frammentaria e ciò sembra essere stato per 1′ 8° e 9° secolo, periodo ‘domusculta’, che l'autore non considera come un periodo di bonifica e consolidamento. Conclusioni generali appariranno nella II parte.

The marble of seven under-lifesize sculptures of barbarians, now in the archaeological museums of Naples, Venice and the Vatican, commonly considered to be Roman copies of the Pergamene Lesser Dedication in Athens, comes from the Göktepe marble quarries near Aphrodisias, as is shown by isotopic, electron paramagnetic resonance, trace analyses, and of petrographic data. Since this marble was used mostly by Aphrodisian artists, this finding confirms, on the basis of scientific data, previous hypotheses on the origin of the sculptors who manufactured the statues. Reliable discrimination from similar fine-grained Asiatic marbles, such as Docimium, is possible primarily on the basis of the composition of the Göktepe marbles, which have unusually low concentrations of manganese and high concentrations of strontium. Present knowledge of the history of the quarries and the distribution of their marbles seems to rule out the possibility that the sculptures date from the late Republican period and supports the opinion, previously proposed on stylistic grounds, that they were manufactured in Rome by Aphrodisian sculptors probably during the first half of the second century ad.

The Via Herculia is known as such solely through inscriptions. Their distribution, near Ariano Irpino, Monteleone di Puglia, Zungoli, Vallesaccarda, Melfi, Lavello, Venosa, Castel Lagopesole, Sala Consilina, and Marsico Nuovo, indicates that the road followed a route from somewhere near Ariano Irpino at least as far as Grumentum, by way of Venosa and Potenza. Their contents show that it was made a via publica by the time of Diocletian and Maximian Herculius (hence, probably, the name Via Herculia), was repaired and restored by Maxentius in 311 (which might argue for an original construction fairly early in the reigns of Diocletian and Maximian), and continued to be maintained by Constantine, Flavius Victor, Jovian, and Theodosius and Arcadius. It is clear that it was an important road in the Late Empire as a centrally located north-south highway through the rugged terrain of south Italy.

Some uncertainty exists, however, about its precise location. Several different routes have been posited by various authorities, who have in most cases tried to utilise the evidence of the ancient sources so as to make the highway follow one or another passage through the mountains.

In explanation of the fact, which might at first sight cause surprise, that a paper which consists mainly of a description of paintings is not accompanied by reproductions of the pictures themselves, it is necessary to state that the photographs and other methods by which the appearance of the paintings has been, so far as possible, preserved being the property of the Italian authorities, cannot be published until the official account of the excavations has been issued. The present description must be regarded chiefly as a contribution to our knowledge of Byzantine iconography as it was understood and practised at Rome in the eighth century. It may be added that the damaged condition of all but a few of the pictures makes a careful description almost as valuable for iconographical purposes as reproduction, and that their interest consists rather in the choice and treatment of subjects than in their artistic character.