Given that few ancient accounts of the reign of Antoninus Pius survive from antiquity, other monuments, in particular coinage, become important in reconstructing his reign. In this article coin hoards are used to reconstruct a quantitative understanding of Pius's numismatic imagery. It is clear from the results that the three different coin metals (gold, silver and aes) differed in their messages: while gold coinage emphasized the imperial family and the concept of pietas, silver and aes coinage focused on the emperor's concern for the grain supply (annona). This broad understanding of Pius's numismatic image is supplemented by more detailed analysis of coin iconography in particular years. The liberalitas and Britannia series of Pius are explored in depth. The study highlights coinage's role as one imperial monument among many, contributing to the communication of imperial ideologies. It is clear that the image of Pius as a virtuous emperor ruling in a ‘Golden Age’ was one cultivated by the imperial bureaucracy, and so it is not surprising that the concept features in the preserved texts. The long-term impact of Pius's coinage is also considered. In the absence of significant quantities of aes coinage struck by the Severans, the coinage of Pius continued to be of importance in many regions throughout the third century, conveying impressions of Empire among users well after the emperor's death.

Mentions of wall and vault mosaics were rare (Ronczewski 1903 and Ricci 1914) until Carlo Cecchelli wrote the first definitive work on the subject (Cecchelli 1922). Since then scholars such as Bovini (1954) and Stern (1959) have sought the origins of wall mosaics. Others, like Parlasca (1959, 66–8) and Becatti (1961, 274–6, 291–4) have made valuable contributions to the subject in the form of essays within longer works. Neuerburg's (1965) work on fountains and nymphaea is particularly useful as a source because so many nymphaea are decorated with wall and vault mosaic. Another recent contribution to the subject is that of D. Joly (1965). A study of these works and of the monuments themselves reveals the following broad facts:

that wall mosaics, as distinct from floor mosaics, are largely composed of glass rather than stone tesserae;

that the earliest wall mosaics (those of the first half of the first century A.D.) incorporate, in addition to glass tesserae, a number of other materials, such as shells, pumice, twisted glass rods, pieces of glass and a substance known as Egyptian blue (Sear 1972–3, 29, n. 2);

The pottery from the sites excavated in 1957 and 1958 came, in the main, from two strata: the earlier occupation material on, and thrown over, the scarp on the western edge of the knoll on the north side of the north-west gate and the tips of the great earth and stone rampart of the fifth-century Etruscan defences. The former consists of two groups which are drawn and described as such below, Groups Al and A2. The latter is made up of a variety of sherds dating from the seventh, sixth and fifth centuries B.C., probably scraped up from the surface earth nearby in the making-up of the rampart, so that only representative sherds have been published as types of some particular ware, as dating evidence, or as comparative material. The cuniculi found in both years' excavations, apparently broken into and deliberately filled prior to the building of the rampart and the rampart wall, contained, as well as a number of earlier sherds, a quantity of three specialised pottery types, and these have been published fully, Groups B, C and D.

There are, in addition several small stratified groups. First the early material: Group A3 on the eastern side of the knoll, and, on the western side, the filling of the post-holes and gullies of the earliest timber structures. Both these are considered with Groups Al and A2.

In questo articolo si pubblicano le piante ed una descrizione de due case scavate a Luni (Liguria), databili al tardo VI/inizi VII secolo. Le case furono costruite in gran parte in materiali deperibili e le tracce rimaste erano costituite da buchi per pali, alcuni muretti di fondazione, e pavimenti in argilla battuta. Tutte le due case erano di forma rettangolare lunga e stretta, con due ambienti distinti. La casa I aveva massicci buchi per pali e larghe gronde all'esterno dei muri stessi della casa. Mentre nel caso della casa II la presenza di gronde era meno evidente ed i buchi per pali erano meno frequenti e meno imponenti. Attualmente le case sono paragonabili con quelle dell'Europa germanica piutosto che con quelle conosciute in Italia. Però è ben possibile che siano in fatti un tipo di casa locale, di cui mancano finora altri esempi soltanto perche mancano altri scavi di contesti domestici di quest'epoca.

One of the most impressive surviving monuments of Roman rule in Africa is the Caesareum at Cyrené. It was excavated some thirty years ago by the Italian Archaeological Mission, led by the late Gaspare Oliverio, and skilfully restored some years later by the Superintendency of Antiquities for Libya; but owing to the other preoccupations of its original investigators and, subsequently to the accidents of war, it has remained substantially unpublished. Recently it has been the subject of comment by Erik Sjöqvist in his valuable study of the Kaisareion at Alexandria, published in the volume of the Acta of the Swedish Institute in Rome presented to Axel Boethius on his sixty-fifth birthday. The points raised by Sjöqvist are of considerable importance for the study both of the origins and of the later development of a rich field of Roman monumental architecture, and in the summer of 1956 the British School at Rome undertook limited supplementary excavations within the Caesareum with the specific purpose of clearing up some doubtful points of fact. The main purpose of the present article is to present the results of these excavations within the framework of a more detailed architectural description of the site than is at present available.

This article explores the significance of sculptural and painted representations of ‘overweight’ and ‘underweight’ body types in the visual culture of Roman Italy from the fourth century bc through to the late Empire, and considers the relationship of this imagery to Greek and Hellenistic precedents. In spite of the topical character of fat in 21st-century sociology, anthropology and medical science, obesity and emaciation in the ancient world remain almost completely unexplored. This article sets out to examine the relationship of fat and thin bodies to power, wealth, character and behaviour, and seeks to identify patterns and continuities in the iconography of fleshiness and slenderness across a stretch of several hundred years. Such bodies could be evaluated in a number of different ways, and this article exposes the diverse — and sometimes contradictory — responses to body fat in the art and culture of the Roman world. It first examines the significance of obesity and emaciation in language, literature and medicine, and then discusses visual representations under three headings: ‘Fertility’; ‘The marginal and the ridiculous’, examining the relationship between body fat, humour and figures at the edge of civilized society; and ‘Portraits’, exploring fat and thin in the portraiture of real-life individuals in the realms of philosophy, Hellenistic rulership, Etruscan funerary art and Roman public sculpture.

In volume xxxiv of the Papers, pp. 131–50 (hereafter cited as ‘PBSR (1966)’), a short account was given of the site of Botromagno, overlooking the town of Gravina, on the western borders of the modern Apulia, and of the trial excavations which the British School conducted there in 1966 on behalf of the Superintendency of Antiquities for Apulia. As will have been evident from that account, the results were sufficiently promising to justify an extension of the work, and the report which follows gives some details of the three further seasons of work which were undertaken in 1967 and 1968 jointly by the British School, the University of Alberta and the Institute of Archaeology, London University. The first of these, covering five weeks in May-June of 1967, was directed by Dr. M. Aylwin Cotton and Mr. Halstead B. Vander Poel. The second and third seasons, both of five weeks, took place in August-September of 1967 and 1968 respectively, and were in both cases directed by Miss Joan du Plat Taylor of the Institute of Archaeology, London University.

The Basilica of Constantine (Fig. 1), the last and greatest of Roman civil basilicas, was begun by the Emperor Maxentius shortly after the fire of A.D. 307, which destroyed the Temple of Venus and Rome and, presumably, other buildings in this part of the Forum Romanum (Fig. 2).

The work of reconstruction in this area included not only the rebuilding of the Temple, but the erection of a new civil basilica to line the monumental approach to it. This vast building occupied a site 120 yards long by 80 yards deep along the north side of the Via Sacra, over the remains of the Portico of Nero's market hall and the Spice Warehouses (Horrea Piperataria) of Domitian (Plate I.).

This paper reassesses the architectural setting of a group of monumental buildings dating to the sixth century bc from the Etruscan area of central Italy, sometimes referred to as palaces, or palazzi. Although scholars traditionally have focused on classifying the buildings, the architectural form is here examined through close comparative analysis of spatial mechanics and movement. Focusing on case-studies from Poggio Civitate (Murlo) and Acquarossa, the author reconstructs the architectural processes of movement, particularly between the exterior and interior spaces arranged around a characteristic courtyard, and concludes that the structures are indicative of a unique Etruscan experience rather than that of Mediterranean palaces more generally. The author calls for a shift away from attempts to categorize these monumental structures in favour of a close analysis of spatial experience in order to explore better their architectural impact and function.

This study explores social and gendered aspects of female fertility in popular religious practices in Italy in the last four centuries BC, and it investigates the role of supplication and votive dedications in promoting maternal health and family continuity. It tackles modern assumptions which have strongly aligned the religious activities of women in Republican Italy with their generative interests and specific ‘fertility cults’ or ‘women's goddesses’. Divinities associated with fertility are explored here, with particular emphasis on Mater Matuta who is often defined in modern research as a ‘mother goddess’. The study shows that cults purely concerned with fertility are unlikely to have existed. Fertility was only one of several fundamental personal concerns brought by women and men to the generalist and polyvalent deities of Republican Italy. Items associated with fertility, such as terracotta wombs, male and female genitals, and swaddled infants, always occur together with other anatomical ex-votos across a wide range of sites and were dedicated to many deities. Considering the archaeological and textual evidence, Mater Matuta can be shown to have occupied a more flexible and encompassing space in the pantheon, and her involvement in marriage, motherhood and childbearing was part of a wider repertoire of responsibilities. The study also focuses attention on a distinctive, but largely overlooked, votive assemblage from Capua which includes numerous tufa statues of women and babies. The paper proposes that they should be understood as votive objects offered to an unknown deity by Capuan women as thanks for support in the generative enterprise, personally and more broadly in the context of the city's religious and civic identity.

Between 1974 and 1978 the settlement archaeology of the Biferno valley in Molise in southern Italy was investigated by a programme of field survey, excavation and allied archaeological research directed by one of us (GB) and termed the Molise Project. For the historic periods the archaeology has been combined with documentary studies; both have then been integrated with geomorphological research into the environmental history of the valley, forming an inter-disciplinary investigation of the relationship between human settlement and landscape change in the valley from prehistoric times to the present day. For interim reports on the project, see Barker (1976, 1977), Barker et al. (1978), and Lloyd and Barker (1981).

The ancient Sabine town of Eretum is said by the Peutinger Tabula to lie on the Via Salaria 14 m.p. from Fidenae (the modern Castel Giubileo) and by the Antonine Itinerary 18 m.p. from Rome. The distance is corroborated by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (A.R. 11.3) who puts it 140 stades = 17½ m.p. from Rome. Strabo (5.228) adds that it was close to the Tiber (ὑπὲρ τοῦ Τιβέρϵως κϵιμένην) where the Via Nomentana joins the Via Salaria. This last piece of evidence is misleading, since the Via Nomentana after Nomentum ran due north-east towards Monte Libretti and did not in fact join the Via Salaria.

L'articolo illustra alcune forme di anfore fino ad ora sconosciute trovate nell'Ager Falernus in siti provvisti di fornaci. La loro identificazione è particolarmente importante, in quanto sembrano postdatare l'anfora forma Dressel 2–4, il tipico contenitore commerciale di vino del primo periodo imperiale prodotto in questa zona. Se le nuove anfore erano destinate al trasporto del vino dagli inizi del secondo secolo d.C. in poi, ciò costituirebbe una valida evidenza archeologica a sostegno dell'impressione ricavata dalle fonti di una produzione ed esportazione continua del vino falerno fino agli inizi del quarto secolo almeno.

In the worship of the Roman Emperors there were at the beginning at least two elements that stood in sharp contrast to each other. The Greeks had been accustomed for some three centuries to the rule of hereditary Basileis; a basileus during his lifetime was often entitled θεός and honoured as such, and this title and honour sometimes continued after death. In Rome the attitude towards an Emperor was different: strictly speaking there was at first no such thing as an ‘Emperor,’ but merely a citizen entrusted with great powers; writers of the imperial age are never weary of pouring scorn upon ‘mores regii,’ on the evils of a court and of despotic rule. Neither by tradition nor by education were Romans favourably disposed towards worship of a living man as a god. True, they were accustomed to the notion that every man had a genius, and the genius was entitled to sacrifice on that man's birthday; even so, the genius was hardly 'a god,’ save in so far as men were liable to think of it as if it were that fundamentally different thing δαίμων.