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A Tripod ‘Worth Seeing’ in the Olympieion at Athens (Paus. 1.18.8) Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2023-08-07 Brian Martens
This study proposes a new reconstruction of the tripod that Pausanias (1.18.8) recorded in the Olympieion at Athens. According to his brief description, the bronze tripod was supported by Persians made from Phrygian marble. A sculptor's sketch found during the excavations of the Athenian Agora is identified as a representation of that monument. The sketch, carved from poros limestone, depicts a standing
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Taxing Wealth in the Just City: Cicero and the Roman Census Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2023-06-06 Andrew Monson
Cicero claims that states were created for the protection of property, so a statesman should try to avoid levying property taxes. A contrary principle holds that, as long as the state is common to all, those who benefit from it most should compensate those who benefit least to maintain distributive justice. With this frame of reference, the article asks two related questions. First, to what extent
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Metaquotation: Homer and the Emperor Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2023-05-24 Peter Heslin
For the emperor, quoting Homer was both a danger and an opportunity. Suetonius’ Lives shows that anecdotes of quotation circulated widely to characterise the emperor for good or for ill. Subsequently, these moments could themselves become the subject of allusion. If you quote a line of Homer that was famously quoted by the emperor, are you quoting the poet or Caesar? This phenomenon, whereby a poetic
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Divine Representation in Documentary Style: Gods on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2023-04-11 Thomas Runeckles
This article examines the important roles played by gods in the friezes of the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius and argues that they are treated in a distinctive ‘documentary’ style, comparable in certain ways to accounts of divine action in Roman historiography and designed to produce a compelling narrative effect. First, the Columns and the deities they depict are discussed. The article then
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Death by Analogy: Identity Crises on a Roman Sarcophagus Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-24 Emily Clifford
This article examines how images on a sarcophagus involved Roman viewers in processes of thinking by analogy and so invited them to engage in meditation on death. This more thanatological slant is sidelined in current approaches that emphasise how exemplary figures on sarcophagi consoled the bereaved and praised the dead. Building on these approaches, together with work on the mediating role played
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Roman Failure: Privilege and Precarity at Early Imperial Podere Marzuolo, Tuscany Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2023-01-11 Astrid Van Oyen
The case of the early imperial small rural settlement of Marzuolo, in south-central Etruria, paints a micro-history of arrested developments: a couple of decades into the site's existence, an abandoned wine-production facility was converted into a blacksmithing workshop, which in turn burnt down and was abandoned soon after. But were both these endings failures? This article uses the concept of failure
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Connectivity and Disconnectivity in the Roman Empire Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-24 Sailakshmi Ramgopal
‘J'ai passionnément aimé la Méditerranée, sans doute parce que venu du Nord, comme tant d'autres, après tant d'autres.’
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The Poet Nemesianus and the Historia Augusta Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-08-03 Justin Stover, George Woudhuysen
Lurking in the Historia Augusta's life of the short-lived Emperor Carus is what appears to be a reference to the genuine contemporary poet Nemesianus and an extant work by him, the Cynegetica. Given the HA's predilection for ‘bogus authors’, this is rather surprising, but because some of what the HA says about Nemesianus is true, the otherwise unique details of his life and works that it provides have
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Citizens of the Wor(l)d? Metaphor and the Politics of Roman Language Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-07-28 Olivia Elder
In his discussion of Roman wind-names, Seneca the Younger employs a striking metaphor to describe the integration of the name of the south-east wind, Eurus, into Latin. The name Eurus, Seneca says, has been ‘granted citizenship’. This is one of six instances of the metaphor of ‘granting citizenship to words’ in surviving ancient texts. In this article, I use this metaphor as an entry-point to reconsider
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Coinage in the Roman Provinces: the RPC and CHRE projects Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-07-08 Olivier Hekster, Erika Manders
Roman coinage forms an astoundingly rich body of material. That applies to coins struck by the centre as much as so-called provincial coinage. The latter can be roughly categorised as 1) coins struck by cities in the east of the Roman Empire, and for the Julio-Claudian period also in the west (in the western provinces, cities stopped issuing coins around the end of Claudius’ reign); 2) coinages issued
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Reforesting Roman Africa: Woodland Resources, Worship, and Colonial Erasures Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-07-04 Matthew M. McCarty
Despite a range of literary and archaeological evidence for the importance of forests in Roman Africa, these marginal lands and their marginalised populations have been almost entirely ignored or downplayed by modern scholarship, leading to tortured interpretations of a range of material. This article asks two questions, one historical, the other historiographic: what role did the forests of Africa
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Access for Augustus: The ‘House of Livia’ and the Palatine Passages Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-06-13 T. P. Wiseman
This article draws attention to a neglected archaeological datum (pointed out by Amanda Claridge in 2014) that has important consequences for our understanding of the Augustan Palatine. The ‘house of Livia’, excavated in 1869, has always been thought of as belonging to the Augustan complex, but the evidence suggests that it did not exist above ground level after the 30s b.c.; its basement, on the other
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MARJORIE CURRY WOODS, WEEPING FOR DIDO: THE CLASSICS IN THE MEDIEVAL CLASSROOM. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. Pp. xxi + 176. isbn 9780691170800. £30.00. - L. B. T. HOUGHTON, VIRGIL'S FOURTH ECLOGUE IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xviii + 376. isbn 9781108499927. £90.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Stefano Rebeggiani
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ANDREA BINSFELD and MARCELLO GHETTA (EDS), UBI SERVI ERANT? DIE IKONOGRAPHIE VON SKLAVEN UND FREIGELASSENEN IN DER RÖMISCHEN KUNST: ERGEBNISSE DES WORKSHOPS AN DER UNIVERSITÉ DU LUXEMBOURG (ESCH-BELVAL, 29.–30. JANUAR 2016). (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 43.) Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2019. Pp. vi + 276, illus. isbn 9783515124669. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Sinclair W. Bell
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MICHELLE L. BERENFELD, THE TRICONCH HOUSE (Aphrodisias, results of the excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria conducted by New York University 11). Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2019. Pp. ix + 108, plates, illus., plans. isbn 9783954904051. €69.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Inge Uytterhoeven
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FRANCISCO PINA POLO (ED.), THE TRIUMVIRAL PERIOD: CIVIL WAR, POLITICAL CRISIS AND SOCIOECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONS (Colección Libera res publica 2). Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2020. Pp. 509, illus. isbn 9788413400969. €25.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-20 Kit Morrell
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JULIEN DEMAILLE and GUY LABARRE (EDS), Les associations cultuelles en Grèce et en Asie mineure aux époques hellénistique et impériale: compositions sociales, fonctions civiques et manifestations identitaires (époques hellénistique et romaine). Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2021. Pp. 208. isbn 9782848678665. €21.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-20 Ulrike Roth
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CHARLES W. KING, THE ANCIENT ROMAN AFTERLIFE: DI MANES, BELIEF, AND THE CULT OF THE DEAD (Ashley and Peter Larkin series in Greek and Roman culture). Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020. Pp. xxix + 269. isbn 9781477320204. US$55.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-19 Allison L. C. Emmerson
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Middle Republican Connectivities Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-06 Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Seth Bernard
This paper outlines a new framework for the historical study of Rome and Italy during the middle republican period. We argue that traditional approaches centred upon social struggles at home and battles abroad, res domi militiaeque, do not sufficiently capture the dynamism of Roman society during the early stages of imperial expansion. Recent scholarship has been rightly critical of the appropriateness
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For Whom Hesperus Shines: An Astronomical Allusion in Roman Epithalamic Poetry Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-02-18 Fabio Guidetti
This paper reconstructs the history and meaning of a hitherto unexplained astronomical allusion recurring several times in Roman epithalamic poetry: the association of the evening star with Mount Oeta. By examining the iterations of this motif in surviving Latin literature (especially Catullus 62, Vergil's Eclogue 8 and the pseudo-Vergilian Ciris), I propose to explain the original meaning of this
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The Literary Artistry of Terentianus Maurus Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-02-02 Tom Keeline
Terentianus Maurus, a North African writing probably in the third century a.d., bequeathed to posterity a preface and three polymetric poems: De litteris, De syllabis and De metris. The poems’ titles reflect their content, the first two covering the pronunciation of letters and syllables and the third discussing the details of a bewildering array of metres. Unpromising subject matter for poetry? On
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JESÚS HERNÁNDEZ LOBATO and ÓSCAR PRIETO DOMINGUEZ (EDS), LITERATURE SQUARED: SELF-REFLEXIVITY IN LATE ANTIQUE LITERATURE (Studi e Testi Tardoantichi. Profane and Christian Culture in Late Antiquity 18). Turnhout: Brepols, 2020. Pp. 314. isbn 9782503586526. €75.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-28 Scott McGill
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LAURA NASRALLAH, ANNEMARIE LUIJENDIJK and CHARALAMBOS BAKIRTZIS (EDS), FROM ROMAN TO EARLY CHRISTIAN CYPRUS (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 437). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Pp. xi + 326. isbn 9783161568732. €144.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-28 Luca Zavagno,Fermude Gülsevinç
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ERIKA MANDERS and DANIËLLE SLOOTJES (EDS), LEADERSHIP, IDEOLOGY AND CROWDS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE OF THE FOURTH CENTURY AD (Heidelberger Althistorische Beiträge und Epigraphische Studien 62). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2020. Pp. 200, index. isbn 9783515124041. £44.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2022-01-27 Monica Hellström
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JAMES CORKE-WEBSTER, EUSEBIUS AND EMPIRE: CONSTRUCTING CHURCH AND ROME IN THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvii + 346. isbn 9781108474078. £90. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Noel Lenski
instead (220) to ‘place the religious changes in Late Antiquity in the bigger picture and longer story of the Mediterranean world’, by focusing on practices, ‘the local and the ordinary’ and discovering the ‘John Does and Jane Does’ who ‘prevailed against and overcame the ideologues of separation’. The book conveys a clear sense of the Christian rhetoric of religious deviance in late antique society
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ANNE ROGERSON, VIRGIL'S ASCANIUS: IMAGINING THE FUTURE IN THE AENEID (Cambridge classical studies). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. viii + 237. isbn 9781107115392. $99.99. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Mairead McAuley
exempla challenge Vergil’s poetics, particularly the Mantuan’s characterisation of elegy through Orpheus as solipsistic. Finally, as Vergil was composing the Aeneid in the 20s, Propertius penned a third book of poetry whose embedded myths and intertextual references took direct aim at laudatory epic poetry (ch 6: Ennius Redivivus). With some thirty poems subject to close intertextual readings, H.’s
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DAVID L. D'AVRAY, PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE c. 400. SOURCES OF THE CANON LAW TRADITION. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 302. isbn 9781108472937. £75.00. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Dominic Moreau
space to frame veiled criticism of the Vandal elite. In the last chapter of the volume, Silke Diedrich returns to this theme of opposition and discusses Dracontius’ explicitly anti-Arian message in De Laudibus Dei — perhaps his clearest poetic statement against the ruling elite. Yet other contributors are less willing to see Roman and Vandal as quite so clearly opposed in the poet’s works. In the opening
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AGNESE LIVIA FISCHETTI and PETER ATTEMA (EDS), ALLE PENDICI DEI COLLI ALBANI: DINAMICHE INSEDIATIVE E CULTURA MATERIALE AI CONFINI CON ROMA (Groningen Archaeological Studies 35). Groningen: Barkhuis, 2019. Pp. 276. isbn 9789492444837. €54.95. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Eoin O'Donoghue
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SILKE-PETRA BERGJAN and SUSANNA K. ELM (EDS), ANTIOCH II: THE MANY FACES OF ANTIOCH. INTELLECTUAL EXCHANGE AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY, CE 350–450 (Civitatum Orbis Mediterranei Studia 3). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018. Pp. xiii + 506, illus. isbn 9783161551260. €139. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-11-01 Lieve Van Hoof
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(Un)Seeing Augustus: Libertas, Divinisation, and the Iuvenis of Virgil's First Eclogue Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-08-27 Bobby Xinyue
This article argues that Virgil's First Eclogue naturalises the power discourse of the future Augustan Principate. Throughout the poem, Virgil not only presents the iuvenis as a libertas-restoring benefactor who is treated as a god by his beneficiaries, but even imagines his elevated status as crucial to maintaining social cohesion and civic stability, and idealises the beneficiaries’ dependence on
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JASPER DE BRUIN, BORDER COMMUNITIES AT THE EDGE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: PROCESSES OF CHANGE IN THE CIVITAS CANANEFATIUM (Amsterdam archaeological studies 28). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019. Pp. ix + 297, illus. isbn 9789463728102. £104. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-08-11 Lacey M. Wallace
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MARTIN STERRY and DAVID J. MATTINGLY (EDS), URBANISATION AND STATE FORMATION IN THE ANCIENT SAHARA AND BEYOND (Trans-Saharan archaeology series 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xxiv + 740, illus. isbn 9781108494441. £135. - JOHN SCHEID and MICHEL ZINK (EDS), LES SOCIÉTÉS TRIBALES EN AFRIQUE DU NORD (IXe journée d’études nord-africaines). Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-08-09 Brent D. Shaw
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ISABELLA DAMIANI and CLAUDIO PARISI PRESICCE (EDS), LA ROMA DEI RE, IL RACCONTO DELL'ARCHEOLOGIA. Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2019. Pp. 509. isbn 9788849237399. €50. - GABRIELE CIFANI, THE ORIGINS OF THE ROMAN ECONOMY: FROM THE IRON AGE TO THE EARLY REPUBLIC IN A MEDITERRANEAN PERSPECTIVE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. 450. isbn 9781108478953. £120. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-08-05 Seth Bernard
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MARK A. LOCICERO, LIQUID FOOTPRINTS: WATER, URBANISM, AND SUSTAINABILITY IN ROMAN OSTIA. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2020. Pp. 381, illus. isbn 9789087283230. €64.50. Journal of Roman Studies Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Adam Rogers
inclusion of ethnographic information may have further enriched or nuanced the analysis (e.g. when Romans had dead bodies decomposing in the atrium, how might that compare with the experiences of modern/recent societies who keep the recently dead close by?). A nal consideration is that of scope: the textual references are quite disparate in chronology and geography (including both Plautus and Apuleius)
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