The annexation of Cappadocia has been little evaluated in terms of the information given by ancient sources, the political conditions in the east, and the annexation policy of Rome. Since the provincial process has not been extensively analysed, Cappadocia, among the kingdoms annexed by Rome, became perhaps the land for which the greatest variety of reasons have been proposed for its annexation. This study proposes the most probable reasons behind the annexation of Cappadocia in light of the existing reasons advanced, Tiberius' parsimonious attitude, and from historical developments.
When narrating the rape of Ilia, Dionysius of Halicarnassus includes an unparalleled detail: the original Vestal virgins only had to serve for five years, a period significantly shorter than the requirements for later priestesses, who stayed in office for 30 years. This paper argues that the historian uses the detail of the five-year tenure to increase the plausibility of a less canonical version of this Roman legend. The analysis of the passage reveals how Dionysius' handling of the episode sheds light on the challenge of balancing different historiographical priorities, which, at times, are at odds with one another.
Best known for their immense warships, the Greek and Roman war fleets also included units that did not participate in military confrontations. Auxiliary ships, largely known as hyperetika, constituted the majority of vessels in battle fleets and were a vital tool of ancient thalassocracies to carry out expeditions and rule over vast maritime areas. The cost of building and maintaining fleets required substantial funds, which in addition to warships, supported a broad variety of crafts. Although navies did not construct any specific typology of auxiliary ships, our investigation identified three categories: fast ships, troop-and horse-carriers, and reused merchantmen.
This article is about Singledia, a sth c. woman who is described as Galla Placidia's niece in Agnellus' Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis. The aim of the article is to explore the available data in order to understand who Singledia was, and in what way she was related to Galla Placidia Special attention is paiertora possible Gothic origin of Singledia, but other pos-sibilities are also examined. The main approach is a comparative analysis of her name from a variety of perspectives, in connection with the historical context of her time.
This paper analyses philolaconism as an idiosyncratic sign of a part of the upper classes of late fifth-century Athens. The laconising fashion adopted by this group is considered both a vector of elite distinction and a way of shaping its oligarchic identity. This was combined with an advancement of Sparta's political model in facts and ideas, favoured by the consequences of war and civil conflict within Athens. When this faction sought to crown its antidemocratic purposes in the public sphere, concepts related to the Spartan way of life and political organisation operated as references for the changes promoted.
In 19, 18 and a BCE, Augustus rejected the extraordinaryposition of a curator legum et morum maxima potestate. According to his own statement in R. gest. div. Aug. 6.1, he instead took care of the commonwealth's pressing issues at the time through his tribunicia potestas, while allegedly being checked by his peers in power. This paper examines the extent to which the mentioned cura is comparable to the position of a rector rei publicae outlined by Cicero and how the dismissal of this position should be interpreted against the backdrop of the gradual establishment of the Principate under Augustus.
This article argues that the role of the aedileship outside of the urbs in the agrarian sphere has been underappreciated in treatments of the office during the Roman Republic, as well as in readings of Cato the elder's De Agricultura. By assessing the prosecutorial jurisdiction of the aediles in the agrarian sphere, and how this extra-urban role was connected to their urban duties, the magistracy takes on a new complexion. In this context, a neglected passage from Cato's handbook, where he advises the young paterfamilias to build a villa at age thirty-six (Agr. 3.1), taken alongside other evidence, opens a window onto how the rural role played by the magistracy ultimately began to wane from the early second century BCE onwards.
Like most empires, the Imperium Romanum commonly used the instrument of indirect rule. The dependencies have traditionally been coined client states, and the concept has been successfully transferred to other disciplines. In Ancient History, however, amicitia rather than clientela is now usually emphasised, though often without sufficient reflection. The paper will therefore re-evaluate the idea of clientele relationships in foreign affairs during the ft century AD and investigate the suitability of both ancient and modern alternatives. Eventually, different groups of `allies' with varying degrees of dependence will be identified, by which the Roman world can be described more accurately.
Titus commemorated Britannicus, his childhood friend and Nero's rival for Claudius' succession, with two statues, an ivory equestrian statue in a circus procession, and a gold statue on the Palatine. By adhering to traditional imperial commemorative practices in a traditional ceremonial context Titus reaffirmed the ideological connection between the Flavian dynasty and Claudius' Principate. These commemorative practices as well as the display spaces for Britannicus' honorific statues, situated within a topography that had recently been transformed, further evoked his rivalry with Nero. Taken together these factors helped advance an ideology positioning the Flavian dynasty as legitimate successors to the Julio-Claudians.
Two works by Plutarch and Suetonius' Divus Iulius attest to the renewed significance of Caesar during the early second century AD. Damon has drawn attention to the widespread use of sayings placed in the mouths of Suetonius' biographical subjects as a powerful characterising function. This article shows that Suetonius has made a particular selection of sayings to characterise his 'Caesar' different from those of Plutarch. Suetonius deploys the sayings at key places in the Life, for example to demonstrate the determination of Caesar to reign, to present his explanation for the civil wars that led to the creation of the principate, to reveal how extreme his conception and exercise of his powers were during his dictatorships and to show that even as he was being killed he announced the vengeance that his imminent divinity brought to pass.
The paper argues that the Rome-based pretender during the reign of Decius, mentioned by the abbreviators of Aurelius Victor as Iulius Valens or Valens Lucinianus, is a fictitious personage, born through confusion with Decius' younger son Valens Hostilianus, and that the latter's split into the historical ephemeral emperor Hostilianus and the unhistorical usurper Valens was probably done by Aurelius Victor himself.
For decades, researchers in various disciplines have studied correlations between migration and social capital, namely, the impact of diversity on neighbour trust and community cohesion. Yet, so far, ancient historians have treated the topics of migration and social capital separately. The present article introduces the relevant empirical studies and social theories from other disciplines. It then applies findings from this modern research to Roman neighbourhoods. One outcome is a new perspective on the role of collegia in fostering or corroding trust and social capital in urban neighbourhoods: some associations can be understood as `bridging' in that they generated intergroup contact and so social capital, while others (probably most) were a force of division in that they proliferated out-groups and fostered distrust among neighbours. The collegia of port societies and other diverse neighbourhoods such as Regio XIV Trans tiberim are more likely to have enhanced social capital in their locales than are the associations of more homogeneous and inland societies.
This article reconstructs the outbreak of war between Athens and Macedonia in 340 BC by analyzing contradictory ancient sources. In order to downplay his personal responsibility for the outbreak of war, Demosthenes manipulates the historical sequence of events in his speech On the Crown, claiming that Philip II initiated the conflict by seizing the Athenian grain fleet. A rhetorical analysis of Philip's letter to the Athenians from the same year challenges its conventional interpretations as an appeasement, an ultimatum, or a declaration of war. Instead, the letter was a strategic provocation designed by Philip to prompt the Athenians into war before they could secure an alliance with Persia.
Rome's bustling legal atmosphere, as depicted in ancient literature, evolved with societal reforms over time. This complexity is evident in the development of court spaces, relocating from open spaces in the fora to enclosed courtrooms. Through a combination of literary and archaeological evidence, this essay traces the chronological evolution of tribunalia and explores the dispersion of legal spaces across the city.
The article aims to propose some reflections about the debate on the origin of the Greek alphabet starting from a scholium to Ars Grammatica of Dionysius of Thrace. We particularly focus on the position of Dionysius of Miletus, a historian who lived between the 6th and 5th centuries BC, author of works on Persia. Beyond the specific question of the Egyptian or Phoenician origin of the Greek alphabet, we are interested in reconstructing not only a problem that has been at the centre of the cultural history of 6th century in Greece, but also the Mediterranean historical-cultural context that lies at the bottom of the question. Another interesting aspect is the possibility that the study of the scholium offers us to analyse some characteristics of the historiography of Dionysius of Miletus and the relationships of the latter with the contemporary and the following Greek historiography, first of all Herodotus.
This study reexamines Ammianus Marcellinus' account of the forged-letter conspiracy that precipitated Silvanus' usurpation in 355 C. E. Modern interpretations have often agreed with Ammianus' assessment that Constantius' credulousness or collusion with the conspirators was at fault for allowing the conspiracy to unfurl with such potency. Close analysis of the events instead reveals Ammianus' efforts to manipulate details of the crisis to reinforce his assessment of Constantius as a paranoid tyrannus. Further scrutiny vindicates Constantius' use of prudent defensive measures and acts of clementia to mitigate threats to his throne and mediate his relationship with the western senate during the crisis.
This article analyzes the numerous instances of mass enslavement that occurred during the Peloponnesian War. Adopting a diachronic historiographical approach and considering the preceding Pentekontaetia, this study examines the processes and patterns of mass enslavements within the context of the belligerents' strategies during the Peloponnesian War. Consequently, this study engages with two distinct historiographical fields: the historiography of the Peloponnesian War and the study of ancient slavery.
This article analyses how Roman emperors were collectively commemorated by their successors. It demonstrates that there was never an official canon of past rulers nor a public emperor-list. Emperors did recognise their predecessors collectively through mechanisms including consecration, coinage, legal codifications, portraiture, and monumental mausolea. However, each time they did so, they generated new Caesar-catalogues rather than adhering to any fixed canon. As a result, official commemoration of earlier emperors as a group was inconsistent and sporadic, invariably done with an eye towards the needs of the present rather than presenting a coherent version of the imperatorial past.
Because conventional modes of transmission of knowledge about law, such as through education and distribution of law codes, were marginal pursuits, the early spread of knowledge about Roman law and the possibilities it offered outside Rome continues to be one of the major issues regarding the study of law in the ancient world. The purpose of this article is to study the various modes of transmission of legal knowledge in the Roman world from the first century BC to the Constitutio Antoniniana of AD 212 as a reciprocal process. Based on epigraphic and literary evidence, it examines the role of Roman patrons, the impact of Roman magistrates, the education of lawyers and the transmission of legal texts as key features, but also brings in the impact of shared spaces as a venue for disseminating information about law. It argues that that in all of the possible modes, the role of a varied group of middlemen was vital not only in bringing information about the law, but also in providing practical knowledge about how law could be utilized strategically to one's advantage.
