The Esquiline Treasure: The Nature of the Evidence

Abstract

It was with considerable interest that I reread my book on the Esquiline Treasure to see if indeed I had written what Cameron alleges; perhaps most importantly, to see if I had championed a date in the 350s.'1 No scholar in a historical discipline is immune from the trials of assessing and essaying dates, and none, certainly, surrenders precise indicators of chronology like the Roman consuls named in the Damasian epitaph without considerable reluctance and serious investigation. But Cameron and I do read that epitaph differently, with the result that, in lieu of the consuls, other criteria are summoned in my argument to support an alternate date. No consuls, no imperial vota or other unique, datable events are marked within the Esquiline silver; nor, unfortunately, is there another datable inscription, external to the treasure, more securely linked. Aspects of stylistic development witnessed for the abundant silver of the empire, the iconography of city personifications, the pattern of religious conversion in the Roman upper classes, and (pace Cameron) the dissemination of court fashions converge to suggest a broad date, which I termed in various phrases mid-fourth century, middle decades of the fourth [century], and, most specifically, 330 to 370.2 The imprecision of these forty years is perhaps best appreciated by the readers of this journal comfortable, of necessity, with such dating as Early Bronze Age, late Hellenistic, and even the range implicit in the label Augustan. Much effort is and should be expended to fix exact dates where evidence allows, but, where such evidence is lacking, the search turns instead to those markers that indicate a reason-