Roman Consul Research Articles

The Esquiline Treasure: The Nature of the Evidence

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-

Herodes Atticus: An Essay on Education in the Antonine Age

HERODES ATTICUS (A.D. 101-176), the Athenian millionaire, Roman consul, celebrated sophist and friend and teacher of Roman Emperors was one of the best known figures of the Antonine Period. Philostratus, the author of the Lives of the Sophists, written ca. A.D. 230, gives Herodes considerably more space than any other sophist; he is the subject of Graindor's solid though dated biography, of Rutledge's admirable doctoral thesis, and is one of the major figures in Bowersock's brilliant work on the Greek sophists in the Roman Empire. (1) Herodes' education and teaching career, however, have never been adequately studied. It is the aim of this essay to do that.

Dr. Archagathos: refugee physician and Roman consul.

Inspired partly by the interesting story of Jan Van Riebeeck, the doctor who settled Cape Town, contributed by Dr. Viets to Medical Intelligence in the issue of March 27 and partly, perhaps, by the weather, the editors of the Journal, accustomed as they are to great responsibilities, have assumed a new one. It is to publish from time to time, as space and material may be available, brief accounts of physicians who have achieved a degree of success or even fame in some activity other than the pursuit of medicine in its various branches.The very particular editor of . . .

The Pax Caudina

The circumstances surrounding one of the most grievous disgraces which ever befel a Roman army are familiar. In 321 B.C. the so called Second Samnite War was at its height. The Roman consuls, while at Calatia with their armies, received news that the enemy forces were in Apulia under the new Samnite general, Gavius Pontius. Pushing forward, either in the hope of winning a decisive victory on the Apulian plains, or in order to relieve the pressure on the allied city of Luceria, they advanced into a valley which had but two exits: on trying to get out of this defile, they found both entrances blocked. Doubtless the army made attempts to fight its way out of the encircling Samnite ring, but they proved unavailing. To avert death by starvation, the consuls surrendered. Pontius, being in a position to dictate his own terms, demanded that Roman garrisons should be withdrawn from territory which the Samnites regarded as theirs, while the Romans were not to re-open the war: in addition he took six hundred Roman knights as hostages, disarmed the Roman army and sent it ‘under the yoke.’