Roman Imperial Administration Research Articles

Cosmopolitan Capito: architectural benefaction by a Roman official in Late Julio-Claudian Miletus

AbstractThis article explores the architectural benefactions of Gnaeus Vergilius Capito, a wealthy resident of Late Julio-Claudian Miletus, who held a number of positions in the Roman imperial administration prior to constructing the baths and theatre stage building in his home city. Through a detailed study of the archaeological and epigraphic evidence associated with Vergilius Capito, this article sheds light on when and why he built his public monuments and will demonstrate how members of the provincial elite like Capito, who had also been involved in local and wider imperial society, were represented through architecture. It will also show how culturally bilingual individuals could play a fundamental role in promoting Roman cultural influence in Greek provincial settings and will advocate a more individual-focussed approach when discussing the influence of Rome on its provinces. The article concludes that Capito’s Roman-Milesian citizenship enabled him to mediate between the world of the Greek polis and that of the Roman imperial system and uses the medium of architectural benefaction as a vehicle for driving cultural change in provincial settings.

GUARDING THE DANUBE AND BEYOND (I) COHORS II MATTIACORUM

Organization and operation of the Danubian limes had been a concern of the Roman imperial administration for several centuries. The strategic conception for this space was translated into practice directly with the support of the Roman army. One of the early arrived units in the Lower Danube area was cohors II Mattiacorum; detachments of the unit would flank the river, being stationed in the “bridgehead” fortifications of Dinogetia and Barboși. The history of this auxiliary unit may be broadly restored pegged solely by epigraphic records which we shall review below, together with historiographical discussions related to the completion and interpretation of their text. Although many of the opinions mentioned below remain mere hypotheses until new archaeological discoveries are made, I believe based on the documentary material that we know now, that the evolution of the cohors II Mattiacorum can be reconstructed with some accuracy. Obviously, any new epigraphic find may confirm or “colour” what we know now. The unit’s development spans more than a century from the last quarter of the 1st century AD to the end of the 2nd century AD, leaving more consistent traces at Dinogetia and Barboși, Sexaginta Prista and Sostra. We know the names of some soldiers and unit commanders and the fact that the unit was transformed somewhere in the middle of its existence into a milliariaunit.

A presença de Roma no Oriente: Iudaea Capta e as tradições culturais da Palaestina Romana

O artigo analisa a ocupação imperialista romana no Oriente Antigo, a consequente dominação da Iudea e sua transformação em Syria Palaestina. Aborda o debate actual sobre o tema, ilustrando também a temática com alguns exemplos da Arqueologia. A demografia e a paisagem da região são tratadas com o objetivo de demonstrar a intersecção de forças externas e de forças internas que definiram os campos de ação nesse inter-fluxo de relações humanas. Argumenta que a adequada administração imperial romana, a organização de uma rede de estradas ordenadas e um sistema de tráfego eficiente, permitiram tanto a mobilidade militar, bem como a formação de estratégias de suprimento, comunicação e controle da região pela população. Salienta categorias de análise, tais como poder, hegemonia, dominação e resistência, para a discussão do tema, afirmando que a formação dos espaços é inerente ao entendimento do próprio conceito de espaço, a esfera da simultaneidade, co-formador do tecido social e das relações de poder. A negociação, nesse sentindo, enquanto categoria analítica é o que fomenta espaços, alimenta as práticas materiais, subsidia as identidades e media o poder. Por fim, o artigo evidencia a importância da contextualidade social, dos contextos arqueológicos e dos contextos de produção dos discursos, como ferramentas próprias para abordagens académicas que privilegiem a percepção das distintas condições ideológicas e contradições inerentes às interações sociais e materiais em contato.

On the hoof: exploring the supply of animals to the Roman legionary fortress at Caerleon using strontium (87Sr/86Sr) isotope analysis

Provisioning large concentrations of professional soldiers in Britain after the invasion in AD 43 was a major challenge for the Roman imperial administration. In a distant frontier province such as Britannia, it is generally believed that locally produced agricultural resources must have been vital in feeding and maintaining the occupying army, but direct evidence for this is limited. This study explores the potential for strontium isotope analysis (87Sr/86Sr) of faunal dental enamel to provide new insights for the provisioning of animals to the legionary fortress at Caerleon in South East Wales. Results from 37 domestic animals (cattle, caprines and pigs) from the recent excavation of a military store building in Caerleon are presented. Thirteen faunal dentine and modern plant samples were also analysed to characterise baseline signals for the local landscape. These results indicated an unexpectedly wide range of bioavailable 87Sr/86Sr in the local area, meaning identifying allochthonous individuals with confidence is difficult. The faunal dataset is also very wide ranging, but at least seven individuals can be identified as originating from beyond the local region, with some likely being brought from a substantial distance away. It is highly likely, however, that this underestimates the proportion of animals reared outside the fortress’ immediate hinterland and individuals that fall within the diverse local range could also have been from further afield. This has implications for understanding how the Roman legion was sustained, as well as the impact that provisioning the army had on the countryside, particularly around military sites.

Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics by Noel Lenski

Reviewed by: Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics by Noel Lenski Robert R. Chenault Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics. By Noel Lenski. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2016. Pp. ix, 404. $79.95. ISBN 978-0-8122-4777-0.) The emperor Constantine continues to engender productive debate among historians of the later Roman Empire. Noel Lenski's outstanding new study will be required reading for scholars working on Constantine, late Roman imperial administration, civic identity in the provinces, and the rise of bishops as civic leaders in the fourth century. In contrast to recent approaches that have downplayed the degree to which Christianity was the driving force behind Constantine's policies, Lenski returns to a more traditional view. What is distinctive about Lenski's approach, however, is his reliance on "secular" evidence, especially laws, to establish Constantine's Christian credentials. The heart of Lenski's study is his analysis of a number of interactions between Constantine and the cities of his empire. He argues that Constantine usually preferred carrots to sticks, skillfully leveraging imperial resources to "push cities into actualizing his own conversion at the local level" (p. 179) while largely resisting the temptation to impose his will on recalcitrant subjects. In particular, he demonstrates how Constantine promoted Christianity by using "the tools of law and normative communication available to him by virtue of his office to effect changes in the landscape and culture of cities" (p. 281). Crucial to this approach is Lenski's [End Page 330] understanding of imperial power as constituted and mediated through language; in the dialogues between Constantine and his cities, each side was obliged to take into account the expectations of the other. Such a model allows for complexity in both the messages Constantine disseminated and the responses they generated. Not only were there many different layers in the complex and evolving "archaeology of Constantine's public personality" (p. 47), but cities might engage with those messages selectively and in accordance with their own priorities. Thus Lenski is able to account for evidence that often has been used to question Constantine's commitment to Christianity. For example, Lenski argues that the famous rescript to Hispellum—by which Constantine permitted a city in central Italy to build a temple to himself and his family during the last years of his reign—exemplifies precisely the sort of compromise that was at the heart of Roman imperial governance, for the permission was paired with an important caveat, which Lenski interprets as a prohibition on blood sacrifice at the new temple. Constantine's response to Hispellum's petition was therefore consistent with both the traditional policy of emperors to favor the requests of supportive cities and his desire to chip away at traditional religious practices whenever possible (p. 127). At the same time, Lenski is careful to avoid portraying Constantine as an all-powerful mastermind. To the contrary, he characterizes Constantine's open-handed conferral of powers, privileges, and patronage on the Church and its bishops as stemming from an almost naive exuberance; many of these measures had to be scaled back by his successors because they turned out to be excessive and unaffordable (p. 206). Moreover, Lenski illustrates the degree to which Constantine's ability to bend powerful bishops to his will was inherently limited; it was often Constantine who was being manipulated as rival bishops by turns enlisted his support, defied his authority, or used him to attack each other (p. 283). In sum, Lenski's compelling interpretation of Constantine as both an energetic promoter of Christianity and a political pragmatist successfully unites two facets of this complex emperor that have often been regarded as contradictory. While ecclesiastical scholars may regret the lack of attention given to theological controversies, Lenski's study superbly elucidates Constantine's approach to ecclesiastical conflicts and his own understanding of his role as the first Christian emperor of Rome. Robert R. Chenault Willamette University Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity ed. by Natalie B. Dohrmann and Annette Yoshiko Reed (review)

ANCIENT Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity. Edited by Natalie B. Dohrmann and Annette Yoshiko Reed. [Jewish Culture and Contexts.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2013. Pp. x, 388. $69.95. ISBN 978-0-8122-4533-2.)This set of thirteen papers on Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire assesses how Jews and Christians functioned as Romans. All but one or two of the contributors are specialists in Judaism in late antiquity, and Jewish topics and materials are the major focus of the collection. papers treat a wide variety of literary genres, and archaeological and artistic evidence, over a broad expanse of space (from Gaul and Spain to Mesopotamia) and time (from the third century to the early Middle Ages). unifying theme is Judaism's and Christianity's experience of and response to Romanization, both before and after Constantine's conversion, when Christianization further complicated Romanization. Rather than seeing Jews and Christians as stuck between the stark alternatives of assimilation or resistance, however, the papers approach them as subgroups carrying on their lives in what to them was normalcy, both subject to and at the same time exploiting the particular legal, social, and cultural conditions attached to being Roman. perspective thus owes something to postcolonial theorizing, but most of the contributions are mercifully sparing in their use of fashionable terminology.Space limitations only permit comments on a few especially noteworthy papers. William Adler's The Kingdom of Edessa and the Creation of a Christian Aristocracy studies the third-century Eastern Christians Bardaisan of Edessa and Julius Africanus, who illustrate the book's theme of creative and self-serving provincial accommodation to Western invasion, first via Greek paideia, then via Roman imperium. Readers unfamiliar with the swashbuckling figure of Africanus should read this well-informed portrait of a cultural entrepreneur, whose Christianity sat easily with his cultural pluralism and service to pagan royalty, first in Edessa and then in Rome.Natalie B. Dohrmann's Law and Imperial Idioms: Rabbinic Legalism in a Roman World asks why rabbinic legality triumphed so totally as to eliminate any surviving mention of the many other types of authority and literary genre that prevailed in pre-1970s Judaism. She identifies three Roman aspects that the rabbis might have been inspired to imitate in their devotion to scholastic jurisprudence: Roman imperial administration, which offered a model of efficient governance and social order that invited and needed local cooperation; the second-century emergence both of scholastic jurists and Greek rhetors, whose prestige grew rapidly (pro- a model of meritocratic cultural dualism, p. …

The Cross as a Central Christian Symbol of Injustice

The Cross as a Central Christian Symbol of Injustice

JEWS IN IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR DATING THE JEWISH DONOR INSCRIPTION FROM APHRODISIAS

AbstractThe publication of the Jewish donor inscription from Aphrodisias has gatherer significant attention, most notably because of the 54 men identified as "God-fearers." The initial publication dated the inscription to the early third century. Recent studies, particularly those by M. Bonz and A. Chaniotis, have presented evidence in favor of a date in the fifth century or later. If this dating is correct the Aphrodisias inscription would present an important witness to the ongoing, constructive relations between Jews, pagans, and Christians at a time where other sources register a more hostile environment. This paper argues for an alternative date and thereby renders this conclusion improbable. Two details, heretofore ignored in all previous discussions, Theodotos' service as palatinus and the recognition of three men as proselytes, offer the most secure basis for dating the inscription to the fourth century. Theodotos' position within the Roman imperial administration in particular makes it extremely unlikely that the text was composed in the fifth century, a time when Jews were regularly excluded by Roman law from these post.

The Water Supply of Ancient Rome: A Study of Roman Imperial Administration.

The Water Supply of Ancient Rome: A Study of Roman Imperial Administration.

Roman Imperial Economy and Romanization: A Study in Roman Imperial Administration and the Public Lease System in the Danubian Provinces from the First to the Third Century A.D.

Roman Imperial Economy and Romanization: A Study in Roman Imperial Administration and the Public Lease System in the Danubian Provinces from the First to the Third Century A.D.

Two Freedman Careers

Was there a slave-freedman ‘cursus’ or career structure in the Imperial administration? And if so, on what criteria was advancement within it based? Did promotion depend on seniority or merit or both together? How impersonal and rational was the regulation of the system, i.e. what degree of bureaucratization was reached, or, on the other hand, what was the extent of patronage inside the slave-freedman service? These are all important and difficult, even impossible, questions for the student of the Roman Imperial administration.

Family Dating Criteria, Proximi and ‘Provincia’ in the Familia Caesaris

Sound chronology is fundamental in any attempt to trace the development of the Roman imperial administration. This is especially true for those officials whose careers lay in the sub-equestrian ranks of the administration, as the funerary inscriptions, on which most of our detailed knowledge of them depends, are extremely difficult to date. For the Augusti liberti the main dating criterion is the imperial nomen gentilicium in their full nomenclature, which fixes their date of manumission, normally at the age of thirty or soon after, to the period in which the manumitting emperor or emperors reigned; the terminus ad quem for holding a post in the administration is, therefore, not more than forty years after the death of the last emperor bearing a given nomen, and normally a post is not likely to have been held later than about twenty-five years after the emperor's death. In the numerous cases, however, where the nomen of an Imperial freedman is not recorded, but only his cognomen and status-indication are given, the problem is much more difficult. External dating criteria are usually lacking; we are forced to make the best use possible of internal evidence.