Roman Magistrate Research Articles

Pharmapolitics and the Early Roman Expansion: Gender, Slavery, and Ecology in 331 BCE

This article reinterprets an incident that Livy (8.18.4–11) and derivative later sources place in the year 331 BCE: a wave of poisonings whose perpetrators are brought to light after an enslaved woman contacts a Roman magistrate. Its main objectives are to show that the incident is best understood in connection with the transmission of novel—or perceived as novel—pharmacological knowledge, and in conjunction with shifts in the institution of slavery at Rome that were set in motion by the Republic’s expansion; that a key figure in the mythological encoding of this transmission was the legendary Circe; and that moving away from previous scholarship’s concern with the matronae alleged to have carried out the poisonings and focusing instead on “la servant délatrice” (Jean-Marie Pailler) opens up new corridors into the cultural history of this period.

Letter of Quintus Oppius Proconsul to Aphrodisias

The inscription contains a letter sent by the Roman proconsul Oppius to the magistrates, the Council and the demos of the polis of Aphrodisias. In the letter, Oppius affirms that he has met the envoys of Aphrodisias in Kos and has received from them a decree of congratulations for his release. He also testifies to the help obtained by Aphrodisias when he was besieged at Laodicea by the troops of Mithridates and promises to help the city ​​as far as possible. Finally, he agrees to become the patron of the city; it is one of the oldest attestation of the request for patronage made by a city of the Greek world to a Roman magistrate.

Apolo, Hércules e Chrysas no 'De Signis', de Cícero (Verr. 2, 4, 93-96)

O De signis, o quarto discurso da segunda actio das Verrinas de Cícero, é uma rica fonte para o estudo das estátuas divinas e os modos de percepção, conhecimento e práticas religiosas na República tardia. O discurso de Cícero é pleno de informações sobre essas estátuas, seus lugares e gestos a elas relacionados, lidando com emoções religiosas. Em uma breve seção do De signis, pode‑se perceber o conflito entre o (mau) propretor e (bons) povos aliados materializado nas estátuas divinas de Apolo, Hércules e Chrysas. Cícero elogia as violentas respostas das populações locais contra um violento e indigno magistrado romano – como ele constrói a figura de Verres. O orador não apenas lança mão de conceitos e ideias sobre as divindades, mas, com base em crenças, temores e esperanças compartilhadas, Cícero os cria para sua audiência.

Archaeobotanical reconstructions of vegetation and report of mummified apple seeds found in the cellar of a first-century Roman villa on Elba Island

In the late Roman Republic period (2nd–1st century BC), in the area of San Giovanni on Elba Island, previously subject to intense extraction of iron ore, a rustic villa was established by Marco Valerio Messalla, a supreme Roman magistrate. The foundations of the walls were discovered and excavated by an archaeological mission. Palaeobotanical analysis of a set of stratigraphic layers was performed. Palynological slides showed remains of palynomorphic and non-pollen objects, while data combined with anthracological investigations confirmed the hypothesis that in the 1st century AD the villa was destroyed by a fire that created a compact crust under which were discovered four broken Roman amphorae containing about five hundred apple seeds. Comparisons of archaeological and fresh seeds from reference collections showed discontinuous morphology except for one group of archaeological samples. DNA was isolated from seeds that had well-preserved embryos in all groups. DNA extracts from archaeological, wild and modern domestic seeds (controls) were amplified by PCR and tested with SSR molecular markers, followed by genome analysis.

THELAPIS POLLAE:DATE AND CONTEXTS

The article discusses the date, content and historical context of thelapis Pollae, a Latin inscription set alongside the road from Capua to Regium, recording the distance to various places and listing the achievements of an unknown Roman magistrate. Comparison with a milestone associated with the same road prompts a dating earlier than 131bc, and internal evidence suggests a date prior to the Servile Wars, which broke out around 138bc. It is further argued that by listing his achievements the magistrate was attempting to secure the political support of the colonial elites of Lucania. The article also uses the inscription as evidence for three historical themes: (1) the role of local communities and Italian entrepreneurs in the exploitation of public land in Sicily; (2) the role of local and Roman elites in southern Italian agricultural intensification; (3) Rome's use of road building to support colonization.

Rhetorics of Land and Power in the Polla Inscription (CIL I2 638)

The famous inscription from Polla reporting a Roman magistrate’s management of problems and opportunities in Italian and provincial contexts is a perennial tease: its information is rich but contradictory. In this paper we accept a second centurybcedate for the inscription and the events it reports but leave the much discussed question of the dedicator’s identity aside in order to focus on the inscription’s rhetoric: by looking at the grounds on which the magistrate claims the esteem of his audience, rather than at how the information he provides ‘is consistent with’ some other set of facts, be it an individual career or a war or a political movement, we gain a clearer understanding of his message and intended audience or audiences. What emerges, we suggest, is a magistrate presenting himself as the ‘face’ of Roman hegemony in southern Italy and Sicily, and in the process revealing the complex processes of cooperation and domination, negotiation and concession that were fundamental to Roman hegemony in that period. More particularly, we argue for the relevance of our magistrate’s actions in Sicily to his reception in Lucania, despite the different status of the two areas vis-à-vis the Roman state.

The Cypriot Exemption from Evocatio and the Character of Cicero's Proconsulship

Q. Volusium, tui Tiberi generum, certum hominem et mirifice abstinentem, misi in Cyprum ut ibi pauculos dies esset, ne cives Romani pauci qui illic negotiantur ius sibi dictum negarent; nam evocari ex insula Cyprios non licet. (Cic. Att. 5.21.6)I sent Quintus Volusius, the son-in-law of your friend Tiberius, a man both trustworthy and extraordinarily moderate, to Cyprus for only a couple of days, lest the few Roman citizens who do business there should claim that they had no legal recourse available to them, since it is not permitted for Cypriots to be summoned off the island.Scholars have taken slight notice (if they mention it at all) of Cicero's interesting comment that Cypriots were exempt from evocatio, the summons of a defendant or witness to a legal proceeding by a Roman magistrate with imperium. While the legal ramifications of the ban on evocatio on Cyprus are clear, the origin of this exemption is not. The only explicit theory on its origin – Badian's argument that the prohibition was part of Lentulus' lex provinciae, a law for the formal organization of the province of Cyprus – has been influential, though it is based on tenuous evidence. Few ancient sources for Roman rule on Cyprus during the Late Republic have survived, and we must rely almost entirely on Cicero's letters. Cicero's correspondence, however, indicates (against Badian) that the ban on evocatio was a codicil of Cicero's provincial edict, and not a part of either Lentulus' lex provinciae or his provincial edict. Personal, political, and military considerations all played a role in Cicero's decision to make the citizens of Cyprus exempt from being called to the administrative gathering for the dispensation of justice and other legal and political matters known as a conventus.

Hydraulic Engineering and the Study of Antiquity: Rome, 1557–70*

This article investigates the relationships between hydraulic engineering and antiquarian studies in Rome in the long decade between the devastating Tiber River flood of 1557 and the completion of the repair of an ancient aqueduct, the Acqua Vergine, in 1570. The essay focuses on the physician Andrea Bacci (1524–1600), the engineer Antonio Trevisi (d. 1566), the jurist and Roman magistrate Luca Peto (1512–81), and the antiquarian Pirro Ligorio (ca. 1510–83). These individuals from both learned and practical backgrounds approached urgent problems of hydraulic engineering by studying ancient texts and artifacts, and they proposed solutions that were influenced by their study. This confluence of antiquarian study and engineering contributed to the development of empirical methodologies in the late Renaissance by making engineering part of a learned discourse.

Dove non arriva la legge. Dottrine della censura nella prima età moderna (review)

Dove non arriva la legge. Dottrine della censura nella prima eta moderna. By Lucia Bianchin. [Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento: Monografie, 41.] (Bologna: Societa editrice il Mulino. 2005. Pp. 389. euro25.50 paperback.) The book analyzes the ideas about censorship expressed by Jean Bodin, Pierre Gregoire, Justus Iipsius, Johannes Althusius, and Johann Angelius Werdenhagen. The views of these authors on a subject crucial to late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Europe were not influenced by the actual organization of the papal control system on culture and book circulation, but relied mostly on a reappraisal of ancient Roman censorship. The moral and political censorship implemented by the Roman republic was generally described, in the texts here examined, as a powerful means to enforce social discipline and to prevent conflicts and dissent fatal to the state. Bianchin outlines first the historiographical background of her research, discussing some recent contributions concerning the processes of confessionalization and social-disciplining in both Catholic and Protestant areas, between the Peace of Augsburg and the Thirty Years' War. She then compares the Catholic censorship system-intended to prevent printing and reading of books dangerous to the faithful-and the Protestant one, instrumental in enforcing strict religious obedience through the control of moral and social behavior. The third chapter turns upon the ancient Roman magistrate called censura, charged with maintaining the census-a list of the citizens and of their properties compiled for fiscal and military purposes-and supervising public morality. Neglected in medieval legal tradition, the ancients' model met with a revival during the sixteenth century. At the beginning of the earlymodern period, Bianchin points out, legal literature testifies to a new interest in the indicium censorium, a sort of judgment founded on equity, sanctioning vices, bad habits, and moral infringements not subject to the law: But only in the first chapter of the sixth book of Bodin's Republique (De la censure) does the account of the establishment and development of the Roman censura lead to a doctrine of censorship that entrusts to the state the task of imposing moral discipline and restraining offenses like gambling, idleness, drunkenness, vagrancy, and licentiousness. The Bodinian idea of moral control-easy to connect to the rigorous concept of state sovereignty asserted in the Republique-provided a basic reference to later writers dealing with the role of censorship in the organization of the state. In his Syntagma juris universi (1582), then in the De Republica libri sex et viginti (1596) the French canonist Pierre Gregoire follows faithfully Bodin's argument, claiming moreover for the government a wider control over private life and marriage. He, nevertheless, warns against the excesses of censores, the cause, in his opinion, of the ruin and disuse of the Roman magistrate. …

Un évêque français au temps du modernisme. Mgr Eudoxe Irénée Mignot (1842-1918)

Mgr Eudoxe Irenee Mignot, bishop of Frejus then archbishop of Albi has been, in reason of his competence in biblical domain, most implicated in modernist crisis than any other French bishop of his time. His fondness for Loisy and unfailing support that he brought for suspect then condemned and finally excommunicated exegete have been, for other French bishops and for Roman magistrate, a source of astonishment such that his orthodoxy has been object of a stake interest from thirties into twentieth century. In face of principal questions in discussion in Catholic church during quarter century preceding first world war : nature of revelation, characteristic of faith's knowledge who respond to it, value of dogmatic formulas that express them, role and methods of apologetic who establishes it as well-founded, Mgr Mignot estimated that Church had nothing to fear consideration of results of historical-biblical criticism and from an apologetic who would give more way to demands of modern conscience and to idea of development of doctrine. His great culture and his open-mindedness accommodated themselves to ideas that he didn't necessarily share and to initiatives that he did not always approve but that he considered as manifestations of very vitality of Church and that only time allow to make selection chaff and grain. His concern of taking into consideration the state of mind responds first to a personal necessity, that of thinking his faith, that is, to justify it in reason. In this effort, Mgr Mignot has brought back into questions rapports between authority and conscience. Regarding his experience, one can understand how believers, without renouncing to necessary validation of faith by an institution but in accepting as a future answering given aspiration of consciousness to a legitimate autonomy, has contributed to offend progressively intransigent model.

The Jug and Lituus on Roman Republican Coin Types: Ritual Symbols and Political Power

IN THE COINAGE OF THE Roman Republic, a jug and lituus (the curved staff of the augurs) sometimes appear as a paired group of symbols; the earliest use is by Sulla, the last on issues of Antony in 39. From the ritual context, I argue here that the jug and lituus refer to the pontifical and augural jurisdiction over the ritual preliminaries to political action and particularly to the ceremonies of investiture of Roman magistrates-namely initial auspices, sacrifice, and vows. From the political context of each issue, I suggest that the symbols allude to ritual in order to legitimize military power. The jug and lituus pair are first seen on the issue of Sulla, dated by Crawford to 84-83 B.C. (RRC no. 359 = pl. 1, fig. 1): the jug and lituus are the central emblems on the reverse and are flanked by military trophies; the inscription identifies Sulla as imper(ator) iterum. These symbols have generated a continuing debate. L. R. Taylor referred the symbols to membership in the augurate.' But Sulla was not an augur until 82.2 T. Martin (1989: 19-44, esp. 24-44) has therefore reassigned the coin to late 82 and urged that the legend on the coin (imperator iterum) refers to Sulla's victory at the Colline Gate. A. Keaveney (1982: 150-171, esp. 158-161) has kept to 84/3 and taken the lituus and jug as symbols of Sulla's auspices as a Roman magistrate and so of his iustum imperium. These explanations are insufficient. While Martin legitimately questions Crawford's seriation of Sulla's coins on the basis of hoard analysis and wear patterns and considers the coin-type, particularly the legend, to reassign the coins, the iconography of Sulla's coin does not support his reassignment. Athenian tetradrachms issued by Sulla in Greece commemorate the twin trophies erected by him at Chaeroneia (Plut. Sull. 19.5; Paus. 9.40.7) and suggest that trophies on his coinage refer to his Eastern victories.3 Moreover, Martin (1989: 35-43)

Venus Genetrix outside Rome

W HEN CAESAR ESTABLISHED in Rome a cult in honor of Venus Genetrix, he added a new dimension to Roman public religion. New cults had often been established in the past, but none had the personal associations that this one did. Although the epithet Genetrix had been used of Venus in poetry for over a century, it was as an ancestral goddess of the Roman people in general. Caesar's family, the Iulii, however, claimed direct descent from Venus through Iulus, the son of Aeneas, and apparently honored her as their particular ancestral deity. In establishing his cult of Venus Genetrix, Caesar was for all practical purposes giving a public form to this family cult, and thereby expressing in religious terms his unique standing in the state.1 This aspect of the cult has long been recognized and has rightly been the subject of much discussion, for it was in these personal associations that the cult was an innovation. In institution and organization, on the other hand, it was traditional enough: Caesar vowed a temple as a general during a battle, dedicated it as a Roman magistrate, and presumably entered an annual sacrifice into the civic calendar as pontifex maximus.2

The Translation of James Wilson

The Translation of Janies Wilson David W. Maxey You adde earth to earth in newpurchases, and measure not byAcres, but by Manors, nor by Manors, but by Shires;And there is a little Quillet, a little Close, worth all these, A quiet Grave.1 -John Donne By his own standards Janies Wilson failed to make it. He reached for glory and for wealth; yetboth in the end eluded hisgrasp. He died a tormented man, on the run from his creditors and on the verge of impeachment. More than a century would pass before an attempt was made to rehabilitate him in a secular rite that entailed the removal of his remains from that quiet gravewhich John Donne commended to all thosewho coveted the things of this world. “The love of honest and well earned fame,” Wilson proclaimed, “is deeplyrooted in honest and susceptibleminds.”2 Itwas certainly deeply rooted in his, and under different cir­ cumstances, his achievements, which were far from meager, would have entitled him to a prominent place in the American pantheon. Hebelonged to an elitecategoryofpatriotswho signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; in the drafting of the latter document, his role was a fundamental one, second only, it is often said, to that of Madison. He was a lawyer to whom clients flocked, a philosopher and a teacher of the law, and a member ofthe firstSupreme Court ofthe United States. As much as he loved honors, of equal importance to him — and this passion proved his undoing - was the accumulation of “private landed property,” that visible sign of success which he, the son of a poor Scottish farmer, of parents imbued with Calvinist prin­ ciples, sought in emigrating to America. Such, after all, he would remind himself, was the reward given in the glorious age of republican Rome when “the farmer, the judge, and the soldier were to each other a reciprocal orna­ ment” and when the Roman magistrate, his public career concluded, might savor the secu­ rity of “a rural and independent life.”3 Absorbed during his lifetime in erect­ ing his monument and composing his epitaph, Wilsonhas dwelt in relative obscuritythese two centuries since his death. Robert McCloskey, an admirer ofWilson, conceded that he was an unlikely candidate for resurrection, even though, intheprefacehesuppliedtothe modern edition of Wilson’s Works. Professor McCloskey did his elegant best to revive him as a subject for sympathetic appreciation. That the judgment ofhistoryhasbeen lessthangenerous toWilson may be explained by the simple fact that many ofhis contemporaries did not feel comfortable with him, or, to put it more bluntly, they often mistrustedhim. Iftheywere forcedto acknowl­ edge his formidable learning and his profes­ sional skills, they also took measure of his ambition and greed. Fame, Professor McCloskey points out, is not easily fabricated: “...the great whom the present recognizes tend to be those who were thought of as great in their time. Tomorrow may enhance or diminish yester­ day’s reputation; it does not often create a wholly new one.”4 It is, in short, his own generation’s hesitancy about Wilson that has significantlyaffected the viewwe have ofhim in a longer perspective. Suspicion about his motives originated as early as the debates in the Second Continen­ tal Congress when Wilson, as a member of a badlysplitPennsylvaniadelegation, pleaded for 30 JOURNAL 1990 a postponement until the instructions of the Pennsylvania delegates could be clarified on the crucial vote for independence. However clear his calling as a lawyer to provide the oppressed a defense, Wilsonwould later win no friends -- indeed he stirred up enmity in an easily excited populace -- when he came to the aid of beleaguered loyalists.5 Nearthe end ofthe Revolution, he ran the risk of offending Washington by extracting an exorbitant sum, “much higher than was usu­ ally paid to the other gentlemen of the bar [in Philadelphia],” in agreeing to accept Washing­ ton’s nephew, Bushrod, as a student in his law office. IfWashington was offended, he gave no immediate evidence of it; on the contrary, he overrode his nephew’s “intention...of entering some other office on account of that differ­ ence” and impressed on him the value of the training he would get under Wilson...

Arbitration procedure in England: past, present and future

WHEN peering into the future, it is often relevant to study the past, if only because therein lies the explanation of the present. Arbitration, in the sense of a consensual process for the resolution of disputes, was well known to the Romans. Tacitus, Horace and Ovid refer to the ‘arbiter’. One distinguished commentator1 has chosen 280 BC as the earliest documented reference to arbitration, when the chief Roman magistrate (the praetor), who was not necessarily a lawyer, held responsibility for the resolution of civil disputes between citizens. In due time, following the development of international trade in the Roman empire, a second magistrate (the praetor peregrinus) was appointed for the resolution of disputes where foreign merchants were involved. The rules which he applied in this capacity became known as the Jus Gentium , based on the code of conduct developed by the merchants doing business in Rome. This phrase is often translated literally as ‘the Law of Nations’, but the sense of it would be more accurately conveyed by ‘the law of international trade’. Although the Romans occupied the British islands from approximately AD 40 to 400, it is not known how far this system was in common use in Britain during that period. There was an interlude in the dark ages, when trade was non-existent, or minimal at best. However, it can be stated with some certainty that a special form of dispute resolution for merchants was recognised in Britain in the middle ages, and for much the same reason as it had become established in Rome: namely, that international traders, travelling between the markets in Europe, needed a system for the resolution of disputes based on the customs and practices of merchants, and allowing for swift justice. The Chancellor said in 1475, in the famous Star Chamber: …

Thessaly and the Grain Supply of Rome during the Second Century B.C.

In a speech attributed by Xenophon to Jason of Pherae, Thessaly is described as an exporter of grain, in contrast with Athens which was obliged to supplement its own foodstocks with the surplus of others. The ancient sources record the dispatch of Thessalian grain to a few Greek cities; but Thessaly must have been a resource for other Greeks in peacetime, as it was in wartime to Roman armies operating in the region in the middle and late Republic. A newly published inscription from Larisa indicates that on one occasion in the middle of the second century B.C. the Thessalians actually provided grain for the Roman populace itself, in response to a request delivered to the Thessalian koinon by a Roman magistrate. Our main objective in this paper is to place this inscription in a suitable historical context and explain its significance for Rome and Thessaly.

Cicero's Letter to Cyprus

OUR INFORMATION concerning the organization and administration of Cyprus during its brief existence as Roman provincial territory in the late Republican era is as yet so slight that none of the scanty clues may be ignored.' However, the single letter written by Cicero to a Roman magistrate in Cyprus, brief and mysterious as its wording is, has never attracted the close scrutiny which it merits. In this letter, addressed to C. Sextilio Rufo Quaestori, Cicero writes: