Roman Principate Research Articles

The Literate Education of Early Christians, and Some of Its Unintended Consequences for Christian Exegesis

The landscape of education under the early Roman principate was very diverse, but the teaching of literacy was dominated by scribal training or Graeco-Roman enkyklios paideia, “literate education”. This essay asks what kind of education the earliest Christian writers had, and offers some neglected evidence, which, it suggests, may also be evidence for Hellenistic Jewish education. It considers the role of imitation in Christian education, and how early Christian imitation is distinctive. Finally, it illustrates how the increasingly sophisticated education of some Christians influenced the way they read and interpreted their own earliest and most authoritative texts.

<em>Roman Culture in the Ottonian World</em>

Roman culture outlived its empire in the West. Any study aiming to assess its relevance in the medieval period must consider that related conceptions and cultural features may change over time. A significantly different definition may have applied to medieval periods compared to what we know from the time of the Roman Principate. This paper studies Roman culture in the Ottonian world by considering the significance and role attributed to the culture of the Roman past and the Byzantine present. The first section focuses on cultural elements related to politics and the exertion of power, the second deals with Roman culture in the material heritage, and the third discusses related non-material aspects. The study argues that although the Ottonians called themselves emperors of a Roman empire, elements that may have been conceived as Roman or were related to the Byzantine world were far from abundant and largely limited to the court. The Roman empire was part of their western heritage, while Roman and Byzantine models represented the sole known sets of adequate examples or sources of inspiration to represent western emperorship. These models had already been adopted and adapted by the Carolingians, who remained an important reference among their imperial successors. Still, while influences from Byzantine court culture were present at the Ottonian court, monastic and popular Byzantine culture was largely absent from the Ottonian world. .

Group Minds in Ancient Narrative

Abstract The present article adopts a cognitive approach to examine the representation of group minds in ancient narrative and show the specific purposes to which they are put. Herodian’s History of the Roman Empire, a work that illustrates the social and collective dimension of mental functioning, is chosen as a case study. After a brief exposition of the state of research on collective minds in narratology and literature, the present study first discusses the formation of group minds and their stability or mutability over the course of Herodian’s narrative. The next section explores the internal dynamics of group minds, focusing especially on instances of splitting which helpfully illuminate the problematic nature of the Roman principate after Marcus’ death. The final section draws on contemporary theories of philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences and examines the way and extent that Herodian’s groups can be considered as ‘intentional agents’. In this regard, it is proposed that Herodian represents an approach to group agency that prefigures modern theory of ‘interpretivism’. Overall, the article suggests a novel way of studying ancient narrative, one that reconciles narratological and cognitive analysis with historical and political considerations by revealing the constitutive role of group minds in various aspects of the ancient social world.

The Provincial Imperial Cult in the Levant (Syria, Phoenice, Commagene, Judea, Decapolis, Arabia)

The provincial imperial cult represents one of the most relevant expressions of multiform relationship between provincial communities and Roman authorities especially in the East. During the Roman Principate in Syria, we can enumerate seven administrative districts (eparchies) which occur in connection with this political and religious phenomenon. The complicated question of how the province-wide worship of the Imperial family was organised in Roman Levant must be analysed in different terms. Important aspects are the Roman territorial framework of administration, the creation of autonomous city-leagues (koiná) and their cultic functions, the rules of membership within these federal organizations and their self-representation in coinages and inscriptions. On the level of political and financial management, we are dealing with federal officials and the festivities organized by them. Our paper aims to give a detailed overview of the Syrian imperial cult related not only to one specific site, but in the context of a large and culturally complex area.

PROFILE ROMAN ECONOMIC AND MONETARY HISTORY

Fundamentally, Roman economic history is the study of how and why inhabitants of the Roman world produced, distributed and exchanged goods and services. By understanding the economic actions, events, institutions and products of the Roman world, Roman economic historians come to understand better the Romans themselves: their motivations, values, relationships and identities, among other things. With such a broad remit, today's Roman economic and monetary historians not only scour traditional sources for evidence of Roman commerce, prices, labour, capital and contracts, but they now deploy an ever-broadening range of methodologies, theories and approaches – some of which originate well outside the disciplines of both history and economics. Some Roman economic historians, for example, create, investigate and run simulations, using massive digital archives of data gleaned from ancient evidence. Others compare micro-nutrients in ancient wheat varieties with their modern counterparts to gain a better understanding of diet, nutrition and economic prosperity in Roman cities. Increasingly, specialists in some aspect of the Roman economy find themselves members of internationally funded interdisciplinary teams seeking to understand what Arctic ice cores or North-American tree rings say about money production in the Roman principate. Roman economic historians’ scholarly sprawl has never been more challenging to describe, but I believe it is possible to group recent developments in the field into three overlapping areas: digitisation, particularisation and consilience.

Almgren 236 Fibulae from Poiana (Romania)

Among the numerous Early Roman fibulae discovered at Poiana (Galaţi County, Romania) there are also some specimens of the Almgren 236/237 type, also called Norican-Pannonian fibulae (Germ, Doppelknopffibeln). Three of them (figs. 1 and 2) are still preserved today in collections from Tecuci and Bucharest. Three other specimens were probably lost during 2nd World War, but their existence is attested by Radu Vulpe’s sketches drawn in his field journals (fig. 3). One fibula was discovered in the funeral pyre of the “Movila Hartop” tumulus in Poiana (fig. 2/2). All the others come the protohistoric settlement on the “Cetăţuie” site, but their contexts were insufficiently documented. The Almgren 236/237 type fibulae from Poiana exceeds the number of similar specimens found so far in other sites dated before the conquest of Dacia by Trajan on the territory of today Romania (fig. 4). The presented fibulae from Poiana indicate the close cultural contacts with the Alpine provinces in the early period of Roman Principate. The typological and chronological framing of the fibulae from Poiana are deficient due to their fragmentary state of preservation. However, the reception of Norican-Pannonian fibulae in local cultural milieus since the Augustus-Claudius time is suggested by a local imitation on silver discovered in the Remetea Mare hoard (fig. 5).

RUSH JOB: SLAVERY AND BREVITY IN THE EARLY ROMAN PRINCIPATE

The upswing in brief forms of literature in the early Roman principate is marked. From Ovid to Velleius Paterculus, Phaedrus to Valerius Maximus, this aesthetic trend seems to transcend genre. Such a phenomenon has thus far been understood as arising from either the pressures of literary tradition or the transformations in the organisation of elite knowledge. This article disagrees. It posits a new prospective causality behind the eruption in brevity, namely the state of slavery and its time-conscious way of being in the world. The article performs a close comparative reading of Phaedrus’Fablesalongside Velleius Paterculus’Compendium of Roman Historyto show how brevity and its suspension can be understood as formal constraints, acts of service and redemptive aesthetic coping modes – all determined by the historical conditions of enslavement. It concludes with a coda on the general association of poetry with bondage and constraint in the late Republic and early Empire.

Augustus’ presentation of “empire” in his Res Gestae

Having defeated all his political enemies and expanded the rule of Rome enormously, Octavian, from 27 BC known as Augustus, ended the civil wars which had plagued the Late Republic and founded the system known as the Roman Principate. The Res Gestae purports to be a retrospective survey by Augustus of his own public achievements in restoring the res publica and conquering the world. It was published in Rome but the only surviving copies were found in the new and distant province of Galatia. In this paper I will try to explain how Augustus, as the founder of the new era known today as ‘the Roman Empire’, envisages and presents Roman rule under his leadership by analysing the content of the Res Gestae. From it we can see that there indeed emerges a concept similar to our ‘empire’. The narrative structure of the Res Gestae shows that Roman imperial rule is conceived of by Augustus in a scheme of core-periphery, in which the core is composed of the provinces under direct Roman control, while the periphery is an area of more vaguely subject people or places maintained by threats and intervention, or more weakly by ‘friendship’ (amicitia), which vary according to the historical specifics of contact between these areas or peoples and Rome. In both cases, whether subjection is in the name of the ‘rule’ or the ‘friendship’ of Roman people, it is Augustus’ personal authority that appears to matter the most, which indicates that Augustus’ institution of a monarchic system was a decisive element in the development of this new holistic concept of Roman imperial rule.

The Power of Urban Water: Studies in Premodern Urbanism ed. by Nicola Chiarenza et al

360 PHOENIX is only true within the limitations set out in the book (but not in its title); for instance, the multiplication table on a second-century wax tablet now in the British Museum (Add MS 34186) is not mentioned, possibly because it also offers school exercises in Greek, although it might have provided an insight into “what aids must have existed.” Consequently Roman “informational resources” on fields such as astronomy, geography, and especially medicine and pharmacology are insufficiently discussed because they were available mainly in Greek (note that many later medical authors still wrote in both Greek and Latin: for instance, in the preface to his Latin Euporista, Theodorus Priscianus refers to his previous works as written Graeco stylo quoniam medendi industriam sermone claro haec natio publicavit, “written in Greek, since this nation published their medical researches in that clear language”). But for a challenging survey of how information was represented in the Latin-speaking Roman world until the third-century c.e., the book is a welcome contribution to a fascinating debate. UniversitÈ at Erfurt Kai Brodersen The Power of Urban Water: Studies in Premodern Urbanism. Edited by Nicola Chiarenza, Annette Haug, and Ulrich MÈ uller. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. 2020. Pp. 272. In 2018 a new Excellence Cluster in Germany, located at the University of Kiel, called “ROOTS of Social, Environmental and Cultural Connectivity in Past Societies,” organized its first colloquium, and less than two years later the papers were published. No book title could do justice to the great variety of the content, as the sixteen papers cover questions as disparate as water in Rome’s fora (D. K. Rogers), medieval harbours in the Baltic Sea (U. Müller), and ice on the Danube in the nineteenth century (C. Rohr). Among the chapters concerning classical antiquity, noteworthy is the one on “Fountains and the Ancient City” by Nicolas Lamare, the author of a recent major work on North-African fountains (Les fontaines monumentales en Afrique romaine [Collection de l’École française de Rome 557; Rome 2019]). Using both epigraphic and archaeological evidence, Lamare demonstrates the importance of monumental fountains for the distribution of water as well as for political purposes. The discussion by Sophie Buffier of the water supply of Syracuse, which since the late fifth century b.c.e. benefited from the use of aqueducts, is another significant contribution. Based on recent archaeological work by a team from the Aix-Marseille Université, she focuses on the impressive Galermi aqueduct, almost 30 km in length and showing signs also of work after the arrival of the Romans. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the political will behind the expansion of Syracuse’s water supply. The contributions on classical topics further include P.-A. Kreutz’s discussion of water in the cityscape of some northern Italian towns from the second century b.c.e. to the second century c.e. (“From Nature to Topography: Water in the Cities of Roman Northern Italy”); Nicola Chiarenza’s study focusing on water in the urban sanctuary at another Sicilian site, Selinous; and a survey of fountains and basins in Greek sanctuaries by Philip Kobusch. Christiane Zimmermann’s chapter on “Water in Early Christian Ritual: Baptism and Baptisteries in Corinth” discusses events that belong to the Roman principate and late antiquity. The famous passage in the Didache (7.1–3), which requires BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 361 that baptism take place in running water, made it necessary for early Christian communities to guarantee its availability. Some of the medieval contributions provide interesting insights which may or may not be of relevance when studying ancient history. For instance, Elisabeth Gruber relates (184) that in Vienna, the construction of a large water pipeline was begun only after a big fire in 1525. Previously, the authorities of this major city had hoped to be able to fight the frequent fires by requiring inhabitants to keep water stored in vats in attics and courtyards, and by requiring members of various guilds to provide assistance. This approach has something in common with what Nero decreed after the great fire of 64 (subsidia reprimendis ignibus in propatulo quisque haberet, “everyone was to have...

Der politische Lukas. Zur kulturellen Interaktion des lukanischen Doppelwerks mit dem Imperium Romanum

Abstract The conventional image of the Rome-friendly, politically apologetic Luke is increasingly questioned today. In order to be able to recognize a political attitude of Luke within the narratives of Luke-Acts, an evaluation of different textual complexes is necessary. The article first elaborates on Rome-critical features of the Lukan Birth narrative against the backdrop of the conception of the aurea aetas supporting the early Roman Principate, before considering the implications of the idea of Christ’s reign for the evaluation of imperial rule. It also addresses the dark sides of Roman rule in Luke and then discusses the political ambivalence in the tax question in Luke 20,20–26. The sword episodes in the Passion narrative do not allow any violent resistance. The Roman governors as representatives of Rome in the provinces appear in Luke as factors of uncertainty for the first Christians, while the hope for a good living with the Roman military rests on the centurions. The real political challenge, however, is the ethos of the Christian communities itself. The synopsis of the texts gives a differentiated picture of the attitude Luke takes towards the Roman Empire.

Building Praise: Augustan Rome and Epideictic

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I examine two epideictic artifacts from the Roman Principate, The Res Gestae Divi Augusti and the summi viri, arguing Augustus used them to reshape the model of a good leader, in part, by emphasizing contributing to the built environment of the city. Additionally, the public and visual nature of these artifacts made them highly accessible to those outside of the Roman elite, who may have sought social mobility through the imperial bureaucracy allowing for more diverse participation in the Roman government. I close by considering the influence of classical exemplars on U.S. civic spaces.

Building Praise: Augustan Rome and Epideictic

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I examine two epideictic artifacts from the Roman Principate, The Res Gestae Divi Augusti and the summi viri, arguing Augustus used them to reshape the model of a good leader, in part, by emphasizing contributing to the built environment of the city. Additionally, the public and visual nature of these artifacts made them highly accessible to those outside of the Roman elite, who may have sought social mobility through the imperial bureaucracy allowing for more diverse participation in the Roman government. I close by considering the influence of classical exemplars on U.S. civic spaces.

Overstriking and Reminting in the Roman Principate: a General Framework and Some Case Studies in the Provincial Coinage

Overstriking and Reminting in the Roman Principate: a General Framework and Some Case Studies in the Provincial Coinage

Timacum Minus in Moesia Superior—Centrality and Urbanism at a Roman Mining Settlement

When applying traditional criteria of Roman urbanism, several settlements in the province of Moesia are not recognised as parts of the urban network. To avoid this, previous criteria of urbanism should be revised. This paper suggests revisions, which provide a more inclusive definition of urbanism: Thus, instead of focusing on administrative status and monumentality as primary markers of urbanity and urbanization, development factors for agglomeration and centrality are emphasized as decisive conditions for, and characteristics of, urban settlement. To provide a case study for this theoretical outline, the upper-Moesian mining settlement of Timacum Minus is evaluated by ideas derived from a critical appreciation of Walter Christaller’s central place theory. Timacum Minus did not have official settlement status and monumental character, yet, it developed as a central place in the unique landscape of the Timok valley. This was due to its location as a central road station, military post, and settlement along the important interregional Timok valley road as well as the site hierarchy as the base of the centralized administration of the Timok valley mining district. Hence, Timacum Minus displays different levels of centrality. Interestingly, the site only held these properties during the Roman Principate, although its central location and mining activities also existed in pre-Roman and post-Roman times. This demonstrates the significance of centrality mechanisms as determined by local and regional circumstances and historical conditions. Accordingly, it is argued that these circumstances and the diverse character as a central place also turned Timacum Minus into an urban site, irrespective of status and monumentality. This definition of the site provides not only an example of how to use central place theory in current archaeological thought but also possibilities for re-thinking urbanism in Roman Moesia.

Technology with an Impact

Ever since its invention around the beginning of the 4th centurybcartillery found employment not only during sieges, but also in the field. By the time of the Roman principate, artillery was regularly employed as field artillery, and to considerable effect; field artillery was both an integral and an important element of Roman land forces. The present article focuses on the operational challenges posed by integrating artillery into a land battle, which were considerable, but obviously met by the Romans – though unfortunately the evidence is mostly insufficient to reconstruct Roman operating procedures.

Remembering and Restoring the Republic: Star Wars and Rome

This essay argues that one of modern Western culture’s most-watched film series, the Star Wars double trilogy, derives much of its meaning by tapping into the age-old discourse of political freedom versus dictatorial oppression, which is at the core of early imperial reimaginings of the Roman Republic. Yet George Lucas’s films reveal that the longed-for era of freedom was hardly that at all, just as the era of libertas longed for in the Roman Principate was similarly illusory, particularly for lower echelons of Roman society.

Ékphrasis e as fronteiras da descrição em Tácito

Este artigo busca analisar dois episódios dos Anais, de Tácito, que permitem apontar para o afastamento entre o que era dado a ver e o que fato se passava nos ambientes aristocráticos no Principado romano. Essa tensão entre o que via/dizia e o que se fazia/pensava é fundamental para entender a ékphrasis na estratégia narrativa taciteana.

Skeletons in Armor: Silius Italicus’ Punica and the Aeneid ’s Proem

The arma virumque theme that this article identifies in the Punica is an important avenue through which to understand the meaning of Silius Italicus’ poem and its author’s relationship with Vergil. The text frequently uses combinations of the Aeneid ’s first two words, arma and vir , to suggest a common literary inheritance from Aeneas among its characters, large and small, Roman and Carthaginian. By pervasively characterizing most participants in the Second Punic War as versions, or poetic refractions, of Aeneas, the poet recasts Rome’s glorious foreign war as a kind of civil war producing criminal corpses. More specifically, characters vie not for national dominance of the Mediterranean but for personal prestige as the most worthy heir to Aeneas. This process reconsiders the Republic’s history, aligns the text with the developments of 69 c.e. , and comments critically on the Roman principate and its foundational literary text, the Aeneid .

Pliny the Younger and his admnistrative and legal activities: the formation of a political carrier during the Roman Principate.

O objetivo do presente artigo é analisar a carreira política de Plínio, o Jovem, a partir das suas relações interpessoais enquanto articuladoras das funções administrativas e jurídicas desempenhadas por esse senador romano do período do Principado. Também propomos uma reflexão acerca das motivações, detectadas nas epístolas plinianas, que determinavam a atuação de um advocatus em processos judiciais. Outro aspecto por nós abordado é a relação das atividades jurídicas com o desenvolvimento do cursus honorum de Plínio, o Jovem. Desse modo, partindo da interpretação da carreira política pliniana, discorremos sobre a relação entre âmbito administrativo e jurídico durante o Principado romano. Tal abordagem nos permite compreender a constituição da carreira política senatorial do período que, em nossa perspectiva, ultrapassa os limites das magistraturas que compunham o cursus honorum, abarcando também as atividades jurídicas.

Ocular Pathologies and the Evil Eye in the Early Roman Principate

Abstract Ocular pathologies are a natural phenomenon that can be detected empirically. All over the world, such phenomena are often interpreted as an index of inherent personal capacity for causing harm. The Graeco-Roman world was no exception. During the early Roman Principate, the literary representation of such malformations was clearly influenced by two genres that had been developed in the Greek world during the Hellenistic period. The first was the paradoxographic or mirabilia tradition, a literary genre that in the aftermath of Alexander’s conquests inventoried supposed natural and anthropological wonders, reports that were subsequently brought up to date and adapted by Roman authors such as Cicero and Varro. The second was physiognomics, the systematization, mainly by the Peripatetics but also by some Hippocratic authors, of the popular idea that ethical character can be read from somatic signs. This paper understands Pliny the Elder’s accounts of peoples and families able to cast the evil eye, objectified in the possession of a double pupil, as a significant aspect of his socio-moral account of the effects of world-empire upon Rome. In transposing the theme to his figure of the procuress Dipsas almost a century earlier, Ovid created a synecdoche for moral disorder at Rome itself shortly before the two Augustan laws of 18 b.c.e. regulating sexual conduct. In short, if we are to progress in our understanding of Roman socio-moral instrumentalization of ocular malformation in relation to the evil eye, we must pay careful attention to the contexts and strategies of our texts.