This article presents a new hypothesis about the urban arrangement and function of the southeast end of the Forum of Caesar, together with the Forum of Augustus, the Curia Julia and the present-day church of SS. Luca e Martina, when the area was finalized in 2 BCE. The analysis focuses on the geometric framework of the extant structures and the topography of the site and, in relation to them, a new interpretation of the historical records and the archaeological data. It demonstrates that Augustus and his architects authored the urban composition and architectural forms of the entire area, including making significant changes to the original design of the Forum of Caesar. The article also shows that the site of the church of SS. Luca e Martina was the location of the Augustan Chalcidicum, which served as the monumental entrance to the first two Imperial fora.

This paper examines five graffiti expense lists from Pompeii for information on the habits of consumption in the Vesuvian cities. It is intended as a contribution to the growing literature on economic well-being in Pompeii, focusing on the diet and consumption strategies of the nonelite Roman majority. These lists provide rare quantitative evidence for a portion of a whole diet, as well as nonfood expenses. They also shed light on the place of cereals in the overall Vesuvian diet, the importance of consumer goods, and cycles of plenty and want.

Recent research undertaken as part of the Iliturgi Project has located the remains of an Early Imperial building complex linked to the Via Augusta. They include the foundations of an arch and a monumental platform whose size and characteristics allow it to be identified as the Ianus Augustus, a monumental complex near the River Baetis that marked the limit between the Roman provinces of Baetica and Tarraconensis. Its location makes it a reference point for our knowledge of the ancient geography of Hispania and for understanding Roman interprovincial frontiers. Geophysical prospections in its surroundings have also revealed the possible remains of a bridge across the river.

Scholars have long doubted the historical accuracy of Cassius Dio's account of the consequences of the Bar Kokhba War (Roman History 69.14). According to this text, considered the most reliable literary source for the Second Jewish Revolt, the war encompassed all of Judea: the Romans destroyed 985 villages and 50 fortresses, and killed 580,000 rebels. This article reassesses Cassius Dio's figures by drawing on new evidence from excavations and surveys in Judea, Transjordan, and the Galilee. Three research methods are combined: an ethno-archaeological comparison with the settlement picture in the Ottoman Period, comparison with similar settlement studies in the Galilee, and an evaluation of settled sites from the Middle Roman Period (70–136 CE). The study demonstrates the potential contribution of the archaeological record to this issue and supports the view of Cassius Dio's demographic data as a reliable account, which he based on contemporaneous documentation.

In 2020, during excavations in the Wadi al-Ghozza in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, archaeologists from the French Archaeological Mission to the Eastern Desert of Egypt discovered a well-preserved Flavian praesidium. This small and unusually shaped fort, identified in ostraca found in the fortress as Berkou (Βɛρκου), lay along a track leading from ancient Kaine (Qena) to the imperial quarries at Porphyrites. The fort lay over the remains of a Ptolemaic village and incorporated elements from the water system of the older settlement. This article presents the results of those excavations, including an overview of the fort's architecture and associated finds, as well as a discussion of its role in the regional transportation and security network that supported Roman exploitation of the nearby porphyry quarries in the 1st c. CE.

The discovery of low stone tables at Magdala and a few other sites in the Galilee and Golan allows us to examine, for the first time, this liturgical piece of furniture used by several communities in the late Second Temple period and the first centuries of the Common Era. This article defines the purpose of these stone tables based on analysis of the archaeological finds and examination of the literary sources associated with the Torah-reading ceremony conducted in the synagogues of ancient Palestine. The reading of the Torah throughout this long period was conducted standing with the open Torah scroll held in raised hands. Our study demonstrates that this table was not intended to be used for reading the Torah, but rather functioned as a low stand upon which the scroll was placed before the Torah-reading ceremony, during the breaks between the readers, and after completion of the ceremony.

L'oggetto che si presenta in questo contributo costituisce un'integrazione al corpus relativamente poco cospicuo di orologi solari miniaturistici greco-romani. Si tratta di una meridiana conica in avorio di elefante, rinvenuta in giacitura secondaria all'interno di un contesto residenziale di età augustea nella Piazza del Duomo di Pisa. Al di là dell'unicità dell'esemplare, per il quale si fornisce un accurato studio gnomonico, unitamente a un approfondito apprezzamento dei relativi aspetti culturali, sociali e tipologici, tale scoperta contribuisce a meglio definire il livello sociale di quest'area della città tra il II e il I sec. a.C.

This article analyzes the presence of writing instruments dating to the 2nd–1st c. BCE at several archaeological sites of the northeastern Iberian peninsula (current Catalonia), attempting to assess their historical, social, and economic interest. The evidence of the ancient literary sources, as well as the archaeological contexts in which these objects appeared, allow us to interpret these writing instruments as part of the mechanisms of control and recordkeeping deployed by Rome in this territory during the long and complex process of conquest.

The statue habit was a defining characteristic of Classical cities, and its demise in Late Antiquity has recently attracted scholarly attention. This article analyzes this process in the city of Rome, charting the decline and abandonment of the practice of setting up free-standing statues between the end of the 3rd c. and the mid 7th c. CE. Focusing on the epigraphic evidence for new dedications, it discusses the nature of the habit in terms of its differences from and continuities with earlier periods. The quantitative evolution of the habit suggests that its end was associated with deeper transformations. The final section examines the broader significance of setting up statues in Late Antique Rome, arguing that the decline of the statue habit must be understood in the context of a new statue culture that saw statue dedications in an antiquarian light, rather than as part of an organic honorific language.

The realia of shared meals provide a key index for social behavior in Late Antiquity. Much attention has been paid to the architecture and ceramics of dining, but usually separately and from unrelated contexts. Three excavated rooms at Sardis present an opportunity to extend this discussion to the furnishings that once stood at the center of domestic hospitality. Nearly complete marble tabletops recovered from their places of intended use show differing approaches to the physical and social arrangements of convivial dining, with implications for interpreting reception areas in Late Roman houses. Circumstances of preservation indicate that all three rooms were leveled, probably by earthquakes, in the early 7th c. CE.

This article considers the evidence of newly discovered inscriptions from Antiochia ad Cragum in western Rough Cilicia and proposes two distinct observations: one, the city had an additional civic name different from that which is most commonly known; and two, the emperor Hadrian and Sabina may have visited the city and region during their journey from Egypt to Athens in 131 CE.

Kyle Harper's article on the “Plague of Cyprian” that appeared in this journal in 2015 constitutes the only comprehensive study to date of this important disease outbreak in the third quarter of the 3rd c. CE. The current article revisits the main evidence for this epidemic and corrects and improves our understanding of its origin, timeline, and spread. It contends that the disease entered the Roman Empire via Gothic invasions on the Danube rather than traveling up the Nile from inner Africa. It further argues that the disease reached the Roman Empire only after the death of Decius and cannot be connected with the latter's edict commanding sacrifices to the Roman gods, issued in 249 CE. While the pestilence indubitably exacerbated the political and military crisis of the third quarter of the 3rd c. CE, it should probably not be considered as the root of the crisis itself, as Harper has suggested.

Recent investigations at Grociana piccola, a site in northeastern Italy consisting of two sub-rectangular fortifications, offer the rare opportunity to investigate Early Roman military architecture outside the Iberian peninsula. Excavations have revealed an inner rubble masonry rampart dated to the 2nd c. BCE by associated pottery, mainly amphora remains. This date suggests that the fortification was in use during the first Roman conquest and/or later campaigns of the 2nd c. BCE, providing one of the earliest and smallest examples of a military fort. The fort's ramparts were built using the same building technique as much larger 2nd-c. BCE military camps. Another trench uncovered the northeastern corner of the outer rampart and a probable tower or artillery platform which can be connected to a temporary camp built during the mid-1st c. BCE.

The Novallas Bronze may be considered one of the most important epigraphic finds in recent years in Spain. It is a fragment of a public document datable to the last decades of the 1st c. BCE, composed in the Celtiberian language but written in the Latin alphabet. The Novallas Bronze is not only one of the latest inscriptions composed in this language – over half a century later than the famous inscriptions from Contrebia Belaisca – but also the longest Celtiberian document written in the Latin alphabet known thus far. This paper offers a complete publication of this exceptional document, as well as an analysis of the principal developments that the artifact illuminates and the consequent implications for the transformations that the Celtiberian people underwent during the transition from Republic to Empire, with particular focus on the process of Latinization.

This article proposes that nearly all of the sculpted frieze of the Arch of Constantine in Rome, generally regarded as Constantinian, derives from a triumphal monument of Diocletian commissioned shortly after his Vicennalia in 303 CE. The basis of the argument is the sculptural technique evinced by the frieze, especially the separately-worked heads of the emperor in four of the frieze slabs, together with the missing legs and feet of several of the other figures. These anomalies suggest that much of the frieze was spoliated from another monument that had honored a different man; Diocletian is the only emperor whose career fits the iconography. A Diocletianic date for most of the frieze blocks necessitates a reconsideration of long-standing interpretations of the spolia on the arch and, in turn, its historiography.

This note identifies a new portrait type of Faustina the Younger, which appears on medallions and on a single aureus. On medallions the type appears in a single, closely die-linked group, indicating a synchronous emission. I suggest that this emission should be placed in a prominent gap in the (dated) medallion issues of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, which in turn dates this newly identified portrait of Faustina to 153/4 CE.

In 2017, during the archaeological excavations of room N24 of the Palace of Dedoplis Gora (Caucasian Iberia, Georgia), built in the 2nd–1st c. BCE, fragments of a small statuette carved from bone were discovered. The statuette is a miniature sphinx with a human head and may have been an element of furniture. The male head is adorned with the nemes, a headdress worn by pharaohs. In this article, I suggest that the head of the sphinx may portray Ptolemy I Soter, the first king of Ptolemaic Egypt. Some scholars believe that artifacts containing Ptolemaic portraits came to Georgia among diplomatic gifts sent by Mark Antony to Pharnabazos II, for it was he who had close relationships with the Ptolemaic court. In my opinion the bone sphinx with the head of Ptolemy I appeared in Caucasian Iberia together with these items.

This article examines the iconography of a type of Caracalla tetradrachm that has been newly attributed to Neapolis in Roman Palestine and whose reverse depicts a monumental altar decorated with statues of Tyche, Ephesian Artemis, and Kore Persephone. The study contextualizes these deities in the religious life of Neapolis and identifies the monument as an altar often depicted as a miniscule element in panoramic views of Mount Gerizim on the bronze coins of Neapolis. The tetradrachms provide, for the first time, a close-up view of this long-lost civic monument.

This note considers a Late Roman bath building recently discovered in Durrës, Albania (ancient Dyrrachium), near the presumed Roman city center. This discovery is particularly interesting given our limited knowledge of the urban layout and of bathhouses during this important phase of the city. Despite the limited scope of the excavations, the layout of the complex, as well as certain architectural characteristics, suggests the use of design principles based on Imperial baths. The exclusive use of bricks is significant for this area in Late Antiquity. The imposing monumentality of the structures is comparable to baths in cities with Imperial authority. In the absence of stratified layers linked to this structure, moldmade marks on the bricks and decorative features from the marble facing provide a chronological window between the last quarter of the 4th c. and around the middle of the 5th c. CE for its construction.