Non fraudando et Studio divi Augusti aetate, qui primus instituit amoenissimam parietum picturam, villas et porticus (portus?) ac topiaria opera, lucos, nemora, colles, piscinas, euripos, amnes, litora, qualia quis optaret, varias ibi obambulantium species aut navigantium terraque villas adeuntium asellis aut vehiculis, iam piscantes, aucupantes aut venantes aut etiam vindemiantes. Sunt in eius exemplaribus nobiles palustri accessu villae, succollatis sponsione mulieribus labantes trepidis quae feruntur, plurimae praeterea tales argutiae facetissimi salis. Idem subdialibus maritimas urbes pingere instituit, blandissimo aspectu minimoque inpendio.

(Pliny, NH xxxv, 116–17)

Studius too, of the period of the Divine Augustus, must not be cheated of his due. He first introduced the most attractive fashion of painting walls with villas, porticoes (harbours?), and landscape gardens, groves, woods, hills, fish-pools, canals, rivers, coasts—whatever one could wish, and in them various representations of people strolling about, people sailing, people travelling overland to villas on donkey back or in carriages, and in addition people fishing, fowling, hunting, or even gathering the vintage. His pictures include noble villas reached across marshes, men tottering along with women, trembling burdens, on their shoulders, carried for a wager, and very many such lively and witty subjects besides. It was the same man who introduced the practice of painting seaside cities in open terraces, producing a charming effect with minimal expense.

In a recent article, ‘Augustan Poetry and the Life of Luxury’, JRS 66 (1976), 87, I argued that much recent scholarship has misjudged the Augustan poets in certain important respects, because it has been thought in principle possible to separate ‘literature’ and ‘life’, as if they were clearly distinguishable entities; in reality, the two affect each other in a ceaseless mutual interaction. That argument was developed as a general treatment of the βίος φιλήδονος as presented in Latin literature, and as lived in reality in a society in which Greek and Italian elements, poetical motifs and real behaviour, were inextricably intermingled.

The present paper is devoted to a more particular enquiry into one poet and one type of historical figure. I argue that Propertius' presentation of himself in poetry as a lover—romantic, reckless and obsessed—is closely related to the figure in history of Mark Antony. That historical figure is itself to be seen in a long tradition of great lovers of pleasure, in which the actual lives of real men can be seen to be shaped and coloured by the influence of ‘literature’. The argument of my earlier paper does not depend for its validity upon the acceptance of the present one, but they both pursue the same approach.

In Rome of the early empire, most of the residential population lived in rented apartments (cenacula). Only the privileged few could afford single-family dwellings; the character of this minority is vividly illustrated in Juvenal's famous line on Nero's persecutions: ‘rarus venit in cenacula miles’ (10. 18). Almost all of the non-privileged many, if they could afford accommodation, were obliged to dwell in buildings that they did not own, in exchange for rent that our sources agree was exorbitantly high.

However, not everyone in the tenant class was on equal footing, despite recent suggestions to the contrary. The range of accommodation regularly available to the urban masses was, as will be shown below, quite varied, though this range was often effectively limited by the wealth and other social characteristics of the prospective tenant. The rental market of Rome can be reconstructed from three kinds of sources: literary references to rental; the types of rental situations described in legal texts; and the archaeological remains of apartment houses, particularly those in Ostia. These sources converge to suggest a model of the urban rental market that is rather more complex than the one which has appeared in recent scholarship. It must be stressed, however, that the new model suggested below is still just a model, and that variations from it must have been numerous. For instance, no ancient authority conclusively demonstrates that a lease like the typical modern American lease (an apartment taken on a year term for exclusive occupancy of the tenant and his dependants, with monthly payment in advance and many services supplied by the landlord) was legally impossible in antiquity, or was not in fact developed; but the Roman leases actually described in the extant sources are markedly different, and the ruins of Ostian apartment houses seem to accord well with the leases to which these sources refer.

Inscriptions found at Pisidian Antioch disclose the careers of several senators. They afford various instruction, the prime specimen being ‘] P.f. Stel. Sospes’. The stone was discovered by Hamilton, and it will be a suitable tribute to epigraphists if one reproduces the copy made by the careful and exemplary Sterrett.

P·F·STEL·SOS

TI·FETIALI·LEG·AVG

PRO·PR·PROVINC·GAL

PISID·PHRYG·LVC·ISAVR·

PAPHLAG·PONTI·GALA

PONTI·POLEMONIANI

ARM·LEG·LEG·XIII·GEM

DONAT·DON·MILITARIB

EXPEDIT·SVEBIC·ET·SARM

COR·MVR·COR·VALL·COR

AVR·HAST·PVR·TRIB·VE

XILL·TRIB·CVRAT·COLO

NIOR·ET·MVNICIPIOR·PRAE

FRVM·DAND·EX·S·C·PRAETOR

AED·CVRVL·Q·CRET·ET·C

TRIB·LEG·XXIII·PRIMIGEN

IIIVIR·A·A·A·FF·

THIASVS·LIB

The document touches large fields of imperial history, not mere dates and detail in the record of a single senator. Hence abundant debate, and it goes on. Economy and clarity counsel a direct approach to the text. The last two posts held by Sospes offer some prospect of precision.

The document which forms the subject of this article is from the collection of papyri in the Brooklyn Museum, New York. It is published here by kind permission of the Museum authorities in advance of its appearance as no. 24 in the Catalogue of Brooklyn Museum Papyri, which is being prepared by Dr. John Shelton. We are very grateful to Dr. Shelton for drawing our attention to this papyrus and for generously allowing us, because of its exceptional importance, to publish it separately in this article.

The papyrus contains a Latin document relating to a unit of the Roman army stationed in Egypt. It is written in three columns on the recto of a piece of papyrus measuring approximately 27 × 18 cm. The verso, which according to Dr. Shelton contains a Greek private letter, has no apparent connection. Although the papyrus shows damage on all four sides, it is probable that the right-hand edge is preserved in lines 12 f. of the third column (see the notes ad loc). As it can be demonstrated that not much is lost at the left of the first column, what survives is likely to be the greater part of the original width. All three columns are incomplete at both top and bottom, and the loss here is much harder to estimate. Format and date are discussed in detail in section iv. It is here sufficient to say that it belongs in or near the year A.D. 215, and that in content it closely resembles two known papyri classed as pridiana, which have recently been re-edited as RMR 63 and 64.

The defeat of Perseus at Pydna, the destruction of the Macedonian kingdom, and the contemporary humbling of the Seleucid monarch Antiochus Epiphanes at Alexandria by an insolent Roman parvenu, are reasonably taken to demonstrate the absolute supremacy of Rome over the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Orient. At the same time the state of Rhodes suffered a drastic reduction of power through the removal of its mainland territories, and the king of Pergamum was severely snubbed, because both were believed to have favoured a negotiated settlement of the Macedonian war. Henceforth, in the consensus of modern opinion, the kings of Anatolia were puppets on a Roman string. This follows the theme song of Polybius—that Rome had acquired the mastery over all the parts of the civilized world, and in common opinion men had no choice but to listen to the Romans and obey their instructions.

Even to-day, twenty years after its discovery in September 1957, the great corpus of sculptures from the grotto by the sea-shore at Sperlonga still retains many of its secrets. The sheer quantity and richness of the material, its clearly programmatic character, and the enigmatic personalities and affiliations of its sculptors cannot but prompt any visitor to the cave and museum, specialist or no, to ask: what was the purpose of this great complex of Odyssean themes? When were they carved and for whom? Only recently, with the preliminary publication of the major fragments and their replicas by Conticello and Andreae, have their subjects and positions been satisfactorily determined, and the groundwork laid for a solution to such problems as these.

All four major groups had, as their protagonist, Odysseus. First of all, at the mouth of the cave on the left, he was shown dragging the limp corpse of Achilles away from the battle before Troy (Pl. IX, 1), and on the right, standing thwarted of his plan to snatch the Palladion away from Diomedes (Pl. IX, 2 and 3); in the centre of the pool the scene shifted to his wanderings, with his ship, its helmsman still clinging desperately to the stern, enmeshed in Scylla's coils (Pl. IX, 4–X, 2), while in the dim light of the cavern at the rear to the right, he appeared for the last time to direct his companions in the blinding of a gigantic Polyphemus (Pl. X, 3–XI, 4; cf. Pl. XII, I).

For many years now scholars have considered the date of dedication of the temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus as a matter beyond dispute. This date, 1 August 2 B.C., is based principally on the evidence supplied by Augustus, Velleius Paterculus and Dio, and has been accepted as an established historical fact at least from the time of Th.Mommsen's discussion in 1893. Nevertheless, certain problems arise from an acceptance of this date; problems, that is, which have a direct bearing on the use of the Res Gestae of Augustus and the Fasti of Ovid as valid historical sources.

The year in which the temple was dedicated in the Forum of Augustus has been established beyond all doubt. Velleius Paterculus (11, 100, 2) states that the temple was dedicated during the consulship of Augustus and L. Caninius Gallus, who, as we know from other sources, was suffect consul in 2 B.C. Also Augustus assigns to this year—his thirteenth consulship—the first celebration of Ludi Martiales at Rome. Furthermore, it may be accepted that Ludi Martiales were produced in subsequent years on the anniversary of the dedication of this temple.

Few Roman documents have been more discussed than the great bronze tablet which Cola di Rienzo discovered and erected in the Church of St. John Lateran, and which preserves the latter part of a grant of powers made to Vespasian by senate and people. Does it relate to his tribunician power or to his imperium, or does it merely confer on him supplementary rights? Is the grant tralatician in character, or is it specifically designed to enlarge, or to limit, the imperial power of Vespasian? Does it explain the later juristic doctrines that the emperor could himself make law and was not bound to obey the existing laws? I shall argue that the document preserves part of the senatus consultum passed when Vespasian was first recognized at Rome in December 69; that with one possible exception in the final clause it is tralatician, probably going back to A.D. 37 but incorporating additional prerogatives conferred on Claudius and emperors between Claudius and Vespasian (Part I); and that it is indeed the basis of the juristic doctrines mentioned (Part II). A few remarks are appended on its relevance to the political theory by which imperial autocracy could be justified (Part III).

One of the most remarkable phenomena within the pattern of monetary circulation in antiquity is the presence of large numbers of Roman Republican denarii, for the most part struck between c. 130 and 31 B.C., on the soil of present-day Romania, roughly ancient Dacia. Absolute figures are impressive; it has been calculated that taking together isolated finds, hoards closing with Republican pieces, nuclei of Republican coins in Roman Imperial hoards and Republican coins in collections in Romania the total comes to something like 25,000 pieces. But absolute figures are themselves unable to convey fully the uniqueness of the phenomenon; this emerges most clearly from a comparison with neighbouring territories.

There are no known hoards of Republican denarii from the territory of the Moldavian S.S.R.; the territories of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary to the north-west have produced between them a mere handful of Republican hoards; Jugoslavia and Albania to the west and Greece to the south are slightly more productive, but display no trace of the feature characteristic of Romania, a great block of hoards, the latest coin of which belongs in the first century B.C.

Air reconnaissance over the United Kingdom has been continued during the last four years, a period which has seen a considerable extension of such work, and one notable for exceptionally dry summers. Thus, both the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England, through the Air Photographs Unit of the National Monuments Record, and the Royal Commission for Scotland have undertaken extensive surveys, while the growth of local flying has meant that many areas of the country have been reconnoitred more intensively than has hitherto been possible. The account that follows relates almost entirely to the work sponsored by the Committee for Aerial Photography of the University of Cambridge, though information is, indeed, often interchanged with others making similar surveys. The fullest knowledge of any given site comes from study of all available records. The first clue may be obtained by one observer, later reconnaissance by others may amplify the record, perhaps making plain what was previously only suspected. Nevertheless, had it not been for knowledge of the first, perhaps incomplete, observation, subsequent reconnaissance might never have been undertaken. This is a pursuit in which each participant may owe much to others: the cumulative results reflect the activities of many.