This essay takes as its starting point the newly discovered first state print of the large topographical plan of the Campus Martius of ancient Rome made by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in the years around 1760. There are significant differences between the first and the more common second state (which was bound into the Campus Martius volume published in 1762) and they concern the form of the circuses, six of which are included by Piranesi in his plan. This essay will investigate those changes and propose a hypothesis regarding the motivations for them by looking at the antiquarian context with which Piranesi was familiar and taking into consideration his enthusiasm for on-site examination of ancient remains. Particularly relevant are the ruins of the circus of Maxentius on the via Appia just outside the city, a site which preoccupied Piranesi at various times throughout his career in Rome. The antiquarian material examined includes earlier writings on circuses, which had a marked effect on the way that Piranesi drew his circuses in the first state of the plan and on the changes he made, clearly visible in the copper plates from which the prints were made. The circus Maximus and circus of Maxentius as described by Pirro Ligorio, Onofrio Panvinio and Raffaele Fabretti are key to the genesis and development of the Campus plan.

Between 1969 and 1975 the excavations promoted by the Soprintendenza alle Antichità dell'Etruria Meridionale in the area to the east of the church of Santa Maria of Falleri identified a building in opus quadratum, located at the intersection between the main east–west and north–south urban road axes. As part of the Falerii Novi Project, this area has been systematically surveyed and (re)studied, applying an interdisciplinary approach. This has allowed the identification in this area of a monumental republican temple, linked to the forum, which should be placed in the context of the earliest development of the town, which has been known to us up to now only via literary sources. The identification of the republican temple of Falerii Novi contributes to fresh insights into the foundation of the town and its urban development.

Florence, Bibliotheca Riccardiana MS 996 is an interesting miscellany of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century texts. Among the manuscript's curious content is Dominici Cerbonii Tifernatis TERtheus Magus (‘The Triple God Magus of Domenico Cerbonio from Città di Castello’, fols 7r–10v). Evenly written in a neat humanistic cursive, with rubrication for the titles and a single marginal note (interpreted here as a stage direction), these folios form an account, in Latin prose and verse, of a necromantic ritual performed by members of the Roman Academy in which the shades of Cicero and Virgil are conjured from the pagan underworld to admire the Renaissance city. It is tempting to take this pagan rite as proof of the charges of heresy levelled at members of the Academy for which they were arrested and imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo on the orders of Pope Paul II Barbo (r. 1464–71) during Lent, 1468. However, this paper argues that the texts are evidence of a dramatic performance with scenery (or at least a theatrical backdrop) staged by the members of the reformed Academy as part of their annual celebrations of the Palilia (or Parilia) on Rome's birthday 21 April c. 1501.

The present article offers a new interpretation of the gladiatorial graffiti preserved within the Flavian Amphitheatre from a contextual perspective. Although recent scholarship has set a solid foundation for investigating the role and nature of gladiatorial graffiti, a contextual examination of this epigraphic category represents a major desideratum. The article investigates graffiti within the epigraphic environment of the Flavian Amphitheatre. It examines the juxtaposition of graffiti and official inscriptions, their interaction with spatial and material surroundings and their distinctiveness as visual and material media with which to perpetuate the fleeting arena performances. By combining close reading with a new visual representation of gladiatorial graffiti – created digitally upon autoptic study – the article provides the reader with the first systematic analysis of this exceptional epigraphic record. Challenging critical notions of impermanence and instability, the article explores strategies of memorialization and techniques of temporality performed by graffiti, inviting reflection on the negotiation of and paradoxical takes on the contradictory concept of monumentality in the arena.

The British antiquary William Gell (1777–1836) is known for his work on ancient Greece and Rome, which he based on a lifetime of Mediterranean travel and two decades of residence in Italy. This article uses a remarkable notebook held at the British School at Rome to explore his unheralded interest in Islamic Spain (al-Andalus), which emerged from his Iberian travels of 1808–11 and took up much of his energy in the early 1830s, the final years of his life. As such, the notebook shows how engagement with other cultures might continue well beyond an initial encounter through travel. It brings together Gell's on-the-spot sketches and descriptions of the Alhambra, his copious later reading on the Emirate of Granada and evidence that he was teaching himself Arabic, offering a case study of early nineteenth-century scholarship that straddles the transition between eighteenth-century antiquarianism and Romantic, Orientalist approaches. The materiality and the contents of Gell's notebook chart the changing ways in which British travellers and writers incorporated al-Andalus into their understandings of Europe and the Mediterranean.

This paper tests a new model to study the Roman conquest and colonization of the Western Mediterranean. This recent model depicts Roman expansion as a more sustainable process than previously assumed, which tapped into, reinforced and integrated wider Mediterranean settlement trends. Contrary to what is assumed by traditional narratives, colonization did not entail the immediate destruction and restructuring of native landscapes — but rather the integration, opportunistic reuse, appropriation and development of previous land-uses and settlements. Two legacy datasets collected through pedestrian survey in the colonial territories of Cosa (Italy) and Tarraco (Spain) were used to test this model on a supranational scale. The analysis indicated that certain portions of the native landscape were possibly integrated into the Roman Empire without initial drastic changes being reflected in the settlement patterns or the landscape.

This essay has two objectives. First, it acknowledges and situates the contribution of Ethel Ann Burton-Brown (1868–1927) to the history of the archaeology of the Roman Forum as it was excavated between 1898 and 1905 under the direction of Giacomo Boni (1859–1925). Her English-language handbook on the discoveries, now overlooked in literature on Boni, showcased her education at Girton College, her experience with traditional cultures such as those of northern India, and her understanding of established and newly-emerging methods of classical archaeology. Unlike Esther van Deman and Eugénie Sellers Strong, who embraced careers in archaeology just years after Burton-Brown's publication, she did not pursue working in the discipline because of her personal situation. Secondly, it investigates the manner in which Burton-Brown received Boni's presentation of the excavations. Trained as an architect and experienced in architectural restoration, Boni brought innovative scientific methods to the task of uncovering Rome's archaic past. He did so while deliberately distancing himself from those scholars before him who applied traditional academic approaches, i.e., those reliant on classical literature, to archaeological practice. In large part, Burton-Brown's handbook echoes the descriptions and analyses of Boni's finds in the Roman Forum. However, a closer reading of her text reveals that her personal experiences shaped some of her explanations of the archaeological past in ways that differed from Boni's. In addition, their respective nationalities, British versus Italian, shade how they each value Rome's early history.

Pompey owned numerous properties in Italy, but except for a few residential villas little is known of their location or economic function. However, two amphora stamps have been attributed to him, which show that he was involved in the manufacture of amphorae, and probably in the production of the wine. Four tile stamps, found in the vicinity of Gravina in Puglia and at a villa at San Gilio in the upper Bradano valley, can also be attributed to Pompey for reasons discussed in detail in this paper. Since they were found in locations close to a drove road, it is inferred that Pompey had invested in properties which could be used as pasture for transhumant sheep. The circumstances in which he acquired the estate near Gravina are discussed, and it is suggested that it fell within the territory of Silvium and is likely to have been acquired by him after the War of Spartacus in which the settlement was destroyed. It is also suggested that the estate was bought by Octavian in the sale of Pompey's properties, which was still ongoing in 44 BC.