February 2021 saw the coincidentally simultaneous publication of two important books about the Augustan Palatine: Dal mostro al principe by Andrea Carandini and Paolo Carafa, and Il complesso di Augusto sul Palatino by Patrizio Pensabene, Patrizio Fileri and Enrico Gallocchio. Since Carandini and Pensabene have been for decades the most significant archaeological investigators of the Palatine, these two major works of synthesis offer a timely opportunity to assess the historical contribution of archaeology in the 60 years since Gianfilippo Carettoni first identified ‘the house of Augustus’. That contribution has been surprisingly disappointing, and this article tries to explain why.

In questo contributo gli autori pubblicano una statua con iscrizione inedita proveniente dall'antico sito di Careiae, nell'Etruria meridionale. Essa offre l'opportunità di riflettere sul ruolo di questo piccolo centro nei pressi di Roma, di cui poco sappiamo, sulla rarissima connessione tra il collegio dei dendrofori e Virtus e sul ruolo che il collegio dei dendrofori poteva avere anche al di fuori dai contesti urbani. L'edizione di questo nuovo testo ha offerto anche l'occasione di riconsiderare un analogo plinto iscritto di statua, oggi conservato a Vienna e attribuito finora a Roma.

This is a collaborative in-depth study of Trajan's sestertii with a bird's-eye view of the harbour at Portus (RIC 631–2), struck in AD 112–14. It is based on a new numismatic analysis of the coin type, featuring a corpus of 46 specimens and a critical study of their reverse dies, as well as on recent archaeological research at the port that allows for a better understanding of the harbour buildings and their chronology. The article provides the first detailed comparison of the structures shown on the nine reverse dies with those on the ground. The new interdisciplinary assessment of the evidence leads to a new hypothesis regarding the occasion of the coin issue: it probably commemorated the inauguration of the harbour's distinctive hexagonal basin, through which the new port facility became operational.

This paper presents an innovative study of the port system of Rome in Imperial times through the application of an integrated approach to both archaeological analysis and material evidence. Specifically, it seeks to provide a more complete contextualization and understanding of the port system of Rome by focusing on the exploration of the physical geography of the river Tiber and its transformations in connection with the organization of the port system between the late first century BC and early third century AD. Methodologically, this study is based on the compilation, re-evaluation and analysis of published archaeological and geoarchaeological data and on the application of modelling and simulations techniques within a GIS environment. These foundations and means allow us to reconstruct the development of the river Tiber's historical course in antiquity and its impact on specific organizational aspects of Rome's port system. In this sense, this study provides new insights and avenues of research (applicable to other geographical areas and periods of time) to evaluate the system's changing capacity for transport and the potential existence of a signalling system, in contrast to previous hypotheses on the organization of river traffic along the Tiber.

Il contributo si propone di presentare i reperti provenienti da un saggio effettuato all’interno dei cosidetti Magazzini Traianei a Portus (Fiumicino) e in particolare nel corridoio prospicente la darsena in corrispondenza della cella 9 e all’interno di essa. L’intervento di ricerca era principalmente volto a definire le diverse fasi edilizie della struttura dei magazzini, è tuttavia stato possibile mettere in luce livelli datati tra il IV e il V secolo d.C., connessi alle fasi di frequentazione a scopo funerario della cella. Lo studio preliminare dei materiali offre un primo panorama delle produzioni attestate nell’area in età tardoantica e del rapporto percentuale intercorrente tra di loro, restituendo un’immagine delle dinamiche commerciali. In particolare è stato possibile verificare la presenza di alcuni contenitori da trasporto degni di nota, come ad esempio le anfore Keay LII e affini, che testimoniano la rinnovata produzione di vino calabro–siculo nel corso del V sec. L'incremento di questi beni di consumo si deve alla crisi della produzione viticola che investì l’Italia centro–settentrionale e alla conseguente imposizione del titulus canonicus vinarius alle regioni del Bruzio e della Sicilia. Tali contesti tardi si caratterizzano inoltre per la presenza di ceramica da fuoco di Pantelleria e di produzioni africane di ceramica da cucina, comune e terra sigillata. Si segnala infine la presenza dell’anfora ispanica Mojón 1, imitazione degli spatheia africani. Il panorama delle attestazioni permette di istituire confronti all’interno del sito stesso, con i reperti provenienti dagli scavi dell’Antemurale e della Basilica Paleocristiana, e con i contesti ostiensi e romani, sia per quanto riguarda la prevalenza dei contenitori da trasporto sul resto del vasellame, che in relazione alla preponderanza del materiale d’importazione, all’interno del quale spicca la ceramica africana.

Water poses a particular challenge to the cities and settlements of the Po–Venetian plain. The region has some of the highest levels of precipitation in Italy and is criss-crossed by dozens of rivers, including the Po, Adige and Tagliamento. Throughout history, there was considerable hydrological risk to the well-being of riparian communities from hazards such as flooding and lateral channel movement, yet local residents did not sit idly by. This article synthesizes the available evidence for Roman responses to hydrological risk in the Po–Venetian plain from the first century BC to the sixth century AD, examining their workings and the hazards they sought to counteract, integrating them into wider discussions on risk in the Roman world. The responses are divided into the categories of defensive works (embankments and dykes) and channel interventions (channel rectification, channel diversion and dredging). While the effectiveness of these methods is questioned, in particular their potential to cause unintended changes to the watercourse, the decision by riparian communities to undertake them suggests a degree of local success. Nevertheless, an examination of the archaeological and palaeoclimatic evidence suggests a discrepancy between peak intervention and peak risk, implying increasing vulnerability and risk acceptance amongst riparian communities during late antiquity.

Historiographical production within twelfth-century Puglia seems to have been markedly limited, and this frustrates attempts to access internal perspectives on a region which played a pivotal socio-political and economic role within southern Italy as it fell under Norman rule, and was subsequently absorbed into the new Kingdom of Sicily in 1130. It might, however, be possible to bolster the region's twelfth-century historiographical outputs if we were to include a largely overlooked and problematic source, the so-called Fragmentary Troia Chronicle. It is a short, hybridized and fragmented Latin text usually assumed to be late twelfth-century as a result of its chronological coverage. It consists of an annalistic-style account of political and religious events mostly of relevance to the northern Pugliese city of Troia and its bishopric, and ostensibly covers 1014 to 1124/7. It is accompanied by what also seems to be an appendix of documents (some dated later than the annalistic section) associated with the city's bishopric. This article therefore offers the first extended analysis of the Troia Chronicle's place within Pugliese historiographical production. It revisits questions around its authenticity, examines potential contexts surrounding its production and content, and provides the first English translation of the narrative section of the chronicle. In so doing, it argues that we must tread carefully when using this source, but that the Troia Chronicle's existence and its main chronological focus could at the very least hold significance as a marker of an enduring remembrance of a vibrant era of episcopal, literary and urban development in this Pugliese city in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

It has been argued that a schola medicorum (i.e. a headquarters of physicians) existed in ancient Rome. According to this, the evidence supporting the existence of the schola is the plinth of a statue engraved with the text translata de schola medicorum, the epitaph of a scriba medicorum, and a Greek inscription dedicated by a δεκαδάρχης ἰατρῶν, but these sources present some problems when they are subjected to a critical examination. Moreover, the silence of ancient authors about this place is striking, and subsequent doubts emerge when considering that the schola medicorum is first documented in a manuscript by Pirro Ligorio. The aim of this paper is to re-examine the documentary sources that allude to the schola medicorum, assessing also the use of this expression in scientific literature from the sixteenth century, and try to determine if the written sources support the existence of such a place in ancient Rome.

In the early twentieth century, Thomas Ashby published extensively on the Roman roads of Italy. The BSR Director was determined to create a lasting record of the ancient Roman road network before it was lost forever. Yet Ashby's research vision was grand and it was too ambitious a task for one man to accomplish on his own. This paper investigates the crucial role of BSR scholars in Ashby's research. It discusses his relationship with the community of residents and scholars at the BSR in the pre- and post-World War I years, especially those with whom he collaborated in order to survey, map and record the Roman roads and their surrounding countryside. Focus is given to Ashby's research on roads like the Via Flaminia and Via Appia as this work highlights his methodology, the collegial environment at the BSR during his directorship, and his successful collaboration with award-holders. To date, the role of these BSR scholars has largely been underrated. Yet there were BSR award-holders — historians, archaeologists and architects — who helped to keep Ashby's research vision alive. Without them, he could not have produced such a comprehensive and impressive body of work on Italy's Roman roads.

This article highlights the importance of photography for landscape archaeology and topographical studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and explores the value of photographic collections for the reconstruction of research itineraries and reconnaissance excursions in this period. Photographs held at the British School at Rome are utilized to demonstrate the ways in which collections of images can be used to retrace and chronicle the historical paths and itineraries of early researchers in Italy. Several journeys involving pioneers in both topographical studies and the use of photography for landscape archaeology in Italy are discussed. The photographs taken by amateur photographers on these excursions are important visual records of the Italian countryside and its monuments. These images are cultural artefacts themselves and they demonstrate what was still accessible to scholars and archaeologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The historical paths and itineraries of these trailblazers, and the visual and textual records they produced, are now an integral part of the history of topographical studies, landscape archaeology and the Roman roads and countryside of Italy. Through photographs, this article retraces the paths of several of these pioneers and brings their historical journeys to life.

This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (August 2021 – June 2022) gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and newspaper reports.