Pirro Ligorio wrote a description of what he believed to be the statio of the cohors vigilum on the Caelian hill which has never been satisfactorily explained. De Rossi supposed that the description was either of the castra peregrina or else a mixture of truth and falsehood. Baillie Reynolds wished to associate the description with some slightly similar remains to the south-east of Santo Stefano Rotondo. Colini recorded it, but offered no specific interpretation.

The text of the description survives in the original Italian in Cod. Taur. V f. 127–128, and in a Latin version by Holstein in Cod. Vat. Lat. 9141 f. 143. The Latin version differs in some respects from the Italian, and we give both texts here:

Castro Celimontano de' soldati Vigili fu in Roma nel monte Celio di là degli acquedotti dell'acqua Claudia, fra l'hospitale del Salvatore in Laterano et il monasterio di S. Steffano, ai confini delli castri peregrini, nel cui luogo hoggidí vi sono le vigne di M. Lippo et di Uberto Strozzi gentiluomini Mantovani, i quali per piantare esse vigne hanno spianato le rovine di esso Castro, alloggiamento dei soldati che la città di notte guardavano, dove havemo veduti alcuni vestiggi della pianta de'fondamenti ch'erano sotto delle rovine scassandosi il luogo. Et si sono veduti i luoghi che haveva di quattro torrioni quadrati, uno per angolo del Castro et per quattro lati fra esse torri erano quattro stanze larghe XX piedi e longhe XLVI et a destra cinque stanze di XV piedi larghe et longhe XX et a sinistra altre cinque stanze simili et cosí per tutti quattro i lati erano l'altre a destra et a sinistra delle altre grandi simili di quarantasei piedi, et le torri fiancheggiavano essi lati delle sale et camere.

The Via Claudia Valeria was the prolongation of the Via Valeria to its natural termination upon the shores of the Adriatic. During the Republican period the principal lines of communication between Rome and almost every part of Italy were fixed and settled, even if they had not become viae munitae; and so it remained for the Emperors to develop this system and bring it to its logical conclusion. The old Via Valeria linked Rome with Alba Fucens, and, by natural extensions, with the country of the Marsi and the Paeligni. The Emperor Claudius went a step further, and, by connecting the Via Valeria at Cerfennia (Collarmele) with the Mare Superum at the Ostia Aterni (Pescara), not only brought the Paeligni and the Marrucini into direct connection with the capital, but opened up a most important route between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. With the Paeligni and the Marrucini, through whose territory the Via Claudia Valeria passed, the Romans never had any serious trouble. We first hear of relations between Rome and these people in the middle of the fourth century. No serious hostilities are mentioned and Roman armies appear to have been able to march through their territory without opposition.; In 304 B.C. Rome granted, a treaty to the Marrucini, Marsi, Paeligni and Frentani, all of whom remained generally loyal in aftertimes. The Via Salaria, which, in its mature form, connected Rome with Ausculum and Castrum Truentinum, a point on the Adriatic coast somewhat to the north of the mouth of the Aternus, was of very early origin. To the late Republican period (117 B.C.) belongs the Via Caecilia, which branched off from the Via Salaria in the valley of the Farfa (at the 36th mile) and, after passing through Amiternum, the chief town of the northern Sabini, reached Hadria and the coast.

This article examines the so-called ‘Africa’ dish, part of a treasure trove of silver table-ware discovered in a cistern at the Villa della Pisanella, a villa rustica destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79. It proposes a new interpretation of the dish's iconography and argues that the woman in the centre of the emblema is Cleopatra Selene, while the attributes surrounding her reference her parents Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius, her brothers Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, her husband Juba II of Mauretania, and their mythological ancestor the demi-god Heracles. Thus the emblema serves as a meditation on the fates of Antony and Cleopatra VII, descendants of Heracles who chose the path of vice, a choice that resulted in their defeat by Octavian at the Battle of Actium. Octavian's virtue, victory and clemency, combined with his guardianship of their children, ensured the subsequent promotion of their daughter Cleopatra Selene as a key figure in his dynastic and political strategy, through her marriage to Juba II and the couple's appointment as client rulers of Mauretania. Also supposedly descended from Heracles, Juba II and Cleopatra Selene chose to follow in their illustrious ancestor's footsteps along the path of virtue. In common with other pieces from the treasure trove, the ‘Africa’ dish alludes to recent historical events and personages, utilizes death as a means of promoting the enjoyment of life, and incorporates popular elements of Greek mythology, all the while offering banqueters an erudite puzzle to solve during the course of their banquet.

This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (primarily in 2011, but also in the first part of 2012), gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions and newspaper reports.

Analyses of writing culture in tenth-century Rome have been impeded by an absence of manuscripts and documents that can be assigned unquestionably to scriptoria in the city. This paper will examine the possibility that one such document has hitherto been hiding in plain sight, as it were: the dower charter given by Emperor Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophanu on the occasion of their marriage in St Peter's on 14 April 972. Usually considered to be ‘Ottonian’, rather than ‘Italian’ or ‘Roman’, this document nevertheless states explicitly that it was undertaken at the Roman church of Santi Apostoli, and this possibility is assessed in light of what is known about that church, the Via Lata region and their connections to the foremost noble family in the city.

The study of medieval liturgy is well served by a fuller appreciation of the unique richness of individual manuscripts. One example, Vat. Lat. 7701, is a key piece of evidence for uncovering the reception of the Carolingian project to ‘correct’ liturgy in Chieti, Abruzzo. This manuscript is a ‘pontifical’, created for the personal use of a ninth-century bishop of Chieti. Within this book, he described and prescribed his own liturgical duties, those which made up his office as the Carolingians understood it. The peculiarities of the manuscript and some of its unique features are best understood by reference to this imperative. Alongside other products of the Carolingian scriptorium at Chieti, the manuscript reveals that even bishops at the southernmost tip of the Carolingian Empire saw themselves as fully engaged in an Empire-wide programme to amend liturgical practice, which did not aim for uniformity but led to significant creativity. This programme was associated with imperial authority, but led by bishops themselves. Local liturgical variation is undeniable in our manuscript, but the sharing of texts and communication with sees all across the Empire are equally visible components.

Throughout the Mediterranean the study of the destruction, reuse, moving and preservation of statues has provided a window onto the transformation of Rome during a time of ascendant Christianity. The preservation of statuary collections is increasingly important in this regard. Archival research has revealed the discovery of one such collection at Ostia's Sanctuary of Magna Mater, a treasure trove of sculptures, reliefs and at least one bronze statue. All were well preserved, and several were found in the open spaces of the sanctuary. Together they span 500 years of history, stretching into the late fourth century. Unfortunately, the late antique significance of this group has never been acknowledged. This paper situates that collection within the social world of late antique Ostia, where many statues of both sacred and non-sacred subjects remained on display. The late fourth-century dedication, in particular, set alongside the earlier pieces, demonstrates that the ‘mood and motivations’ of traditional Roman religion, in Clifford Geertz's terms, also remained quite visible. The presence of this accumulated tradition, a hallmark of Rome's ‘civil religion’ for centuries, testifies to the high social status afforded one of Ostia's most historic sites, even during an increasingly Christian age.

The Lupercalia is one of the most important and most controversial of Roman festivals. This paper addresses the issue of its topography, which has received renewed attention in recent years. It is divided into two main sections, the first discussing the hotly debated location of the Lupercal cave, and the second the course of the running Luperci. The former section reviews the literary and archaeological evidence for the location of the cave, discusses its significance as a unique religious site, and calls for further investigation in the area of the southwest Palatine. The second section seeks to challenge the most influential theories on the course of the Luperci by carefully examining the ancient evidence and the terminology it uses. A contextualization of the sources and the topographic elements they describe shows that many modern theories contain serious flaws when it comes to this subject. Most modern interpretations rely on a passage of Augustine which is very problematic because of his biased interpretatio Christiana. The conclusion is that the festival’s typology as a ritual of lustration is key to understanding the course of the Luperci.

Such settlement as there had been in south-eastern Etruria prior to the Early Iron Age had been established by small groups of pioneers moving up the river valleys from the Tiber. The first Early Iron Age settlers came instead from the west, overland, a difference of orientation which from the very outset made itself felt in the resulting pattern of settlement and communications. The first settlers of Veii seem to have come from the neighbourhood of Tarquinia or Vulci, along a line that is marked by the Villanovan sites in the Vesca and Biedano valleys and that of Monte Sant'Angelo on the crest of the Monti Sabatini, between the Lago di Martignano and the Baccano crater. From Monte Sant'Angelo, 11 km. north-west of Veii, there is a continuous ridgeway track leading down to Veii itself, a track which right down to Roman times was to remain Veii's principal outlet to the north.