From the first Augustus employed Equites in military and civil posts (Dio LIII 15). The number of such posts multiplied in the course of time, and finally in the third century Equites supplanted senators in positions of the highest responsibility. In general ancient authors almost ignore the inception and development of the equestrian service. Dio makes Maecenas advocate the use of Equites by arguing that the emperor needed numerous assistants and that it was advisable that as many persons as possible, evidently from the higher classes, should feel that they had a share in the government (LII 19; 25). Modern scholars offer various explanations. It is clear that there were too few senators to fill the army commissions that went to Equites. Some equestrian posts were also below senatorial dignity. But others equalled or surpassed in importance those still reserved to senators. On one view the emperors, aiming at greater efficiency, found among the Equites more professional expertise; on another, they could better rely on the political loyalty of the lower order. Stein combined these theories: Augustus ‘called to life an admirable profession of officials (Beamtenstand) which performed its functions with distinction and which could at the same time unlike the senate never threaten the Princeps’; it was ‘an efficient and willing instrument of the autocrat’. For Hirschfeld its triumph in the third century marked the culmination of ‘the three hundred years’ long struggle between senate and emperor’. Individual emperors to whom the creation of particular posts is assigned (often with little justification) are supposed to have deliberately furthered this process. I can find no deep design nor overall plan, either in the arrangements made by Augustus (some of which were suggested by practices of the previous generation), or in those of his successors, but only a series of expedients to meet varying needs and the development of precedents, which ultimately produced the appearance of a system.

Some years ago I maintained that the common people in the city of Rome had to earn much of their living in casual employment, partly for instance in the unloading and porterage of goods that arrived by sea, partly in the building trade. This hypothesis cannot be established by the accumulation of literary or epigraphic testimony, nor from archaeological material, though I shall argue later that none the less it must be accepted; however, I did adduce two texts which, I thought, did not so much confirm as illustrate the use of free labourers in building. Professor Lionel Casson, who seems to disbelieve the hypothesis altogether, has recently shown that my inference from one of these texts (Cicero, ad Atticum XIV, 3, 1) was novel and somewhat arbitrary; though I do not concede that it was necessarily incorrect, I therefore withdraw it from the debate. I might of course have cited certain other texts considered below (n. 89); there remains in any case, however, the famous passage in Suetonius, of which I took a conventional view and of which he now proposes a quite new interpretation. This seems to me impossible. Let us start by examining it, before coming to more general considerations.

‘Farm’ sites of various kinds have been a striking feature of survey archaeology in most areas of Greece and Italy in recent years, and a number of such sites dating to the Roman period have been located. In many parts of Greece there seem to be particularly large numbers of later Roman sites, with fewer which can be firmly dated to the earlier imperial period, while in a few areas the Imperial Roman period is one of dense occupation. In Italy, too, there seems to be considerable regional variation in peak periods of rural settlement, so that in some areas numbers of small sites are greatest for the Republican period (second to first centuries B.C.), while in other areas there are many small sites of the first century a.d. or even later. The tendency of archaeologists working in both Greece and Italy, especially in the early years of the survey boom in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was to categorize these smaller sites as peasant farms (generally assuming peasant free-holders), while larger, more opulent sites were classed as ‘villas’. This encouraged both archaeologists and historians to jump to the conclusion that the development of large estates attested in the literary record from the later second century B.C. onward had not effected the complete demise of small-scale, free subsistence farmers.

In a recent issue of this Journal, M. Alexander Speidel published a new document concerning Roman military pay, a receipt from Vindonissa dating to A.D. 38. This document, he claims, provides the missing link, which allows him to present a table of pay rates for legionaries and auxiliaries from Caesar to Diocletian and prove finally the proposition resurrected by M. P. Speidel that soldiers of the auxiliary cohorts were paid five sixths of the annual pay of legionaries. From a re-examination of the texts and documents traditionally used as evidence for the pay rates of the Roman military, I conclude that, although we can establish the rates of legionary infantry pay from the date of the increase under Caesar until A.D. 197, we have little evidence for legionary pay rates in the third century and, since most of the documents provide us with figures which are unknown proportions of the annual pay of the soldiers concerned, the evidence for auxiliary pay is not sufficient to allow the calculation of exact pay rates for any period. There are, therefore, no grounds for believing either the five-sixths theory as elaborated by M. Alexander Speidel or, indeed, any of the many other theories that have been proposed. Nevertheless, the documentation can be interpreted to establish likely minimum figures for auxiliary pay rates in the first century A.D. This interpretation of the documents suggests that there was, in fact, no difference between the rates of pay of auxiliary and legionary infantry and the cavalry of the legions and alae, a controversial conclusion that has previously been avoided for reasons central to much of Roman imperial military historiography.

From the time of the introduction of the denarius system onwards, Roman currency gradually spread over all, or nearly all, the regions under Roman rule, in the wake of their progressive integration into the Empire. Partly, the denarius replaced previous currencies, partly it brought about the monetization of areas not yet monetized. It was therefore the most striking feature, and indeed the logical premise, of the economic unification of the Empire (in so far as one can speak of such a unification). Until the Severan age, the Roman monetary system remained stable, notwithstanding the widening of the area it covered and the various changes it underwent—the introduction of new denominations and new metals, the retariffing of some elements in relation to each other, the transformation of the physical quality of the coins, for instance through debasement: in fact, there were no sudden and considerable rises of prices and Roman currency almost always enjoyed automatic confidence.

The modern bibliography on the subject of the juridical basis of the persecutions of the Christians in the Roman Empire before 250 is vast, contentious—and in large part worthless. For no-one has yet attempted to gather together in a small compass and to scrutinize without preconceptions all the primary evidence for specific actions or legal enactments of the Senate or of emperors before Decius which directly concerned the Christians, or which were directly rendered necessary by them. Ulpian collected the imperial rescripts relating to the punishment of Christians in the seventh book of his De Officio Proconsulis. This chapter has left no discernible trace in the Digest commissioned by the Christian emperor Justinian. The evidence which remains, therefore, is scattered and often difficult to evaluate. What follows is an attempt to present clearly the primary evidence for the legal basis of the condemnation of Christians before 250 without the accretions of later hagiography or of modern interpretations.

This article has been engendered by yet another important discovery made during the current excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria, of a unique series of acclamatory texts in honour of a local benefactor, Albinus. The texts were inscribed, probably in the first half of the sixth century, on the twenty columns of the west portico of the Agora, nineteen of which survive. They provide relatively little information either about Albinus or about the history of Aphrodisias; but they are of outstanding interest as the fullest series of inscribed acclamations which has yet been identified anywhere. The purpose of this article is to consider the status and function of acclamations in late Roman society, and their relationship to earlier practice, in order to assess the full significance of the texts presented here.

The subject of ekphrasis, and in particular of the ekphrasis of works of art, has recently begun to receive a great deal of attention from classical scholars. As will become clear, I believe that the reason for this is that many of the theoretical issues that are most pressing in classical studies — and indeed in cultural studies in general — are raised by the study of ekphrasis. The purpose of this note on the other hand is modest: I want to say a little about the narratological issues that are raised by set-piece description (I), and to look at one example in the Aeneid (II). But even so I have found it impossible not to offer some thoughts of a frighteningly general nature (III). I shall concentrate on the ekphrasis of works of art for reasons that will again become clear, but some at least of what I shall say will also be relevant mutatis mutandis to the ekphrasis of natural features and events.

What we call the ‘Eastern frontier’ of the Roman Empire was a thing of shadows, which reflected the diplomatic convenience of a given moment, and dictated the positioning of some soldiers and customs officials, but hardly affected the attitudes or the movements of the people on either side. Nothing more than the raids of desert nomads, for instance, hindered the endless movement of persons and ideas between Judaea and the Babylonian Jewish community. Similarly, as Lucian testifies, offerings came to the temple of Atargatis at Hierapolis-Bambyce from a wide area of the Near and Middle East, including Babylonia. The actual movement to and fro of individuals was reflected, as we have recently been reminded, in a close interrelation of artistic and architectural styles. Moreover, whatever qualifications have to be made in regard to specific places, it is incontestable that Semitic languages, primarily Aramaic in its various dialects, remained in active use, in a varying relationship to Greek, from the Tigris through the Fertile Crescent to the Phoenician coast. This region remained, we must now realize, a cultural unity, substantially unaffected by the empires of Rome or of Parthia or Sassanid Persia.

The article presents an edition of and commentary on a Latin bronze inscription (152 lines long) from the time of Hadrian, found at Agón, near Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), in ancient Hispania Citerior. The inscription contains a set of regulations (lex riui Hiberiensis) governing an irrigation community consisting of rural districts (pagi) from two different cities (Caesaraugusta and Cascantum) which shared a canal, the riuus Hiberiensis. The lex was produced in accordance with an agreement of the pagani after the intervention of the provincial governor [—Fun]ndanus Augustanus Alpinus. It provides information about the pagus institutions (magistri pagi, concilium, curatores, publicani?) as well as procedural aspects such as iusiurandum, uadimonium, and judicial formulae.

Roman soldiers were forbidden by law to contract a marriage during their period of military service, at least until the time of Septimius Severus. This restriction seems anomalous, especially in the context of the legal privileges conferred on soldiers, in the making of a will, in the relative freedom from some of the restraints of patria potestas, and in court. Some of these privileges were in part an attempt to protect soldiers against and compensate for the rigours of military life with its enforced lengthy absences from home, often in remote areas of the empire. And so it is strange that a soldier was prevented from obtaining the solace of normal family life through wedlock, by a law that was virtually unenforcible and which caused the authorities trouble from the start. The ways in which emperors reacted to the marriage ban and the uncertainty created by it, and sought to ameliorate its consequences, provide a useful study of the working of imperial ‘government’—how and why decisions were taken on a matter that was perhaps sensitive for the emperor's relationship with the army. Furthermore, I hope to demonstrate that the marriage prohibition was eventually lifted by Septimius Severus, and that this was an important part of the improvement in the material position of the army in the reign of this emperor—who used his troops to fight his way to power and allegedly proclaimed to his sons on his deathbed, ‘Enrich the soldiers and scorn the rest’. In what follows, section I considers the problems suffered by soldiers as a result of the marriage ban, and section II the attempts made before the reign of Severus to mitigate these. Section III examines the evidence of the literary sources for the removal of the ban by Severus, section IV the evidence of legal sources, and section V the evidence of military diplomata for the position of soldiers after Severus. Section VI provides a summary of the conclusions and their importance.

In this paper the text of a new inscription from Ephesus will be presented and discussed. The fragmented stone on which it is written was brought by a workman to the excavation office in spring 1969. It is not known where exactly it was found, although D. Knibbe has suggested privately that it was originally set up in the Agora.

Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Ephesus Inventory No. 3653. Fragment of a large slab of white marble, broken on top and at the bottom. The left margin is partly preserved, the right margin almost entirely. There are mouldings on both sides. The hollow in the form of a semicircle at the right margin originates in all probability from re-use of the stone.

Height 75 cm. Width 68·5. Thickness 12·5. The height of the letters is 1·0, the distance between the lines 0·6 cm. The writing is in two columns which are separated from each other by a vertical scratch. This was made after the left column had already been engraved, as can be seen from the small detour in 1 19. Plate I. For the establishment of the text I have been able to use a large-scale photograph and the latex squeeze provided by the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

From the mid-third century, Gothic tribes inhabited lands north of the river Danube; they were destined, however, to play a major role in the destruction of the Roman Empire and the creation of the medieval world order. In the last quarter of the fourth century, in the face of Hun attacks, some Goths (those commonly known as Visigoths) fled into the Roman Empire, winning a famous victory at Hadrianople in 378 and sacking Rome in 410. They later moved further west to found a kingdom in southern Gaul and Spain. Of equal historical importance are those Goths (usually known as Ostrogoths) who remained north of the Danube under Hun domination from c. 375 to c. 450. They too then entered the Empire, and, under Theoderic the Great, established a kingdom in Italy which is known to us through Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Ennodius. Much less well known, however, is the formative stage of their history when the Ostrogoths endured Hun domination, and it is on our sources for this period that this study will concentrate.

Those who study and teach the history of the Ancient World suffer from a great disadvantage, which we find difficult to admit even to ourselves: in a perfectly literal sense we do not know what we are talking about. Of course we can dispose of a vast range of accumulated knowledge about what we are talking about. We can compile lists of officeholders in the Roman Empire, without our evidence revealing how government worked or even whether it made any impact at all on the ordinary person; we can discuss the statuses of cities and look at the archaeological remains of some of them (or rather some parts of some of them) without having any notion of their social and economic functions, or of whether it made any real difference whether an inhabitant of the Roman provinces lived in a small city or a large village.

The riot at Antioch in the early spring of A.D. 387 is described in two eye-witness accounts, that of Libanius—in particular Orations 19–23—and that of John Chrysostom—in particular the 21 Homiliae ad populum Antiochenum de statuis. Consequently, it has often been studied in more or less detail by modern scholars, each approaching it from his own point of view. It might seem that all that could be said has been said. Nevertheless, certain features of the disorders, which have some interest for the social history of the period, have not been adequately dealt with. It is as a contribution to the understanding of these that the present study is written.

In 1979, during his continuing excavation of the city of Aphrodisias, Professor K. T. Erim discovered a large temple and sanctuary complex dedicated to Aphrodite and the Julio-Claudian emperors (the Theoi Sebastoi). It had a remarkable sculptural display of which much has survived—there are about eighty relief panels. The complex would probably have been called a Sebasteion: we know from an unrelated inscription that there was one at Aphrodisias. It is of great interest to both the historian and art-historian of the early empire, giving a rare combination of buildings, sculpture, and inscriptions from a unified excavated context and providing an unrivalled picture of the physical setting of the imperial cult in a Greek city. The sculptured reliefs give a great range and combination of iconography quite unexpected in such a context—mythological, allegorical, and imperial. The myth panels seem to offer a missing link between the iconographic repertoire of the Hellenistic world and that used under the Roman empire, while the allegorical and imperial panels give a detailed plcture of the emperor and Rome as seen from the Greek East that is not available elsewhere.

It has long been recognized that Macrobius' Saturnalia and Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis are no less important as social documents of their times than for the precious antiquarian and neoplatonic lore they preserve. But which times ? And who was Macrobius ?

In view of our relatively abundant prosopographical material from the late fourth and early fifth centuries, there should be a fair chance of identifying a man whose full name and rank stand on record: Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, vir clarissimus et inlustris.

The Vestal Virgins have often been the subject of close scrutiny by classical scholars. Indeed many articles have been devoted to a careful analysis of individual, apparently trivial, aspects of their legal rights, their privileges, their cult obligations and even their dress. In the same tradition I intend in this paper to consider just one element of their priestly position: their sexual status and its relationship to their sacred status. It is however an element which will be seen to have wider implications for their cult as a whole and for ancient religion in general.