Smallpox, caused by the variola virus (VARV), is prominent in modern histories of the ancient Mediterranean world. The disease, or the diagnosis of it, has shaped estimations of the scale and significance of epidemics and pandemics, notably the 2nd-c. Antonine plague, and the burden of disease in large cities and regions densely populated in antiquity. Here we synthesize recent paleogenetic and evolutionary biological literature that casts significant doubt on the existence of a VARV that caused a disease we would recognize – clinically, ecologically, or epidemiologically – as smallpox in antiquity. On the basis of current data, it is time archaeologists and historians began to eradicate smallpox from their histories of the ancient world.

This article presents a comparative analysis of three Late Roman sites located at the northern outskirts of the Kharga Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert: Umm al-Dabadib, Ayn al-Labakha, and the Gib/Sumayra Complex. These were part of the district of the Oasis Magna, which included the oases of Dakhla and Kharga. An analysis of their layout, including both shape and extent, is followed by an evaluation of their absolute and relative positions. These data are then compared to the administrative and historical contexts within which the three sites flourished. Both administrative and economic aspects are considered, as well as the presence of the army. The complex picture that emerges suggests that these three sites played several roles at the same time and were part of a large-scale strategic design that encompassed not only the Kharga Oasis but the entire Western Desert.

The ebbs and flows of archaeological scholarship often see trends come and go, with big questions giving way to more fine-grained analysis only to, in turn, feed back into new, sweeping narratives. Thinking about the ancient city is no exception. Recent works from across the spectrum of archaeology and ancient history show a desire to draw new connections amongst urban sites in the same region, to explore similarities between regions, and even to interrogate the extent of similarity between settlements of drastically different periods and places.

In recent decades, conflict archaeology has renewed study of the Roman Republican military, with Hispania as one of the most prolific areas of research. Following this trend, since 2006 the University of Barcelona has conducted archaeological investigations at several sites in the lower Ebro basin. When no structures or archaeological layers remained in situ, surface survey became a key methodology. Based on the artifacts retrieved during surface survey, this article identifies four new military establishments dated to the first half of the 1st c. BCE and reinterprets the campaigns of the Sertorian War in northeastern Spain.

Cities of North Africa experienced a long occupation up to the late 7th c. CE. Despite numerous studies on Late Antique urbanism, no systematic investigation of urban hydraulics has been carried out so far. This paper examines the hydraulic topography of three cities in the Byzantine period (ca. 6th c. CE): Leptis Magna (Tripolitania), Sbeitla (Byzacena), and Timgad (Numidia). This analysis assesses to what extent Late Antique societies managed the cities’ water supply by maintaining or transforming preexisting hydraulic networks. It considers the continuity of aqueducts and the reorganization of water networks, the state of hydraulic management and technology, and the perception of water resources. The hydraulic networks inherited from the Early Roman period were to some extent preserved, although greatly adapted to new concerns for security and new technical and environmental constraints, illustrating the resilience of Late Antique societies.

This article examines the newly published data on coin hoards from Pompeii, focusing on coins and other objects found on victims, and hoards from so-called savings boxes. Most of the work on savings or capital in the Roman world has focused on the size and composition of elite fortunes and the nature and extent of credit and monetization writ large. The article uses the Pompeii coin data set to examine the extent and nature of liquid savings held by a broader section of the population, including a substantial portion of non-elites. In doing so, it also makes some suggestions about the socioeconomic identity of those who failed to escape the town during the eruption.

This article describes the numerous bone remains discovered in a Roman road station, a mansio, on the Via Nova Traiana. The finds are exceptional and provide valuable insights into the daily life, environment, and economy of a road station. The assemblage is dominated by domestic species, mainly sheep/goat, followed, to a lesser extent, by chicken, cattle, and pigs. Beasts of burden (donkey, camel), hunted game (gazelle, hare), fish, and seashells complete the bone assemblage. Together, the zooarchaeological information allows us to discuss the procurement and role of meat in the diet of the residents and visitors to this station.

The large-scale provision of defenses around small towns in Roman Britain during the 2nd c. CE is without parallel in the Roman Empire. Although the relationship between defended small towns and the Roman road network has been noted previously, provincial-level patterns remain to be explored. Using network analysis and spatial inference methods, this paper shows that defended small towns in the 2nd c. are on average better integrated within the road network – and located on road segments important for controlling the flow of information – than small towns at random. This research suggests that the fortification of small towns in the 2nd c. was structured by the connectivity of the Roman road network and associated with the functioning of the cursus publicus.

This article focuses on the establishment of a winery on the Roman imperial estate at Vagnari in southeast Italy in the 2nd c. CE and the ceramic vats (dolia defossa) needed to mature and store the estate's vintages. A scientific analysis of the clay used to make the dolia has revealed their likely place of manufacture to have been in Latium or on the border between Latium and Campania on the Tyrrhenian (west) coast of Italy. With these analytical results in hand, it is now possible to inquire into the historical and economic significance for the imperial fiscus of importing dolia for wine making in the vicus at Vagnari, the route and mechanisms by which they might have traveled to the other side of the Italian peninsula, and the connectivity between this Apulian imperial estate and other potential imperial properties in western Italy. This places the present study at the intersection of agriculture, manufacturing, and property transfer within the patrimonium Caesaris.

The Novallas Bronze may be considered one of the most important epigraphic finds in recent years in Spain. It is a fragment of a public document datable to the last decades of the 1st c. BCE, composed in the Celtiberian language but written in the Latin alphabet. The Novallas Bronze is not only one of the latest inscriptions composed in this language – over half a century later than the famous inscriptions from Contrebia Belaisca – but also the longest Celtiberian document written in the Latin alphabet known thus far. This paper offers a complete publication of this exceptional document, as well as an analysis of the principal developments that the artifact illuminates and the consequent implications for the transformations that the Celtiberian people underwent during the transition from Republic to Empire, with particular focus on the process of Latinization.

This article revisits the origins of the Alexander Mosaic at Pompeii by focusing on the figure standing at Alexander's right hand. The starting point is Andreas Rumpf's suggestion that this “right-hand man” may be the patron of the original painting, who wished to advertise his own role in the represented battle. It is argued that Ptolemy I is perhaps the strongest candidate on historical grounds, and that interesting connections can be drawn between the mosaic and the historian Kleitarchos, who worked at the Ptolemaic court. Circumstantial support for a Ptolemaic connection is supplied by other finds from the House of the Faun, three of which are briefly re-examined.

Two damaged and partially restored Roman portraits in the collection of the British Museum, previously identified as either the emperor Caligula or an unknown “Julio-Claudian prince,” are here reassessed and identified as Agrippa Postumus, the youngest grandson and adopted heir of Augustus. The first portrait, from southern Britain, may have come from a temple dedicated to the worship of the Julio-Claudian house, while the second was probably part of an equestrian group standing outside the Aedes Castoris in Rome. This is a significant reinterpretation, providing potential evidence not only for links between Rome's first family and the rulers of a distant client kingdom, but also for the framing of imperial power and the uncertain nature of the Augustan succession in the early years of the 1st c. CE.

Recent investigations at Grociana piccola, a site in northeastern Italy consisting of two sub-rectangular fortifications, offer the rare opportunity to investigate Early Roman military architecture outside the Iberian peninsula. Excavations have revealed an inner rubble masonry rampart dated to the 2nd c. BCE by associated pottery, mainly amphora remains. This date suggests that the fortification was in use during the first Roman conquest and/or later campaigns of the 2nd c. BCE, providing one of the earliest and smallest examples of a military fort. The fort's ramparts were built using the same building technique as much larger 2nd-c. BCE military camps. Another trench uncovered the northeastern corner of the outer rampart and a probable tower or artillery platform which can be connected to a temporary camp built during the mid-1st c. BCE.

The statue habit was a defining characteristic of Classical cities, and its demise in Late Antiquity has recently attracted scholarly attention. This article analyzes this process in the city of Rome, charting the decline and abandonment of the practice of setting up free-standing statues between the end of the 3rd c. and the mid 7th c. CE. Focusing on the epigraphic evidence for new dedications, it discusses the nature of the habit in terms of its differences from and continuities with earlier periods. The quantitative evolution of the habit suggests that its end was associated with deeper transformations. The final section examines the broader significance of setting up statues in Late Antique Rome, arguing that the decline of the statue habit must be understood in the context of a new statue culture that saw statue dedications in an antiquarian light, rather than as part of an organic honorific language.

Kyle Harper's article on the “Plague of Cyprian” that appeared in this journal in 2015 constitutes the only comprehensive study to date of this important disease outbreak in the third quarter of the 3rd c. CE. The current article revisits the main evidence for this epidemic and corrects and improves our understanding of its origin, timeline, and spread. It contends that the disease entered the Roman Empire via Gothic invasions on the Danube rather than traveling up the Nile from inner Africa. It further argues that the disease reached the Roman Empire only after the death of Decius and cannot be connected with the latter's edict commanding sacrifices to the Roman gods, issued in 249 CE. While the pestilence indubitably exacerbated the political and military crisis of the third quarter of the 3rd c. CE, it should probably not be considered as the root of the crisis itself, as Harper has suggested.

L'oggetto che si presenta in questo contributo costituisce un'integrazione al corpus relativamente poco cospicuo di orologi solari miniaturistici greco-romani. Si tratta di una meridiana conica in avorio di elefante, rinvenuta in giacitura secondaria all'interno di un contesto residenziale di età augustea nella Piazza del Duomo di Pisa. Al di là dell'unicità dell'esemplare, per il quale si fornisce un accurato studio gnomonico, unitamente a un approfondito apprezzamento dei relativi aspetti culturali, sociali e tipologici, tale scoperta contribuisce a meglio definire il livello sociale di quest'area della città tra il II e il I sec. a.C.

Scholars have long doubted the historical accuracy of Cassius Dio's account of the consequences of the Bar Kokhba War (Roman History 69.14). According to this text, considered the most reliable literary source for the Second Jewish Revolt, the war encompassed all of Judea: the Romans destroyed 985 villages and 50 fortresses, and killed 580,000 rebels. This article reassesses Cassius Dio's figures by drawing on new evidence from excavations and surveys in Judea, Transjordan, and the Galilee. Three research methods are combined: an ethno-archaeological comparison with the settlement picture in the Ottoman Period, comparison with similar settlement studies in the Galilee, and an evaluation of settled sites from the Middle Roman Period (70–136 CE). The study demonstrates the potential contribution of the archaeological record to this issue and supports the view of Cassius Dio's demographic data as a reliable account, which he based on contemporaneous documentation.

This article aims to reconsider the inscribed marks on reused Ionic capitals found within the area of the baths at Kom el-Dikka in Alexandria. The marks ΦΛ ΑΝΤ are reconstructed as the name of a prefect of Egypt, Flavius Antonius Theodorus (337 and 338 CE). This connection, as well as reconsideration of the archaeological evidence, provides precise clues to the dating of the baths’ foundation. Column capitals of earlier date, which were reused in the baths and inscribed with the name of the prefect of Egypt, suggest this official's involvement in supplying building material for the construction. This evidence provides an opportunity to reconsider the duties of the prefect of Egypt in the 4th c. CE.

This article examines the iconography of a type of Caracalla tetradrachm that has been newly attributed to Neapolis in Roman Palestine and whose reverse depicts a monumental altar decorated with statues of Tyche, Ephesian Artemis, and Kore Persephone. The study contextualizes these deities in the religious life of Neapolis and identifies the monument as an altar often depicted as a miniscule element in panoramic views of Mount Gerizim on the bronze coins of Neapolis. The tetradrachms provide, for the first time, a close-up view of this long-lost civic monument.

This article considers the evidence of newly discovered inscriptions from Antiochia ad Cragum in western Rough Cilicia and proposes two distinct observations: one, the city had an additional civic name different from that which is most commonly known; and two, the emperor Hadrian and Sabina may have visited the city and region during their journey from Egypt to Athens in 131 CE.