Formal chariot racing was a sophisticated and popular sport for over 1800 years, from Etruria in the 6th c. B.C. down to the fall of Constantinople, and the races held in a large number of circuses and hippodromes imply that huge numbers of racing chariots were made over the course of those centuries. It may therefore be thought surprising that no racing machine has been found, but the dearth of such hardware is plausible given the perishable wood and leather components of the lightweight vehicles and the desirability of recycling the metal parts. In this situation a particular artifact must be accorded special significance. It is a hand-sized bronze model of a Roman racing biga, known as the Tiber model because found in the river. Dated to the 1st-2nd c. A.D., it is now on display in the British Museum (GR 1894.10-30.1, Bronze 2694). With this model as our guide, all the major dimensions of Roman racing chariots have been reasonably well determined; further, several technical aspects (some obvious, others quite subtle) of actual racing chariots can be established from it. Among the subtle details of the model, one feature is especially intriguing in view of the remarkably realistic work of its maker, who was clearly knowledgeable in matters large and small of vehicular racing. As first mentioned to me by J. Swaddling of the British Museum during our latest study of the model (November 2014), an unusual tire configuration is apparently represented on this all-bronze model: the right wheel has a slightly raised rim, as if to indicate a thin iron tire, but the left wheel lacks this feature (fig. 1). This asymmetrical arrangement is not only curious, it also implies extra work and expense. What, then, could be the reason for it?

One possibility for having apparently only one tire on the Tiber model — which was probably a toy for a rich individual; the emperor Nero, an avid racer, was said to play with toy chariots — is that two different castings were used in the toy's production, and either one could have been used in the assembly, in random selection from a box.

Scrivere di una persona cara è impresa difficile, scrivere di una persona di cui sei stato per anni alunno e che consideri un Maestro è compito ancor più arduo. Se poi questa persona è il professore Antonino Di Vita (fig. 1), uomo dai mille interessi, studioso acuto e poliedrico, persona amabile e di raro garbo e affabilità, la missione è quasi impossibile. Sulla sua opera di infaticabile studioso in Sicilia, in Grecia e in Africa sono stati scritti fiumi di inchiostro da persone che certamente meglio di me l’hanno conosciuto e che con lui hanno lavorato per moltissimi anni. Per questo, quando mi è stato chiesto di presentare la raccolta degli Scritti africani del prof. Di Vita e di tracciarne al contempo un breve profilo, ho a lungo indugiato, cercando di rifuggire da questo che, a ben vedere, è per me non solo un grande onore ma un vero obbligo morale, un debito d’affetto quasi filiale.

Lake Nemi, in a crater of volcanic origins, lies along the via Appia c.30 km south of Rome in the region of the Alban Hills. The basin as a whole has a high density of archeological evidence, most noticeably the sanctuary of Diana on the NE and the imperial villa on the SW sides. Famously, two large ships belonging to Caligula were long preserved in the lake bed. Following repeated attempts beginning in Renaissance times, in 1927 the recovery of the two ships became a matter of national prestige and propaganda for the Fascist government. The decision was taken to lower the level of the lake by c.22 m to the lake floor where the hulls lay, using powerful pumps that sucked and directed the water through the ancient emissary that was re-opened (figs. 2-3). These operations, conducted between 1928 and 1932, concluded in 1936 with the grand opening on the NW shore of the Museo Nazionale delle Navi Romane, where the ships were displayed. But the tragic epilogue came just a few years later in 1944 during the Second World War when the ships, symbols of a régime that was as boastful as it was fragile, were completely destroyed.

R. S. O. Tomlin has recently provided an excellent publication of an amulet found in the City of London in 1989. It is a long, narrow strip cut from a sheet of pewter, with 30 lines of Greek text, and the bearer was a certain Demetri(o)s. By a curious coincidence, two of the Greek inscriptions of Britain also involve a Demetrios, though a different one. They are inscribed on two bronze plates found in York about 1840. One reads , the other , and the bearer is presumably identical with a grammaticus from Tarsus of the same name, described as having come from Britain to Delphi in one of Plutarch's dialogues. This note mainly treats the second of two hexameter oracles incorporated in the text of the London amulet, but I begin by discussing the text as a whole.

In JRA 28 (2015), I published a study of the sources for the pandemic mortality event that struck the Roman Empire during the years A.D. c.249-270. Although relatively neglected in recent historiography, this pandemic is surprisingly well attested both by contemporary witnesses and by later sources reflecting the earlier tradition. The study identified at least 6 contemporary testimonies and 6 other independent lines of transmission about the disease, disentangling some two dozen sources of information down through the Late Byzantine chronicles. The plague described by Cyprian, despite progressing against the backdrop of one of the most poorly documented phases of Roman history, has left behind a body of literary evidence that in sheer volume exceeds the testimony for the better-studied Antonine plague of the late 2nd c. Moreover, the evidence for the plague described by Cyprian is, collectively, quite compelling; the consistency of independent testimony adds credence to the claims of a major mortality event. My study claimed to have gathered the ancient sources “comprehensively and collectively”, but such claims are precarious and an electronic search of the Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts has uncovered yet another (seventh) contemporary witness to the pandemic.

This paper presents the results of applying neutron imaging methods to the gold bust of Marcus Aurelius, an analytical procedure that was carried out in 2006 at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Villigen (Switzerland). The results have produced a better understanding of the gold repoussé manufacturing techniques for large pieces.

Given the number of gold statues that existed at Rome and in its provinces, the preserved pieces represent only a tiny fraction; to recover the precious metal, most gold objects were eventually melted down, with the result that only a very small number of pieces are left. That scarcity explains our difficulties in studying the characteristics of this category. Just 6 gold busts of the Roman period have been documented. The bust of Marcus Aurelius was found in a sewer running beneath a sanctuary of Aventicum (figs. 1, 6a and 16). Then there is the bust of Septimius Severus discovered at Didymoteichon (NE Greece), a small fragment from the shoulder pteriges of a breastplated bust of the 2nd c. A.D. found at the fort of Dambach (Germany), the Late Roman head inserted into the 9th-10th c. statue of St. Fides in the Abbeye of Conques (France), and the much smaller busts of (possibly) Licinius I and of Licinius II probably of the early 4th c.

Clustering of residents of similar social status, ethnic or religious identity, or geographical origin into distinct areas of a city is a “common, but by no means universal, attribute of urban neighborhoods”. Different cities within a single culture and era exhibit diversity in the occurrence and nature of clustering: “there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ pattern of clustering within, say, Medieval cities or Islamic cities”.

The existence and nature of clustering in Roman cities have rarely been the object of systematic study, and most contributions have focused on textual evidence for clustering in the city of Rome. A recent consideration of Rome under the Principate finds

Similarly, a study of the neighborhoods of Augustan Rome observes that,

One of the best known (and best preserved) of late-antique ivories is what is generally known as the Stilicho diptych, kept in the tesoro of the cathedral at Monza. It represents a military man with a spear and shield on one panel, and, on the other, a high-ranking woman holding a flower above the head of a small boy, not more than 10 years old; he stands between them wearing a chlamys and holding the codicils of office in his left hand (fig. 1). Ever since the basic article by C. Jullian more than 130 years ago, it has been generally accepted that the only candidates who fit this description are the western magister utriusque militiae Stilicho (d. 408), his wife Serena, the niece and (according to Claudian) adoptive daughter of Theodosius I, and their son Eucherius, appointed to the office of tribunus et notarius in (probably) 395/6.