¹ Among recent works on this general topic, note especially: Rüpke, J., ‘Patterns of religious change in the Roman Empire’, in Henderson, I. H. and Oegema, G. S. (eds), The Changing Face of Judaism, Christianity and Other Greco-Roman Religions in Antiquity (2006), 13–33;Google ScholarBelayche, N., ‘Les immigrés orientaux à Rome et en Campanie: fidélité aux patria et intégration sociale’, in Laronde, A. and Leclant, J. (eds), La Méditerranée d'une rive à l'autre: culture classique et cultures périphériques, Cahiers de la Villa Kérylos 18 (2007), 243–60Google Scholar; Trivium 4 (2009). Les ‘religions orientales’ dans le monde grec et romain <http://trivium.revues.org/index3300.html>; Chaniotis, A., ‘The dynamics of rituals in the Roman Empire’, in Hekster, O., Schmidt-Hofner, S. and Witschel, Chr. (eds), Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire (2009), 3–29Google Scholar; idem, ‘Megatheism: the search for the almighty god and the competition of cults’, in Mitchell, S. and Van Nuffelen, P. (eds), One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire (2010), 112–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Woolf, ‘The religion of the Roman diaspora’, in Hekster et al., op. cit., 239–52. The abbreviation RoR refers to Beard, M., North, J. and Price, S.Religions of Rome, 2 vols (1998)Google Scholar.

² Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum ii, no. 157; Musurillo, H., Acta Alexandrinorum (1961), 32–5Google Scholar, translated in RoR ii, 327–8. The account of what the Jews were carrying is fragmentary.

³ The classic exploration of elective cults is Nock, A. D., Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (1933)Google Scholar; cf. Price, S., ‘The road to Conversion: the life and work of A. D. Nock’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 105 (2010), 319–39Google Scholar.

⁴ Toutain, J., Les cultes païens dans l'empire romain (1907–20)Google Scholar; Cumont, F., Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain (4th edn, 1929; 5th edn by Bonnet, C. and Van Haeperen, F., 2006)Google Scholar. Cf. Bonnet, C., ‘L'empire et ses religions. Un regard actuel sur la polémique Cumont–Toutain concernant la diffusion des “religions orientales”’, in Cancik, H. and Rüpke, J. (eds), Die Religion des Imperium Romanum (2009), 55–74Google Scholar. MacMullen, R., Paganism in the Roman Empire (1981), especially 94–130Google Scholar, explored the movement of cults; for some comments on this work, see Price, S., JRS 72 (1982), 194–6Google Scholar.

⁵ Martens, M. and De Boe, G. (eds), Roman Mithraism: The Evidence of the Small Finds (2004)Google Scholar.

⁶ Scheid, J., ‘Sanctuaires et territoire dans la Colonia Augusta Treverorum’, in Brunaux, J.-L. (ed.), Les sanctuaires celtiques et leurs rapports avec le monde méditerranéen (1991), 42–57Google Scholar; RoR i, 313–39.

⁷ RoR ii, 336–7.

⁸ cf. Price, S. and Thonemann, P., The Birth of Classical Europe (2010), 180–1, 193Google Scholar.

⁹ Zanker, P., The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (1988), 209, fig. 162Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.19.3. He notes with surprise that none of these foreign cults had been taken over by the Roman state.

¹¹ RoR i, 272; E. E. Schneider, ‘Il santuario di Bel e delle divinità di Palmira. Communità e tradizioni religiose dei Palmireni a Roma’, Dialoghi di Archeologia, 3rd ser. 5.1 (1987), 69–85; Chausson, F., ‘Vel Iovi vel Soli. Quatres études autour de la Vigna Barberini (191–354)’, Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome. Antiquité 107 (1995), 661–765CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ensoli, S., ‘Communautés et cultes syriens à Rome: les sanctuaires de la regio XIV Transtiberim’, in Charles-Gaffiot, J., Lavagne, H. and Hofman, J.-M. (eds), Moi, Zénobie reine de Palmyre (2001), 123–8Google Scholar, unfortunately without knowledge of Chausson.

¹² Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae 119 (a.d. 236). Cf. Kaizer, T., The Religious Life of Palmyra: A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in the Roman Period (2002), 124–43Google Scholar.

¹³ Schürer, E., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. edn by Vermes, G., Millar, F. and Goodman, M., 3 vols (1973–87), iii.1, 73–82, 95–102Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Legatio 155.

¹⁵ Rives, J. B., Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine (1995), 214–23Google Scholar. Elsewhere in the Latin West some Jewish communities have been surmised before the fourth century a.d., but are not directly attested.

¹⁶ Belayche, op. cit. (n. 1); cf. P. Martzavou, Recherches sur les communautés festives dans la «vieille Grèce» [II ^esiècle a.C.–III ^esiècle p. C.]. Contribution à l'étude du contexte historique et sociologique des cultes dans la Grèce ancienne, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris: Ph. D. (2008), ch. 3, on migrants taking cult of Zeus Hypsistos from Mysia to Macedonia.

¹⁷ Moatti, C., ‘Le contrôle des gens de passage à Rome aux trois premiers siècles de notre ère’, in Moatti, C. and Kaiser, W. (eds), Gens de passage en Méditerranée de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne: procédures de contrôle et d'identification (2007), 79–116Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Jones, C. P., ‘L'inscription grecque de Saint-Juste’, in Les Martyrs de Lyon (1978), 119–27Google Scholar; Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 32 (1982), 1079Google Scholar. These authors argue against the idea that the man was a Christian missionary, but note the doubts of J. and Robert, L., ‘Bulletin épigraphique’, Revue des Études Grecques (1984)Google Scholar, no. 532.

¹⁹ See, for example, the map in Arnaud, P., Les Routes de la navigation antique: itinéraires en Méditerranée (2005), 10Google Scholar.

²⁰ RoR i, 316–17, 344–7; ii, 54–6; Derks, T., Gods, Temples and Ritual Practices. The Transformation of Religious Ideas and Values in Roman Gaul (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van Andringa, W., ‘Nouvelles combinaisons, nouveaux statuts: les dieux indigènes dans les panthéons des cités de Gaule romaine’, in Paunier, D. (ed.), La Romanisation et la question de l'héritage celtique (2006), 219–32Google Scholar, translated in North, J. and Price, S. (eds), The Religious History of the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (2011), 109–38Google Scholar.

²¹ Roman Inscriptions of Britain 2107–8. Cf. Birley, E., ‘The deities of Roman Britain’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt ii.18.1 (1986), 3–112, at 74–7Google Scholar.

²² Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI, 32550 (mid-third century a.d.).

²³ The obvious exception is Epona. Her cult originated in central and northern Gaul, but was spread in the second century a.d. throughout the Rhine-Danube provinces, partly by soldiers, especially beneficiarii, and partly by those involved in commercial transport (Euskirchen, M., ‘Epona’, Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 74 (1993), 607–838Google Scholar).

²⁴ Krier, J., Die Treverer ausserhalb ihrer Civitas: Mobilität und Aufstieg (1981), 205Google Scholar; however, they did make dedications to Mars Loucetius. I owe this reference to Professor Van Andringa.

²⁵ Roman Inscriptions of Britain 88 and 653. Henig, M., Religion in Roman Britain (1984), 48–9Google Scholar, notes the highly Romanized contexts of dedications to Matres in Britain.

²⁶ Bricault, L., Atlas de diffusion des cultes isiaques (IVe s. av. J.-C.–IVe s. apr. J.-C.) (2001), Map 40Google Scholar.

²⁷ Alvar, J. and Muñiz, E., ‘Les cults égyptiens dans les provinces romaines d'Hispanie’, in Bricault, L. (ed.), Isis en occident: Actes du IIème Colloque international sur les études isiaques, RGRW 151 (2004), 69–94Google Scholar.

²⁸ J. Leclant, ‘Le diffusion des cultes isiaques en Gaule’, in Bricault, op. cit. (n. 27), 95–105.

²⁹ As argued long ago by Toutain, against Cumont, op. cit. (n. 4).

³⁰ L'Année Épigraphique 1989, 334, with France, J., Quadragesima Galliarum: l'organisation douanière des provinces alpestres, gauloises et germaniques de l'Empire romain (1er siècle avant J.-C.–3er siècle après J.-C.) (2001), 157–9, 443–4Google Scholar, though his claim that the man was actually based at Aosta runs counter to the terminology of his title.

³¹ Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XII, 2587.

³² Gordon, R. L., ‘Trajets de Mithra en Syrie romaine’, Topoi 11.1 (2001 [2004]), 77–136CrossRefGoogle Scholar, whom I follow.

³³ RoR i, 302

³⁴ Robert, L., Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 102 (1978), 395–543, at 413–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in his Documents d'Asie Mineure (1987), 91–239Google Scholar, at 109–11, third century a.d.

³⁵ Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 30.1479, with Wischmeyer, W., ‘Die Aberkiosinschrift als Grabepigramm’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 23 (1980), 22–7Google Scholar; RoR ii, 333–4.

³⁶ I find the category of pilgrimage unhelpful outside the context of Christianity. J. Elsner and I. Rutherford in the introduction to their edited volume Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods (2005), 2–8Google Scholar, very honestly set out the arguments; see further in the same volume, S. Scullion, ‘“Pilgrimage” and Greek religion: sacred and secular in the pagan polis’, 111–30.

³⁷ RoR i, 232–3; Les Tablettes astrologiques de Grand (Vosges) et l'astrologie en Gaule romaine (1993).

³⁸ Mitchell, S., Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (1993), ii, 37–43, with map on p. 42Google Scholar.

³⁹ Eusebius, History of the Church 5.3–4.

⁴⁰ Mobile individuals could always make do with private worship of the cult into which they had been initiated, as is shown by the significant proportion (c. 15 per cent) of Mithraic reliefs that are too small for a communal space: R. L. Gordon, ‘Small and miniature reproductions of the Mithraic icon: reliefs, pottery, ornaments and gems’, in Martens and De Boe, op. cit. (n. 5), 259–83.

⁴¹ Bendlin, A., ‘Nicht der Eine, nicht die Vielen. Zur Pragmatik religiösen Verhaltens in einer polytheistischen Gesellschaft am Beispiel Rome’, in Kratz, R. G. and Spieckermann, H. (eds), Götterbilder – Gottesbilder – Weltbilder: Polytheismus und Monotheismus in der Welt der Antike (2006), ii, 279–311, of Republican RomeGoogle Scholar. The model of John North, which focuses on competition between cults for members, is different, and not vulnerable to this criticism: ‘The development of religious pluralism’, in Lieu, J., North, J. and Rajak, T. (eds), The Jews among Pagans and Christians (1992), 174–93Google Scholar.

⁴² cf. Hopkins, K., ‘Christian number and its implications’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6.2 (1998), 185–226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ L'Année Épigraphique 1994, 1334, originally published by Piccottini, G., Mithrastempel in Virunum (1994)Google Scholar. Cf. Beck, R., ‘On becoming a Mithraist: new evidence for the propagation of the mysteries’, in Vaage, L. E. (ed.), Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity (2006), 175–94Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Another Mithraic document (L'Année Épigraphique 1994, 1335), dating a.d. 201–209, lists the same names, in the same order, as those in columns two to four of the bronze plaque. This may have been in connection with another renovation of the ‘temple’, c. a.d. 202, or else the foundation of a new ‘temple’ because the original one could no longer accommodate enough new members.

⁴⁵ Alföldy, G., Noricum (1974)Google Scholar, 161.

⁴⁶ Letters 10.96.

⁴⁷ Granovetter, M., ‘The strength of weak ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78.6 (1973), 1360–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, revisited in his ‘The strength of weak ties: a network theory revisited’, Sociological Theory 1 (1983), 201–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ober, J., Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (2009)Google Scholar, has seen the interest of Granovetter's ideas for Classical Athens. Collar, A. C. F., ‘Network theory and religious innovation’, Mediterranean Historical Review 22 (2007), 149–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has urged the interest of network theory.

⁴⁸ Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae i.160, with Scheid, J., ‘La thiase du Metropolitan Museum’, in L'Association dionysiaque dans les sociétés anciennes, Collection École Française de Rome 89 (1986), 275–90Google Scholar, and RoR i, 271.

⁴⁹ cf. Tacitus, Annals 14.44.3.

⁵⁰ This point is made already at RoR i, 289 and n. 129.

⁵¹ Cumont, op. cit. (n. 4), 25: ‘Perhaps no religion has ever been as cold and as mundane as that of the Romans.’

⁵² e.g. Price, S. R. F., Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (1984)Google Scholar; Lane Fox, R., Pagans and Christians (1986)Google Scholar.

⁵³ e.g. Rüpke, op. cit. (n. 1).

⁵⁴ J. A. North, ‘Pagan ritual and monotheism’, in Mitchell and Van Nuffeln, op. cit. (n. 1), 34–52; cf. Price, S., Religions of the Ancient Greeks (1999), 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Athanassiadi, P., ‘The gods are god. Polytheistic cult and monotheistic theology in the world of Late Antiquity’, in Schabert, T. and Riedl, M. (eds), Gott oder Götter? God or Gods, Eranos n.s. 15 (2009), 15–31Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ e.g. Parker, R. C. T., Polytheism and Society at Athens (2005), 387–451Google Scholar, with reference back to the classic studies of Vernant and Detienne. Fuller, C. J., The Camphor Flame. Popular Hinduism and Society in India (1992)Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ West, M. L., ‘Towards monotheism’, in Athanassiadi, P. and Frede, M. (eds), Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity (1999), 21–40Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Anabasis 5.2.24. On the conventionality of Xenophon's views, see Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion (3rd edn, 1955–67), i, 784–91Google Scholar; Price, op. cit. (n. 54), 1–3.

⁵⁸ Gordon, R. L., ‘The real and the imaginary: production and religion in the Greco-Roman world’, Art History 2 (1979), 5–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in his Image and Value in the Graeco-Roman World (1996); Price, op. cit. (n. 54), 56–7.

⁵⁹ As discussed in RoR i, 245–312.

⁶⁰ Annals 15.44.

⁶¹ W. Van Andringa, Quotidien des dieux et des hommes. La vie religieuse dans les cités du Vésuve à l'époque romaine, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 337 (2009), 325–39 implies this marginality.

⁶² The best starting points are: Millar, F., ‘Dura-Europos under Parthian rule’, in Wieshöfer, J. (ed.), Das Partherreich und seine Zeugnisse, Historia Supp. 122 (1998), 473–92Google Scholar, reprinted in his The Greek World, the Jews, and the East (2006), 406–31; Kaizer, T., ‘Religion and language in Dura-Europos’, in Cotton, H., Hoyland, R. G., Price, J. J. and Wasserstein, D. J. (eds), From Hellenism to Islam. Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East (2009), 235–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Patterns of worship in Dura-Europos: a case study of religious life in the Classical Levant outside the main cult centres’, in Bonnet, C., Pirenne-Delforge, V. and Praet, D. (eds), Les religions orientales dans le monde grec et romain cent ans après Cumont (1906–2006): Bilan historique et historiographique (2009), 153–72Google Scholar; idem, ‘Dura-Europos under Roman rule’, in J. M. Cortés Copete, F. Lozano Gomez and E. Muñiz Grijalvo (eds), Ruling through Greek Eyes. Interactions between Rome and the Greeks in Imperial Times (forthcoming).

⁶³ Kaizer, op. cit. (n. 62; ‘Religion and language’), 235.

⁶⁴ The excavators' map shows 456 houses. My estimate assumes five people per house; cf. Price, S., ‘Estimating ancient Greek populations: the evidence of field survey’, in Bowman, A. K. and Wilson, A. (eds), Settlement, Urbanisation and Population, Oxford Studies in the Roman Economy 2 (2011), 17–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Will, E., ‘La population de Doura-Europos: une évaluation’, Syria 65 (1988), 315–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, accepts a higher estimate, which generates a total of 5,000–6,000.

⁶⁵ Elsner, J., ‘Viewing and resistance: art and religion at Dura Europos’, in his Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (2007), 253–87Google Scholar (revised version of his ‘Cultural resistance and the visual image: the case of Dura Europos’, Classical Philology 96 (2001), 269–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

⁶⁶ Key Fowden, E., The Barbarian Plain: Saint Sergius between Rome and Iran (1999), 1–5, 72–6Google Scholar, on pastoralism; Ruffing, K., ‘Dura Europos: a city on the Euphrates and her economic importance in the Roman era’, in Sartre, M. (ed.), Productions et échanges dans la Syrie grecque et romaine, Topoi Supp. 8 (2007), 399–411Google Scholar, on local economy.

⁶⁷ As the document (P. Dura 20) was written in the village of Paliga, 50 km upstream, at the confluence of the Chabur and the Euphrates, the region must have extended at least that far; it presumably extended downstream at least as far as Anath, whose religious importance we have just noted.

⁶⁸ Sarcophagus inv. 2677 b 8982. For depictions of camels at Palmyra, see Will, E., Les Palmyréniens: la Venise des sables (1992), 99–101Google Scholar. On the caravan trade through Palmyra, see Millar, F., ‘Caravan cities: the Roman Near East and long-distance trade by land’, in Austin, M., Harries, J. and Smith, C. (eds), Modus Operandi: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Rickman, BICS Supp. 71 (1998), 119–37Google Scholar, reprinted in his The Greek World, the Jews, and the East (2006), 275–99, at 291–6.

⁶⁹ Kaizer, op. cit. (n. 62; ‘Religion and language’), 245–6.

⁷⁰ Kilpatrick, G. D., ‘Dura-Europos: the parchments and the papyri’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 5 (1964), 215–25Google Scholar; Kaizer, op. cit. (n. 62; ‘Religion and language’), 236. By contrast, the ties of the Christian church at Dura were to the Greek-speaking world.

⁷¹ Dirven, L., The Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos: A Study of Religious Interaction in Roman Syria, RGRW 138 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷² Downey, S. B., Mesopotamian Religious Architecture: Alexander through the Parthians (1988), 76–130Google Scholar, on religious architecture.

⁷³ Palmyra, with its massive temples of the Roman period, differs from Dura because the city has a quite different history, being formed from local tribal groups, and also because of the impact of Roman traditions.

⁷⁴ Note also the magnificent ‘temple’ at Gorneae, Garni in Soviet Armenia, perhaps the tomb of a second-century Romanized client king (Cornell, T. and Matthews, J., Atlas of the Roman World (1982), 155Google Scholar).

⁷⁵ The fictive nature of the Persian origins was first exposed by Gordon, R. L., ‘Franz Cumont and the doctrines of Mithraism’, in Hinnells, J. R. (ed.), Mithraic Studies (1975), i, 215–48Google Scholar. The dramatic paintings at the Mithraic sanctuary at Hawarte (Syria) might show fusion with local traditions, or they might embody learning from the East, but in any case they date to the fourth century a.d. Cf. Gawlikowski, M., ‘The mithraeum at Hawarte and its paintings’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 20 (2007), 337–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁶ Fontes iuris Romani anteIustiniani ii, 580–1, translated in RoR ii, 282.

⁷⁷ On ‘locative’ and ‘utopian’ religions, see Smith, J. Z., Map is not Territory (1978), 88–103, 104–28, 172–89Google ScholarPubMed, and Drudgery Divine (1990), 121–2Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ cf. RoR i, 295.

⁷⁹ Belayche, op. cit. (n. 1), 256 claims that in the third century this claim is dropped, but U. Bianchi in Bellelli, G. M. and Bianchi, U. (eds), Orientalia sacra urbis Romae: Dolichena et Heliopolitana: recueil d'études archeologiques et historico-religieuses sur les cultes cosmopolites d'origine commagénienne et syrienne (1996), 599–603Google Scholar, has evidence for the conjunction of IOMD and deus paternus Commagenus, suggesting that the ancestral aspects of the cult were not forgotten.

⁸⁰ Relevant considerations on the complexity of ‘ethnicity’ are raised by Beard, M., ‘The Roman and the foreign: the cult of the “Great Mother” in imperial Rome’, in Thomas, N. and Humphrey, C. (eds), Shamanism, History and the State (1994), 164–9Google Scholar. She argues that, in the case of the cult of Cybele in Rome, there was a contested interface between an elective, a ‘traditional’ Roman and an explicitly foreign, ethnic cult. In fact, she suggests, that the striking ‘ethnicity’ of the cult is in part a construction of internal ‘Roman’ discourse.

⁸¹ Tacitus, Histories 5.5; Dio 67.14. Cf. RoR i, 276.

⁸² RoR ii, 57–8.

⁸³ Richardson, P., Israel in the Apostolic Church (1969), 22–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lieu, J. M., Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World (2004), ch. 8, especially 259–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Buell, D. K., Why this New Race? Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. G. G. Stroumsa, ‘Barbarians or heretics? Jews and Arabs in the mind of Byzantium (fourth–eighth centuries)’ (forthcoming), explores the development of these ideas in Late Antiquity.

⁸⁴ Pseudo-Cyprian (de pascha computus 17) says casually: ‘we are the third race’ (‘tertium genus sumus’).

⁸⁵ Nero 16.2.

⁸⁶ 1.8; cf. 1.20; accusation of crowd in circus in Scorpiace 10.

⁸⁷ Vermaseren, M. J. and van Essen, C. C., The Excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome (1965), 179–84Google Scholar, translated in RoR ii, 319.

⁸⁸ Gardner, I. and Lieu, S. N. C., Manichaean Texts from the Roman Empire (2004), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁹ Gardner, I. M. F. and Lieu, S. N. C., ‘From Narmouthis (Medinet Madi) to Kellis (Ismant El-Kharab): Manichaean documents from Roman Egypt’, JRS 86 (1996), 146–69, at 152–4Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Gardner, I., ‘The Manichaean community at Kellis: a progress report’, in Mirecki, P. and BeDuhn, J. (eds), Emerging from Darkness: Studies in the Recovery of Manichaean Sources (1997), 161–75Google Scholar; Gardner and Lieu, op. cit. (n. 88) includes the texts in translation. Manichaeaism originated in a Syriac-speaking world, but translated texts into Greek, and into Coptic at least as early as Christianity, and into languages outside the Empire long before Christianity.

⁹¹ Gardner and Lieu, op. cit. (n. 88), 109, 265–8, two parallel versions, in Coptic and Middle Persian.

⁹² Simon Price died on the 14 June 2011. A tribute to his contributions to the Roman Society and to this Journal was published at the beginning of JRS 99 (2009) to mark his early retirement on grounds of ill health. A volume of essays in his honour, Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World (2012), edited by B. Dignas and R. R. R. Smith, has just appeared. It includes a paper by him and a bibliography of his published work. Simon is much missed. We are very grateful that he offered us this article shortly before his death, and are conscious of how much more he might have contributed to the debate he surveys here.