How did the relentless spread of Roman power change people's lives? From military mobilization, urbanization, slavery, and the nexus between taxation and trade to linguistic and religious change and shifting identities, the most pervasive consequences of empire all had one thing in common: population movements on an unprecedented scale. Yet despite its pivotal role in social and cultural change, the nature of Roman mobility has never been investigated in a systematic fashion. In this study, I develop a comprehensive quantitative model of population transfers within, to, and from Italy, from the late fourth century B.C. to the first century A.D. Owing to the diverse and complex character of these movements, I develop my argument in two steps. The present paper deals with the demographic context, scale, and distribution of the migration of free persons. I argue that the total population of Italy in the early imperial period was of the order of five to six million rather than fourteen to twenty million (Section II); that state-sponsored re-settlement programmes dramatically increased overall levels of mobility on three occasions (during the Italian wars in the late fourth and early third centuries B.C., in the aftermath of the Second Punic War in the early second century B.C., and in the period of constitutional transition from the 80s to the 10s B.C.) (Section III); and that in the last two centuries B.C., colonization programmes and urban growth in Italy required the permanent relocation of approximately two to two-and-a-half million adults (Section IV).

Readers have always acknowledged the comparatively clear macrostructure of De rerum natura 3. It begins with a prooemium in which is described the terrifying impact which the fear of death has on human lives, as well as the fact that Epicurus has provided a cure against this fear, namely his physical doctrines (1–93). Particular attention is paid to fears of an afterlife in which we have to suffer pain and grief in the underworld; cf., for instance, the programmatic lines 3.37–40 (translation by Ferguson Smith, which will be used throughout):

This prooemium is followed by a long passage (94–829) in which Lucretius explains the basics of Epicurean psychology and tries to show that the soul is (like the body) material and hence mortal; this last point is driven home with particular force in II. 417–829 where Lucretius lists twenty-five proofs for the mortality of the soul.

Scholars have long recognized a cultural tension inherent in the scheme of Ovid's Metamorphoses: while most of the materia of the epic is Greek, Rome is its triumphant narrative telos. The epic's Hellenic underpinnings have received abundant critical attention; rather less well documented and discussed is the subtle undercurrent of Romanitas that sustains Ovid's overarching cultural teleology throughout the poem. This Roman ‘cultural vector’ registers in all phases of the narrative, but nowhere more insistently than in the first two books: it is there that the poet brings the overall temporal and spatial thrust of his literary project — namely, to spin down a carmen from universal creation to contemporary Augustan times (‘ad mea … tempora’, 1.4) — most forcefully to the mind of his reader.

The Serapeum or Sarapeion, which contained the Temple of Serapis, was Alexandria's most important sanctuary, and one of the most famous pagan sanctuaries of antiquity. It was also the centre of a cult which spread widely across the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Although the excavation of the Serapeum was completed half a century ago, the archaeological evidence for its form and phases has never been fully collected and analysed. When the records of the remains uncovered in c. 1900 are combined with those of the excavations during World War II, analysis of them reveals that there is sufficient evidence from which to suggest reliable reconstructions of both the Ptolemaic and Roman phases of the complex and to clarify its chronology. The archaeological evidence also elucidates the information in the written sources about the conversion of the site to Christian use after the destruction of the temple in A.D. 391. Previously unpublished architectural fragments excavated at the site in c. 1900 suggest that the architecture of the Ptolemaic sanctuary was ‘classical’ (Greek) not Egyptian in style (see Appendix).

Antiquity records few more cruel twists of fate than that which met the two-time former consul and conqueror of Macedon, L. Aemilius Paullus, on his return to Rome in 167 B.C. The great victory at Pydna the year before had finally removed the major rival to Roman power on the Greek mainland, and the riches generated in the campaign were such as to permit the abolition of direct taxation at Rome. The grant of a triumph should therefore have marked the acme of an already distinguished public career. Amidst this pomp, however, there intervened the worst of private disasters. For, a few days before the triumph, Paullus lost one of the two young sons born to him from his second marriage, and, only a few days after, the second died as well. The general responded with a notably dignified speech in which he recalled his prayer prior to the campaign, that the gods should reserve any intended catastrophe for his house alone and not for the state, and gave thanks for their having granted him his wish.

With this striking and bravura narrative of the earthquake and tsunami of 21 July A.D. 365 Ammianus Marcellinus ends Book 26 of his Res Gestae. Though displaying many of the features characteristic of Ammianus – daunting linguistic variation, brilliant observation of detail, a dazzling and blurred sequence of discrete pictures — this passage also stands out from the main body of the narrative. Most notably, the historian distorts chronological sequence: an event which occurred before Procopius' usurpation in September A.D. 365 is not narrated until after his capture and execution by Valens in the following year. It is also given a prominent position at the close of a book. Ammianus' perspective goes far beyond the normal limits of historiographical propriety — indeed is little short of omniscience. Finally, the tale of incredible events stands out for concluding with the historian's own personal testimony. Though Ammianus famously included lengthy accounts of his military adventures in earlier portions of his history, first person interventions in the later books are exceptional and always calculatedly striking.

To historians of the ancient world, the closing of the Athenian Neoplatonic school by the emperor Justinian stands as one of the best known, and most debated, events of the later Roman Empire. To some, it is an event of little consequence with only an ephemeral impact upon subsequent developments. To others, it represents nothing less than the death of classical philosophy. Nevertheless, this modern scholarly interest belies ancient attitudes. The only direct statement about the end of Athenian philosophical teaching comes from the Chronicle of John Malalas, and all other ancient sources, including those that rely upon Malalas, are silent about the incident. This silence hints at a fact that this study will make clear. To contemporaries, the closing of the Athenian school was an unremarkable occurrence that represented neither a tyrannical use of imperial power nor an attack upon the valued cultural tradition of philosophical teaching. Like all else in the later Roman world, it occurred within the confines of a political system that, when working properly, matched imperial initiative to the specific needs of a province or city. As a result, the causes and significance of the closing of the Athenian school are best appreciated by understanding how the event developed out of its local political setting.