This article argues for a ‘reciprocal intertextuality’ between Catullus 64 and Lucretius anticipating the poetic interplays of Augustan poets with the De Rerum Natura. Catullus’ wedding guests (proto-readers), Ariadne (proto-Narcissus), and Aegeus (proto-Dido) are interpreted here as errantes in the Lucretian sense: through their erroneous gazes presented in Poem 64, they all exemplify how not to gaze at the structure of the universe. In the Lucretio-Catullan intertextual space — generated, as it seems, by the Catullan text — a reciprocal way of reading emerges: while, on the one hand, ‘Catullus’ uses ‘Lucretius’ to show that the aesthetic experience he offers is dependent upon an erroneous, unLucretian gaze/reading which deprives us of the external spectator position, ‘Lucretius’, on the other hand, uses ‘Catullan’ characters as deterrent examples in order to teach us how not to submerge in ‘Catullus’ poetics of illusion’.

The provincial coinage of the Roman Empire has proven to be a rich source for studying civic experiences of Roman rule, but the coins struck outside Rome during the expansion of the Roman Republic have, by contrast, received relatively little attention. This article aims to begin redressing this neglect by exploring the active rôle of coinage in conceptualizing and representing Roman Republican power. A variety of approaches to this neglected material are employed in order to highlight its potential as a source. Ambiguity, iconology, and entanglement are used as frameworks to explore case studies from across the Roman Republican world, from Spain to Syria. This approach to coin imagery under the Republic reveals the complexity and variety in which the Roman presence, and Roman imperium, was represented before the advent of the Principate.

The ‘insider-outsider problem’ has had little impact on the study of religion in pre-Christian Rome. Classicists generally assume that the modern idea of sacrifice as the ritual killing of an animal applies to the Roman context. This study argues, however, that the apparent continuity is illusory in some important ways and that we have lost sight of some fine distinctions that the Romans made among the rituals they performed. Sacrificium included vegetal and inedible offerings, and it was not the only Roman ritual that had living victims. Roman sacrificium is both less and more than the typical etic notion of sacrifice.

This article examines a discussion about punishment which took place in Tiberian Rome. Should clementia or severitas inform the decisions of the judges and what was the proper relationship between the authority of the senate and the clementia of the princeps? My argument has five parts. I begin (I) by examining clementia and severitas in the work of Velleius Paterculus. I next (II) examine Velleius’ presentation of Tiberius as a figure who adjudicates punishment in his community. I then (III and IV) argue that Velleius’ ideas were the product of and sought to contribute to controversy about the ownership and use of clementia which can be tracked though Tiberius’ principate. Finally (V), I suggest that Tacitus made use of the rhetoric of clementia and severitas current in Tiberian Rome and that it influenced his reading of saevitia under the principate.

This essay examines the evidence for the Domitianic ‘Arae Incendii Neroniani’, a presumed set of monumental altars dedicated to Vulcan in fulfilment of a vow dating back to the Neronian Fire of a.d. 64. A close reading of the text of the dedicatory inscription creates a framework for exploring the larger historical and cultural context of these monuments, which offer a significant illustration of Flavian rhetoric concerning Rome's post-Neronian transformation. Reaffirming Julio-Claudian notions of civic identity, collective memory, and the ruler's privileged relationship with the gods, the Arae also constitute a conspicuous form of posthumous reproach to Nero.

This paper makes two arguments. The first is that Trajan deliberately orchestrated the dedication of his Column on 12 May, the anniversary of the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor, to coincide with the beginning of a new war against Parthia in a.d. 113. The second is that although most modern commentators focus on the function of Mars Ultor as avenger of Caesar, the evidence of his actual invocation from the late first century b.c. through the third century a.d. more strongly supports another interpretation: as agent of vengeance against foreign enemies, and against Parthia/Persia in particular.

Romanization in the province of Asia did not manifest itself in linguistic or cultural changes, but is very visible in a trend towards corporate organization. In the cities of western and southern Phrygia, professional associations developed that were able to gain a prominent position alongside the civic institutions. It is possible to relate this process to incentives provided by Roman law. In the villages surrounding these cities, and especially in the rural areas of northern and eastern Phrygia, the conditions were different, but there are several indications that a new preference for formal organization and its epigraphic representation developed here as well.

Certificates of sacrifice (libelli) were produced during the so-called persecution of Decius (a.d. 250), which is documented through the testimony of Christian authors and through original certificates preserved on papyrus. The aim of this article is to offer a more detailed perspective on some specific points in the procedure as regards the production of the papyri. Although Decius’ edict did not produce an instant and decisive change in the religious balance of the Empire, the procedure that was put in place nonetheless testifies to the effectiveness of the existing structure, and also to the capacity of the officials to adapt this structure so as to obtain maximum compliance from the population.

The paper is a bibliographical and critical survey of the archaeological research on ancient Ostia and Portus in the decade 2004–2014. The first part deals with some general themes, such as cults, architectural typologies and urban history, decoration: wall-paintings, mosaics and marble, the guilds and their seats, trades, etc. The second part is a survey of individual monuments and buildings which have been the subject of recent excavations and interpretations. The critical problem of late antique Ostia is treated separately, as well as the archaeology of Isola Sacra and Portus, with the Imperial harbours.

These are exciting times for the study of Roman literature. New editions of the fragmentary poets and prose writers either have appeared or are in preparation, while renewed interest in the nature and character of the early Roman audience, and in the development of Roman literature itself, has sought to explain the larger context in which these writings arose and were read. Monographs and commentaries on early writers and genres have appeared in profusion, with four volumes on Ennius' Annals alone published within two years, at least one of which has raised serious questions of what we can and cannot know of the structure, orientation and contents of a poem that was (uniquely) influential on both later poetry and history.

In the penultimate sentence of his Historia Romana, Paul the Deacon inscribes a solid full-stop to his brief sketch of Ostrogothic Italy: having killed Totila, the eunuch Narses, he says, ‘universamque Italiam ad reipublicae iura reduxit’. Although the phrase reipublicae iura exemplifies the studied ambiguity with which Paul delighted to tantalize his readers, the whole statement can be understood as a judgement on Theoderic's régime that many modern historians of Late Antiquity have shared. Whatever innovations the Ostrogoths had attempted, in the end they came to nothing: Theoderic and his short-lived successors made no lasting imprint, leaving few identifiable traces even in archaeology.