In this chapter, the literary, documentary, and archaeological evidence pertaining to horticulture and arboriculture in eastern Gallia Cisalpina and in Campania is investigated. The chapter argues that these two regions of Roman Italy played an important role for horticultural developments in the late Republic and early imperial era, both as producers of fruit and vegetables and possibly also as developers of new cultivars. The archaeobotanical record of Gallia Cisalpina also clearly shows that, from the Augustan era throughout the whole of the first century AD, the frequency and diversity of recovered remains of fruit greatly increased. These two regions had very important ports, Puteoli and Aquileia, which handled a large amount of trade coming from the rest of the Mediterranean and it is possible that these ports were entry routes into the wider region first, and the rest of Italy later, for new fruit trees coming from the eastern Mediterranean regions such as the peach, the apricot, and the citron/lemon.

Is it legitimate to refer to a ‘Christian euergetism’? This is the question posed by this study, by examining a series of representations of benefactors on mosaic floors in the churches of Aquileia, Thessaloniki and Gerasa, from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD. Analysed in the light of their legal and municipal context, the portraits reveal a fundamental evolution of Late Antiquity society. Churches as private entities were the last places, after the reforms of Valentinian I, where it was possible to freely display one’s social prestige. They allowed the municipal elite to remain socially and religiously attractive. They provided a place of expression for the old competition that was at the root of municipal culture. This new form of euergetism took place in a society whose hierarchy of values had been reversed: the recognition of the imperial court and its agents was sought more than that of a people, whose cheers were expected at most.