This chapter presents a revised, annotated translation of Arrian’s published version of his report to the emperor Hadrian (written around AD 131–5, when his consulship was long past) about his tour of duty in the Black Sea, when he led a squadron of ships from Trapezous round the east end of the sea as far as Dioskourias-Sebastopolis. The text mentions several Roman military installations and outlines the geopolitical circumstances of particular districts, as well as listing many harbour and river mouths together with the distances between them. The southern shore of the sea is described in a ‘flashback’, while the north-western and western parts, which Arrian did not reach, are described on the basis of earlier reports. As the chapter introduction points out, the digression near the end of the work about the island of Leuke (mod. Zmiinyi), where Achilles lived after being spirited away from Troy, is thought to be a tacit tribute to Hadrian’s companion Antinoös, who had died in 130. A new map illustrates the stages of the narrative.

This chapter discusses Hadrian’s taste in poetry (a preference for Ennius over Vergil; Antimachus over Homer); his own surviving poems, with discussion of some dedicatory and sepulchral epigrams, and with a proposal about the nature of the possibly polymetric Catachannae mentioned by the Augustan History; and poetry composed with an eye to his approval, like the Altar of the high equestrian official L. Iulius Vestinus (perhaps dateable precisely to 24 January AD 132) and the mysterious inscribed elegiacs from Baetica, signed by ‘Arrian the proconsul’, on a hunter’s proper offerings to Artemis.

The first half of the second century ad was marked by an important event in the history of the ecumenical synods. They both acquired headquarters in Rome: the thymelic synod seemingly settled in a precinct on the Campus Martius and the xystic synod occupied a part of the great bath complex of Trajan on the Oppian hill. This chapter analyses the reasons for this shift and its consequences. The establishment of the Capitolia in ad 86 played a key role, as well as the desire of the synods to be closer to the imperial court. Furthermore, this chapter argues that the move to Rome strengthened centralising tendencies, as it had become easier to take central decisions for the whole agonistic circuit in close consultation with the emperor. Special attention in this chapter is given to the xystic synod’s headquarters, which is documented in a series of inscriptions found near the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli. Recent archaeological excavations on the Oppian hill have furthermore led to the conclusion that the synod was indeed settled in the bath-gymnasium complex of Trajan.

Talmudic literature, throughout all its chronological phases, relates to various Roman emperors. Nine emperors are mentioned explicitly by name, and among these are six who are especially notable, from three different periods. First, the period of the major Jewish revolts: Vespasian and Titus are mentioned for the War of the Destruction of the Temple, Trajan for the Diaspora revolts and Hadrian for the Bar Kochba Revolt. These are the “wicked” emperors of Talmudic literature, with Hadrian presented as the worst of all. Second, the golden age of relations between Judaea and Rome in the Severan period: “Antoninus,” usually identified with Caracalla, is presented as the “good” emperor par excellence. Finally, in the middle of the scale between the “wicked” and the “good” emperors we find Diocletian, the interesting emperor whose presence is strongly felt, as he was responsible for the development of the whole region.

Talmudic literature, throughout all its chronological phases, relates to various Roman emperors. Nine emperors are mentioned explicitly by name, and among these are six who are especially notable, from three different periods. First, the period of the major Jewish revolts: Vespasian and Titus are mentioned for the War of the Destruction of the Temple, Trajan for the Diaspora revolts and Hadrian for the Bar Kochba Revolt. These are the “wicked” emperors of Talmudic literature, with Hadrian presented as the worst of all. Second, the golden age of relations between Judaea and Rome in the Severan period: “Antoninus,” usually identified with Caracalla, is presented as the “good” emperor par excellence. Finally, in the middle of the scale between the “wicked” and the “good” emperors we find Diocletian, the interesting emperor whose presence is strongly felt, as he was responsible for the development of the whole region.

Dio’s account of the second century AD, the ‘Antonine period’ broadly construed, has not received the same attention when compared with the better-preserved Julio-Claudian books or the exciting contemporary narrative of the Severan age. This chapter examines Dio’s portrayal of five second-century emperors: Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus and Pertinax. It focuses particularly on the role that military qualities (or lack thereof) played in the historian’s assessment of their character and reigns. In Dio’s view, the best emperors were not necessarily the best generals, but leaders who were able to maintain the frontiers in the face of foreign threats and kept the troops disciplined and ready for defence at all time. A good emperor should be an all-rounder, able to balance attention to military matters with concern for the civilian government of the empire. In the second-century narrative, it is Marcus Aurelius who best embodies these qualities.

This chapter investigates the dynamics of material and symbolic exchange between Roman emperors and Greek cities, and the role of the emperor in the ideology and practice of civic euergetism in the Greek East, in the middle Roman empire (c. 98–180 CE). It begins by documenting the absence of demonstrable correlations between (1) an imperial visit and an imperial benefaction to a city and (2) an imperial visit and the erection of an honorific statue for the reigning emperor. On this basis it is argued that an imperial visit was not the critical moment for generating reciprocal exchanges between emperor and city, as is normally thought, and that local honours for the emperor were not usually triggered by the provision or even the prospect of specific imperial benefactions to the city. The bulk of the chapter then draws out the implications – both ideological and practical – of this peculiar form of ‘abstract reciprocity’ between Roman emperors and Greek cities, arguing that this type of idealized benefaction and local honorific practice defines this phase in the long history of civic euergetism in the Greek polis.

In the shadows of its Classical past, Athens during the Roman period saw a number of changes at the hands of imperial or local individuals, particularly for political and ideological, religious, and cultural and educational motivations. This chapter explores how the city grew and developed under the Romans, creating a unique urban space that expressed a multifaceted identity.

This chapter examines monuments and objects depicting the Roman emperor as a violent agent of conquest which were produced in the eastern provinces during the first and second centuries CE. Imagery of the emperor subjugating and enslaving peoples and provinces could be found on large public buildings, such as the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias, as well as on statues, coins, and terracotta votives. The creators and patrons of these imperial representations were influenced both by local (Greek, Egyptian) and by Roman concepts of rulership and artistic traditions. This desire to depict the violent treatment of foreign peoples by Roman emperors demonstrates that eastern patrons and artists sought to identify themselves with the civilised world of Rome, rather than with the subjugated barbarian ‘other’. The Roman emperor was thus envisioned as a protector of his people, and a guarantor of their safety and security. But it is probable that these images also carried a more sinister message, reminding the emperor’s subjects that he could punish them as well.

This chapter looks at two interconnected texts which were published within two or three decades of each other: Aelianus Tacticus’ Tactical Theory (addressed to Trajan) and Arrian’s Tactics, published two or three decades later under Hadrian. Both texts appear to draw on the same source material, and it is reasonable to suppose that Arrian was aware of Aelian’s earlier treatise, although there is no direct interaction between them. Their different approaches to the same material offer an opportunity to explore different models of literary and cross-cultural interaction, and also to examine our go-to metaphors and interpretative models for analysing them. While Aelian establishes a series of polemical comparisons between age-old Greek military theory and currently effective Roman military practice, Arrian hints at overlaps between Greek and Roman traditions, both by incorporating a section on Roman cavalry manoeuvres and by interacting with a speech delivered by Hadrian to the Roman army at Lambaesis in 128. Both approaches are equally tactical; and both are revealing of the complex dynamics of cross-cultural interaction, which took place on and off the page, and in literary and less literary forms of writing.

This chapter assesses Phlegon of Tralles’ paradoxographical works Peri Thaumasion and Peri Makrobion, and demonstrates that Phlegon’s use of source citation and other strategies of authentication in these works is designed to appeal to a range of readers and reading cultures in the cosmopolitan Roman empire. In the tradition of Greek paradoxography that dates back to the Hellenistic era, Phlegon offers many citations from literary sources for the marvels he reports; these are all Greek authors, and predominantly Hellenistic or earlier in date, and would fulfil Greek-speaking readers’ expectations for the traditions of paradoxography. Other strategies, however, seem designed to appeal to Roman expectations. Phlegon’s use of autopsy as an authenticating trope echoes what Latin authors (Mucianus, Pliny the Elder) brought to the genre. Finally, Phlegon’s citation of documents such as census records is designed to appeal to inhabitants from across the empire who would have had personal experience of Imperial record-keeping. By combining all three of these authenticating methods so that they mutually reinforce one another, and dovetail in a believable way with readers’ extratextual experiences, Phlegon updates what was originally a Hellenistic, highly literary genre for the contemporary era and his boundary-crossing readers.

Representation of the kosmos is one of the leading themes of Roman decoration. If the evidence for public interest in cosmic representation is generally well known – for instance, at the Pantheon at Rome – it is worth noting that this phenomenon has not been sufficiently studied in the realm of private life. This piece investigates several examples of cosmic architecture and images known through written texts or archaeological monuments, all of them belonging either to aristocratic houses or to imperial palaces: the aviary that M. Terentius Varro built around 80 BCE inside his villa at Casinum; the Teatro Marittimo that the emperor Hadrian erected at his villa in Tivoli (early or mid-second century CE); the the cave of Sperlonga, which formed part of Tiberius’s Praetorium; and the Cenatio Rotunda, which belonged to Nero’s Domus Aurea. Kosmos-representations in the private sphere at Rome are arranged according to the particular point of view of the persons who frequent the place where they are located. Chief inspiration for these decorations would appear to have been the philosophers, especially Plato, but also the Greek astronomers, who fascinated the Roman elite, as demonstrated by the Latin translations of the Phaenomena of Aratus by Cicero and Germanicus.