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This paper aims to illustrate the practical application of myth in public life under the early Principate. It begins by sketching the deep historical affection of the people of Rome for the twins Castor and Pollux, and the great posthumous popularity of Nero Claudius Drusus for generations after his death in 9 B.C. Concentrating on the dedicatory inscription of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome, the paper argues that Tiberius Caesar, notoriously addicted to mythology, crafted a potent public association between the heavenly twins and himself and his brother Drusus, and it goes on to examine the effect of that association. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines the paper by Peter Brown that was published in 1961. Model for understanding the historical process; Influences of Brown's paper on the English-speaking world; Arguments on the Roman aristocarcy; Prosopographical study by Werner Eck.

This paper discusses the widely held view that politics in fifth- and sixth-century Italy were largely driven by rivalry between the two great families of the Anicii and the Decii, supposedly following distinctive policies (pro- or anti-eastern, philo- or anti-barbarian, etc.). It is probable that individual members of these (and other) families had feuds and disagreements from time to time, but there is absolutely no evidence for continuing rivalry between Decii and Anicii as families, let alone on specific issues of public policy. Indeed by the mid-fifth century the Anicii fell into a rapid decline. The nobility continued to play a central rôle in the social and (especially) religious life of late fifth- and early sixth-century Italy. Their wealth gave them great power, but it was power that they exercised in relatively restricted, essentially traditional fields, mainly on their estates and in the city of Rome. The quite extraordinary sums they spent on games right down into the sixth century illustrate their overriding concern for popular favour at a purely local level. In this context there was continuing competition between all noble families rich enough to compete. Indeed, the barbarian kings encouraged the nobility to spend their fortunes competing with each other to the benefit of the city and population of Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There exists a strong link in modern thinking between letter collections and biographical or historical narration. Many ancient letter collections have been rearranged by modern editors along chronological lines, apparently with the aim of realizing the biographical and historiographical potential of these ancient collections. In their original format, however, non-fictional Greco-Roman letter collections were arranged predominantly by addressee or by theme (often without the preservation of chronology within addressee or thematic groupings), or they might be arranged on the principle of artful variety and significant juxtaposition. Consequently, some purpose or purposes other than biographical or historical narration must be attributed to ancient letter collections. This paper asks what those purposes might be. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper looks at the words, pictures and shapes that people in the Roman provinces placed on the thousands of coins that were made by each of several hundred cities, and uses the patterns that can be found to discuss the contribution provincial coins can make to our understanding of how relationships developed between the early Roman emperors, especially Augustus, and their audiences in provincial cities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper re-examines the scholarly views about the beginning of Latin poetry that were current in the late second century b.c., and proposes that the earliest scholars, specifically Accius and Porcius Licinus, marked Livius Andronicus’ hymn to Juno Regina of 207 b.c., rather than a play in 197 b.c., as the fountainhead of Latin literature. Those histories would suggest that the dominant interpretation put poetry at the heart of the affairs of the state at war; when in the early 40s b.c. Varro and his contemporaries disproved Accius, they were both bringing out new facts about Livius’ earlier career, and rewriting the history of Latin poetry, so that it had its origins in peace, rather than in war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Non-orthodox Christian asceticism in Late Antiquity is known to us largely through the distorting lens of orthodox heresiology. This paper aims to reassess the character of the ascetic communities of rural Lycaonia in the fourth century A.D. in the light of the surviving funerary and ecclesiastical epigraphy, including three inscriptions published here for the first time. We are fortunate to be able to read these texts in the light of a neglected work of orthodox polemic, Amphilochius’ Against False Asceticism, the work of an embattled orthodox bishop at Iconium in the late 370s A.D. This treatise formed part of a successful campaign to stigmatize the Lycaonian ascetics as heretics, a position which was enshrined in Theodosius’ anti-heretical legislation of A.D. 381–3. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper establishes a new date for the publication of Suetonius’ Illustrious Men through allusions to Suetonius’ Virgil in Pliny, Letters 5.10. These allusions are part of a much wider network of allusions, both within this particular letter and more generally in Pliny’s Book 5, that revolves around the theme of unpublished writings. It is a partial or full publication of the Illustrious Men that probably led to Suetonius’ award of the ius trium liberorum in A.D. 110, and he may now have published all of the Caesars before his dismissal by Hadrian in A.D. 122. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suetonius (Aug. 72.2) records among the habits of Augustus his inclination to retreat from time to time to a place he called ‘Syracuse’ or his ‘technophuon’ (workshop). These names have been variously explained, without agreement. The paper argues that ‘Syracuse’ evokes a complex of associations beyond the obvious connection with Archimedes and his inventions. By recalling other well-known figures, such as Marcellus and Dionysius, as well as Augustus’ own experiences in Syracuse, the name of his den effectively encapsulates the courses of action available to the emperor as ruler and as private citizen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]