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The Construction of Currency and Roman Imperialism

By Colin Elliott

Some of the most successful studies of the development of money in ancient Greek societies have been emic in nature (von Reden 1995, Kurke 1999, Seaford 2004). The situation with Roman money, however, is starkly different, as the numismatic record along with other bodies of evidence, is routinely mined for indicators of economic or monetary “performance” (the size of the money supply, prices, purchasing power, etc) or to confirm/falsify the application of various monetary theories.

Prayers for protection against heretics? Two Greek amulets reconsidered

By Michael Zellmann-Rohrer

I advance a new interpretation of two papyrus amulets from Byzantine Egypt by adopting a different comparative approach, applying evidence from later Byzantine medical recipes. In the process I identify an incantation motif that remained in use for nearly a millenium, comparable in contruction and purpose to the well-known narrative analogues (historiolae) employed in many magical texts. Both amulets are included in the collection of Preisendanz and Henrichs (Pap.Graec.Mag.

Late Byzantine legal practice and prosopography in a contract from the Princeton collection

By Nicholas Venable

This paper consists of an introduction to and presentation of the edition of an unpublished late Byzantine contract for the surrender of property from Hermopolis, held in the Firestone Library at Princeton University. This contract is significant because it is the most complete ἐκχωρητικὴ ὁμολογία from this period, and its structure makes its constitutive clauses and formulae clear in a way that is useful for conceptualizing legal practice in late Byzantine Egypt.

Taxes, petitions, and the formulation of the ideal relationship between citizen and state in the late Roman empire

By Patrick Clark

Using papyrological evidence, my paper argues that through the tax system the late Roman state and Roman citizens reached a consensus that there existed something akin to a legal contract between the state and Roman citizens. In accordance with this “contract,” Roman citizens would pay taxes on the property cultivated by and registered to them, as well as perform the relevant services, and the Roman state would guarantee that citizens would pay only the amount required by their registered property. This consensus was reached through a cumulative process.

P.Mich. inv. 975 and papyri involving the town council of Antinoopolis

By François Gerardin

The town councils of the Hellenistic world have been intensely investigated in studies by the epigraphers Friedemann Quass and Patrice Hamon. They focused on inscriptions from Asia Minor and mainland Greece and sketched the transitions from the councils of early Hellenistic Greece into the late Hellenistic and Roman periods.