Roman Imperial Interactions

This paper argues that the Curia Iovis of the Augustan colony of Simitthus in Africa Proconsularis continued to be the public voting institution of the populus described in the surviving civic statutes from Baetica and Italy. It focuses on the regulations the curia adopted on November 27, 185CE, which were found inscribed on three faces of a rectangular base in 1882 and published by René Cagnat in 1883 and more fully in 1885 (CIL VIII 14683).

In this paper, I argue that the Valerian gens had a significant influence on the history of the Ludi Saeculares at Rome, particularly in the development of the Augustan games of 17 BCE. It is well known that Augustus worked with the jurist Ateius Capito to plan his Ludi Saeculares (cf. Zosimus 2.4), but modern scholarship has neglected evidence for a close association between Augustus and Valerii that shaped both the chronology and performances of the games.

In 88 B.C.E., Mithridates of Pontus ordered the massacre of all Roman citizens in Asia Minor and Greece. Several cities took advantage of the opportunity to avenge themselves against decades of abuse; surviving accounts report death tolls between 80,000 and 150,000. Yet some communities, such as the island of Cos, offered refuge to fleeing Romans. The episode offers a point of departure for the investigation of the visibility and privileged status of Romans abroad by motivating questions in respect to their experience as a diaspora.

As noted by Fergus Millar, the Greek cities of the Hellenistic world laid claim to three things: internal self-government, self-representation implying a degree of independence, and diplomatic respect (Rome, the Greek World, and the East).

In this paper I argue for a new reading of part of Polybius' programmatic statement as it appears first at 1.1.2 and again in a slightly modified form at 6.2.6. Taken together, these two variations on the same theme speak directly to the explicitly didactic nature of Polybius' work: the only way to learn how to endure nobly the reversals of Fortune (Tyche) is by understanding how others have done so in the past, which is in turn accomplished by perusing the history in the reader's hands.