Volume 107, Issue 1

The present article examines a selection of royal multilingual inscriptions, mostly from the Near East and Anatolia, as expression of the linguistic competence of the king, as shown in other documents, especially from Mesopotamia, from the Bronze Age onwards. It also argues that the truthfulness of the royal utterance is the other side of the coin of the king’s linguistic competence.

The article scrutinises the status of farmers addressed by Hesiod in his “Works and Days”, their relationship to polis , and the place of the society reflected in the poem in the general line of early Greek socio-political development. As Hesiod was not describing any particular farm but was advising an ‘ideal farmer’ it would be hopeless to establish the economic and social status of the poet by mechanically summarising everything concerning householding he mentions in his instructions. A critical reading of the poem shows that Hesiod represents neither ‘gentlemen farmers’ nearly equal to the basilēes , nor peasants indebted to and oppressed by them, but economically independent smallholders who formed a broad social stratum beneath the relatively modest elite, were in constant need to work hard to avoid poverty, but had the chance to acquire wealth and rise into the elite. Hesiod emphasised the farmers’ responsibility for the just order of their polis, addressing the admonishments for justice in polis to his brother presented as a failed farmer, thus showing the smallholders as rightful members of the political community. Such a society with shallow hierarchies, fluid status differences, and a feeling of common responsibility was, on the one hand, clearly different from the oppressive social conditions in Solonian Athens, while on the other hand anticipates the polis ideology expressed by Solon. The inclusionary attitude regarding the smallholders as responsible members of polis community was already established at Hesiod’s time, was threatened by the subsequent growth of social hierarchies and had to be legally confirmed, as exemplified by Solon.

Zusammenfassung Seit der Antike gilt Thukydides’ Kriegschronologie als erklärungsbedürftig. Dieser Artikel trägt zu einer Neubewertung mittels Kontextualisierung bei. Semantische Reflexionen zeigen, dass es dem zeitgenössischen Genauigkeitsverständnis entsprach, Kriegsjahre zu quantifizieren und nach Sommern und Wintern zu differenzieren. Vergleichbare Formen der Jahresfolge und -aufteilung sind im kulturellen Entstehungskontext des Geschichtswerks zu finden. Thukydides’ chronografisches System ähnelt den Jahresinventaren athenischer Gefallenenlisten sowohl hinsichtlich Serialität und Annuität als auch im Verzicht auf eponyme Datierungsweisen. Das Ende des ersten Kriegswinters fällt daher wohl nicht durch Zufall mit einer Schilderung der Athener Institution der Jahresbestattungen zusammen. Als Gegenstücke lassen sich Kriegswaisenparade und Tributpräsentation anlässlich der Städtischen Dionysien im Frühjahr identifizieren. Damit griff Thukydides’ dihairesis vermutlich den Takt der Athener archē auf. Bemerkenswerterweise führte der Geschichtsschreiber diese Struktur noch nach dem Zusammenbruch ihrer möglichen Grundlagen fort – d. h., als keine Tribute mehr gezahlt und Gefallene nicht mehr nur jahrweise bestattet wurden. Zeitgenössischen Lesern ist diese Diskrepanz zwischen Kontinuität des historiografischen Zeitrasters und Auflösung der temporalen Ordnung in Athen höchstwahrscheinlich aufgefallen.

The objective of this paper is to provide an alternative approach to analysing IG I 3 89, a treaty between Athens and the Macedonian king Perdiccas II. It provides a mathematical formula for establishing the line length of fragmented inscriptions in which there are two ‘anchoring’ letters and only a finite number of possible solutions. This formula is used to provide a maximum and minimum line length for the inscription, after which epigraphical and historical analysis is then used to further eliminate possibilities. This method results in only four possible solutions, only one of which fits Lewis’ latest revision of the line length for IG I 3 89. This resulting combination of names makes the most agreed upon Argead family tree impossible. The implications of this are profound and would demand a revision of much of Argead history between Alexander I and Alexander III.

In Book 79[78] of the “Roman History,” Cassius Dio claims that under Macrinus, Italian δικαιονόμοι “ceased to judge beyond the constitutions of Marcus”. Historians have traditionally read this claim to mean that Marcus Aurelius had issued legislation limiting the jurisdiction of Italian iuridici , that these officials had taken on greater responsibilities since Marcus’ death, and that Macrinus briefly restored Marcus’ original scheme. I argue instead that Dio describes Italian judges autonomously refusing to recognize the constitutions of Marcus’ successors as legally valid. I then suggest that Dio’s account of Italian adjudication fits better with the fluid and political legal culture that scholars have long found in provincial sources, and that Italian legal practice may have more closely resembled that of the provinces than traditional pluralist accounts of Roman law have led us to think.

This article compares some recipes from De re coquinaria with the prescriptions contained in Galen’s De alimentorum facultatibus and De ptisana in order to examine the fatally ambiguous relationship between food and medicine. Although the cookbook attributed to “Apicius” dates, in the form in which it has come down to us, to the end of the 4 th century, a first substantial nucleus of recipes dating from the early imperial age was most likely the object of the punctilious corrections and sharp criticism of the Pergamene physician and archiater, who intended to stigmatise in this way the unhealthy diet of the urban elites of the Antonine age.

Resumen A partir de distintos testimonios hispanos de flamines y flaminicae , proponemos una serie de reflexiones acerca de la relación entre estos sacerdocios y el estatuto jurídico de los individuos que ocuparon este cargo, así como también de aquellas comunidades en donde se atestigua su presencia. El periodo flavio será el marco general de nuestro estudio, con el fin último de poder establecer si la presencia de flamines y flaminicae fue privativa de comunidades de estatuto privilegiado y, consecuentemente, si puede ser considerada o no como testimonio a favor del carácter municipal de aquellas comunidades promocionadas en el marco de la latinización flavia de las provincias hispanas, aun pudiendo hacer extensible las conclusiones obtenidas a otros ámbitos provinciales y periodos.

The current article wishes to reassess the Christian texts mentioning Queen Zenobia’s potential affinity to Judaism, or her conversion to Judaism. It will be shown that the claims against the reliability of these texts are deficient or inaccurate. Furthermore, it will be clarified that she was not Jewish from birth. Instead, the sources indicate that she had a special relationship with monotheism, and Judaism in particular, and that she may have wished to convert to Judaism or did so in secret. The reasoning for this action and her relationship with Judaism will be examined while considering her politically precarious position, as well as the place of monotheism and Judaism in Palmyra, the Roman East and the Roman Army. Through this, the current article wishes to provide a better, more accurate presentation of Zenobia’s religious inclinations, how she used and manoeuvred between an ambiguous monotheism and Judaism in order to gain power and support, and what was her raison d’être for such a move and choice.