Volume 96, Issue 1

The text of Aristodemos (FGrH 104 F 1), included into the Codex Paris. Suppl. Greac. 607, whose authenticity is supported by POxy 27, 2469, displays parallels, copies and abstracts of other ancient texts: Not only the Scholia of Aristophanes and Hermogenes, but also Plutarch and Aristophanes’ Pax hold an ancient tradition that with respect to the text of Aristodemos can be traced back to the 4 th  century BC. The reinterpretation of historical events of the 5 th  century BC (the battle of Salamis, the fate of Pausanias, the outbreak of the Peleponnesian War) as mere Attic victoriousness and the structure of the text, being influenced by literary inscriptions (the epigram of Pausanias, the inscription of the Spartans on a discus), sayings and quotations, can be shown as strongly connected with Atthidographers. This leads to the conclusion that the original which the text at hand was composited from derived from an Atthis.

Although humour is a universal phenomenon, it is always embedded in culture and thus rather hard to spot in historical hindsight: It is not always easy to decide, what was deemed funny in the past, whether something was considered ironic or serious. The article analyzes the function of humour in the political communication of the early principate. Because Rome was not an open monarchy, but rather a monarchy that disguised itself as a continuation of the old republic, as I argue, the communication between emperor and senate was ambiguous: both parties acted as though the republic still existed while being fully aware that the actual power lay in the hands of the emperor. If we compare this form of communication with modern theories of humour, it becomes evident that this ambiguity has latent, comic potential. In historical hindsight – already in antiquity – it was thus quite easy to view scenes as comic or ironic that were not originally intended to be so. In political practice, however, it was vital that the system’s comic potential was not realised, for when seen as a joke, the ambiguous communication would have collapsed immediately and with it the plausibility of the parallel existence of monarchy and republic. Laughter was thus possible only over seemingly banal things, but it was exactly this sort of laughter that could help stabilize the ambiguous communication, as can be shown with the famous speech of Claudius on the ius honorum of the Gauls.

The years of the early Principate, especially the rule of Augustus, are witness to the radical change, on the contrary to Republic, in the number of references of aeternitas especially in Roman poetry. Famous Augustan poets close to the idea of aeternitas are Virgil, Tibullus, Propertius, Horace and Ovid. Numerous references to the concept of aeternitas constituted the outcome of the contemporary mentality and specific world views towards the issue of the permanence and stability of the state; they resulted from social expectations as well as from ideological creations of the new power. The notion of aeternitas , which Augustan authors referred to, was deliberately set in the religious and political tradition of Rome. By means of this notion, poets extremely frequently conveyed the idea of the permanence and stability of the state as well as of the prevailing political system. Most often the concept was evoked in the context of the tradition of the foundation myths of Rome, especially with reference to the heroes of those myths (e.g. Romulus, Aeneas), ancient cults (e.g. of Vesta) as well as religious and political institutions (e.g. Pontifex Maximus ). The tendency to treat the state as eternal seems to have increased in 12 B.C. This coincided with two events – the assumption of the function of Pontifex Maximus by Augustus (6 th of March 12 B.C.) and attending with care to Vesta, who was linked to the House of Augustus on the Palatine.

This contribution on Roman customs takes a micro-historical perspective. It focuses on two important Alpine roads within the Illyrican customs district, one leading to Aguntum and the other to Virunum. Along these roads,there is evidence of a large number of custom posts, which may be connected to the particularly laborious and expensive maintenance of roads in this area. Evidence concerning customs personnel is documented comparatively well in inscriptions: the customs staff were well-trained and highly specialised slaves who possessed considerable financial resources and were often connected to free or freed women. They had a high mobility within the region and were very well networked. These observations raise another question: what was the significance of the customs personnel for the romanisation of rural areas?

The results of the archaeological survey and excavations near Harzhorn are most probably connected with the military campaign of Maximinus Thrax into Germania magna in 235/236 A. D. But the source material neither clarifies the aim nor the course of the military activities of Rome nor the forces, which had already been assembled by Alexander Severus near Mainz. Interpreting the available literary and epigraphic sources in detail and starting with the military campaign of Severus Alexander against the Parthians this paper tries to clarify the military history on the Rhine and Upper Danube at least in relevant outlines. In this context we particularly defer to the role of special forces in the Roman army – Mauri, Osrhoeni and Catafractarii. Also the inscriptions mentioning catafractarii found in the region east of the Rhine and near the Limes , which normally are connected with the military campaign of Maximinus into Germania magna , will be examined. The military situation on the Rhine and Upper Danube ( Raetia ) in the year 235 A. D. and the different forces on these frontiers will be commented.

Much information has been preserved from Late Antiquity about the study of geography, but modern scholars have paid small attention to it. The present article offers a critical synthesis of the evidence, in three parts. The first part is an analysis of the geographical information learned at different stages of the curriculum, from the writing exercises given by the διδάσκαλος or by the paedagogus , to the explanation of literary texts in the middle school of the grammaticus , and to the superior level, of secular or religious schools, in which one could consult Ptolemy’s „Geography“. Our evidence goes from lists of place names in Egyptian papyri, to glosses in the manuscripts of Sallust, Vergil, Lucan, to exhaustive commentaries – like those by Servius – and to more elaborated works – like those of Vibius Sequester, Julius Honorius, Solinus, Stephanus of Byzantium, Priscian the Grammarian. The second part of the article deals with the relationship between texts and graphic representations, both used with pedagogical aims. During Late Antiquity, maps were more frequent than in previous times. Today, we know about different types of cartographic representations from literary references – such as the penax Dionysii mentioned by Cassiodorus or the monumental maps of Autun and Constantinople in the time of Theodosius II. We have also topographical sketches, in the Commenta Bernensia or in the manuscripts of Lucan and Oppian. Also, by studying medieval mappaemundi – such as the one from Albi, from the Cotton manuscript collection of the British Library, or like the archetype of the so-called Saint-Jerome’s maps – one understands that their models go back to the IV th –VI th centuries. Last but not least, the Tabula Peutingeriana and the texts of the Divisio orbis terrarum, the Dimensuratio provinciarum, the Expositio totius mundi et gentium , the Notitia dignitatum , the Laterculi , the Nomina provinciarum omnium , the Ὑποτύπωσις γεωγραφίας ἐν ἐπιτομῇ as well as the geography taught to the Christians by Hippolytus in his Chronicon and by his followers as late as the Chronicon Paschale , are all echoes of school geography in the culture of the high-class. These elites were educated to participate in the administration and to defend the ideological unity of the empire and of the world born after its fall. In conclusion, this static but complex picture underlines the unifying role played by the geographical teaching in the late Roman culture, shared by people from the different parts of the orbis terrarum .

This article investigates references to Mithraism in early Christian works, dating from the second to fifth centuries AD. It argues that the way the Mithras cult was described and/or addressed transformed as the relative positions in society of Christianity and pagan cults changed. In the earliest period Christianity was only one religious group among many, and its later dominance could not be foreseen. This may have made Christian writers eager to distinguish themselves from other religious groups by a detailed explanation of the differences between their religion and others, and by a careful exposition of what their cult entailed and why other cults were wrong. In later periods, when the position of Christianity was much stronger, a systematic refutation of other religions was no longer necessary. Most references to the cult of Mithras in later periods therefore merely seem to emphasize the superiority felt by Christians over other religions. An Appendix collects all references to the Mithras cult in patristic literature from the second to fifth century AD.

Recent research on urbs Roma in late antiquity has made clear that numerous pagan and Christian authors have participated in the discourse about the redefinition of late Roman urban identity. In the present contribution it is asked whether and to what extent Paulinus of Nola with his epistulae and carmina took part in this discourse about urban identity.