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This article examines the burning of written material at Rome from the Republican period until the rise of Christianity, using the lens of book history. It considers why and how Romans burned written material, gathering for the first time all testimony of burning any kind of writing, and examines responses to these burnings in ancient discourse. A capacious, book-historical approach to Roman book-burning shows that differences in practice and uses — of books as opposed to documents, for example — account for the different consequences Romans saw for burning different written media.

The provincial coinage of the Roman Empire has proven to be a rich source for studying civic experiences of Roman rule, but the coins struck outside Rome during the expansion of the Roman Republic have, by contrast, received relatively little attention. This article aims to begin redressing this neglect by exploring the active rôle of coinage in conceptualizing and representing Roman Republican power. A variety of approaches to this neglected material are employed in order to highlight its potential as a source. Ambiguity, iconology, and entanglement are used as frameworks to explore case studies from across the Roman Republican world, from Spain to Syria. This approach to coin imagery under the Republic reveals the complexity and variety in which the Roman presence, and Romanimperium, was represented before the advent of the Principate.

Building on recent scholarship concerning the ‘colonate of the late Roman Empire’, and focusing in particular upon the vocabulary used in the legal sources, this paper offers three propositions. First, the colonatus of the legislation was not a legal shorthand for the ‘colonate’ of modern historiographical debate. Second, the coloni of the legislation were not a discrete group of individuals subjected to a definable, articulated set of restrictions. Finally, it is not colonatus but rather the origo and the link it created between individuals and the land which is the key to the tax system of the late Roman Empire.

This article discusses the probable aims and provisions of Mark Antony's judiciary law of September 44 B.C. and challenges the prevailing view that this law had no further existence after it was annulled by the Senate in January 43 B.C. Instead, it is demonstrated that Antony's law was almost certainly reinstated under the Triumvirs and thus radically altered the composition of juries in Rome's criminal courts. This realization makes it possible to reconstruct the likely nature and timing of Augustus' judicial reforms, which can now be regarded as measures designed to reverse major changes that had been introduced by Antony's legislation.

The subject is the Roman occupation and control of the river Danube between the river Inn and the Black Sea, with a special emphasis on recent research and discoveries. Themes examined include the pattern of recent research and publication in the dozen modern states that now exist in the area; the construction of strategic roads linking the upper and lower Danube basins with the rest of the Roman world; military history and the creation of the military cordon along the river and the civil and military settlements associated with this. Recent research on social, economic, and cultural themes is also reviewed. Detailed accounts of major roads to the Danube and sites along the river are provided in two topographical appendices.

In A.D. 249 the emperor Trajan Decius issued an edict requiring the inhabitants of the Roman Empire to sacrifice to the gods. With this decree, he also inaugurated the first empire-wide persecution of Christians. Previously, persecutions of Christians had always been local affairs determined by local conditions. Thereafter, persecutions were largely instigated by emperors and took place on an imperial scale. It has consequently become common to distinguish pre-Decian persecution, characterized by its local andad hocnature, from the centrally organized persecutions of Decius in A.D. 249–50, Valerian in A.D. 257–60, and Diocletian, Galerius, and Maximinus in A.D. 303–13. The importance of the decree as a turning point in the history of Christian persecution is thus widely recognized. Beyond this, discussions of the decree have usually focused on its precise nature and the motivations behind it; given the limited evidence, however, these discussions have tended to be inconclusive. In this paper I will return to a consideration of the decree's effects, but in the context of traditional religion rather than that of Christianity. I will argue that, seen from this perspective, the decree was a highly innovative and important step towards a radical restructuring of religious organization in the Roman world.

Horace, reflecting on his relationship with Maecenas and the top men or ‘gods’ in Rome, complained that passers-by asked him questions about affairs of state, expecting him to be privy to the deliberations of the great. One question was: ‘What about the land allocations (praedia) that the emperor promised to the soldiers? Will they be on the three-cornered island (Sicily) or on Italian soil? When I swear that I know nothing about it they are amazed at me as the only mortal who knows how to keep a vital unfathomable secret’ (Serm. 11.6.51–8).The poet strikingly illustrates how land distribution was a familiar and important aspect of Roman life and of great interest not only to soldiers but also to many citizens, perhaps partly because of their apprehension about expropriations, which had created great anguish during the civil wars. We see too how the whole business was viewed as under the personal direction of the emperor and his entourage, and incidentally how difficult it was for people to find out about decisions taken behind the scenes.