Cam Grey

Excavating the Roman peasant II: excavations at Case Nuove, Cinigiano (GR)

This report details the survey, excavations and materials analysis carried out at Case Nuove (GR) in Tuscany, a site identified by surface survey as a possible rural house, but which excavation and materials analysis suggest was a small-scale agro-processing point of late Republican date. Through accompanying analysis of pollen and land-use data, the article considers the problems this type of site — the stand-alone agro-processing point — presents for interpretations of the Roman landscape.

Contextualizing Colonatus : The Origo of the Late Roman Empire

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.

Palaeoenvironment and land use of Roman peasant farmhouses in southern Tuscany

Archaeo-environmental data were obtained from five small rural sites excavated as part of the Roman Peasant Project in southern Tuscany. Archaeo-botanical and archaeological data point to a moment of intensive land use in the late Republican/Early Imperial date and to possible use of convertible agriculture strategies. The diversity of pasture-grazing plant species, the presence of coprophilous fungi, parasite eggs and the high values of pasture indicator pollen suggest that lands devoted to browsing animals covered an important part of the territory all around and in the vicinity of sites. The significant presence of cereals, with occasional presence of vines and olives, attests to the importance of grain agriculture in the same spaces. These data may be read as residues of convertible agricultural strategies in which pasture, including cultivated fodder, alternated with legumes and cereals. Read together, the data thus point to a major moment of intensified use and management of the land.

Shock, Horror, or Same Old Same Old? Everyday Violence in Augustine's Africa

Recent studies of violence in the ancient Mediterranean world have stressed just how radically undertheorized the phenomenon is in modern scholarly literature. In response to this, they have identified a particular aspect or expression of violence, then used that as a foundation for generating a theoretical framework for understanding violent behavior more generally. But what relationship does general, generalized, or everyday violence have to the more reified, bounded forms of violence that have been the subject of scholarly attention to date? How should we best interpret the place of violence within communities, and its relationship to “nonviolent” means of communication and interaction? Earlier literature on the place of violence in ancient societies focused upon quantifying whether the ancient world was “more violent” than modern society. This article eschews a quantitative approach and focuses instead upon the role that violence might have played, rhetorically and strategically, in social interactions. It considers two short vignettes drawn from the writings of Augustine of Hippo and uses the consonances and dissonances between the presentation of violence in those texts to propose and problematize some theoretical positions on the strategic and heuristic value of violence in late Roman North Africa. In particular, it explores the utility of the concept of reciprocity and the ethical distinction between (reasonable or justifiable) force and (illegitimate or irrational) violence as tools for understanding the role of violence in everyday interactions in the period.

Demoniacs, Dissent, and Disempowerment in the Late Roman West: Some Case Studies from the Hagiographical Literature

In the hagiographical literature of the late Roman West, demonic possession is a recurring motif providing a recognizable, culturally appropriate means for expressing societal dysfunction. This paper complements existing scholarship on demonic possession by developing a methodology for exploring the factors motivating the demoniacs themselves. Some episodes of possession in the hagiographical literature of the period are examined using recent anthro-pological studies of spirit cults and psychosomatic illness as an analytical framework. These episodes are interpreted as examples of individuals consciously or subconsciously expressing anger at or anxiety about the world in which they lived and their place in that world.

HADRIAN THE TRAVELER: Motifs and Expressions of Roman Imperial Power in the Vita Hadriani

This paper explores the links between travel and power that the journeys of Hadrian in the Vita Hadriani reveal, and suggests that these links have broader implications for our interpretation of the Historia Augusta as a whole, and of its authors literary skill and political awareness. It offers a close reading of the contexts in which Hadrian is depicted traveling in the Vita Hadriani, and argues that they may be interpreted as part of an internal dialog over alternate strategies for expressing and legitimating imperial power. It suggests that it is the moments when Hadrian is in the act of traveling that provide the clearest clues as to our authors attitude towards appropriate behavior by an emperor.