This study examines the socio-political landscape of the ancient city of Amastris (modern Amasra) through the lens of its road infrastructure, with a particular focus on the construction and significance of Aquila’s roads. Situated in the challenging terrain of northern Anatolia’s Küre Mountains, Amastris served as a vital maritime hub, linking diverse inland and coastal communities within Paphlagonia. Employing a multidisciplinary approach that integrates ancient literary analysis, archaeological evidence, and geospatial modeling, this paper reconstructs the network of primary and secondary Roman roads emanating from Amastris. The research highlights the dual role of these roads in fostering territorial coherence and enhancing regional connectivity, supporting both local autonomy and imperial governance. Key findings demonstrate that Aquila’s roads were not merely infrastructural projects but strategic undertakings that blended private investment with public utility. These projects reflect the intricate interplay between individual agency and state interests in Roman provincial administration. Furthermore, the study explores the broader cultural and economic impacts of road construction on Amastris, illustrating how connectivity shaped civic identity, social integration, and territorial integrity. The paper concludes that Aquila’s road-building initiatives were instrumental in sustaining Amastris’s strategic significance and functionality within the Roman Empire. By examining the dynamic relationship between local and imperial priorities, this study offers insights into how infrastructure functioned as a nexus of governance, economic development, and regional integration in ancient Anatolia.

2015年夏于劳迪凯亚（Laodikeia） 古城区中心出土了公元114/115年行省总督斯卡普拉政令铭刻，此政令为研究罗马元首制时期行省治理提供了新资料。在该政令中，总督制定了标准和惩罚措施，以确保水质及水利设施，并要求地方行政系统设立新职位，调整现有的水资源分配、保护和使用的职权和责任。市政自治是罗马元首制的一个主要机制。总督这种介入地方事务的行为，对地方政府而言是一次重大的干预。总督虽然有理论上不受限的权力，但总督任期长度、总督幕僚和附随人员规模、历任元首和总督的治理先例以及地方上掌有政治社会权力或影响力的人士和群体等动态因素，都会影响总督行使权力的方式。劳迪凯亚《政令》为今人提供了衡量罗马帝国中央与地方关系的尺度，揭示了包括中央与地方当局之间的权力平衡、权力动态和共识建设等方面的宝贵信息。 In the summer of 2015, an inscription dating to AD 114/115 was found during the excavation of the ancient city of L aodikeia. This paper discusses how the inscription, which was likely issued by the provincial governor Marcus (Osto rius?) Scapula, can be useful in the study on the provincial governance during the Roman Principate. The governor established standards and punitive measures to ensure water quality and hydraulic facilities, created new municipal of fices, and adjusted existing duties and responsibilities for the allocation, protection, and use of water resources. Municipal autonomy was one of the major mechanisms of the Roman Principate. The governor's intervention in local affairs was expected in local governance, but much depended upon local elites and institutions to materialise his intervention. Although the governor had unrestricted power theoretically, other factors, such as the length of the governor's term, the size of the governor's staff and entourage, the precedents set by former emperors and governors, and local individuals and groups with political and social power or influence, created dynamic pretexts that required careful navigation when exercising power. The Laodikeia edict offered an opportunity to assess how power balance, power dynamics, and consensus-building between the central and local authorities may have been like from the lens of the provincial governor.

This study reassesses an inscribed victory catalogue from Sinope (IK Sinope 105) that is often discussed in scholarship concerning agonistic culture in the Roman world. One particularly curious element of this inscription is the empty nature of the penultimate line, which bears only the numerals rho-nu. In the existing scholarship, this is usually interpreted as the sum of all the athlete’s victories. This paper challenges the orthodox interpretation, using a combination of David French’s squeezes housed at the British Institute at Ankara, supported by autopsy and recent photographs of the stone itself. It goes on to reconsider the practice of summing athletic victories in honorific inscriptions more generally, examining a specially compiled dossier of 207 inscriptions of comparable date to IK Sinope 105, and concluding that the practice was relatively rare. Finally, this paper considers other possible interpretations of the rho-nu in IK Sinope 105, among which is the suggestion that rho-nu could be a chronographic feature. While the interpretation of the rho-nu in IK Sinope 105 remains open, the combination of a close analysis of the stone with a wider contextual consideration of the genre demonstrates how much more remains to be said about even a well-known and often cited inscription. Özet Bu çalışma, Roma dünyasındaki agonistik kültürle ilgili araştırmalarda sıklıkla tartışılan, Sinop’dan ele geçen bir zafer kataloğu yazıtını (IK Sinope 105) yeniden değerlendirmektedir. Bu yazıtın özellikle merak uyandıran unsurlarından biri, sadece rho-nu rakamlarını taşıyan, sondan bir önceki satırın boş olmasıdır. Mevcut akademik çalışmalarda bu rakamlar genellikle atletin tüm zaferlerinin toplam sayısı olarak yorumlanmaktadır. Bu makale, taşın yakından incelenmesi ile son zamanda çekilmiş fotoğraflarıyla desteklenen, British Institute at Ankara’da bulunan French’in yazıt mülajlarını birlikte değerlendirerek bu geleneksel yorumu sorgulamaktadır. Daha genel olarak, onurlandırma yazıtlarında atletik zafer sayılarının toplanması uygulamasını yeniden gözden geçirerek, IK Sinope 105 ile karşılaştırılabilir tarihe sahip 207 yazıttan oluşan özel olarak derlenmiş bir dosyayı incelemekte ve uygulamanın nispeten nadir olduğu sonucuna varmaktadır. Son olarak, bu makale IK Sinope 105’teki rho-nu hakkındaki diğer olası yorumları da ele almaktadır; bunların arasında rho-nu’nun kronografik bir özellik olabileceği önerisi de bulunmaktadır. IK Sinope 105’teki rho-nu’nun yorumu açık kalmaya devam ederken, taşın yakından bir analizi ile bu çeşit yazıtların daha geniş bir bağlamsal değer- lendirmesinin birleşimi, iyi bilinen ve sıklıkla atıfta bulunulan bir yazıt hakkında bile söylenecek daha ne kadar çok şey olduğunu göstermektedir.

During the 1960 campaign of the Corinth Excavations, a Tang Dynasty coin was found in an ash and charcoal layer with deposits from the mid- to late 13th century ce and earlier. Considering similar coin finds from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, and the Chui Region, Kyrgyzstan, this article argues that the Corinth Tang coin is likely an Anxi Protectorate issue, though a Chui valley origin cannot be ruled out. This article discusses the origins, survival, and mobility of this minimal-value cash coin in a web of Eurasian connections, with particular focus on the connectivity of the Church of the East and the Jewish merchant network from the 8th to the 13th century ce.

The Archaeology of Roman Macedonia: Urban and Rural Environments by Vassilis Evangelidis offers “a synthetic look at the built environment [of Roman Macedonia],” or “all [its] built features that constitute the human habitus: buildings, monuments and spaces created or modified by people” (p. 41). Evangelidis specifically states that the book is “meant to provide a starting point for those who want to delve deeper into more specialized subjects” (p. 195). Evangelidis is an organizer of the Roman Seminar, which offers lecture series that discuss new archaeological discoveries and studies pertaining to Roman Greece. Evangelidis’ book can be seen as an addition to this effort but with more focus on recent and ongoing systematic and rescue excavations in northern Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria.[1] The book is in three parts. Part I provides contextual information on how ancient Macedonia transitioned from the old Macedonian kingdom to the imperial period. Evangelidis takes particular interest in: 1) the breaks and continuities in demography, ethnic makeup, social stratification, cult practice, and civic institutions following the demise of the Macedonian kingdom; and 2) the removal and exodus of the Macedonian elites and the repopulation of Macedonia by persons, groups, and agencies from different regions of the Mediterranean world. The map in chapter three (p. 26, fig. 4) captioned “the urban network: old and new cities” offers an intriguing bird’s-eye view of two Macedonias: the old Greek coastal cities, such as Maroneia and Abdera, in decline, while the accumulation of roads brought about new connectivity with significant impact on the interior as the main economic interest shifted away from the coast and towards inland areas where new cities were founded, such as Traianopolis and Ulpia Tpeiros (p. 37). The synthetic view becomes kaleidoscopic in Part II. Built features are classified according to public, commercial, industrial, ritual, entertainment, and other such types. Individual chapters focus on a single category of building types supported by layouts, stylistic features, functions, comparanda. Guiding themes and problems are given, at times subtly. On Public spaces (agorai/fora), for instance, Evangelidis invokes questions of how or whether they were transformed from Macedonian precursors or built anew, since there were scant remains of pre-Roman built features (ch. 5). Individual public and administrative buildings (ch. 7) and buildings for commerce and industry (ch. 8) follow, with attention directed towards the difficulty of function-based identifications (e.g., p. 59-60: what was the Building with the Arches at Stobi?). On ritual space (ch. 9), descriptions (e.g., Pseudo-Lucian’s highly relevant Lucius or Ass), as well as inscriptions concerning rituals, festivities, and cult worship, are anecdotal evidence useful for envisioning a populated, dynamic, and eclectic built environment at a specific point in time, but how can such sources fit into interpretations of continuity, adaptation, or the eclecticism of temples and sanctuaries? Surveys and discussion of the architecture of entertainment (ch. 10) also rely on similar issues, particularly on what traditional entertainment spaces actually were transformed into dual-use venues to accommodate a thriving gladiator culture from the second century CE onwards. The chapter on “the architecture of water” covers a dazzling array of the numerous aqueducts, latrines, fountains, and baths built during the Roman period (ch. 11). The natural abundance of water in Macedonia and the early developments of the Hellenistic balaneia(e.g., in Thessaloniki and Pella, pp. 108-109, and Amphipolis, pp. 114-115) may be taken as the driver for Macedonia’s “culture of water” that extended even to the most rural parts within the province. On built features of movement and passage (ch. 12), Evangelidis suggests the term “urban armatures” (p. 121). Many of these built features speak to the architectural language of imperial Rome, and Evangelidis suggests that they were purposely used to “hierarchize” urban spaces and regulated access, movement, and behavior (p. 128). One wonders to what degree the impact of hierarchized or regulated spaces are archaeologically visible. For “housing in urban and peri-urban contexts” (ch. 13), Evangelidis notes beyond traditional oikia houses and Roman style atria houses there was also the fusion type called the “courtyard house” that had various spaces opening around one or more courtyards (pp. 131-132). But non-elite domestic architecture remains poorly attested and understood (p. 141). Chapter 14 discusses architecture of defense. It is noteworthy that so little effort was made to build or at least reinforce urban defense against known and repeated northern incursions from the mid-second century onwards; Evangelidis suggests that hillside forts and fortified villas on highlands, including the rough stones crowning hill tops in Aegean Thrace, may have been local solutions to threats.  In addition to built features commonly seen in other Balkan provinces (e.g. funerary altars, sarcophagi), “Deathscapes” (ch. 15) discusses hundreds of third-century CE vaulted tombs typical of elite burial in earlier Macedonian kingdom, but to what degree can they be seen as “the mimicking of past funerary architecture” and part of a trend to revive the glorious Macedonian past (p. 156)? The last chapter (ch. 16) of Part II, which covers rural sites, raises questions regarding the differentiation of villas from farmsteads, and the dangers of classifying sites into types such as farms, villages, hamlets, and roadside settlements. Much appreciated is Evangelidis’ discussion of how rural sites may be connected to land and maritime transport networks, and figure 37 (p. 161) offers good visual guidance on the patterns of association between these two facets of Roman Macedonia. Part III is comprised of four (again compact) chapters in which Evangelidis argues that Roman Macedonia should not be perceived exclusively in “Roman” terms. The chapter on the course of development of urban environments (ch. 18) identifies two phases of architectural development. The first is the Late Hellenistic to Early Roman, when materials were local and types mostly Hellenistic in character (p. 176-178) . The second phase is from the mid-2nd century to the early 4th century CE, when major urban spaces underwent rapid and comprehensive convergence with empire-wide social and cultural trends, and adapted existing public and private spaces to contemporary architectural and spatial models (pp. 177-178). But, as Evangelidis keeps reminding readers, the survival of local styles of construction, the reuse of building materials, maintenance, modification, and adaptation of pre-existing buildings complicate chronologies (pp. 176-177). Colonies may have earlier stages of built features by the first Italian colonists, then later reconfigurations (basically the levelling/erasure of pre-existing structures) create new, “coherent,” and even “theatrical” urban landscapes (p. 183). Roman Macedonia was also receptive to a broad range of spatial and architectural ideas (p. 185). Intra-city rivalries and euergetism can lead to unconventional forms of monumentaliztion (p. 186). For rural environments (ch. 19) Evangelidis is mostly concerned with the theory that (or rather the question whether) “Roman Macedonia was systematically and intensively exploited through a dense network of large and medium-sized estates” (p. 188). Evangelidis argues that, while the villa economy model may be useful, there is also evidence (e.g., the farm at Toumba outside Thessaloniki, the site in Aphytis, and the cluster of farms in Lete) that suggest villa-centric interpretations have limitations (p. 188). The many ritual sites (e.g., Hero Equitans, sanctuaries of Zeus Hypsistos, the sanctuary of Ennodia in Kozani), burial tumuli (e.g., Gomati cemetary in Chalkidike), and dispersed native settlements (along the Rodope mountains) did not conform to a “rational” Romanized landscape characterized by organized agricultural activities and a villa-centered lifestyle, and could achieve centrality through centuries’ of evolving perceptions about space and occupation of land in their immediate locales (pp. 191-192). The last chapter of the book (ch. 20) compares Roman Macedonia with Roman Achaea. Evangelidis wishes to push back against an “archaeological orthodoxy” that sees little architectural difference between the two. But he does not explicate how they were different, except a matter-of-fact statement: “clearly, for many small cities and towns in Macedonia—especially the ones away from the coast like Vardarski rid (Gortynia?), Eidomene, Styberra or Petres—the experience of urban living and the form of the built environment was different than the one in Achaea” (p. 193). But the sole discussion on Vardarski rid, which also covers Petres in Florina, offers only a short comment on domestic architecture, that it must have been the “simple compact house…with no central colonnaded court,” a potential local variant of “the Greek courtyard house” that was “better suited to the colder weather conditions” (p. 129). For Eidomene, the discussion focuses on the Roman-style podium temple” found there, a typical frontal temple of Italy, prostyle and standing on a podium, donated by a makedoniarch (p. 79). Would this experience be entirely alien from, say, Patras, Corinth, or even Athens in Roman Achaea? Chapter 17, “Building methods and construction techniques” centers on the systematic use of cement, particularly the opus mixtum technique, or “bricks laid in bands alternating with course of rubble covered with binding material” (p. 173) distinct  from the opus caementicium technique (p. 174, fig. 39), as the photos helpfully illustrate. One also appreciates the reminder that the “exclusively brick” opus caementicium technique was closely associated with the introduction of imperially-controlled figlinae in the Tetrachic period, and it is seen not only at the Galerian complex but also in domestic complexes in Thessaloniki, Dion, and Stobi (pp. 174-175). Diligent readers might find it unfortunate that specific types of vaulting and vaulted spaces (e.g. “barrel-vaulted,” p. 47, 72; “radial vaults,” p. 98; “wedge-shaped” vaults, p. 101; “pitched-brick” vaulting [the earliest known Roman example!], p. 105) mentioned throughout the book received no treatment in this chapter, which would have been a contribution, considering that Lynne Lancaster’s Innovative Vaulting in the Architecture of the Roman Empire: 1st to 4th Centuries CE(2015) does not cover most of the examples that Evangelidis mentions.[2] Some readers might appreciate an index, considering that sites mentioned in the book are numerous and cross multiple countries. Site summaries (including site-specific introductions, maps and site plans, and bibliography, as seen in John Camp’s Archaeology of Athens, pp. 247-327) would have been very useful. But for a survey aiming to provide “a starting point for those who want to delve deeper,” some sort of general map with a full list of sites mentioned in the text (e.g., Susan Alcock’s Graecia Capta, pp. 10-12) would have been useful. One might also wish for more site plans, photos, and maps. There seems to be potential to create a supplementary digital humanities project comparable to the beautiful and informative Gardens of the Roman Empire Project, originally modeled on Gardens of Pompeii (1979-1993), that complements the edited volume Gardens of the Roman Empire (2018). To sum up, there is much to like about this book. Evangelidis strings together the full spectrum of architectural features within a large “built environment,” and creates useful syntheses of new and ongoing archaeological work in northern Greece and elsewhere. Readers interested in Roman archaeology in general may benefit from the comparanda described and analyzed, thanks to Evangelidis’ coherent narration and analysis, and perhaps his up-to-date bibliography. Students may particularly benefit if a potential online edition can bring together visual aids and other resources currently not part of the printed edition.   Notes [1] Though not entirely exhaustive: Heraclea Sintike (with its well-excavated Hellenistic agora/Roman forum) is not mentioned, for example. Cf. L. Vagalinski, “Heraclea Sintica and Some of Its Recently Found Marble Sculptures,” Archaeologica Bulgarica 24.2 (2020) 1-39; N. Sharankov, “Five Official Inscriptions from Heraclea Sintica Including a Record of the Complete Cursus Honorum of D. Terentius Gentianus,” Archaeologia Bulgarica 25.3 (2021) 1-43. [2] The odeion at Thessaloniki, p. 60; Arch of Galerius, p. 63; Rotunda of Galerius, p. 89.

This paper discusses a widely accepted emendation to an earlier version of IG X 2.1 137. Early draft copies of the Herennia announcement show that Antoninus Pius was hailed as Σωτήρ by the city of Thessalonike, a rare epithet for this emperor. This reading was later replaced due to an expert’s claim that σωτῆρος has to be read σωτηρίας. Since this seems to conform to a well-known salutary formula, the emendation was adopted from then on. This paper suggests that the reading of σωτῆρος is based on reliable and published reports instead, and ought to be preferred over the expert claim. Empirical evidence is given to support reading σωτῆρος. 

This edited volume started as a conference panel on marriage discourses in Hellenistic and imperial literature sponsored by the International Plutarch Society for the 2013 SCS conference. However, a new aspiration emerged as the panel discussion highlighted the importance of attaining an in-depth appreciation of “how the discourse of marriage, as found in the different genres that might have been important to Plutarch or related to his writings – philosophy, art, epithalamium, epic, and the novel – developed over time” (p. 4). This is an ambitious assemblage of source materials and perspectives that would generally be treated in separate monographs. As examples, Tsouvala points to Larsson Lovén and Agneta Stömberg’s Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality (2010), Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet’s Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century (2013), and Nikoletta Manioti’s Family in Flavian Epic (2016). The first paper by Rebecca H. Sinos explores parallels between wedding rites and mystery rites in the pictorial tradition. Sinos uses a small assemblage of vases to demonstrate the Attic pictorial tradition for weddings, then focuses on two fourth-century relief vases recently re-published in Zimmermann-Elseify’s Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum volume (2015)[1] that depict scenes set within the bridal chamber (thalamos), yielding rare “insight into the bridal couple’s experience of the wedding” (p. 33). The first is a relief vase in Moscow (but once part of the Berlin collection) initially published in Brückner’s Anakalypteria, showing the bride in a veil and being comforted by another woman at the end of a couch on which the bridegroom is reclining. The second is a relief vase in the Berlin Staatliche Museen that shows the bride unveiling herself to the reclining bridegroom on the bridal couch. Along with other examples, Sinos provides a nice presentation on the preparatory journey from betrothal, to procession, to the final unveiling of the bride within the bridal chamber, and how their association with divinizing or heroizing sculpture reliefs, including depictions of funerary banquets and those with Eleusinian allusions, can be read as conflating wedding rites and mystery rites. Karen Klaiber Hersch reads the Roman wedding as a ritualization of violence that the Roman bride suffers. Antiquarian sources such as Festus (55L; 43L) and Plutarch (Quaest. Rom. 87, 285C) lead Hersch to believe that “every Roman wedding…was a reenactment of a forced mass marriage of maidens from neighboring communities to the male population of Rome” (p. 70). She says that brides were expected “to appear to be terrified and were expected to make a vocal (and insofar as possible, visual) display of sorrow” to demonstrate virginity (p. 74-75). The bride’s veil (flammeum) functionally forces her “to mime her sorrow by hanging her head dejectedly, or walking with timid, uncertain steps, or even by crying audibly” (p. 76). Plautus (Casina 922-31; Priapea 3.8-9) and Macrobius (Sat. 1.15.21-22) further lead Hersch to believe that the literary descriptions of the suffering bride were likely based on actual verbal and physical assaults intended “to make the transition to matronhood as painful as possible” (pp. 84-85). Strikingly, Hersch points out that Greek rites were known to invoke marital happiness and positive experiences of marriage, establishing a provocative contrast of cultural norms and experiences that may benefit from further exploration. Paolo Di Meo’s chapter deals with the genesis and the nature of Plutarch’s Marriage Advice in the context of the epithalamium tradition. Passages from Claudian (Fescennines for Honorius 14.2-11, 14.16-24 and the Epithalamium of Palladius and Celerina (25.130-38) are used to demonstrate the common stock of motifs (such as plants with thorns and bee-guarded honey) that would encourage the bridegroom to carry on despite the bride’s refusals, and encourage the bride to collaborate. Deities invoked in the prologue are also explicitly linked to poets such as Statius (Silv. 1.2.3-6, 11-21) and Catullus (61.101-109), apparently in the Sapphic epithalamic tradition. Di Meo concluded that, while Plutarch followed models of wedding speeches in rhetoric, he reused the poetic epithalamium to diverge from “the utilitarian conception and the cold analyses of marriage” (pp. 110-111), purposely creating a practical but warm and passionate wedding gift for a couple. Plutarch specifically quotes the Sapphic fragment 55 in the epilogue, which is thus a natural candidate for Plutarch’s archetype, and Di Meo convincingly supports this connection with a survey of various Sapphic adherents and epideictic variations, highlighting lexical and figurative associations within the centuries-old epithalamic motifs in the prologue and the four precepts. Geert Roskam’s project is to come to a determination on Epicurus’ position on marriage and children. While many reports suggest that Epicurus rejected marriage and children, Roskam argues that Epicurus’ position was more nuanced than the reports of his views on marriage suggest. Roskam’s key text is a short passage from Diogenes Laertius that reports Epicurus saying in the Diaporiai and On Nature that the sage will both marry and rear children, and will sometimes marry according to his circumstances in life  (Diog. Laert. 10.119). Since Epicurus emphasized the importance of prudence (φρόνησις) when dealing with dilemmas such as “whether the sage will break the law if he can be sure that he will never be detected” (Plut. Adv. Col. 1127D) and “whether an old and impotent sage still derives pleasure from touching the fair” (Plut. Non posse 1094E), and since Epicurus is known to have discussed marriage in the Diaporiai, “he probably recognized that, under particular circumstances, marriage may well yield more pleasure than pain” (pp. 126-128). Roskam pointed to “the concrete praxis of the Epicureans themselves” that reveals Epicurus’ actual position, and Epicurus’ testamentary arrangements for his heirs to take care of the sons and the daughter of Metrodorus also suggest that Epicurus’ position was that “specific περίστασις βίου [can] occasionally persuade the Epicurean philosopher to marry” (p. 136). One wonders whether more examples of Epicurean praxis could be gleaned from elsewhere to escape the heavy reliance on Diogenes Laertius’ reports. Alex Dressler focuses on the witty quips of virtuous wives in Seneca’s On Marriage reported by Jerome in the treatise Against Jovinian, and considers whether such remarks were criticisms “from the perspective of real women” against ancient Roman marriage as it was practiced in Rome (p. 145).  If they are, then it would be “completed” feminism, an active practice of the destruction of the institution of marriage through women’s agency (p. 161). While Marcia’s clever representation of Roman marriage (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.46, 275c) embodies a woman’s self-assertion and elegant lifestyle choice, it does not consitute “completed feminism,” because in Seneca-in-Jerome such a notion remains only a possibility: women can be satirists or violent revolutionaries, “but they cannot be both” (p. 161). Dressler had to use some of Seneca’s more complete works such as the Consolation to Marcia and epistolary writings (e.g. Sen. Ep. 7.10-11) and add some modern filters, such as the mimesis e contrario taken from Torre’s Il matrimonio del Sapiens (2000); the conclusion that Seneca-in-Jerome created a space for women “to imagine freedom and equality, even if they prefer death” (p. 164) is quite convincing. Katarzyna Jazdzewska examines three of Plutarch’s treatises that use animal stories to discuss marriage and marital virtues – On the Love of Offspring, On the Fact that Beasts are Rational, and On the Intelligence of Animals. The question asked, implicitly, is how anthropomorphized and moralized animals and their mating behaviors help Plutarch convey his perceptions of marriage, and how such perceptions differ from Plutarch’s other works. Jazdzewska identified two sets of perceptions on marriage conveyed using animal stories: the first emphasizes procreative function and the subordinate relationship female to male between mates, while the other is the mates’ love and care for each other. She then searches for similarities in Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and Dialogue on Love, showing that Plutarch deliberately chose a range of animal paradigms paraenetically – such as uxorial devotedness among female kingfishers from On the Intelligence of Animals (De sol. an. 982 E-983 B) and chaste female crows (Brut. Anim. 989A-B) – to demonstrate the universality of parental affection among animals. To Jazdzewska, Plutarch’s aim is to convince the reader “that it would be shameful if people were to be found inferior to animals in respect to parental love” (p. 189). The study is limited in scope, as it only deals with Plutarch’s works, but nevertheless throws light on Plutarch’s communication strategy. Jeffrey Beneker’s chapter asks how Plutarch structures the virtue of moderation (sophrosyne) with the moral example of Camma the Galatian woman in the Dialogue on Love (767C-768D) and in Virtues of Women (257E-258 C). Camma – because she was both sophron and erotically attached to her husband – was not only able to remain faithful even after her suitor Sinorix killed her husband Sinatus, but also capable of avenging her husband by suicide, tricking Sinorix into drinking poison with her from a shared cup. Beneker argues that Camma’s story influenced Plutarch’s depiction of Porcia, Brutus’s wife, perhaps with Panthea in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia in the deep background (Xen. Cyr. 6.4.5-6.4.9). Beneker then shifts to focus on Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi in the Lives (Gracch. 1.4-1.7), observing that the same model of the sophron and devoted wife was used to cast her in the character of the paradigmatic Roman wife. Beneker argues that Porcia and Cornelia were placed in such a model because they were meant to “stand alongside the great men of the Parallel Lives” as idealized individuals “whose characters might be imitated even if their accomplishments could not be matched” (p. 214). This chapter seems to speak to Dressler’s, as both deal with male-generated paradigms of women, while using different strategies of paradigmatization. Silvia Montiglio’s paper covers “the interplay between eros and the call to institutionalize it” in two sets of imperial period Greek novels, the first including Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe and Xenophon of Ephesus’ An Ephesian Tale, while the second comprises Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, and Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Story. The sortition is based on whether marriage happens before an adventure or at the end of it – a narratological manipulation (for ideological and educational purposes), creating uncertainty as to the protagonists’ faith in each other. As Montiglio moves from one novel to the other, we find that the first group’s marriage union was “required by society and the novelistic genre” (p. 223). In contrast, the second group emphasizes the notion of consent, which Montiglio suggests is in line with the historical evolution of postclassical ideals and laws. Montiglio concluded that, in Greek novels, “marriage is not a natural bond, and no novelist pretends it is,” and various figurative and narratological strategies were necessary to navigate the naturalness of erotic longing and the artificiality of marriage. Given that the five novels were sorted narratologically, much space is used to unfold at least the skeleton plot of each. As a result, the analytical aspect of the contribution could perhaps be further expanded in a separate paper. The revised scope of the edited volume has brought a considerable number of perspectives that tap into a similar pool of traditions and genres, and it is useful to return to Tsouvala’s introduction, where some of the common themes and diachronic changes are highlighted to make the volume more coherent. Interestingly, Montiglio’s paragraph on the historical evolution of marriage points to possible supplements to the volume: how does marriage discourse change with changing historical circumstances of marriage? Tsouvala devotes a section of the introduction to covering some aspects of this question, but rather briefly. If there is anything lacking in this enjoyable volume, perhaps it would be a closer and dedicated discussion of the evolution of the discourse on marriage in the Greco-Roman world. Authors and Titles1. Introduction, the Discourse of Marriage and Its Context, Georgia Tsouvala2. Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art, Rebecca H. Sinos3. Violence in the Roman Wedding, Karen Klaiber Hersch4. Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Tradition of the Poetic Epithalamium, Paolo Di Meo5. Epicurus on Marriage, Geert Roskam6. The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage”: Style and the Woman in Jerome, Against Jovinian 1, Alex Dressler7. Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch, Katarzyna Jazdzewska8. Death is Not the End: Spousal Devotion in Plutarch’s Portraits of Camma, Porcia, and Cornelia, Jeffrey Beneker9. Erotic Desire and the Desire to Marry in the Ancient Greek Novels, Silvia Montiglio Notes [1] CVA Deutchland: Berlin: Antikensammlung, Band 16: Attische Salbgefässe, bearbeitet von Nina Zimmermann-Elseify. Munich: C. H. Beck Verlag, 2015.

Edelmann-Singer’s Koina und Concilia is a work aimed to highlight socio-economic aspects of provincial councils, which have often been downplayed or ignored in discourses concerning Roman provincial administration; but there is much more. Building upon seminal studies by Larsen ( Representative Governments in Greek and Roman History, 1955) and Deininger ( Die Provinziallandtage der römischen Kaiserzeit, 1965), Koina und Concilia attempts to shift away from the practice of studying the provincial councils separately as koina of the Greek East and conciliaof the Latin West, a separation exemplified by the important works by Fishwick ( Imperial Cult of the Latin West, 1987-2005) and Price ( Rituals and Power, 1984). The result is a general theory regarding the origin, formation processes, and functions of Roman provincial councils.  Koina und Concilia is organized thematically: a literature review and the methodology of the book in the introductory chapter (chapter I, p. 13-40); historical analyses of koina and concilia in chapter II (p. 41-140); institutional analyses of the provincial councils’ legal basis and their personnel in chapter III (p. 141-192); evidence on the provincial councils’ socio-economic functions and their fostering of provincial identity in chapter IV (p. 193-309). Chapter V (p. 309-312) rehearses the main arguments.  The main thrust of the book, as set out in the introduction, is Edelmann-Singer’s objection to Deininger’s view that provincial councils were of limited significance to the administrative and economic aspects of Roman provinces (p. 16-24). Her fourth chapter marshals a considerable amount of evidence to show that the members of provincial councils were involved in regional and trans-regional socio-economic activities, at times even taking on administrative tasks such as tax collection, census surveys, construction and maintenance of road networks, providing logistical support for large scale movement of troops, and monetizing the local economy.  Edelmann-Singer attributes much of the disinterest in academia regarding the importance of the provincial councils to Deininger’s influential view that provincial councils were only concerned with the provincial imperial cult, the hosting of provincial games and festivities, and representing the interests of provincials against Roman provincial administration, and thus had little real impact on the life of a Roman province (p. 193). Edelmann-Singer compiles the known cases of the provincial councils’ regular and extraordinary revenues and expenditures, and examines the individual activities of their leading men, to refine Deininger’s paradigm. In the following, I provide further synopses and observations.  The second chapter deals with questions of the origin and dissemination of provincial councils. Edelmann-Singer argues that the similarities in the structural design of pre-Roman and Roman koina suggest affiliation in concept (p. 35; p. 44-45), particularly with Classical and Hellenistic traditions of city-leagues that had political-institutional, religious functions, and communicative-ritual aspects (p. 54). One could perhaps understand her position as a convergence of Deininger’s Hellenistic “precursor” proposal (Deininger, Provinziallandtag, 1965, p. 7-12) and Larsen’s “hybrid” model (Larsen, Representative Government, 1955, p. 128-9), but with a historical approach or “Transferprozess” (II.6). She identifies several phases based on known foundation dates of eastern and western provincial councils to construct a dissemination narrative. The experimental phase of the Roman provincialization process with Hellenistic and Late Republican eastern koina is presented in II.2 to II.3, followed by the Augustan dissemination as described in Cassius Dio’s account of the foundation of the cult of Roma and Augustus in II.4, then to II.5, where she discusses the numerous provincial councils that appeared in a relatively short span during the early Julio-Claudian period. Most important is Edelmann-Singer’s observation that the Julio-Claudian foundations were readily found across the empire, and already consisted of varied forms of local and Roman initiatives. This observation is a strong challenge to both the so-called Lex Krascheninnikoff (that less “civilized” provinces in the Roman west were first to be installed with a provincial council and the imperial cult), as well as to Fishwick’s argument that koina and concilia established during the Julio-Claudian period were planned, while Flavian foundations were spontaneous (p. 137; also see p. 114-126 for Edelmann-Singer’s objection to Fishwick’s Flavian dating of the so-called Lex Narbonensis).  The third chapter deals with the organizational aspect of provincial councils, focusing on their legal basis and officials. Edelmann-Singer asks what were the legal bases for provincial councils to possess right to assemble, to maintain independent control of revenue and expenditure, and to petition (p. 142-153). Edelmann-Singer assumes that Cassius Dio’s passage describing the foundation of the worship of divine Augustus in Pergamon and Nikomedeia implies that the provincial councils in Asia and Bithynia received a new legal status as a religious association, though this could not be proved (p. 143-144). To further substantiate this claim, she highlights literary and epigraphic evidence demonstrating that the provincial councils were treated by Roman authorities as subordinate although independent (Tac. Ann. 15.20-22; Aelius Arstides εἰς Ῥώμην 32; Cicero Verr. 2.2.137 & 145; Cod. Theod. 12.12.1 & 12.12.9). The most definitive piece of evidence seems to be the Calendar Decree of Asia, in which a letter issued by the proconsul to the Koinon of Asia included a diatagma-edictum, ordering the provincial council to reform the calendar of Asia to observe Augustus’ birthday, effectively rendering the koinon a subordinate institution (p. 150). Another important document is the so-called Lex Narbonensis (p. 148-149), which provides a glimpse of a lex collegii, with which Edelmann-Singer bundles the Dionysiac Technitai together as a reconstruction of what a provincial council might have looked like had it been indeed a private collegium (as opposed to the amplissima collegia and the sodalitates sacrae, p. 147-148). Regarding the officials of the provincial councils, Edelmann-Singer discusses in particular the provincial priesthood (III.2.1) and the koinarchy (III.2.2). She argues that the two offices represent two stages of the historical development of the provincial council in the east (p. 174). One could perhaps also read these subsections as an attempt to revise the mainstream honor-oriented discourse (such as Lendon’s approach in Empire of Honour 1997, p. 166-172) from a “provincial” perspective. While local elites indeed took part in the activities of the provincial councils in order to display wealth and prestige, the accumulative experience led to a qualitative change. Elites participated in the fostering of a “province-based” system of honor, and in turn defined a sense of provincial belonging and self-identity (p. 174-179).  The fourth chapter is the longest and most complex of the book. Edelmann-Singer argues that the provincial councils were similar and comparable institutions across the empire, because the collated evidence from both the Greek East and Latin West indicates that provincial councils provided services with self-sustaining revenue structure based on trading, banking, financing, and minting operations, in addition to their relatively better known activities such emperor worship and imperial communications relating to petitions or arbitration (IV.1-IV.3). Particularly interesting is the scale of ordinary revenues that could be deduced from the epigraphical evidence found at Myra and Kaunos. If assuming an average contribution of each of the 33 cities of the Lycian koinon, one would expect no less than 165,000 denarii in annual contributions (p. 235-239). Yet, with no evidence for salaries paid to middle-status personnel, and with no comparable evidence on expenditure and revenue from provincial councils other than Lycia, the significance of the Lycian financial data becomes difficult to ascertain. Edelmann-Singer also argues that provincial councils could be tapped by imperial authorities from time to time to provide many services, such as conducting the census, collecting taxes, supplying and quartering of troops, constructing roads, and policing, among others. The proposal is intriguing, but the evidence available seems to indicate that these were extraordinary services, as Edelmann-Singer herself observed while discussing the case of Caius Valerius Arabinus, a high priest of the provincial council of Hispania exterior, who was awarded an honorific statue for having faithfully administered the office of the census (p. 260-266).  Edelmann-Singer introduces transaction cost theory from New Institutional Economics to explain why koina and concilia were attractive to Roman administrators and provincial elites (IV.4.1-IV.4.3, p. 193-253; IV.4.4, p. 253-269). For Tres Galliae in particular, eleven inscriptions concerning the treasury of the provincial council that honor members of the local elite show that nearly 40% of the men who worked at the treasury were members who worked in business corporations, some even having attained senior positions, and about 55% of the treasury staff had links to the private sector or served as extraordinary financial controllers for Roman administrators (p. 253-257; esp. 254). Edelmann-Singer interprets this information as indicative of the members’ networking with each other and their awareness of lowering and stabilizing transaction costs, a speculative but nevertheless intriguing way to approach the limited evidence at hand.  Finally, Edelmann-Singer discusses provincial coinage (IV.5). Cistophoric and Macedonian provincial issues are used in particular to discuss questions concerning rights of coinage, economic benefits, and the fiscal and political importance of provincial issues. Provincial coinage was issued to prepare for the large movement of troops during large military campaigns and to prepare to receive the large retinue of the emperors during imperial visits, but it was also issued to bolster the visibility of the provincial council as an active and competent body, and hence a legitimate agent, authority, and partner for a variety of purposes.  One curious choice Edelmann-Singer makes is to leave out the so-called “landschaftliche Koina” (as coined by Kornmann in his 1900 RE article) – namely the leagues of cities that were region- instead of province-oriented, such as the Boiotian, Phokian, Thessalian, Arkadian and the Eleutherolakonian “leagues” in Provincia Achaia – with relatively little explanation, other than that they were not “provincial” and did not last into Late Antiquity (p. 28). This exclusion of the “landschaftliche Koina” and the reasoning behind it seem to follow Deininger’s methodology (Deininger, Provinziallandtage, 1965, p. 6). Occasionally, the distinction between these categories breaks down, as in the case of the Messenians and the Achaian koinon honoring Ti. Flavius Polybius with two statues in Olympia in the second century CE, where Edelmann-Singer even adds a footnote stating that the self-presentation of elite representatives of the regional councils shows a similar pattern to that of the members of the provincial councils (p. 177, fn. 193). Perhaps further treatment comparing regional and provincial councils would enhance our understanding of regional vs. provincial associations.  To conclude, Edelmann-Singer’s book has the potential to change the discourse on provincial councils and Roman provincial administration altogether. Her extensive review of the origins, formation processes, legal bases, personnel, expenditures, revenues and activities of provincial councils in the Greek East and the Latin West, as well as her introduction of New Institutional Economics and the numismatic approach to flesh out the significance of provincial councils, demonstrate how the study of provincial councils ought to be extended from existing discourse on honor and emperor worship to socio-economic and even cultural factors. Perhaps more tabulations are needed to bring clarity to each chapter, since foundation dates and the changing status, rights and activities of provincial councils through time can be hard to follow. Nevertheless, Edelmann-Singer’s work provides an extensive dossier of evidence pertaining provincial councils as well as a intriguing set of theoretical proposals which will enable students of Roman provincial administration to reconsider existing analytical paradigms.

在书于公元12至13年的《黑海书简》2.8中，奥维德（Ovid）宣称他收到了科塔·马克西姆斯（Cotta Maximus）寄来的奥古斯都（Augustus）、提比略（Tiberius）、利维娅 （Livia）的银像（诗人以simulacra、imagines、effigies等词称之）。而书于公元15至16年的《黑海书简》4.9中，奥维德宣称全黑海地区都知道他每日早晨于家中的凯撒圣所（Sacrum Caesaris）祭拜奥古斯都、提比略、利维娅、日耳曼尼库斯（Germanicus）、德鲁苏斯（Drusus）。自斯科特（Kenneth Scott）始，学界广为接受的解释是这两篇信体诗当连在一起读：诗人于公元12至13年获得了三尊半身或小型的全身像，另于公元15至16年间又取得了日耳曼尼库斯与德鲁苏斯的像。若这个解释为真，如查尔斯‧布莱恩‧罗斯（Charles Brian Rose）所言，奥维德对于他家的凯撒圣所做的描述就可以作为解释皇室群像如何散播的一种途径。以奥维德的诗来证明奥维德是否祭拜皇室、或是诗人是否拥有皇室圣所，证据力明显不足。但奥维德于公元12/13年、公元15/16年分别告知两位不同的罗马贵族关于他祭拜皇室雕像的细节，显然代表皇室祭拜是帝国初期罗马贵族交流的重要议题。碑铭与文献记载显示，此时皇帝虽彰显宽仁之心，却兼行威吓之术，一方面强调皇室的雕像只是人像而非神像、却对于一些亵渎皇室雕像的案子采先审后放的策略，另一方面又对特定骑士阶级与元老阶级等罗马贵族的亵渎案特别关注，也就间接鼓励了公众妄加臆测并频繁诬告、以及罗马贵族对于崇拜皇室的实践与讨论格外投入的社会氛围；因此，奥维德除了希望返回罗马、有求于皇室这项因素之外，也被罗马贵族的集体行为左右。是以本文立场为：奥维德于两则信体诗中所言崇拜皇室云云是历史事实。本文先讨论奥维德两则信体诗的出版背景，再讨论奥维德究竟收到了何种馈赠、为什么会收到这种馈赠、以及这个馈赠与皇室圣所的关连性等等。本文再将奥维德的皇室圣所放于历史语境之中，讨论提比略成为元首前后的亵渎案以及社会政治氛围与奥维德的两则信体诗之间的关系。

学界提及陆其安《神棍亚历山大》(Lucian, Alexander the false prophet)的 伊比鸠鲁领袖阿马斯翠的雷皮度(Lepidus of Amastris)时，往往将此人与一篇 出土于阿马斯翠(Amastris)的 CIG 4149(即 Marek 1993, p. 162 Kat. Amastris no. 12)Tiberius Claudius Lepidus 当作是同一人，但如此推论多没有提出具体证 明。本文探讨将两人视为同一人在证据上以及推论上会出现的问题，并主张 在证据不足的情况下，若采用 Prosopographia Imperii Romani 较为保守的说法，比较合理。 In the Alexander the False Prophet, Lucian presents a biographical account of Alexander of Abonuteichos, who founded a snake oracle cult in Paphlagonia. This oracle cult eventually spread to Rome under the crafty guidance of its founder Alexander, who used deception, trickery, and human flaw to ensnare laymen and dignitaries alike. Lucian informs us that Alexander was perplexed by Lepidus of Amastris and his Epicurean followers, who doubted Alexander's oracles and made fun of his craft. Scholars were able to link many of the personages in Alexander's biography to historical persons based on inscriptions and literary accounts by other authors, and Lepidus was linked to an inscription found at Amastris, which commemorated one Tiberius Claudius Lepidus, 'high-priest of Pontus' and 'president of the city. This paper examines this identification, and finds that alternative interpretations on the connection between Lucian's Lepidus and the Lepidus inscription ought to be considered.

克里斯脱夫·密赫尔(Christoph Michels)《文化转移与君王的希腊疯：希腊化时期的比提尼亚、旁图、加帕多西亚》是德国万登出版社(Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht)政治传播学系列的第四册。此书作者以文化人类学下的文化转移概念出发，研究希腊化时期三个小亚细亚地区的非希腊裔王朝统治各自领地的手段。多年来，学界检讨卓业森(Johanna Gustav Droysen)所提出的「希腊化」概念，多发现马其顿君王不只是于领地内众建希腊城市，而是多有接纳所辖领地之内地方统治文化与生活方式的现象，以致于小亚细亚、列凡特、美索不达米亚、埃及等地，文化种类繁杂。延续如此研究潮流，此书作者以三个非希腊裔的小亚细亚王国作为研究对象，针对三国的碑刻、钱币、众建城市等往往被认为是代表「希腊化」或「希腊文化政策」的表征，研究非希腊裔君王与希腊文化之间的关系。以方法论，此书以文化人类学理论为基础，检视卓氏「希腊化」定义之下的「希腊疯」君主以及「希腊化」定义下的「文化政策」两个面相。非希腊裔君主究竟是不是扮演「推动希腊文化者」这个角色？这些君主究竟有无所谓的「文化政策」？ 研究发现，三国虽铸钱币，且钱币文字与图示在设计上虽与希腊钱币雷同（如正面有君王人头像、背面有神祇图示、并使用希腊文标注君王或国度名称等等），但是神祇模样与种类呈现在地化的特征，并不能说是以希腊人为目标群而设计的。城市亦然：虽然有作家如有三国非希腊裔君王众建城市、并如马其顿诸王将城市以自己或皇室成员命名的记载，但究竟三国建的是生产或防御型的镇，还是如希腊地区一般有体育场、剧院等公共设施的城市，就难以考证。考古资料显示，希腊化时期在此三国领地之内的希腊城市似乎多原本就是希腊殖民地，随后被各王国或征服、或威吓，而收入势力范围之内。由希腊化时期三国诸王建起的希腊型城市少之又少，其余多是以生产或是管理方便而扩大范围的城镇。各君王的目的似是要建立统治体系，而不是要希腊化。之所以会有非希腊裔国王建城以将其领土希腊化的误解，多与古希腊作家的偏见有关。此书作者所提的核心例子就是西西里的狄奥多罗(Diod.类Sic. 31.19.8)叙述加帕多西亚君王阿立阿拉提五世(Ariarathes V)的希腊疯(Philhellenimus)。狄奥多罗记载，阿立阿拉提五世母亲是希腊人，早年受希腊教育，在王位竞争中胜出后，在加帕多西亚内推行希腊制度，终于成为有文化水准的人都能畅游的国度。然而，此书作者强调，除了加帕多西亚并没有明显的希腊化特征之外，没有任何迹象显示阿立阿拉提五世有如其他非希腊裔君王一样，在希腊半岛与爱琴海诸岛上大肆捐献雕像建筑，以宣传自己的希腊性。狄奥多罗应是以希腊本位思想渲染了阿立阿拉提五世的若干举措，而这些举措（如领雅典城公民资格、由波斯式钱币改为铸希腊式币、大兴土木在提亚那(Tyana)建希腊式公共建筑等），或与王位竞争时依靠马其顿与希腊势力较有关系。作者结论以为，三国君主是有文化政策，但所谓文化政策的意义与今日不同。三国文化政策并不是主动地推行和散布希腊文化，而是将文化当成统治者自我表述的工具，以稳定国内外局势。建立权力与正当性才是三国文化政策的目的。若有其他效果，也不是主要的目的。