Octavia, sister of the later Augustus, often stands in the shadows of great matronae, such as Fulvia and Livia Drusilla, in modern scholarship. Yet she played a vital part in the triumviral political programme and exercised significant influence on state and triumviral politics in the years 39–32 BCE. This chapter argues for Octavia’s political influence on M. Antonius and Young Caesar being instrumental in maintaining peace between the two colleagues from the aftermath of the Bellum Perusinum to the eventual final collapse of relations between the two triumvirs in 32. This chapter further argues that the historical Octavia built on traditional modes of influence originating from the socio-political elite milieu of the Late Republic but that the Octavia constructed in the historical narratives looked ahead to the creation of the ideal matrona of the Imperial domus all while paying tribute to her vital role in preserving concordia in the res publica.

This chapter demonstrates the enduring vitality and importance of the trope of the captive city (urbs capta) for late antique authors. Narratives of captured ancient cities follow a set pattern often modeled on the destruction of Troy but also, in Jewish and Christian contexts, on the sieges of Jerusalem. While these highly formulaic narratives are of little use to modern scholars interested in reconstructing specific acts of siege warfare, they provide historians with invaluable evidence for ways in which late Romans reckoned with the impact of war on civilian populations, which assumed a new urgency in the later empire when the sacked cities were increasingly Roman, and when both victim and aggressor were Christians. By tracing the use of the captive city trope from the late fourth to the sixth century, the chapter explains how Christian authors reframed the urbs capta motif by shifting the focus from the city to the church as the locus of suffering.

The essays in this collection are remarkable for the wealth of the evidence and the power of the arguments presented, about Roman republican women, by twenty-first century women–and men–from around the globe. The capacious reach of the research shared, notwithstanding the ostensibly narrow scope of the topic, demands a similarly capacious perspective in framing a response to these, puissant, riches. Hence I would urge all of us who benefit from this research to be as elastic, and as generous, as possible in thinking, for the future, about how we might most capaciously and productively define all three terms that have framed this volume–women, wealth, and power–in the context of their time, place and socio-cultural ambiance. I consequently pose the question: in our subsequent investigations on this topic, what and whom might we include in each of these three analytical categories, women, wealth, and power, that have yet to be accorded as much scrutiny as they might?

This chapter explores the written and material evidence for civilian quartering of Roman troops in late antiquity. The civic duties to extend hospitium or hospitalitas are reconstructed from the Republic until the late Roman Empire, focusing on the period between the fourth century ce and mid-sixth century ce. By looking at the literary evidence for housing troops in civilian homes penned in the Republic and early Principate, the convention of using moralizing rhetoric to describe soldiers quartered in cities is established. This classicizing rhetoric is then used to reframe later allegations concerning the effects of Constantine’s alleged movement of frontier troops into cities. This reconsideration of the extant evidence for Roman troop quartering questions and amends how we should write the lived experiences of civilians living in late Roman cities.

This chapter explores the impact of warfare on North African communities and their built environment during Late Antiquity (fourth to sixth century). While the political upheavals, internal conflicts, and the invasions that shaped the region during this period have been extensively studied, the local effects and responses to these challenges remain underexplored. Drawing on selected case studies, this work combines archaeological and textual evidence to examine and compare the actions taken by local communities and their rulers – the Western Roman Empire, the Vandal Kingdom, and the Eastern Roman Empire – in response to ongoing conflict. From the centenaria of Tripolitania and the fortified estates of Byzacena and Proconsularis to the fortifications built under Justinian’s regime and its successors, this chapter highlights the role of warfare and its consequences in reshaping the provincial landscapes of North Africa, offering new insights into the region’s social and physical transformation during this period.

This chapter explores the often-overlooked role of women in stasis and civil war, focusing on Fulvia’s involvement in the Perusine War and the funeral of Publius Clodius. Fulvia’s actions, particularly her display of Clodius’ unwashed wounds, set a precedent for Antonius’ later display of Caesar’s body, highlighting the antebellum politics and rhetoric of civil war. The chapter argues that Fulvia’s political role, enhanced during times of stasis and civil war, was crucial in inciting civil strife. Evidence from both sides of the civil war suggests that Fulvia’s actions were politically motivated rather than mere expressions of grief. By reappraising Fulvia’s role, this study aims to better understand Rome’s systemic breakdown before the civil war and the impact of her actions on the political landscape. The chapter concludes that Fulvia’s incitement to stasis was a significant factor in the unfolding of civil war dynamics.

This article advances four arguments about Constantine’s Roman Arch (315). First, it posits that its imagery and inscription endeavored to please a single viewer: the emperor Constantine. That argument narrows the interpretative possibilities regarding its meaning. From presumed anonymous observers of differing faiths, the field narrows to a single imperial viewer, a recent convert to Christianity and a victor in a civil war. Second, the lens of civil war illuminates previously unrecognized Augustan rhetorical and visual tropes that guided the Arch’s makers in legitimating the monument and Constantine’s victory against Maxentius. Third, the article uncovers Christian connotations in the arch’s inscription. Fourth, the neglected Christian subtext opens the possibility for identifying the Arch and the Colossus next to it as the first openly Christian imperial monuments in Rome. The article therefore demonstrates the syncretism of traditional imperial rhetoric and insignia with Christian ideas long before traditionally assumed.

In Rome, being taken as a prisoner of war had dramatic repercussions for the condition of the individual and their family. Captured citizens became a slave to the enemy, or servus hostium, and were excluded from the body politic. However, they could regain freedom and civil rights through redemption. Initially, that was the responsibility of their family, but over time laws regulated the ransoming of prisoners of war, and other actors became involved. This chapter first reviews the Republican Age and the High Empire before addressing the ransoming of captives in Late Antiquity. It discusses individuals and large groups, with ransom paid by families, the emperor, or by bishops. It shows that social status determined the fate of women. According to Justinian’s Digest, a woman freed by a victorious army was considered free or married, and not a slave. According to Ulpian, that principle also applied when a woman was redeemed (redempta) rather than freed.

Violence – by which I mean an intentional rupture of the physical integrity of a body – is a reminder that a human being is always also a thing. Whatever else late ancient humans may have been, they were always subject to the possibility of physical rupture, perforation, tear, or break, as is the nature of things. War was, and is, a stylized method of maneuvering one group of rupturable things toward the infliction of greater disintegration on another group of rupturable things. “The main purpose and outcome of war,” Elaine Scarry writes, “is injuring.” That the things injured are also people, with their own sensations and experiences, pasts and hoped-for futures, is the point of war; it is how war persuades injured people and other onlookers to accept its outcomes. War confronts persons with their reducibility, their thingness, and asks them to accept conditions imposed by the victors in the light of that bodily thingness. The essays in this volume present us with a variety of ways of thinking about this ugly practice. They describe how different late ancient people made sense of what was happening when bodies were ruptured, or bodies threatened to rupture other bodies, on a large scale. In this Epilogue, I bring some of the ideas in this volume together to consider the problem of ruptured bodies in Late Antiquity as a series of questions about how late ancient people imagined or experienced physical thingness in warfare.

This essay examines the oracular responses of the oracle of Dodona portrayed in fifth-century BCE Attic tragedies. This analysis explores the wording of the oracular answers, characterized by extreme conciseness and clarity, and the topic of the queries, on household security, family matters, and final journeys. The evidence from the lead tablets at Dodona corroborates this focus, showing that while the oracle addressed various concerns, a significant number of private queries dealt with family, health, marriage, and travel. Additionally, the responses from Dodona were brief and straightforward, in contrast to the cryptic nature of Apollo’s oracles at Delphi.

Psamtek I successfully resisted an incursion by western tribesmen in his early years, and by the end of his reign he was successfully campaigning in the Levant against the Babylonian Empire, the new powerful force in the east. During his fifty-four-yearreign Psamtek reformed the political landscape of Egypt, politically reunifying the country and reforming the administration. This reforming spirit of times was also reflected in art and architecture, and one of the most salient features of the culture of this period is archaism. Standards of workmanship in the visual arts, particularly in sculpture, was high. There was a nationwide temple-building and renovation programme, and monumental elite tombs were now being constructed, such as that of Montuemhat, Mayor of Thebes. Changes in funerary practices were evident and the cult of divine animals underwent a considerable degree of development and proliferation.