This paper illustrates some aspects of rural lordship in thirteenth-century north and central Italy, namely the territorial framework for the exercise of seigniorial powers and the seigniorial officials who administered the lords' dominions. How were seigniorial territories organized from an institutional point of view? How did the lords manage the adjustments and changes occurring in their lordships due to inheritance, purchases and sales of seigniorial rights? How was that framework connected to the institutional organization of rural communities? Who were the men who administered those lordships and how long did the connection between the families of those officials and the lords last? These are the questions I have tried to answer through the study of deeds (recorded in charters and notarial registers) regarding the Guidi counts, a family belonging to the upper aristocracy of north-central Italy. This study focuses on institutional matters, but in the section devoted to the relations between lords and seigniorial officials a prosopographical approach is adopted. The dynamics investigated in this study were fundamental in the historical evolution of the north-central Italian countryside, and their analysis provides useful material for further comparison with analogous phenomena in other parts of Europe.

In October 1963 a deposit of pottery was exposed on the low ground below the Veii escarpment, south of the Cremera (Fig. 1), adjacent to the line of the Ponte San Silvestro (Formello) Etruscan road as it wound up to the gate (Carta d'Italia, 1:25,000, Istituto Geografico Militare, Sheet Formello, Grid Reference 845565).

The deposit superficially appeared to consist almost entirely of sherds of poorly made bucchero and of coarseware cooking pots. In order to verify this and to establish a type series, members of the British School, at the request of the Superintendancy of Antiquities, Southern Etruria, carried out a brief exploration of the site under the direction of Mrs. Anne Kahane and the writer.

The excavation showed (Fig. 2) that the sherds lay closely packed in dark soil, together with occasional tufa lumps, in a shallow pit dug into soft brown earth against a low vertical rock-face. Both this face and another low vertical edge above it give the general appearance of quarry faces and evidence of other quarrying can be seen in the tufa at the river's edge.

Attingendo alla nozione di Jaś Elsner della ‘visione mistica’ e le contestuali fonti scritte che descrivono la decorazione degli interni della chiesa e l'importanza simbolica della luce e delle stele nell'esegesi paleocristiana, questo articolo riesamina le volte mosaicate con cieli stellati, principalmente quelle all'interno del cosiddetto ‘Mausoleo’ di Galla Placidia a Ravenna. Esso enfatizza il ruolo attivo dello schema decorativo nella tarda antichità; e il ruolo dell'arte non solo come esemplificazione, ma anche come mediazione del culto paleocristiano. La proposta avanzata è che gli effetti visivi esibiti dai mosaici sono strumenteli nel creare una particolare relazione con lo spettatoie antico, relazione in cui le stelle potevano essere state viste non solo come una rappresentazione del cielo, ma come una concreta manifestazione del potere raggiante dei santi nel loro ruolo di intermediari tra la terra e il paradise.

This article takes its lead from research into the ‘language’ of Roman portraiture. More specifically, it explores a work that literalizes the idea of ‘reading’ a Roman portrait (to quote Sheldon Nodelman's classic phrase): a picture-poem by Publilius Optatianus Porfyrius — a much maligned poet active in the first decades of the fourth century ad — that purports, through its iconotextual form, to visualize the countenance of the emperor Constantine (uultus Augusti). After a brief introduction to Optatian and his œuvre, the article offers a close reading of his third poem, demonstrating the sophisticated ways in which it probes the latent iconic potential of written script. What particularly interests me about this case study is its underlying paradox: on the one hand, Optatian boasts that his painted page will outstrip antiquity's most celebrated painter (it ‘will dare outdo the waxes of Apelles’, uincere Apelleas audebit pagina ceras); on the other, the actual form of the picture seems to eschew mimetic modes of representation, rendering Constantine's ‘portrait’ a geometric pattern. So how should we make sense of this image? What does the poem reveal about ideas of portraiture in the fourth century? And how might we contextualize Optatian's abiding fascination with the limits of ‘seeing’ and ‘reading’?

From the end of the third century BC on, the funerary culture of the Etruscan city of Chiusi saw the gradual disappearance of the most expensive containers and tombs. At the same time, there was first a dramatic increase in the number of such monuments, followed by an equally sharp decline in the first century BC. The qualitative development has traditionally been explained using sumptuary laws, which should have constrained funerary expenditure. However, a close examination of the local evidence reveals that this is not only unlikely, but also does not explain the quantitative development and why there was a social and cultural need to constrain these funerary objects in the first place. Using the concepts of distinction and habitus developed by Bourdieu, this paper analyses the developments in Chiusine funerary practice by focusing on social interactions within and between élites and non-élites. This gives both groups agency in a complex social, cultural and political process that caused the criteria for distinction to change, ultimately making funerary culture less important for status differentiation in the rapidly changing context of Hellenistic Italy.

The history of the relations of the Roman Republic with the kings, tribes, and cities of Illyria cannot at present be written, as the evidence does not permit the construction of a coherent and comprehensive account. This, perhaps, is why scholars have often tended to neglect the subject, and have thereby been led into serious errors in dealing with the history of Roman expansion and early imperial organisation. It is the aim of this paper to set out what conclusions can be reached on some important aspects of the subject, and to indicate the way in which these conclusions may be related to the general study of Roman foreign policy during its most interesting period.

During the winter of 1948–9, in the course of work undertaken to widen the Tal Liedna and the Ghajn Dwieli Roads, which from Pawla lead to Zabbar and to Cospicua respectively, thirteen rock-cut tombs were discovered (Fig. 1). These operations necessitated the complete clearing away of a layer of field soil, varying in thickness from one to three feet, to expose the surface of the underlying Globigerina Limestone formation. Blasting of the rock was also effected to attain the required level.

The discovery of rock-cut tombs in Malta is not of rare occurrence; but in the majority of cases they are found opened and rifled of all the material originally contained in them. The particular interest attached to the burials under consideration is that, when found, almost all of them were still intact and in a comparatively good state of preservation.

In 83 b.c. L. Cornelius Sulla invaded Italy to face his political enemies in civil war. From Brundisium he moved quickly into Campania, defeated C. Norbanus near Capua, won over the army of the other consul, L. Scipio, near Teanum Sidicinum, and advanced some way northwards—possibly to Aquinum in the middle Liris basin. There followed a lengthy pause in operations, and a very hard winter.

Next year, Sulla beat the illegally youthful consul C. Marius somewhere in the upper valley of the Trerus (the Sacco of today), and pursued him and his routed forces into Praeneste, which he proceeded to besiege. It was vital not to leave this immensely strong site, which dominates eastern Latium and with it one of the through passages from Rome to Campania, in enemy hands. Marius' considerable forces had to be neutralised, lest they endanger Sulla's rear as he pressed on north of Rome against Carbo in Etruria, lest they effect a junction with Carbo, or lest they provide a focal point (and a base) for Italic peoples not prepared to accept Sulla, and likely to offer Marius ready recruits, if he were left unhindered. Besides, the town itself was anti-Sullan—and prepared beforehand for such a siege, it seems.

This article contains five notes on Roman topography. The first three briefly argue (1) that the uia Tecta supposedly to be placed in the Campus Martius has perhaps arisen from corruption of uia Recta; (2) that the temple of Juturna, placed by Ovid near the arches of the Aqua Virgo, could not have stood where Largo Argentina now is, but further north, perhaps in the grounds of Santa Maria in Via; and (3) that the rites of Anna Perenna described by Ovid in Fasti 3 took place near the Mausoleum of Augustus, and not at the recently discovered spring near Piazza Euclide. Note (4) exhibits the evidence for regarding the twin summits of the Capitol and the Arx as the duo luci between which the Asylum was set up, and goes on to suggest that Vergil and Ovid may have used the name Ianiculum to refer to the Arx; (5) demonstrates that in with the name of a hill can refer to any site from the foot up, and builds on this in arguing that the phrase Concordia in Arce refers to a temple constructed where the slope rises from the Forum.

This paper aims to analyse how Christianity took shape and put down roots in Tuscia Annonaria (present-day northern Toscana) in the period from the 4th to the second half of the 8th centuries AD, both in urban and rural contexts. This theme has until now been analysed only rarely in a complex fashion. It will be thoroughly examined here, starting from a quantitative approach (based upon compiling material and written evidence), which will lead to a deeper understanding of historiographical problems and of new possible keys to the interpretation of phenomena that were complex and articulated in similar ways as were those which were tied to the transformation of towns and of Roman landscapes and which led to the shaping of what happened after the end of Classical Antiquity.

L'articolo prende in considerazione tre particolari forme di ceramica da cucina: l'Hayes 23B, 196 e 197. Realizzati nella Tunisia settentrionale fin dal periodo flavio, esse rappresentano le forme più comuni tra i rinvenimenti africani nei siti del Mediterraneo occidentale. Comunque, ci sono problemi nell'interpretare i modi in cui erano usati. In questa sede suggerisco che le tre forme costituissero un set per la cottura a bagnomaria (con il recipiente più basso che andava riempito per metà d'acqua; uno superiore in cui veniva immesso il cibo; e un coperchio soprastante). Vengono discusse le origini di simili vasi e il loro ruolo nella cottura.