The hoard of silver plate known as the Vinkovci treasure (or the Cibalae treasure, after the Roman name for the town) was discovered on March 23, 2012, during rescue excavations in the town of Vinkovci (Colonia Aurelia Cibalae) in the Vukovar-Srijem county of E Croatia (fig. 1). It is one of the most significant late Roman discoveries of the new millennium, and the first major 4th-c. A.D. assemblage of silver plate to be unearthed for at least half a century (the Seuso treasure was probably found in the late 1970s, and although new pieces of the Kaiseraugst treasure emerged in the 1990s the original discovery was made in 1961). This interim report on the treasure is based upon the results of research conducted by the authors in the 4 years that have passed since it came to light.

While prospecting in the vicinity of Dougga in the autumn of 1999, the research group directed by M. de Vos (Università degli Studi di Trento) unearthed a large inscription dating from the reign of Hadrian. Its contents were immediately associated with the 6 major inscriptions found between the late 19th and early 20th c. concerning the conditions of exploitation of imperial property in this part of the province of Africa (NW Tunisia). The very next year de Vos presented photographs and an initial transcription of the inscription; her reading was subsequently corrected on certain points by Année Épigraphique but it remains incomplete for several lines, or one-third of the text on the preserved surface. It was therefore necessary to make a full scientific edition on the basis of a new reading.

Modern water-supply systems — hidden beneath the ground, constructed, expanded, adapted and repaired intermittently by multiple groups of people — are often messy and difficult to comprehend. The ancient water-supply system we consider here is no different — and perhaps even more complex as it was developed over 1200 years and then had a modern city built on top. Despite this, we are beginning to understand how one of the Roman world's most important cities provided its population with water.

The remains of water infrastructure in Constantinople attest to a complex system of water-management and distribution, one that developed from the colony of Byzantium, through the growth and eventual decline of the new capital of the Roman empire, until conquest by the Ottomans. Aqueducts — the system of channels, bridges and tunnels designed to carry water through the landscape — were the focus of infrastructure investment in earlier periods, but cisterns for the storage and distribution of water were constructed throughout the time of Byzantine Constantinople.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the production and consumption of meat from domesticated animals in Roman Italy using zooarchaeological and textual evidence. The focus is on the proportions of meat from the three main domesticates (cattle, pig, sheep/goat) and their chronological changes.

The most important livestock meat eaten by Romans is traditionally considered to have been pork. Certainly there is much more literary evidence for pork than for beef or mutton/goat meat. Such apparent Roman preference for pork is typically seen in Apicius' De re coquinaria, where the preference for pork (11 references) over mutton (2), goat meat (1) and beef (2) is obvious; likewise, the number of references to meat from young animals is much larger for suckling pig meat (22 references) than for lamb (10), kid meat (7) or veal (4). K. D. White considered that “meat was not a prime article of diet … and beef was less important within this restricted range than pork …”. J. M. Frayn believed sheep were reared primarily for wool, not for meat or cheese, and that lamb was eaten only exceptionally. Beef and mutton/goat meat are thus considered to have been of much less importance than pork in the Roman diet.

In antiquity, the production of sea salt was one of the most important sources of salt. According to Pliny the Elder (NH 31.81), the most common way of obtaining salt was through marine salinae: facticii varia genera, volgaris plurimusque in salinis mari adfuso. There are plenty of textual references to marine salt evaporation ponds: Livy (1.33) reported that Ancus Marcius opened saltworks on the Tiber next to Ostia; Pliny (NH 31.84-87) mentioned a series of examples of such installations distributed throughout the Mediterranean, while Columella (Rust. 10.135) indicated the existence of saltworks at Pompeii, and Cassiodorus (Var. 12.24) spoke of those located near Venice. Passages in Rutilius Namatianus (De red. 475-90) and Manilius (Astr. 5.682-92) are also well known for their explanations of how ancient saltworks operated.

By the end of the 1st c. A.D., Dacia had been an intermittent thorn in Rome's side for almost two centuries. The ambitions of Burebista and the actions of his various successors continued to threaten Roman hegemony along the lower Danube, culminating in the rise of the powerful kingdom of Decebalus and a substantial Roman defeat in Moesia. Domitian sent troops against the Dacians to restore the dignity of Rome (85-86 and 88-88/89), but with mixed success, finally having to settle for buying peace at a substantial price in order to free himself to deal with threats to security in both Germany and Pannonia. No doubt both the costs involved and the perceived lack of success further contributed to the hostility of Roman authors towards Domitian and left unfinished business on the Danube frontier. It is no great surprise, therefore, that Dacia was the first area to which Trajan — to whom the attitude of contemporary sources (e.g., Pliny's Panegyricus) could not have been in greater contrast — turned his attention within three years of his accession.

Excavations in Field 49 at Sardis in the summer of 2015 recovered a bronze triangle inscribed with three images of the goddess Hekate, Greek epithets, and magical symbols (Gr. χαρακτῆρες). The Sardis triangle is the third example of this design known from Roman Anatolia, the other two having been recovered from Pergamon and Apamea. This article aims to situate the new find within its archaeological and historical contexts and, through comparisons with the Pergamon and Apamea finds, to refine our interpretations of the forms and functions of these objects.

Field 49 at Sardis is a flat plateau just north of the acropolis. Supported by a series of monumental limestone terrace walls, this part of the city was inhabited almost continuously from the Lydian period through late antiquity.

Il distretto estrattivo di Iscehisar, da cui proveniva il marmor phrygium (pavonazzetto), è uno dei più grandi dell'antichità romana nonché uno dei più studiati e documentati. Il primo ad interessarsi alle cave di Docimium fu J. Röder, che effettuò una ricognizione sistematica delle cave con la conseguente produzione della prima pianta topografica dell'antico sito estrattivo, allora ancora in gran parte integro anche con i rispettivi cumuli detritici. M. Waelkens rivolse la propria attenzione non solo alle cave, ma anche alla loro produzione, mentre J. C. Fant affronto soprattutto l'analisi dei corredi epigrafici dei blocchi di cava in modo da comprendere l'organizzazione delle attività estrattive di queste grandi cave imperiali. Le iscrizioni di cava sono state oggetto inoltre degli studi approfonditi di M. Christol e T. Drew-Bear, che non di rado si ponevano in forte contrasto e dissenso con quelli di Fant, e, negli ultimi anni, di P. Pensabene.

The archaeological site known as the “Villa degli Antonini” lies in the SE sector of the Alban Hills within the modern comune of Genzano di Roma and some 1.5 km north of the ancient urban center of Lanuvium (Lanuvio) (fig. 1). It is c.400 m south of the Via Appia between that road's 18th and 19th milestones (it seems to have been connected to the Via Appia by a side road traceable in historic aerial photographs and of which a section is still preserved) and c.1 km south of the rim of the volcanic lake of Nemi, from which the ground slopes gently down towards the coastal plain of Latium. To the west and east are two scoria cones, Monte Due Torri and Montecagnoletto, the latter of which was once separated from our site by a N-S valley c.100 m in width.