By Shelby Brown Abstract: Brown tracks the development of cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia from the pictographic phase, when it was used to manage basic administration, to the adoption of the triangular reed stylus…
By Barbara Levick Abstract: In this article, Levick argues that the economy of Asia Minor was unusually dependent on trade, in comparison to other areas of the Roman Empire, because of favourable geography and the…
By Barbara Levick Abstract: In this article, Levick discusses Pliny the Younger’s posting to Bithynia, a Roman province south of the Black Sea. She contests that this sought to address the mismanagement of urban…
By Patricia Maynor Bikai Abstract: Bikai uses Cyprus to explore the post-Bronze Age Collapse expansion of Phoenician trade in the Mediterranean, suggesting that this was used to relieve population pressures and to…
by Shushma Malik and Caillan Davenport Abstract: Malik and Davenport dismantle the idea that the Theodosian Code banned the Olympic Games on grounds of paganism. Instead, they show, the infrastructure necessary for the…
By Shushma Malik and Caillan Davenport Abstract: Malik and Davenport argue against the idea that some Roman buildings had purpose-built ‘vomiting rooms’ intended for use after particularly intense feasting sessions.…
by Shushma Malik and Caillan Davenport Abstract: Malik and Davenport show that the allegation that Roman Emperors were fierce persecutors of Christians is unjustified by the evidence, which indicates that ‘haphazard’…
by Shushma Malik and Caillan Davenport Abstract: In this article, Malik and Davenport scrutinise the major allegations which have brought the Emperor Nero infamy: his supposed setting alight of the city of Rome in 64AD…
by Alison Cooley Abstract: This podcast provides an account of Octavian’s rise to power and his adoption of the title Augustus. It examines the res gestae in terms of its context, content and surviving evidence.…
by Annalisa Marzano Abstract: Marzano provides an introduction to the uses of gardens in the Roman world. These were seen by elites as places of leisure and luxuriation, whilst others used them for exercise or planted…