Iberia was one of the first overseas territories to fall under Roman control when the provinces of Hispania Citerior and Ulterior were established in 197 B.C., preceded only by Sicilia (241) and Sardinia et Corsica (227).1 Renieblas and the sites surrounding Numantia are among the first camps of Rome‘s earliest overseas expansion to be confidently identified archaeologically. They are central in analyses of the Republican army and Roman siegeworks,2 the conquest of Hispania,3 and the effects of the war on local communities.4

The first meeting of specialists from different fields relating to research on the Roman army in Hispania took place in Segovia in 1998 under the title “Roman Military Archaeology in Hispania”. Its aim was to gather within one forum different experts working in this field.1 The term “military archaeology” was provocative in the Spanish academic world of the late 1990s, as military studies were viewed with slight suspicion in some quarters, both by those researching indigenous contexts and by those who remained anchored in a classical concept of Romanisation which rather neglected the contribution of the army to the process of assimilating Hispania into the Roman world. In Anglo-Saxon scholarship other terms with more historiographic tradition (e.g., “Roman army studies” or “Roman frontier studies”) were preferred. The goal in choosing the title of the 1998 congress was to create debate around a topic on which research efforts were becoming increasingly focused. Despite its limitations,2 the term “military archaeology” since then has become for many Spanish scholars the methodological basis for material-based and topographic studies of the military world and of war in its widest sense. As archaeology in the Iberian peninsula becomes increasingly open to new methodologies and practices being adopted elsewhere (especially in the Anglo-Saxon world), similar terms such as “conflict archaeology” or “battlefield archaeology” are appearing, which all form part of the conceptual frame of reference of military archaeology. In the last 15-20 years, research in this field has increased exponentially in the Iberian peninsula, particularly in the north and northwest where the Roman army had a much longer-lasting presence. This has allowed scholars, for example, to begin interpreting episodes such as the Cantabrian Wars, practically unknown from an archaeological perspective until very recently. In the last few years, progress has extended to earlier periods, affecting other regions such as the peninsula‘s northeast, southeast and E coast, where military topics are starting to be differentiated into Republican and indigenous contexts. A new generation of congresses and their resulting proceedings have generated some of the most significant contributions. The Segovia congress of 1998, its follow-up at León in 2004,3 the Roman Frontier Congress held at León in 2006,4 thematic French-Spanish congresses such as the meetings of the project “La guerre et ses traces dans la péninsule Ibérique” (2007, 2009 and 2010),5 and recent colloquia on the Republican period6 and on the Cantabrian Wars,7 have all become reference works. Coinciding with the first occasion upon which the Roman Frontier Congress was held in Spain, the first monograph — still an essential reference work — on the archaeological evidence for the Roman army in the peninsula was published.8

Between the Second Punic War and the Early Principate several sources of evidence indicate that the Roman economy experienced some measure of (limited) growth. The case for intensive growth is founded on two complementary approaches. The first has been to construct an “argument from convergence”, which observes that several archaeological data-sets, such as Mediterranean shipwrecks, deposits of domestic animal bones at Italian sites and samples of lead and copper pollution from Arctic ice cores and lake sediments, show an increase in chronological distribution during the Late Republic and Early Empire.1 If taken as proxies for the volume and intensity of exchange, consumption and production, respectively, then, as W. Scheidel has argued, “we may reasonably assume that [these data-sets] indicate at least the general direction of economic development”.2 A second approach has attempted to quantify the GDP of the Roman economy. Although highly conjectural, where such estimates are possible they provide an insight into the trajectory of economic development by giving a rough indication of the rate at which it was probable to have grown or contracted over a given period.3 P. Kay‘s “probabilistic quantification” of the GDP of Roman Italy for the 2nd and early 1st c. B.C.4 concludes that the economy experienced extensive and probably also intensive growth because the rate of inflation remained at a relatively low level.5 His estimate that prices rose by 95% between 150 and 50 B.C. (i.e., at a compound rate of 0.67% per annum) accords with the broadly similar conclusions reached by other scholars.6 Although Kay warns that “the estimates we have produced are assumptions, not facts”, the results are both plausible and credible from a comparative perspective.7

La Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (EEHAR–CSIC) realizza ormai da 25 anni scavi archeologici e ricerche su Tusculum e il suo territorio, trattandosi di uno dei progetti di più lunga durata di una scuola straniera su territorio italiano. I risultati ottenuti da diversi gruppi di lavoro hanno restituito un′immagine straordinaria della città con la scoperta di una serie di complessi (foro, teatro, acropoli, chiese) che illustrano archeologicamente l'articolazione urbana del sito e le ulteriori possibilità di sviluppo delle ricerche. Dall′inizio dei lavori, nel 1994,1 la ricerca si è sviluppata in varie fasi contraddistinte da una strategia istituzionale coerente che ha facilitato la continuità del progetto, grazie anche alla partecipazione della XI Comunità Montana. In questi anni sono state numerose le pubblicazioni che hanno messo in circolazione i dati provenienti dalle varie campagne di scavo.2

Studies of design principles of Roman temples typically have been based on Vitruvius, which inspired a belief that the colonnade was at the core of the geometric framework of every temple and that the lower column diameter (D) was used as a module to plan all other aspects, both horizontally and vertically. Archaeological evidence, however, shows that most extant temples do not match the Vitruvian model.1 Scholars have tried to explain the discrepancies in different ways: for example, by claiming that Vitruvius did not describe the actual state of Roman architecture but “what it should be”,2 that architects had to make “adjustments” to the “Vitruvian ideal” to create a particular effect, or that they had to make on-site corrections.3 A few studies have shown that also other design principles must have been at play. P. Barresi, based on the geometric analyses of several temple-podia of the 5th to 1st c. B.C. in central Italy, argued that they were designed and built relative to a square grid.4 He derived the size of each grid-module from the proportions of the rectangles of the temples' bases. He later reached the same conclusion for the temples of the Capitolium at Sufetula,5 while J.-N. Bonneville presented a similar theory for temples at Baelo Claudia.6 M. Wilson Jones observed that the principal parts of the façades of the Temple of Portunus at Rome and the Maison Carrée at Nîmes formed square contours,7 which he considered a reason for the “irregularities” (relative to Vitruvian principles) in the intercolumniations. He also presented other examples of simple geometric shapes in the compositions of the façades of Roman buildings.

In the spectrum of the cities buried by Vesuvius, studies of humble dwellings have suffered from poor preservation, a lack of documentation and a general disinterest. Small commercial spaces frequented by non-élites, such as tabernae, thermopolia, cauponae, popinae and cenacula, remain difficult to identify as they often doubled as domestic spaces and Latin terminology does not always match the architectural remains. A few studies have focused on the place of such spaces within Roman architecture as well as on the economic rôles of tabernae and/or rental accommodations.1 This paper expands on these approaches by offering the preliminary results of research at Oplontis B (Torre Annunziata) by the Oplontis Project, one of the few sites where a series of row houses sheds light on the domestic aspects of tabernae and their rôle in urban development along the Bay of Naples.2

In 1889, R. Lanciani witnessed the opening of the marble sarcophagus of Crepereia Tryphaena near the Mausoleum of Hadrian. He described the event as follows:

Roman-style bathhouses are often used as markers to study processes of ‘Romanisation’, or, more generally, the spread of a Roman way of life throughout newly conquered regions. The building type, with its characteristic hypocaust system and pools, was a foreign element in regions unacquainted with communal bathing. However, to assume that these buildings were introduced and spread as a ‘package’, with the standard sequence of rooms and accompanying technology, would be oversimplifying a complex phenomenon of acceptance, rejection and adaptation. Since Roman baths are too often perceived as a mainly urban phenomenon, regions on the fringes of the empire with low levels of urbanisation, including the northern provinces, have been excluded from most seminal works.1 The present paper aims to examine a corpus of baths in NW Gaul from between the 1st and early 4th c. (i.e., the period between the first villa constructions and their abandonment following Germanic invasions) in order to challenge idées fixes2 that their plans were rigid and standardised and that most were in urban settings.

Decorated helmets fitted with a metal mask in the form of a human face have been found throughout the lands of the Roman empire, and sometimes beyond it. Despite the significant number of examples (whole or in part) surviving from the 1st to the 3rd c. A.D., these helmets remain an enigma to students of the Roman army. They have usually (though not exclusively) been found either at or close to forts garrisoned by cavalry or in hoards or graves containing other military equipment, often cavalry-specific such as horse-chamfrons. Most have therefore been identified as cavalry helmets, and it is widely accepted that many are of the type referred to by the 2nd-c. general Arrian in his treatise Tactica whilst describing cavalry exercises (hippika gymnasia):

In the Numismatic Chronicle for 2013, A. Bursche put forward the proposition that the imperial treasury was seized by the Goths when in A.D. 251 they crushed the Roman army at Abritus.1 Most of the plundered Roman gold was presumably in the form of coin (ingots are neither excluded nor confirmed). This gold has now been traced with some confidence to archaeological sites of the Wielbark and the Chernyakhiv cultures, in particular to grave assemblages dated to the second half of the 3rd c. (phase C1b-C2 of the Late Roman period).2 This had even broader consequences, since the capture of an enormous amount of gold by the barbarians could have been the immediate cause of the deterioration of the aureus under Decius‘ successors.3

The Döşeme Boğazı (‘Pass with the Pavement’) is one of the ancient routes through the Taurus Mountains that connected the Anatolian interior with the southern coastal regions (fig. 1). From an early date it was an important component of the Roman road-system in Asia Minor (fig. 2). The pass lay near the S end of the Republican route from the Dardanelles to Side which was created by Manius Aquillius, first proconsul of Asia between 129 and 126 B.C. The S part of this road was incorporated into the via Sebaste, built in 6/5 B.C., which linked several of the Roman colonies founded by Augustus in south-central Anatolia to the Mediterranean coast. By good fortune, the ancient settlements and the Roman and post-Roman road in this defile have survived largely untouched by modern development. The course of the road between the Roman colony of Comama (Pisidia) and Perge (Pamphylia), as well as branch roads leading to other settlements, can be traced precisely. Well-preserved remains of two settlements, both occupied between the 2nd and 6th c., are identifiable at the upper and lower ends of the defile: in them are houses having from 2 to 10 rooms, the larger ones arranged around courtyards and some having cisterns and towers (Turmgehöfte), a bath-house and public cisterns, roadside shops, sarcophagi and small heroa in prominent positions by the road, and numerous churches. The lower site includes a large walled structure probably of the 6th c., that was almost certainly designed as an animal enclosure to control transhumant flocks. Most remarkable of all the surviving structures in the pass, however, are the remains of a mansio or way-station, which survives up to roof level and is the best-preserved building of this type in the entire empire.

In 2011 during a study tour of Sobata (Shivta), a debate took place concerning the likelihood that the central Negev settlements of Elusa, Sobata, Oboda, Ruheiba and Nessana (fig. 1) were significant partners in the trade of prestige Gaza wines during the 5th and 6th c. A.D. I challenged the participants as to whether these sites’ production facilities were of sufficient magnitude to produce a wine surplus for shipping across the Roman world and whether the transport of a bulk product in relatively heavy amphoras to the seaports at Gaza and Ashqelon c.100-120 km distant was both physically feasible and economically viable in the absence of paved roads. This paper will analyse a series of factors, including demography, agricultural technology, wine production capacity and transport possibilities to evaluate the region’s potential and the likelihood of these settlements playing a part in the wine trade of Gaza and Ashqelon.

The Balearic Islands lie not far off the E coast of the Iberian Peninsula in a strategic position for navigation and trade routes (fig. 1 below). Classical writers considered them two groups of islands: Mallorca and Menorca (with adjacent islands and islets), forming the Baliarides, and Ibiza and Formentera (with other islets), considered the Pityussae.1 In 123 B.C., the Balearides were conquered by the Romans and included first in Hispania Citerior and in Tarraconensis later. The unified archipelago became an independent province at the end of the 4th c., probably due to the re-organization by Theodosius.2 In A.D. 455, the Balearics were conquered by the Vandals, while in 534, Apollinarius, sent by Belisarius, conquered the islands for the Byzantine empire. Theoretically, Byzantine rule lasted until the Islamic conquest of Isam-al-Jalawni in 902-3,3 but it is difficult to draw a precise line for the end of late antiquity on the islands. The Muslim occupation at the very start of the 10th c. witnessed a clear shift. In this paper, we will consider the period from the 5th to the start of the 10th c., even if information for the 8th and 9th c. is scarce.

Deep-water shipwrecks provide an opportunity to investigate ships away from the destructive dynamics of coastlines and approaches to harbors where most ancient wrecks to date have been found. Such exploration expands the potential for finding wrecks of periods for which relatively few are known. One such period is the 6th and 7th c. in the E Mediterranean. Studies of cargo assemblages from the few known wrecks of the later Roman period reveal a partial picture of interlinked and overlapping trade networks that incorporated major and minor ports in the adjacent provinces.1 Various trading modes may be discerned, including cabotage, short-haul trade, inter-regional commerce, and private long-haul trade. Largely missing thus far are the wrecks of ships that participated in the annona transport, the “backbone of Late Roman shipping”.2 Each year, an enormous fleet of private ships under state contract hauled thousands of shiploads of Egyptian grain from Alexandria to Constantinople for public distribution,3 but no shipwrecks explicitly associated with these fleets have been found. Also largely invisible are the non-commercial transports associated with the annona militaris, the fiscal supply of foodstuffs destined for armies stationed on the empire‘s borders. The state supply-system became more formalized in 536 when Justinian created the quaestura exercitus, a prefecture that was granted administrative control and jurisdiction of Moesia Secunda, Scythia, Caria, the Aegean islands, and Cyprus.4 Evidence suggests that the quaestor‘s main task was to ensure the supply, by sea, of agricultural products from the Aegean and NE Mediterranean to troops on the Danube frontier.5 While no definitive grain ships have been found in the E Mediterranean — what M. McCormick has called the “annona paradox”6 —, shipwrecks with the larger cargoes expected of state supply have remained rather elusive.

Excavating a Roman marching camp, a temporary settlement whose occupation phases are separated by periods of abandonment, has little in common with excavating a permanent camp, occupied continuously over several years or decades. This paper will describe the status quaestionis on Roman Republican marching camps, mainly in Gaul, before presenting the discoveries made at Lautagne with a focus on the small finds and their contribution to the interpretation of the site.

In 2013, Barack Obama called rising inequality “the defining challenge of our time”. Since the Financial Crisis and Great Recession of 2007-9, the gap between the haves and have-nots has attracted unprecedented attention in politics, the media and academia.1 Students of the more distant past have also begun to embrace this trend. Economists are once again looking back in time, inspired in no small measure by the broad impact of the work of Thomas Piketty.2 Historians are laboring hard to unearth and publish relevant data. Thanks to their efforts, we are now able to glimpse the contours of changes in the concentration of income and wealth over the very long run, at least in some parts of the world.3 Archaeologists have been joining the fray, gathering and analyzing plausible proxies of inequality such as house sizes.4

More than a decade ago, the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP)1 and the Cambridge economic history of the Greco-Roman world put the question of the performance of the Roman economy at the center of historical debate, prompting a flood of books and articles attempting to assess the degree of growth in the economy.2 The issue is of sufficient importance that it has figured in the narratives of economists analyzing the impact of institutional frameworks on the potential for growth.3 As the debate has continued, there has been some convergence: most historians would agree that there was some Smithian growth as evidenced by urbanization and trade, while acknowledging that production remained predominantly agricultural and based primarily on somatic energy (i.e., human and animal).4 This is, of course, a very broad framework that does not differentiate the Roman empire from other complex pre-industrial societies. The challenge is to refine the analysis in order to put content into the broad description of “modest though significant growth”5 and to offer a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the economy.

This paper discusses a unique artifact1 of considerable archaeological, philological and historical value, as well as its implications for our understanding of the rôle that the native inhabitants of NE Spain, especially those known as the Laeetani (Plin., NH 3.3.21), played in the major economic undertaking that the export of wine from Tarraconensis in the 1st c. B.C. was to become. To do so, we first briefly describe the typological and physical characteristics of the lead stock and interpret the double Iberian inscription, baitolo, with which it was marked, probably a place-name, either that of the Ibero-Roman town of baitolo/Baetulo, which issued coins with the same legend (baitolo) in the second quarter of the 1st c. B.C., or the name of the nearby river, the modern Besòs.2 Subsequently, we contextualize the lead stock within the corpus of Greco-Roman lead stocks to show that no other specimen, either among stocks or any instrument or component of a ship‘s naval architecture, is known to have an inscription in the Iberian language. To contextualize the artifact, we will turn our attention to the native character of baitolo‘s population, always from a linguistic perspective, and discuss its importance as a key centre in the wine trade. Thereafter, we make an epigraphic and archaeological re-assessment of the prior evidence for the participation of the indigenous peoples of NE Hispania in all the phases (whether land or maritime) of the chaîne opératoire that resulted in the production and commercialization of large amounts of wine for Narbonne and elsewhere. First, we reconsider all the Iberian inscriptions that have a maritime context or that can be related to the production and commercialization of wine. Second, we examine the archaeological evidence, especially shipwrecks, suggesting that Iberian-speaking individuals during the 1st c. B.C. owned ships and participated in trade by sea, an activity that can now be confirmed thanks to the new lead stock (fig. 1), which is of small dimensions (77 cm long, 11 cm high, 8 cm in width in the central box) and of modest weight (25.9 kg).

The excavations carried out between 1917 and 1921 at Baelo Claudia (Bolonia, Tarifa, province of Cádiz)1 were led by P. Paris and his team2 working with the Anglo-French archaeologist G. Bonsor3 and with A. Laumonier and R. Ricard, as well as with Cayetano de Mergelina4 in 1918-19. Work focused on the N part of the forum where three temples were exposed.5 A minor intervention was carried out in the theatre together with more extensive excavations in the area of the fish-salting factory that included two domus, and in the E necropolis. The outcome was two publications, one on the city,6 the other on the necropolis,7 that are outstanding for those days.