Journal of Roman Studies Roman Inscriptions 2001–2005
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Journal of Roman Studies http://journals.cambridge.org/JRS Additional services for Journal of Roman Studies: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Roman Inscriptions 2001–2005 Alison E. Cooley, Stephen Mitchell and Benet Salway Journal of Roman Studies / Volume 97 / November 2007, pp 176 263 DOI: 10.3815/000000007784016124, Published online: 08 March 2010 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0075435800003373 How to cite this article: Alison E. Cooley, Stephen Mitchell and Benet Salway (2007). Roman Inscriptions 2001–2005. Journal of Roman Studies, 97, pp 176263 doi:10.3815/000000007784016124 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/JRS, IP address: 144.82.107.46 on 12 Nov 2012 Survey article 3/10/07 4:50 pm Page 176 SURVEY ARTICLE Roman Inscriptions 2001–2005 alison e. cooley, stephen mitchell and benet salway For J. M. Reynolds i general i.i General Introduction The intentions of this survey are similar to preceding quinquennial surveys but the team and format are different.1 The historical scope of coverage remains in line with that of the overall policy statement of the Journal (‘from the earliest times down to about a.d. 700’); the geographical and cultural parameters of the survey naturally expand and contract according to the waxing and waning of Roman power over that period. Aside from Latin, inscriptions in Greek and other non-Latin languages are considered in so far as the peoples producing these texts were subject to Roman domination or had very close relations with Rome. The principal aims of the survey remain the same: signalling important newly pub- lished inscriptions, significant reinterpretations of previously published texts, new trends in the scholarship on the subject, and recent studies drawing heavily on epigraphic sources, as well as reporting on the progress of major publishing projects. Also, given the interests and expertise of the current team, the continued bias towards the social and political aspects of Roman history, to the detriment of the linguistic and literary, is acknowledged. We have endeavoured to restrain our comments to those publications that fall within the stated chronological parameters. At the same time we have refrained from revisiting material from 2001–2003 that had already received attention from the previous survey. The categories into which we have organized the survey do not exactly match those employed in its immediate predecessors (for example, the discussion of late antique inscriptions is integrated into the appropriate categories rather than being consigned to a separate section). Moreover, a new approach has also been taken, to a certain extent responding to concerns raised by Joyce Reynolds in her coda to the last survey (JRS 93 (2003), 292). There she questioned whether it was any longer either feasible or desirable to continue to deliver the depth of coverage to which readers of this journal had become accustomed. In practical terms, the volume of epigraphic publications has increased to such an extent that comprehensive digestion is no longer possible within a desirable time- scale, even with a two- or three-person team. In addition, the need for such thoroughness has become less imperative as the annual round-ups of L’Année épigraphique and the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum have come to form an increasingly comprehensive record of new finds and reinterpretations. Nor, on a five-year time-scale, is it possible to replicate the depth of comment to be found in the annual Bulletin épigraphique of the Revue des Études grecques without the result becoming unmanageably dense for the reader. It is worth noting that significant proportions of that material have been made more accessible by two recent publications: indices to the Bull. ép. 1987–2001 and the republication, with indices, of Denis Feissel’s notices on the late antique and Byzantine inscriptions from the Bull. ép. 1987–2004.2 Although narrower in focus, another 1 All three authors have contributed notes and observations throughout but primary responsibility for individual sections is as follows: Cooley (i.iii–v, ii.ii, iv), Mitchell (ii.i, iv, iii), and Salway (i.i–ii, vi, ii.iii, v, vi). Credit for co- ordinating the end product belongs to Cooley. Abbreviations for epigraphic publications follow F. Bérard et al., Guide de l’épigraphiste3 (2000), those for periodicals L’Année philologique. Citations by author and date refer to the consolidated bibliography at the end of the survey. 2 Aneziri et al. (2005); Feissel (2006). JRS 97 (2007), pp. 176–263. © World Copyright Reserved. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 2007 Survey article 3/10/07 4:50 pm Page 177 roman inscriptions 2001–2005 177 epigraphic survey worthy of individual mention is the extremely thorough review of work on inscriptions relating to Roman law by Jean-Louis Ferrary, which concludes with a very useful concordance relating the work to the standard collections of Roman legal texts.3 The specialist scholar with access to a copy of the third edition of the Guide de l’épigraphiste is now also well served by its timely annual supplements, the first of which appeared in October 2001, and which have appeared subsequently each June. These are available for download free of charge.4 Moreover, the ability of the non-specialist to keep abreast of some of the latest work is greatly facilitated by the web-site of the Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, which offers not only full indices to past volumes and many back issues in freely downloadable form but also the contents pages of the latest number while still in press.5 Given these developments, and in an attempt to recapture the initial ideals expressed for the surveys (serving readers responsive to the implications of new epigraphic finds and interpretations, but lacking the time to search out the original publications themselves), we offer a rather more impressionistic and less comprehensive account than in the recent past. i.ii Information Technology The interrelation of the worlds of computer technology and epigraphic scholarship has become increasingly complex and has developed a literature of its own. Epigraphy and papyrology feature heavily in an analysis of the significance of electronic resources for classical studies.6 The potential aid of an imaging technique named ‘shadow stereo’ to the deciphering of writing-tablets has been demonstrated by experiment on the stilus tablets from Vindolanda. The same engineers demonstrate how software employing the Mini- mum Description Length (MDL) technique might be applied to images of scarcely discernible traces on stilus or ink tablets to suggest plausible interpretations.7 The method- ology of producing electronic epigraphic editions has also featured in the traditional media.8 However, the natural home of this debate is on screen rather than on page and a web-log (‘blog’) devoted to these issues has recently been established, a weekly summary of which promises to enliven the hitherto rather sedate e-mail discussion list devoted to epigraphic questions.9 While the existing searchable databases of epigraphic texts have continued to expand with the addition of new finds and digitization of already published texts, such as volumes I–II of the Vindolanda Tablets,10 the last five years have seen significant developments in the realm of digital epigraphy in both Greek and Latin fields. At the same time the predominance of on-line accessibility through the internet as the preferred method of delivery has become assured. This quinquennium has witnessed one very significant mile- stone for Roman epigraphy. This was the appearance in 2004 of the first completely electronic edition of a traditional corpus, that of the late antique Greek inscriptions of Aphrodisias in Caria.11 The fact that this is a second edition of an existing print publica- tion — Charlotte Roueché’s Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity (1989) — does not detract from 3 Ferrary (2005); cf. Licandro (2002). 4 www.antiquite.ens.fr/txt/dsa-publications-guidepigraphiste-fr.htm. Note that the address has changed from that signalled in the last survey, JRS 93 (2003), 218. 5 www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe: free download of content of vols 73 (1988) to 133 (2000), with those of 2001 to 2004 available on payment. 6 Alvoni (2001). 7 Brady et al. (2003). 8 Fusi (2002). 9 Blog: www.currentepigraphy.org (ISSN 1754-0909); list: Inscriptiones-L (to subscribe: Inscriptiones-l- [email protected]). 10 http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/ (a searchable on-line edition of Tab. Vindol. 118–573, with accompanying images for each text). 11 Roueché (2004). Survey article 3/10/07 4:50 pm Page 178 178 alison e. cooley, stephen mitchell and benet salway its pioneering status. In fact, the relationship between first and second editions is not straightforward. Ala2004 (the preferred abbreviation) differs from its predecessor in that it includes twenty-one new texts. However, omitted in ala2004 are Joyce Reynolds’ editions of Diocletian’s currency revaluation decree and edict on maximum prices, both, of course, in Latin. The explanation for this is not to be sought in technical and copyright problems but, in the case of the lengthier of the two texts (the prices edict), the fact that developments in the understanding of the original location of the inscription (the façade of the Flavian basilica facing the south agora) mean that the layout of all its surviving fragments can now be mapped.12 This permits a far more accurate estimate of the extent of the complete text, as well as a long-overdue renumbering of the (now complete) total of its chapters (1–70). Thus a separate re-edition of the entire edict, using the Aphrodisias copy as the master template, is now in progress.