Current Epigraphy
ISSN: 1754-0909

Call for Papers: Ancient Graffiti in Context

Workshop: School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester

November 8, 2008

This workshop will examine the spatial and social context of graffiti in the Greek and Roman worlds. Graffiti has been marginalised in archaeological and historical studies, published in distinct volumes or seen as a curiosity. There are few theoretical studies of ancient graffiti or its interpretation, and little reflection on how we – as scholars – categorise this material.

New questions now need to be asked: How do we negotiate the relationship between text and image? What can we say about the materiality of textual graffiti? What social processes or practices produce graffiti? To what extent does graffiti represent or subvert the cultural values of the society in which it occurs? By bringing together examples and approaches from across the discipline we hope to develop a better understanding of graffiti and what it can contribute to bigger questions about the ancient world.

Potential speakers, including postgraduates, are encouraged to submit abstracts of c.300 words by email to the organisers by May 31st, 2008.

For more information, contact:
Dr Claire Taylor, Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin claire.taylor@tcd.ie

Dr Jennifer Baird, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of
Leicester jb188@le.ac.uk

Epigraphy North, Tuesday 15th April 2008, 5.30 pm

Professor Onno Van Nijf
‘Public space and political culture in Roman Termessos’

Bosanquet Seminar Room, 12-14 Abercromby Square, The University of Liverpool

The Epigraphy North series is suitable also for students wishing to learn about epigraphy; if individuals need further information on travelling to Liverpool and accommodation if attending the seminar, please contact Graham Oliver (gjoliver@liv.ac.uk).

If anybody is planning on attending this seminar (or any other, e.g. the BES meeting mentioned earlier) it would be much appreciated if they could post a brief summary of the paper here.

British Epigraphy Society

Spring Meeting, Saturday 3 May 2008

Department of Classics & Ancient History, 38 North Bailey, Durham

Religion and politics in Greek and Roman epigraphy in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

Main speakers & topics include:

• Professor P.J. Rhodes (Durham)
  State and religion in Athenian inscriptions
• Professor Maurice Sartre (Tours)
  La politique religieuse des cités de Syrie: la constitution des panthéons civiques à l’époque impériale
• Dr Margherita Facella (Pisa)
  On the chronology of IG II2 207
• Dr Francesco Guizzi (Rome, ‘La Sapienza’)
  The imperial cult in Hierapolis of Phrygia: old and new evidence
• Dr Andrej Petrović & Dr Ivana Petrović (Durham)
  θεὸς νομοθέτης - Constructions of divine authority in Greek sacred regulations

Conveners: Dr Paola Ceccarelli (paola.ceccarelli@durham.ac.uk), Dr Ted Kaizer (ted.kaizer@durham.ac.uk)

Henrik Mouritsen has sent me a summary of his paper given at the Cambridge Epigraphy Day in February, which I post below:

Henrik Mouritsen (King’s College London) discussed the possibility of quantifying Roman manumission using epigraphic evidence. While acknowledging that most inscriptions are of little help in establishing hard statistics in this area, he drew attention to two types of document which may provide more reliable information. The first are the epitaphs of the familial columbaria from the early empire, esp. those of the Statilii and the Volusii, where the ratio of slave to freed suggests a very high manumission rate in elite households. The second type is the municipal alba and particularly CIL X 1403 from Herculaneum. This inscription, long believed to contain the names of the Augustales, is unique in its scale. Even a cautious reconstruction of the fragments entails a total of around a thousand names, the large majority being those of local freedmen, which–given the overall size of Herculaneum’s population–would suggest that a substantial proportion of the free adult males were former slaves.

In BMCR 2008.03.10 there is a short review by Georges Rougemont of SEG 2002 (published last year):

A. Chaniotis, T. Corsten, R.S. Stroud, R.A. Tybout, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Volume 52 (2002). Leiden: Brill, 2006. Pp. xxxvi, 905. ISBN 90-04-15508-2. €168.00 / $250.00.

After a brief discourse on the history of SEG, after which R. claims (perhaps strangely in a review publication) that most epigraphers have no use for a detailed review of any issue of SEG because they will already have seen them in major libraries, he states:

C’est donc, sans doute, aux non épigraphistes (littéraires, linguistes, numismates, historiens peu familiers avec les inscriptions) qu’il faut d’abord signaler ce volume, et plus généralement le SEG. L’épigraphie n’a pas toujours bonne réputation auprès d’eux; et, dans beaucoup de publications estimables ou excellentes, on trouve encore trop de passages dont on ne peut pas ne pas penser qu’ils n’auraient pas été écrits, ou pas de la même façon, si l’auteur avait eu une familiarité même superficielle avec les inscriptions, ces documents grecs dont le nombre (faut-il le rappeler?) s’accroît tous les jours. Or le SEG serait pour eux un moyen commode de se tenir au courant de cette croissance. Il est écrit dans une langue pratiquée par tout le monde. Il reproduit le texte grec des inscriptions nouvelles et celui de beaucoup d’inscriptions anciennes, des lors qu’une publication nouvelle modifie l’aspect de ce texte. Il est pourvu d’index et de tables de concordance substantiels. Il est facile non seulement à consulter, mais aussi à parcourir, à cause de sa typographie aérée et claire et des titres en caractères gras donnés à chaque notice.

The review therefore contains no detailed discussion of the content or the quality of this volume in particular.

Some titles of possible interest to epigraphers available for review, exerpted from BMCR 2008.03.01:

Titles marked by an asterisk are available for review. Qualified volunteers should indicate their interest by a message to classrev@brynmawr.edu, with their last name and requested author in the subject line. They should state their qualifications (both in the sense of degrees held and in the sense of experience in the field concerned) and explain any previous relationship with the author.

*Bagnall, Roger S. (ed.), Egypt in the Byzantine World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xv, 464; figs. 74. $99.00. ISBN 978-0-521-87137-2.

*Bispham, Edward, From Asculum to Actium. The Municipalization of Italy from the Social War to Augustus. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xvii, 566. $180.00. ISBN 978-0-19-923184-3.

*Dobbins, John J., and Pedar W. Foss (edd.), The World of Pompeii. The Routledge Worlds. London/New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xli, 662; maps 4; figs. passim. $240.00. ISBN 978-0-415-17324-7.

*Howgego, Christopher, Volker Heuchert, and Andrew Burnett (edd.), Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pp. xv, 228; maps 5, pls. 32. $70.00 (pb). ISBN 978-0-19-923784-5.

*Larrañaga, Koldo, El hecho colonial romano en el área circumpirenaica Occidental. Anejos de Veleia. Series maior, 12.
Vitoria: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del Pai/s Vasco, 2007. Pp. 773; maps 12. EUR 60.00 (pb). ISSN 0213-2095.

*Lightfoot, J.L. (trans. and comm.), The Sibylline Oracles. With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on the First and Second Books. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xxiii, 613. $220.00. ISBN 978-0-19-921546-1.

*Matthews, Elaine (ed.), Old and New Worlds in Greek Onomastics. Proceedings of the British Academy, 148. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xii, 241. $70.00. ISBN 978-0-19-726412-6.

*Oltean, Ioana A., Dacia. Landscape, Colonisation, Romanisation. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies. London/New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xii, 248; figs. 79. $120.00. ISBN 978-0-415-41252-0.

*Sgarlata, Mariarita, and Grazia Salvo, La Catacomba di Santa Lucia e l’Oratorio dei Quaranta Martiti. Siracusa: Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, 2006. Pp. 113. (pb). ISBN 88-7260-171-1.

*Sundell, Michael G., Mosaics in the Eternal City. ACMRS Occasional Publications, 3. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2007. Pp. ix, 211; figs. 71. $39.00 (pb). ISBN 978-0-86698-376-1.

[See full list to be sure, as this selection was exerpted by one epigrapher whose conceptions of the interests of the epigraphic community as a whole may be eccentric.]

As announced via AIEGL, a preliminary version of Henry Immerwahr’s Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions has been made available online as a downloadable PDF. In a preface to this version, Immerwahr states:

This corpus is simply a collection of notes taken over the years from publications and illustrations, with some autopsy where possible. It is not complete, nor is it a finished product, and the information has to be used with caution. It has been made available by circulating hard copy in a few places and by CD’s distributed individually. The Beazley Archive in Oxford has made extensive use of it, but without giving the corpus numbers. Since these have been quoted in a number of articles, I thought it only fair to make it generally available as a website. I have made a minimal revision; Rudolf Wachter is preparing a more thoroughly revised version.

The use of Courier font makes this publication a little ugly, but the content will no doubt be useful to many, especially for reference and citation purposes. I should welcome clarification on two points, however:

1. What are the license terms of this publication? Can I print this document and circulate it among my colleagues and/or students? Can I copy the file and post it to my website or blog (with full attribution, of course)? Can I cite the commentary that appears within it? (See Creative Commons for a suggested means of specifying these terms in a legally-binding way.)
2. What is the long-term status of this version of the file? Will it be permanently archived at this address (or, better, in a digital repository somewhere)? Will it still exist in this form when Wachter’s full edition appears (presumably on paper)?

[Postscript: after the first 33 pages of this huge file there appears to be a technical problem with the PDF, and 2146 blank pages follow.]

Epigraphic Saturday, Cambridge, February 16th, 2008. 15:30.

Crawford presented some observations based on his research over the past six of compiling the Imagines Italicae corpus of Oscan, Umbrian, and Picene inscriptions. He began with the observation that while Roman colonies, even those established in Italic-speaking or Etruscan areas, invariably left epigraphy only in Latin, the native Oscans throughout the region where that language was spoken left large numbers of inscriptions in Oscan written in the national alphabet. Where there were exceptions to this pattern, there must be some political or cultural explanation.

In the settlement at Pontecagnano, for example, there are two major sanctuaries that both cease operation around 300 BC (at least one of them is deliberately and ritually closed down), and Oscan inscriptions end around the same time. This was about the time that the Romans forcibly re-settled some tens of thousands of Picentes to this area, in order to do which they must have confiscated a huge amount of land from the locals. This great cultural and demographic shift must have changed the composition of the entire region, and may be the explanation for the sudden cease of all public writing in Oscan.

Similarly at Salerno there were a large number of Oscan inscriptions in the Etruscan alphabet, but this indiginous writings ends at the end of the third century with the foundation of the Roman colony. Public writing seems to be driven in large part by large cultural and political institutions (sanctuaries, mints, governmental decrees); the toppling of such institutions by Roman intervention can cause a radical shift writing style. Examination of this evidence allows us, Crawford argues, to reconstruct a geography of political and economic confiscations in early Italy.

For example, large amounts of land seem to have been confiscated by the Romans in Caudium, perhaps in an attempt to blot out the memory of the shameful defeat at the Caudine forks. At Cluviae there is almost no native epigraphy at all; while the land here is very poor, it seems that the Romans may have confiscated the land here purely out of vengeance for the locals’ defiance of them rather than due to any need for the land itself. In a valley further inland [name not caught by this blogger], a very fertile stretch of land seems to have been confiscated but not re-settled until much later (when Gracchan boundary stones appear in large numbers), perhaps with the aim of breaking up the politico-religious cultural structures in the region.

As usual, Crawford ended the paper with a puzzle, a question for the audience to deliberate upon. The city of Aequum Tuticum is, like many of those discussed above, lacking in native Oscan epigraphy. The name “Aequum” is a good Latin name, and clearly it was a Roman settlement; but “Tuticum” is pure Oscan (the Latin transliteration of Tuvtix “public”). How did a Roman colony with no evidence of native writing retain such a clearly Italic name?

Epigraphic Saturday, Cambridge, February 16th, 2008. 14:15.

Corsten presented two inscriptions in this session, both of which he has only begun to work on and are not yet completely interpreted.

The first is a fragment (six incomplete lines) of a dedication on a large block from the wall of the temple of the Imperial cult in Kibyra. Both the dedicatee (in dative) and the dedicant (in nominative) seem to be emperors: the former a Σεβαστός whose name does not otherwise survive, but is linked with Livia (”New Demeter”), and therefore ought to be her husband Augustus or her son Tiberius; the latter is son of Drusus and founder of the city, almost certainly Claudius. Although there is mention of a rebuilding, and the major earthquake in Kibyra postdated the death of Augustus, it is inconceivable that an inscription under Claudius should mention Tiberius and Livia together like this, so Augustus and Livia must be the didicatees. (There is some difficulty concerning the number of emperors in this inscription: it is not impossible that Tiberius, Nero, and Claudius are all listed in the nominative as founders and rebuilders of the city after Augustus and Livia in the dative.)

The second text is a very worn, hard to read, 27-line fragment of a decree from Olbasa (modern Belenli). The text seems to be Hellenistic, with several references to βασιλεῖς (who must be the Pergamene royals). The decree seems to be recognising the Nikephoria festival of Permamon; even including a formula identical to the one used of this festival in Pergamon. As this inscription is very similar in lettering and dimensions to another Hellenistic fragment from this city–to which it can not be related–Corsten suggests that this could be part of an archive wall collecting decrees relating to the history of the city in a single collection.

This coming Saturday, February 16th, 2008, Joyce Reynolds is organising an epigraphic seminar at the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge, starting at 1030 sharp.

Werner Eck: New perspectives on Hadrian and the Bar Kochba revolt

Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado: a brief report on inscriptions from the reign of Elagabalus

Henrik Mouritsen: Quantifying Roman manumission using epigraphic evidence

Thomas Corsten: Work in progress: some inscriptions from Kibyra and Olbasa

Dorothy Thompson: Not Alexander: an inscription from Hello

Michael Crawford: Language, geography, and economy in early Italy

All welcome. Contact Joyce Reynolds via Newnham College for more information.

Last week, Intute added to the Classics and Archaeology categories a record for Études épigraphiques, a series published by the École Française d’Athènes, with four volumes online (and open access) from between 1994 and 1997 (Decourt’s Inscriptions de Thessalie I, Cabanes et al. Corpus des inscriptions grecques d’Illyrie méridionale et d’Épire I & II, and Bielman’s Retour à la liberté). The pages are low-quality JPEGs and there doesn’t seem to be a way to download the texts complete, but it’s good to have this stuff freely available if you know what page you’re looking for, say.

(Who do we have to write to to ask for PDFs and a better table of contents?)

[corrected 2008-02-11]

At a teaching and learning training day for new lecturers run by the Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology (26th February 2008, Birkbeck College, London; see PDF poster), is listed a break-out session on ‘Teaching Languages with Inscriptions’.

I have always thought this was a valuable tool, for several reasons: (1) inscriptions tend to use simple grammar and repetitive vocabulary that are easy for beginning students to handle; (2) it’s real ancient text, not invented and unrealistic lingo like so many textbooks offer; (3) exercises involving uppercase letters (in Greek), no word-breaks, can be useful in consolidating students’ knowledge of the basics, *and* (4) working from photographs and real texts will give them a sense of real accomplishment and be a lot of fun.

Anyone have any insight or experiences to share on this?

Announced via AIEGL:

Tengo el placer de comunicarte que ya está disponible en la página web de Liceus, y dentro del Área de Epigrafía Latina (http://www.liceus.com/cgi-bin/aco/arqu/tema_2.asp#linguistica) un Manual de Fundamentos de Epigrafía Latina que, seguro, será útil para vuestras clases y como material de apoyo para el estudio de los alumnos. Coordinado por Javier Andreu, en él han participado también otros jóvenes investigadores como Pablo Ozcáriz, Eva Tobalina y Ángel Jordán. Me consta que el resultado es un trabajo serio, riguroso, con abundante aparato gráfico y actualizadísima bibliografía. En el documento “Presentación” -de descarga gratuita- podréis acercaros a la filosofía del trabajo. Pronto, además, el Manual será editado en papel dentro de una colección de manuales universitarios que está preparando Liceus E-Excellence con la vocación de servir al mejor estudio de las Humanidades.

The introduction (9 pages PDF in Spanish) is downloadable for free, other chapters cost between 1-3 Euro each. (I don’t see an option to purchase the entire volume in one file, but presumably there must be one?

Appeared in BMCR 2008.01.61 a few days ago, Jonathan Strang’s relatively brief review of the second edition of this important student primer:

P.J. Rhodes, The Greek City States: A Source Book. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xiii, 339. ISBN 978-0-521-85049-0. $85.00 (hb). ISBN 978-0-521-61556-3. $29.99 (pb).

(Worldcat record)

Strang highlights the value of this tome for the novice undergraduate and praises Rhodes’ “lucid commentary”. He summarises the structure of the volume, and notes the addition of three new chapters on “Women and Children”, “Economic Life” and religion, as well as several important new texts. This is an important new edition of the 1986 sourcebook, and Strang notes that it has been thoroughly updated throughout. While noting weaknesses of the work (many of which arise from the unfortunate but inevitable need in a student text to generalize and gloss over some important variations in antiquity), the reviewer concludes:

Despite my reservations about the Hellenistic content, The Greek City States remains an excellent resource for the Greek history instructor. Indeed, it is superior in content, form and design to the comparable sourcebooks by Crawford and Whitehead, and the volumes by Fornara and Harding in the Translated Documents of Greece & Rome series. It is a welcome addition to any class concerning Greek social history of the Archaic and Classical periods.

Some seminars of possible interest to epigraphers for the coming term.

Cambridge Epigraphic Saturday

Organised by Joyce Reynolds
Saturday 16th February from 10:30
participants will include Professor Werner Eck

University of Durham

Wednesday 30 January, 5.30pm [Ritson room]
Dr Margherita Facella (University of Pisa)
Jupiter Dolichenus at home: news from the archaeological excavations at Dülük Baba Tepesi

Wednesday 6 February, 5.30pm [Ritson room]
Professor Tony Birley (Vindolanda & Durham)
Religion at Vindolanda

Saturday 3 May 2008
Epigraphy Society Spring Meeting
Programme tba

University of Wales Lampeter

Thursday 17 January @ 6pm (Burgess Lecture Room)
Peter Liddel (Manchester)
‘The decree-cultures of ancient Greece’

New addition:

University of Liverpool

5 February EPIGRAPHY NORTH
Prof. M. H. Crawford
‘Languages, geographies and economies of early Italy’

15 April EPIGRAPHY NORTH
Prof. O. van Nijf
Tbc