The Classical World (105 page)

R. MacMullen,
Romanization in the Time of Augustus
(2000) is a very good survey; on benefactions, Stephen Mitchell, in
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
(1987), 333–66, a very valuable study; P. A. Brunt,
Roman Imperial Themes
(1990), 267–81, and also pages 282–7 and 517–31 on Judaea are fundamental;
Cambridge Ancient History
, volume XI (2000, 2nd edn.), 444–678, is full of important material; Stephen Mitchell and Marc Waelkens,
Pisidian Antioch: The Site and Its Monuments
(1998) is excellent; on the West, T. F. Blagg and Martin Millett,
The Early Roman Empire in the West
(2002), especially Jonathan C. Edmondson, pages 169–73 on Conimbriga, and Nicola Mackie, pages 179–93 on ‘epigraphic’ honours and urban consciousness. A. T. Fear,
Rome and Baetica
(1996) is excellent on municipal law in Spain, with J. Gonzalez, in
Journal of Roman Studies
(1986), 147–243, and Alan Rodger, ibid. (1991), 74–90, and (1996), 61–73, on the recent Irni law. Peter Salway,
Roman Britain
(1981) and M. D. Goodman,
The Ruling Class of Judaea
(1987). Tessa Rajak,
Josephus: The Historian and His Society
(2002, 2nd edn.) is excellent on a historian I regret having omitted as not fully ‘classical’. J. N. Adams, in
Journal of Roman Studies
(1995), 86–134 is excellent on the Latin found at Hadrian’s Wall, a comfort to those in Britain whose Latin is still no better.

E. P. Sanders,
The Historical Figure of Jesus
(1993) is an excellent methodical study; Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz,
The Historical Jesus
(1998, English translation), 125–280, gives a full survey; Paula Frederiksen,
From Jesus to Christ
(1988), the next stage; G. B. Caird,
The Apostolic Age
(1955) is still valuable; ‘Christmas’, was refuted by E. Schuerer, in
A History of the Jewish People
, volume I (1973, revised edn. by F. G. B. Millar and G. Vermes), 399–427; R. J. Lane Fox,
The Unauthorized Version
(1991), 27–36, 200–11, 243–51 and 283–310, and
Pagans and Christians
(1986), 265–335; G. E. M. de Sainte Croix, in D. Baker (ed.),
Studies in Church History
, volume 12 (1975), 1–38, vigorously criticizes Christian attitudes to property and slavery, and in
Past and Present
(1963), 6–38, he gives the classic account of Christian persecution; Wayne A. Meeks,
The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul
(1983); M. Goodman,
Mission and Conversion
(1994) provokes thought; Henry Chadwick,
The Early Church
(1993, 2nd edn.) is the best one-volume history.

Kenneth Wellesley,
The Year of the Four Emperors
(2000), 3rd edn.) is the fullest modern account; early chapters in Barbara Levick,
Vespasian
(1999) are also fundamental, with full bibliography; on Vespasian’s law, I differ from the very important study of P. A. Brunt, in
Journal of Roman Studies
(1977), 95–116; P. A. Brunt,
Papers of the British School at Rome
(1975), 7–35 is the classic study of philosophers and Stoics.

Barbara Levick,
Vespasian
(1999) is the fundamental guide, with full notes and bibliography; Pat Southern,
Domitian: Tragic Tyrant
(1997) is one readable guide, especially on the later years; also, Brian W. Jones,
The Emperor Domitian
(1992); John D. Grainger,
Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of
AD
96–99
(2001) discusses Nerva’s reign too; A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik,
Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text
(2003) range widely over arts and culture; R. Darwall-Smith,
Emperors and Architecture: A Study of Flavian Rome
(1996); Paul Zanker, in Alan K. Bowman and Hannah M. Cotton (eds.),
Representations of Empire
(2002), 105–30, an overview of Domitian’s palace in Rome.

English readers are much better served now, with Paul Zanker,
Pompeii: Public and Private Life
(1998); Alison E. Cooley and M. G. C. Cooley,
Pompeii: A Sourcebook
(2004) which is now invaluable, with Alison E. Cooley,
Pompeii: Guide to the Lost City
(2000). Salvatore Nappo,
Pompeii
(2000) is the best popular guide; James L. Franklin,
Pompeiis Difficile Est
… (2001) is a very good epigraphic study; Antonio D’Ambrosio,
Women and Beauty in Pompeii
(2001) is short but interesting; W. F. Jashemski and Frederick G. Meyer (eds.).
The Natural History of Pompeii
(2002) has much new evidence, as does Annamaria Ciarallo,
Gardens of Pompeii
(2000); John R. Clarke,
Roman Sex: 100
BC
–
AD
250
(2003) puts Pompeian erotica in a wider context; Sara Bon and R. Jones,
Sequence and Space in Pompeii
(1997) and T. McGran and P. Carafa (eds.),
Pompeian Brothels: Pompeii’s Ancient History
… (2002) are two good essay collections. There is much else, but J. J. Deiss,
Herculaneum: A City Returns to the Sun
(1968) is the main English book given solely to Pompeii’s important neighbour.

A. N. Sherwin-White,
The Letters of Pliny
(1966) is a superb commentary; the Bithynian letters are revisited by his pupil, Wynne Williams,
Pliny: Correspondence with Trajan from Bithynia
(1990); R. Syme,
Roman Papers
, volume VII (1991), is more narrowly focused on prosopography; Richard Duncan-Jones,
The Economy of the Roman Empire
(1974), 17–32, is excellent on Pliny’s finances. C. P. Jones,
The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom
(1978) is a fine study of Bithynia through another contemporary’s texts; Christian Marek,
Pontus Et Bithynia
(2003) is a brilliantly illustrated local study; J. P. Sullivan,
Martial: The Unexpected Classic
(1991) with D. R. Shackleton Bailey,
Martial: Epigrams
, volumes I–III (1993, Loeb Library) which is masterly. Samuel Dill,
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius
(1905, 2nd edn.), 141–286, is still unsurpassed in general range.

Much that I discuss here is implicit in R. J. Lane Fox,
Pagans and Christians
(1986) and the valuable review-article of P. R. L. Brown, in
Philosophical Books
, 43 (2002), 185–208, together with his
The Body and Society
(1989) and
Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire
(2002). On suicide, see M. T. Griffin, in
Greece and Rome
(1986), 64–77 and 192–202; on gardens, the best English guide is Linda Farrar,
Ancient Roman Gardens
(2000), with the legacy well illustrated in Patrick Bowe,
Gardens of the Roman World
(2004).

Julian Bennett,
Trajan
(1997) gathers together recent work excellently and allows me to refer simply to its bibliography on the matters in (and outside) my text; F. A. Lepper and S. S. Frere,
Trajan’s Column
(1988) have excellent discussions of the Dacian War and many related issues, but should be read with M. Wilson Jones, in
Journal of Roman Archaeology
(1993), 23–38 and the very important revisions of Amanda Claridge, ibid. (1993), 5–22, attributing to Hadrian a major role in the monument, a view which I have hesitated over, simply because it is controversial, as James E. Packer shows, in
Journal of Roman Archaeology
(1994), 163–82. James E. Packer,
The Forum of Trajan in Rome
(2001, paperback) gives a briefer version of his masterwork on this subject; Lionel Casson,
Libraries in the Ancient World
(2001) puts the library in context. There is much in Annette NünnerichAsmus,
Traian: Ein Kaiser der Superlative am Beginn einer Umbruchzeit?
(2002). Anthony R. Birley,
Hadrian: The Restless Emperor
(1997), 35–77 is helpful, and in
Journal of Roman Studies
(1990), 115–26, discusses the Parthian War, but I remain firm about the chronology I adopt here, noting that it is also adopted by Birley,
Hadrian
, 71–3.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill,
Suetonius
(1995, 2nd edn.) and R. Syme,
Roman Papers
, volume III (1984), 1251–75, on biography; R. Syme,
Ten Studies in Tacitus
(1970) is more accessible than his
Tacitus
(1958) whose Hadrianic date for the
Annals
I reject; Syme,
Roman Papers
volume III pages 1014–42,
IV
(1988), 199–222, and
VI
(1991), 43–54, are all penetrating; Ronald Mellor,
Tacitus
(1993) and R. Martin,
Tacitus
(1981) are clear and helpful; J. B. Rives,
Tacitus: Germania
(1999) translates it; R. M. Ogilvie and I. Richmond (eds.),
Taciti Agricola
(1967) gives excellent notes and introduction; T. D. Barnes, in
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
(1986), 225–64, is perceptive on the
Dialogues
; M. T. Griffin, in
Scripta Classica Israelica
(1999), 139–58, is excellent on Pliny and Tacitus; also in I. Malkin and Z. W. Rubensohn,
Leaders and Masses in the Roman World
(1995), 33–58, on Tacitus and Tiberius and in
Classical Quarterly
(1982), 404–16, on Tacitus, the Lyons Tablet and his provincial view.

1
. Black-figure amphora of the Tyrrhenian Group,
c
. 540
BC
, showing a pentathlete in action (British Museum, London)

2
. Red-figure mixing-bowl, or
krater
, showing a symposion during which a slave-girl plays music for the male diners on their couches. On the right the diner is pouring watered wine into a cup,
phiale
, from a drinking-horn,
rhyton
, which ends in the forepart of a horse. Fourth century
BC
(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

3
. Black-figure
lekythos
, or oil flask, showing a hunter with his spears and hound: Edinburgh Painter, Athens
c
. 510–500
BC
(Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum: Photo: AKG Images, London)

4
. Older male, sexually aroused, fondles a young boy, who has slight down on his cheeks but no pubic hair: under age, certainly, so perhaps pre-pubic paidophilia, and definitely not ‘ephebophilia’, sex with older adolescents. The cup is now in Oxford, but it is not showing a ‘teacher’ sexually harassing a ‘pupil’. A sponge and a strigil are behind the older man, signifying a gym or wrestling space: the boy has a net or bag, possibly for ‘gym’ gear. It represents a sexual advance in a sports-arena: as the male owner of the cup drank the last of the wine, this sex-scene appeared, a ‘tondo’ at the bottom of the cup. Red-figure tondo; Brygos Painter,
c
. 480
BC
(Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)

5
. Bronze figurine of a Spartan girl, detached from the rim of a bronze vessel. Her dress is cut away from the shoulder, Spartan style, and held up at the knee, suggesting that she is not an athlete running in a lady’s race (in honour of Hera) but a dancer, though female Spartan dancers were said often to dance naked (British Museum)

6
. Marble statue from the acropolis in Sparta, showing a god or hero, in clean-shaven style. Probably one of a group on a Spartan temple: misunderstood as the famous Spartan warrior, Leonidas, when discovered in 1925
(Archaeological Museum of Sparta. Photo: Deutsches Archaölogisches Institut-Athens)

7
. Footsoldiers of Persian king, wearing pointed hats, with ear-flaps, in Scythian style: limestone relief from palaces at Persepolis, fourth century
BC
(Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin)

8
. Painting on the inner surface of the coffin-lid of the ‘Tomb of the Diver’, found in 1968 about a mile south of Paestum. Four other paintings of scenes from a symposium decorated the inner sides: the young boy dives, holding his head awkwardly, from a plinth of uncertain significance. Like the symposium scenes, the scene surely refers to worldly life, perhaps to something in the dead man’s earlier life, rather than symbolizing his dive out into the ‘unknown’ space of the underworld, a favoured but fanciful interpretation. Painting on white stucco surface (Paestum Museum. Photo: © author)

9
. Small terracotta plaque, one of many dedicated at the sanctuary of Persephone at Locri, in the Greek West, now Calabria in S. Italy. Probably the plaques were fixed on trees. In my view the young woman is putting away the folded cloth, not taking it out. The front of the chest is decorated with a panel of the goddess Athena killing a giant (Enceladus?) and another of a man leading off a woman, apparently willingly, by taking her right wrist. The allusion is possibly to an ‘abduction’ for marriage: the scene with the giant suggests, but only to some, that ‘violence’ is involved in male-female marriage. The lady is also thought to be preparing for marriage, perhaps packing up in her parental home. In my view, the young woman is already married, and enjoying it all, with symbols of her household role, including the cloth (a blanket) and the mirror and the wool-basket of a ‘good wife’ above her head. Just as the virgin Athena laid low a giant, so she, a virgin, thunderstruck her man whom she followed, taken willingly by the hand. If so, the plaque is dedicated by a woman in gratitude, not in preparation.
c
. 470–450 (Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria)