This article presents a case of osteomyelitis variolosa from a skeleton excavated in the Western Cemetery at Cirencester (Corinium) in Britain, dated to the 3rd or 4th c. CE. This osteological condition is caused by the variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox, and is found in some individuals who have survived a childhood smallpox infection, the condition manifesting many years later. The significance of this discovery is that it indicates that smallpox had been introduced into the Roman world, and to Britain in particular, by the late 3rd or 4th c. CE. Rather than postulating a separate and unrecorded introduction of smallpox into the Roman empire, we suggest that this discovery strengthens the case for seeing the 2nd-c. Antonine Plague as an early form of smallpox.

Despite increased interest in dining as part of worship practices, accounts of cult meals often focus primarily on benefaction and consumption, ignoring or downplaying the practices of food preparation in and around sanctuaries. Synthesizing and analyzing kitchen spaces and their assemblages in sanctuaries dedicated to Mithras for the first time, we argue that the labor of food-making was also central to group-making in ancient cult. The display of kitchens and cooks, and the entailments of cooking installations, emphasized meat dishes and worked to create vertically stratified worship communities. At the same time, the diversity of food-production practices in Mithraic sanctuaries also suggests significant variety in how practices might have structured cult groups.

This article addresses a notable gap in the scholarship on rural settlement in northeastern Noricum (today’s Lower Austria/AUT), an area often overlooked despite its extensive archaeological sources. Employing underutilized data, the study scrutinizes settlement patterns in the Danube limes hinterland from the mid-1st to the late 5th c. CE. It identifies key centers – Arelape, Favianis, Augustianis, and Cetium – as essential nodes of functional regions in a diverse landscape of “integrated Roman rural complexes.” However, there was a shift from diversity to more centralized settlement in Late Antiquity, signaling the extensive decline of rural structures. The article examines several factors contributing to this decrease within a “system of ups and downs,” including demographic changes, geopolitical crises, and climatic fluctuations. Crucially, it situates these developments within a broader systemic framework, positing a multi-causal, long-term decline. The study’s findings provide vital insights into volatile societal changes and their implications for current global crises.

In a series of articles published between 1982 and 1993, Margareta Steinby put forward the hypothesis that brick stamps produced in Rome, especially those dating from Hadrian to Septimius Severus, constituted an abbreviated form of a locatio conductio, or contract for letting and hiring. According to Steinby, the hypothesis could also be used to explain the productive cycles represented by the stamps of other types of instrumenta domestica. This study builds on Steinby’s thesis to analyze Dressel 20 amphora stamps and the organization of Baetican figlinae. It explores oil amphora production in southern Spain through legal frameworks, focusing on lease and hire contracts. Case studies of public and private facilities demonstrate diverse production models. The analysis shows Steinby’s theory is broadly applicable, highlighting Roman law’s flexibility in shaping various industries beyond amphora manufacturing.

This article explores the ancient city of Terracina, its strategic location, and its significant Roman sanctuary dedicated to Iuppiter Anxur. This youthful Jupiter, known for his beardless depiction, oversaw a sanctuary on Monte Sant’Angelo, which remains an important archaeological site. The location of the temple of Iuppiter Anxur, however, despite extensive study over 150 years, has not been precisely identified. The site includes three terraces with structures such as the Great Temple and Terrace A, which features notable architectural and functional elements. Ongoing research since 2021 has aimed to uncover more about the site’s development and its cultural importance. The article examines various hypotheses about the temple’s location and the role of Iuppiter Anxur within the sacred landscape of Terracina. For the first time, a comprehensive architectural reconstruction of the sanctuary has been proposed, offering new insights into its design and cultural significance. This reconstruction suggests a sophisticated architectural complex with important religious and cultural roles in ancient Terracina.

This analysis focuses on a young female portrait enclosed within an eight-pointed frame, located in the upper zone of a wall fragment discovered among a substantial assemblage of painted plaster within the fill of the torcularium of the Domus del Larario in the Municipium Augusta Bilbilis. The wall to which this fragment originally belonged likely formed part of a cubiculum within the same domus. The portrait is dated to the last quarter of the 1st c. BCE, making it the earliest known example of its kind to date. This study examines the potential significance of the portrait within one of the most prominent domus of the site, as well as its role in the broader figurative program of the wall it once adorned. In the middle zone of the composition, a couple is portrayed in a highly schematic manner. Together with the young female – likely their daughter – this may represent one of the earliest Roman depictions of a family group in a non-funerary context.

This article maps and analyzes the presence and non-presence of four classes of fineware ceramics in Late Roman Spain. It begins by mapping each of the classes spatially, before comparing their relative frequency in 15 specially constructed regions. It shows the inverse relationship between the presence of African Red Slip Ware and its local Spanish imitators; it then posits possible routes for Gallic imports and demonstrates that eastern Mediterranean imports were primarily restricted to the coast. It then analyzes the chronological pattern of ARSW imports across five horizons, showing a decrease in the number of sites that received these African imports in the mid-5th c. (60%) and the mid-6th c. (40%), especially inland and in the Guadalquivir Valley. The late 5th and early 6th c. was a period of stability and even expansion. By the late 6th c., however, few residents of post-Roman Spain had access to Roman-style dinnerware.

Late Antique Cyprus – autocephalous in relation to the Christian ecclesial systems of organization, with island ports accepting the traffic of continental Mediterranean cities, replete with beautiful mosaics, still echoing with the powerful voice of heresiologist-bishop Epiphanius – deserves even more attention than it has received of late. The two volumes under review attend to the island and inspire future directions for research. The collected papers in Cyprus in the Long Late Antiquity: History and Archaeology between the Sixth and Eighth Centuries (2023), edited by P. Panayides and I. Jacobs, and G. Deligiannakis's A Cultural History of Late Roman Cyprus (2022) come at a moment when academic inquiry into this region and period is actively raising new questions with new data, while also reevaluating points long considered.

Undoubtedly, the imperial coinage of Faustina the Younger is the largest surviving primary source for the portraiture and public image of the empress, and excellent work on the subject has already been done.1 Martin Beckmann (B.) sets out to reevaluate the coinage, portraits, and public image of Faustina the Younger, primarily based on a die study of her gold coinage (aurei) from the imperial mint in Rome.2 Die studies are a time-consuming and tedious task, but the results often allow us to better understand the workings of the mint and the (relative) chronology of coins and the images they carry. This is of primary importance for the coins of imperial women, as they are not dated. Moreover, the attribution and chronology of the sculptured portraits almost entirely depends on the coins. Only a correct interpretation of the numismatic evidence allows us to securely establish the relative and absolute chronology of Faustina’s portraiture.