Coasting Britannia: Roman Trade and Traffic Around the Shores of Britain

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Fulford
Keyword(s):  
Olive Oil ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
Roman Coins ◽  
Hadrian's Wall

A major theme of Barry’s research has been the investigation of the relations between the Roman world and western Europe, particularly Britain. While, as we shall see below, his Weldwork has contributed very substantially to this theme, there have been several major synthetic treatments (e.g. Cunlifie 1988; 2001a). He has also sailed vicariously the seaways of the Atlantic and the British Isles through reconstructing the voyage to northern waters of Pytheas, the Greek ‘discoverer of Britain’ in the fourth century bc (Cunlifie 2001b). This contribution explores a little further maritime activity around Britain’s shores in the Roman period, particularly in the period of the first century BC to third century ad, and the ideas expressed by Barry in his Facing the Ocean (Cunlifie 2001a: 417–21; 443–6). Between the last quarter of the first century BC and the mid-third century ad Britain was in receipt of tens of, if not hundreds of thousands, conceivably millions of consumer goods and containers of wine, olive oil, etc. from the Roman world, mostly from the provinces of Gaul and Spain, but also Germany and from across the Mediterranean (Fulford 1991). Universally among military sites of this period, and almost ubiquitous among sites in ‘lowland’ Britain, are finds of Roman coins, originating mostly from the mints of Rome and Lyons, samian pottery from Gaul and, among amphorae, sherds of the olive-oil-carrying Dressel 20s from the Guadalqivir valley of Baetica. How did this material reach Britain? Considerable evidence has been amassed for the location of Roman ports and harbours around the coast of Britain, either indirectly on the basis of, for example, extrapolating the line of a Roman road heading towards an unidentified or lost site on the coast, or directly on the basis of the remains of harbour works such as quays and piling, but were these all of equal importance throughout the period in question (e.g. Brigham 1990; Cleere 1978; Fryer 1973; Milne 1985)? Many categories of material have distributions across Britain, though the incidence of finds is usually greater in the ‘lowland’ southeast, rather than in Wales or in the northern counties south of Hadrian’s Wall, or between the Hadrianic and Antonine frontiers.

scholarly journals Mogontiacum: czynniki rozwoju

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leszek Mrozewicz
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Military Base ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
Real City

The history of Mogontiacum spans the period from 17/16 BCE to the end of the fourth century CE. It was a strong military base (with two legions stationed there in the first century) and a major settlement centre, though without municipal rights. However, the demographic and economic development, as well as the superior administrative and political status enabled Mogontiacum to transform – in socio-economic and urbanistic terms – into a real city. This process was crowned in the latter half of the third century with the construction of the city walls.

scholarly journals Brooches from the Cemetery of Opushki and Their Role in Costume (According to the 2003–2020 Excavation Materials)

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-39
Author(s):  
Anastasia А. Stoianova
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cervical Vertebrae ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Cultures

This paper presents a review of the brooches from the cemetery of Opushki located in the central area of the Crimean foothills. The cemetery was used from the first century BC to the fourth century AD by peoples of various archaeological cultures. 72 of 318 graves excavated there contained brooches. The total number of complete and fragmented brooches discovered there is 190. The largest group comprises one-piece bow-shaped brooches with returned foot and the brooches with flattened catch-plate from the first to the first half of the third century AD. There is a series of brooches made in the Roman Empire, with the most numerous group of plate brooches. There are a few violin-bow-shaped brooches, highly-profiled brooches of the Northern Black Sea type, two-piece violin-bow-shaped brooches with returned foot, and brooches with curved arched bow (P-shaped): great many pieces of these types occurred at other sites from the Roman Period in the Crimean foothill area. In Opushki, brooches appeared in all types of burial constructions, and mostly in the Late Scythian vaults from the first century BC to the second century AD. They accompanied graves of women, men, and children. In the overwhelming majority of cases, one burial was accompanied with one and rarely two brooches; there is only one burial of a child with three clasps. Most often brooches occurred at the chest, in rare cases on the shoulder, near the cervical vertebrae, pelvic bones, or outside the skeleton. It is noteworthy that a great number of brooches was found in the burials of children of different ages, from 1- to 8-12-year-old. Apparently, brooches as a part of the child’s costume were used throughout the child’s life from the very infancy. Generally, the brooch types from the cemetery of Opushki, their distribution in the assemblages and location on the skeletons correspond to the general pattern typical of barbarian cemeteries in the Crimean foothill area dated to the Roman Period.

scholarly journals Third-Century Inflation Reassessed

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
State Action ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Roman Egypt ◽  
Quantitative Treatment

The conventional view of inflation in the Roman world, based on evidence from Roman Egypt, is that prices were steady from the middle of the first century AD until around AD 274, other than a doubling of prices between AD 160 and 190. By a quantitative treatment of the data for all available prices, and indicators of prices, this paper shows that this picture is broadly correct for wheat, but that prices for other goods increased throughout the period from AD 160 to 270. This pattern suggests that there were two co-existing market sectors. One for wheat, where prices appear to have been impacted by state action, and another where other commodities were left to find their own market level within a relatively free market.

scholarly journals For a novel identification of the ‘first palace of the kings of Egrisi’ in Nokalakevi-Archaeopolis

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-31
Author(s):  
Davit Lomitashvili ◽  
◽  
Nikoloz Murghulia ◽  
Besik Lordtkipanidze ◽  
Tamila Kapanadze ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Black Sea ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
Black Sea Coast ◽  
Roman Coins ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
Sea Coast

Because of the complicated foreign policy in the fourth century (regular attacks of the Goths and Huns on Roman Empire, the rise of Persia and subordination of Kartli, Armenia and Albania), Rome was unable to exert proper control over its eastern provinces, including the eastern Black Sea coast and, accordingly, it was compelled to put up with the Lazis becoming more and more active in western Georgia [Muskhelishvili 2012:39]. Apparently, the Lazis evaluated the existing situation properly and gradually made their neighboring tribes of the Apsils, Abazgs and Sanigs subordinate to them [Lomouri 2011:119-120]. Unification of the western Georgian tribes by the Lazis and formation of a strong kingdom was in the interests of the Roman Empire too. Scholars suggest that Rome encouraged this process, rather than hindering it, because presence of a strong kingdom in western Georgia which had control over various passes and fortified cities on the Black Sea coast would serve as a defensive barrier for eastern provinces of Rome from northern nomadic tribes [Melikishvili 1970:556-557; Lomouri 2011:120; Muskhelishvili 2012:39]. Procopius of Caesarea puts special emphasis on this situation. According to him, “For the barbarians inhabiting the Caucasus Lazika is just an obstacle” [Procopius of Caesarea 1965:94]. Thus, from the third century, the Lazis gradually annexed the tribes residing in western Georgia and laid foundation for the kingdom of Lazika (Egrisi), whose borders approximately fell within the limits of western Georgia (Fig. 1). The king of Lazika had subordinated the neighboring tribes, but, on the other hand, formally it was a vassal of the Roman (Byzantine) emperor. According to Procopius of Caesarea, the Lazis “were Romans’ subordinate, but they did not pay any tribute or submit to them. The only thing they did was that when their king died, the Roman king would send an heir to the throne, or the symbol of power, to them. The latter would rigorously protect the borders of this country together with his subordinates so that the hostile Hunns would be unable to invade Roman lands from the Lazis’ bordering Caucasus Mountains passing through Lazika. They firmly protected them without getting any money or army from the Romans and did not go to war with the Romans either [Procopius of Caesarea 1965:72-73]. It is obvious that despite gaining factual independence, Romans still had considerable influence on western Georgia. It is not surprising - from the first century BC, after Pompey campaigned against Colchis and later (in the first-second cc AD) Rome deployed garrisons on the Black Sea coast, Rome gained a firm foothold in western Georgia. Analysis of archaeological material shows that this influence was not only political, but economic and cultural as well. For instance, the inland area of western Georgia yielded a large number of Roman coins of the first three centuries of the common era. Among them remarkable is a hoard of silver coins of the second-third centuries (907 items) discovered in Village Eki (Senaki Municipality) in 1971. It included a drachma of King Orod II of Parthia (57-38) and didrachmas and denarii minted in the names of Roman emperors Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, Lucius Verus, Commodus, Pertinax, Niger, Septimius Severus and so on. 774 coins of the Eki hoard are struck in the mint of Caesarea, 131 – in the mints of Rome and those of the eastern provinces of Roman Empire, and the rest – in other provinces [G. Dundua, V. Tsirghvava 1971:42:45]. This and other contemporaneous discoveries prove that in the late Roman period Roman influence in western Georgia, especially in its western regions, was really strong.

The Interpretation of the Book of Revelation in Early Christianity

2020 ◽  
pp. 393-411
Author(s):  
Charles E. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Early Christianity ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Book Of Revelation ◽  
Roman World ◽  
The One

This chapter attempts an overview of the use and interpretation of the book of Revelation up to the end of the fourth century. Revelation’s first readers shared with its author a marginalized status in the Roman world and naturally tended to interpret its images, which spoke to them of both their current and future situations, in the light of present circumstances. Chiliast and non-chiliast approaches to Revelation’s eschatology emerged early, as interpreters sought to steer a path between Jewish messianic expectation on the one side, and anti-creational, dualizing heresy on the other. By the late second and early third century, writers were explicitly debating the hermeneutical methods appropriate to the exposition of Revelation and other prophetic Scriptures. Victorinus of Pettau (late third century) published the first known commentary on the book, but it is the ecclesiastically centered commentary of Tyconius that sets the stage for medieval exegesis.

Roman Water-Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-194
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Water Power ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Grain Milling ◽  
Over Time

This chapter summarizes the archaeological evidence currently known for Roman water-mills, tracing the development and spread of water-powered grain milling over time across the Roman Empire. Problems of quantification and evidence bias, both documentary and archaeological, are addressed. In particular, it is argued that large discoidal millstones, formerly thought to derive either from animal-powered or water-powered mills, must come from water-mills, and that the idea of Roman animal-driven mills with discoidal millstones is a myth. This dramatically increases the amount of evidence available for water-powered grain milling, although very unevenly spread across the empire, and heavily dependent on the intensity of research in particular regions—good for Britain, parts of France, and Switzerland; poor everywhere else. The chapter also summarizes the state of knowledge on other applications of water-power—for ore-crushing machines at hard-rock gold and silver mines (by the first century AD), trip-hammers, tanning and fulling mills, and marble sawing (by the third century AD). The picture is fast-changing and the body of evidence continues to grow with new archaeological discoveries. The chapter ends with some thoughts about the place of water-power in the overall economy of the Roman world, and on the transmission of water-powered technologies between the Roman and medieval periods.

Anniversary Dinner 1976: speech by Dr Philip Handler, President of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, The Dorchester, 30 November 1976

1977 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-11
Keyword(s):  
United States Of America ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
National Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Scientific Endeavour

It is an uncommon honor to be invited, by the President of The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge to offer the annual toast. I am deeply appreciative of this high privilege. On the occasion of the tercentenary of this Society, my great and good predecessor, Detlev Bronk, dispatched to you the following greetings from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America: This 300th anniversary of your foundation is especially meaningful to us, for our Academy is descended from yours. Our objectives are rooted deeply in your traditions. During your first century you nurtured the beginning of scientific endeavour in the American colonies of your nation. Throughout your second hundredth year you gave encouragement to the scientists of our young nation. In your third century, which has been our first, your Fellows have generously offered encouraging friendship to our members. And as you begin your fourth century we send you our best wishes and pledge our will to engage with you in the mutual quest of natural knowledge.

On the Chinese Origin of the Galley Method of Arithmetical Division

1966 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lam Lay-Yong
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Common Method ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Sun Tzu ◽  
Chinese Origin ◽  
Chinese Texts

Before 1600 the most common method of division used in Europe was the galley, batello, or scratch method, and this was still popular up to the end of the eighteenth century. This method is commonly supposed to be of Hindu origin, being based on a method found in India about the fourth century. It will be shown that the Hindu method is identical to the Chinese method of division (ch'u) mentioned in very early Chinese texts such as the Chiu Chang Suan Shu (Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, c. first century a.d.). The earliest detailed description of this method is found in the Sun Tzŭ Suan Ching (The Mathematical Manual of Master Sun, third century a.d.).

The Roman and Byzantine Limes in Cyrenaica

1953 ◽  
Vol 43 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Goodchild
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
Military Organization ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Jewish Revolt ◽  
The Military

Although Cyrenaica ranked, under the earlier Empire, as a senatorial province, it was too exposed to barbarian attack to be left undefended; and there is ample evidence that it had its own garrison—probably a small one—from the first century A.D. onwards. This garrison was evidently inadequate to prevent the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt of A.D. 115, and may consequently have been strengthened; but it was the crisis of the mid-third century that showed all too clearly the insecurity of the isolated Cyrenaican plateau. The Marmaric tribes invaded the province, and Cyrene itself seems to have been overwhelmed. The Diocletianic reforms resulted in the creation of a new ‘middle-eastern’ command under the Dux Aegypti Thebaidos utrarumque Libyarum, but the loss of the chapter of the Notitia Dignitatum enumerating the units stationed in the two Libyas makes it difficult to reconstruct the military organization of these provinces at the end of the fourth century. The works of Synesius help to fill the lacuna and at the same time provide a vivid picture of life in an invaded area.

Antioch 268 and Its Legacy in the Fourth-Century Theological Debates

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-215
Author(s):  
Dragoș Andrei Giulea
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Sitz Im Leben ◽  
Individual Entity ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Eusebius Of Caesarea ◽  
Father And Son

AbstractThe study proposes an analysis of the concepts ofousiaandhypostasisin the theology of the Council of Antioch which condemned Paul of Samosata in 268 CE. The authentic reports preserved from the assembly unveil the fact that the synodals who condemned Paul of Samosata employed the two terms interchangeably to denote the individual entity or person rather than the common essence or nature of the Father and Son. Additionally, they defended Christ's divinity before time and simultaneously assumed a certain subordinationism. The study additionally explores theSitz im Lebenof this theology, an accepted language embraced in the Eastern part of the Roman world in the third century. The article further traces the elements of this Antiochene theology in the fourth century in what was traditionally viewed as the “Arian” councils held in Antioch in 341 and 345 as well as in such authors as Eusebius of Caesarea and the Homoiousians. While Antioch 341 and 345 distanced themselves from Arianism, it is more coherent to interpret them, together with Eusebius and the Homoiousians, through this new hermeneutical lens, namely Antioch 268, rather than the traditional polarization between Nicaea and Arianism.

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