Viticulture, opus doliare, and the patrimonium Caesaris at the Roman imperial estate at Vagnari (Puglia)

This article focuses on the establishment of a winery on the Roman imperial estate at Vagnari in southeast Italy in the 2nd c. CE and the ceramic vats (dolia defossa) needed to mature and store the estate's vintages. A scientific analysis of the clay used to make the dolia has revealed their likely place of manufacture to have been in Latium or on the border between Latium and Campania on the Tyrrhenian (west) coast of Italy. With these analytical results in hand, it is now possible to inquire into the historical and economic significance for the imperial fiscus of importing dolia for wine making in the vicus at Vagnari, the route and mechanisms by which they might have traveled to the other side of the Italian peninsula, and the connectivity between this Apulian imperial estate and other potential imperial properties in western Italy. This places the present study at the intersection of agriculture, manufacturing, and property transfer within the patrimonium Caesaris.

The Novallas bronze tablet: An inscription in the Celtiberian language and the Latin alphabet from Spain

The Novallas Bronze may be considered one of the most important epigraphic finds in recent years in Spain. It is a fragment of a public document datable to the last decades of the 1st c. BCE, composed in the Celtiberian language but written in the Latin alphabet. The Novallas Bronze is not only one of the latest inscriptions composed in this language – over half a century later than the famous inscriptions from Contrebia Belaisca – but also the longest Celtiberian document written in the Latin alphabet known thus far. This paper offers a complete publication of this exceptional document, as well as an analysis of the principal developments that the artifact illuminates and the consequent implications for the transformations that the Celtiberian people underwent during the transition from Republic to Empire, with particular focus on the process of Latinization.

Tracking consumption at Pompeii: the graffiti lists

This paper examines five graffiti expense lists from Pompeii for information on the habits of consumption in the Vesuvian cities. It is intended as a contribution to the growing literature on economic well-being in Pompeii, focusing on the diet and consumption strategies of the nonelite Roman majority. These lists provide rare quantitative evidence for a portion of a whole diet, as well as nonfood expenses. They also shed light on the place of cereals in the overall Vesuvian diet, the importance of consumer goods, and cycles of plenty and want.