Kapeleion: casual and commercial wine consumption in classical Greece
The symposion is consistently referred to as the framework around which all studies of Classical Greek drinking are built, regardless of a body of archaeological and literary evidence to suggest that this type of drinking was enjoyed primarily by a small minority of the elite male, and perhaps predominantly Athenian, population (although various forms of ritualised drinking were widespread throughout the Greek world).
Contacts and trade at Late Bronze Age Hazor: aspects of intercultural relationships and identity in the Eastern Mediterranean
The city of Hazor appears to have been one of the largest in Canaan in the Late Bronze Age, yet no real attempt to trace the source of its affluence has been made. No city can prosper in isolation; hence intercultural relationships are of greatest importance for a city’s development.
The Myth of the Synagogue on Delos
The identification of a synagogue on Delos has been problematic ever since it was first made in 1913 because while there is some evidence relating to Jews and/or Samaritans on Delos not one single piece of it refers to a synagogue or association house. When we come to look at the material relating to how a building on the island came to be identified as a synagogue…
Roman healing spas in Italy : a study in design and function
A spa is defined as a bathing establishment which used thermal-mineral spring water for therapeutic purposes. Although the topics of bathing and medicine in the Roman world have received considerable attention, thermal-mineral spas have remained inadequately studied.
A comparative perspective on the determinants of the scale and productivity of maritime trade in the Roman Mediterranean
The scale and productivity of maritime trade is a function of environmental conditions, political processes and economic development that determine demand, and more specifically of trading costs.
Sex and empire: a Darwinian perspective
This paper draws on evolutionary psychology to elucidate ultimate causation in imperial state formation and predatory exploitation in antiquity and beyond. Differential access to the means of reproduction is shown to have been a key feature of early imperial systems.
New ways of studying incomes in the Roman economy
This paper very briefly considers three ways of expanding the study of Roman income levels beyond the limits of empirical data on costs and wages, by considering the determinants of real incomes, the use of proxy data for real incomes, and the potential of cross-cultural comparison.
A model of real income growth in Roman Italy
The economic impact of Roman imperialism on the mass of Italy’s population is still only poorly understood: who benefited, and how?
The Roman slave supply
This survey of the scale and sources of the Roman slave supply will be published in Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge (eds.), The Cambridge world history of slavery, 1: The ancient Mediterranean world.
Rule and Revenue in Egypt and Rome: Political Stability and Fiscal Institutions
This paper has more modest goals. It takes as its starting point Levi’s hy- pothesis that the transition from the Roman Republic to the Principate in the late first century BC brought political stability, which led to rationally calcu- lated fiscal reforms. It examines the effects of this transition in Egypt where there is abundant evidence due to the survival of administrative and tax docu- ments on papyrus and potsherds.