K. Lapatin (éd.), The Berthouville Silver Treasure and Roman Luxury, Los Angeles, 2014.

Éditeur : J. Paul Getty Museum
224 pages
ISBN : 978-1-60606-420-7
$50

In 1830 a farmer plowing a field near the village of Berthouville in Normandy, France, discovered a trove of ancient Roman silver objects weighing some 55 pounds (25 kilograms). The Berthouville treasure, as the find came to be known, includes two statuettes representing the Gallo-Roman god Mercury and approximately sixty vessels—bowls, cups, pitchers, and plates, many of which bear votive inscriptions—along with dozens of smaller components and fragments. Dedicated to Mercury by various individuals, the treasure, including some of the finest ancient Roman silver to survive, fortunately escaped being melted down. It was acquired by the Cabinet des médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque Royale (now the Département des Monnaies, médailles et antiques of the Bibliothèque nationale de France), where it was displayed until late 2010, when it was brought in its entirety to the Getty Villa together with four large, late antique silver plates, each with its own colorful history, for comprehensive conservation treatment.

This sumptuously illustrated volume is published to accompany an exhibition of the same name, opening at the Getty Villa on November 18, 2014. It presents the highlights of the treasure and other Roman luxury arts from the holdings of the Cabinet des médailles—including precious gems, jewelry, gold coins, and colored marbles—and contextualizes them in a series of elucidating essays.

Source : Getty Museum

A. M. Kemezis, Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans. Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian, Cambridge, 2014.

Éditeur : Cambridge University Press
Collection : Greek Culture in the Roman World
351 pages
ISBN : 9781107062726
£70

The political instability of the Severan Period (AD 193–235) destroyed the High Imperial consensus about the Roman past and caused both rulers and subjects constantly to re-imagine and re-narrate both recent events and the larger shape of Greco-Roman history and cultural identity. This book examines the narratives put out by the new dynasty, and how the literary elite responded with divergent visions of their own. It focuses on four long Greek narrative texts from the period (by Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian), each of which constructs its own version of the empire, each defined by different Greek and Roman elements and each differently affected by dynastic change, especially that from Antonine to Severan. Innovative theories of narrative are used to produce new readings of these works that bring political, literary and cultural perspectives together in a unified presentation of the Severan era as a distinctive historical moment.

Source : CUP

P. Halstead, Two Oxen Ahead: Pre-Mechanized Farming in the Mediterranean, Chichester, 2014.

Éditeur : Wiley-Blackwell
384 pages
ISBN : 978-1-4051-9283-5
72 €

This revealing study shows how careful analysis of recent farming practices, and related cultural traditions, in communities around the Mediterranean can enhance our understanding of prehistoric and Greco-Roman societies.

Includes a wealth of original interview material and data from field observation
Provides original approaches to understanding past farming practices and their social contexts
Offers a revealing comparative perspective on Mediterranean societies' agronomy
Identifies a number of previously unrecorded climate-related contrasts in farming practices, which have important socio-economic significance
Explores annual tasks, such as tillage and harvest; inter-annual land management techniques, such as rotation; and intergenerational issues, including capital accumulation

Source : Wiley Blackwell

J. Elsner, M. Meyer (éd.), Art and Rhetoric in Roman Culture, Cambridge, 2014.

Éditeur : Cambridge University Press
524 pages
ISBN : 9781107000711
£75

Rhetoric was fundamental to education and to cultural aspiration in the Greek and Roman worlds. It was one of the key aspects of antiquity that slipped under the line between the ancient world and Christianity erected by the early Church in late antiquity. Ancient rhetorical theory is obsessed with examples and discussions drawn from visual material. This book mines this rich seam of theoretical analysis from within Roman culture to present an internalist model for some aspects of how the Romans understood, made and appreciated their art. The understanding of public monuments like the Arch of Titus or Trajan's Column or of imperial statuary, domestic wall painting, funerary altars and sarcophagi, as well as of intimate items like children's dolls, is greatly enriched by being placed in relevant rhetorical contexts created by the Roman world.

Source : CUP

K. Brodersen (éd.), Solinus. New Studies, Heidelberg, 2014.

Éditeur : Verlag Antike
224 pages
ISBN : 978-3-938032-86-2
39,90 €

Gaius Iulius Solinus is the author of the Collectanea rerum memorabilium or Polyhistor, a late antique survey of memorable lands, peoples, stones, plants, animals, and on life, the universe and everything. He has been called the "chief Latin geographer to a millennium", and a large number of manuscripts as well as a host of early printed editions are witness to the long-lasting popularity of his work. This changed after the end of that millennium: As we still have Solinus sources today, the Collectanea are in substance irrelevant for us, thunders Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopädie. This lack of interest in Solinus is also evident in the rarity of more recent research on Solinus. New studies are certainly not amiss.