Hadrian

While I am momentarily writing a piece on late Roman taxation I would like to ask all of you I you know perhaps interesting references to primary sources, referring to taxes. I am mainly focussing on land tax, which was often levied in kind in late antiquity, but there are some cases in which this tax was levied in money. Are you familiar with this? And if so, where can I find the evidence point in a direction of multiformed levying of taxation in antiquity (as against the conventional view of the annona). PS: are some of you known with the system of adaeratio?? Thanks!! J.A. Boek, The Netherlands

The imperial nomenclature developed round the names of the first holders of the position, but not every name included every element. Some elements (in a likely sequence) were: Imperator (originally a title awarded under the Roman Republic to a magistrate in the field); Caesar (of course originally a surname of Julius Caesar; then it became a hereditary title); next the personal names of the current emperor (for example Titus Flavius Vespasianus, Vespasian), followed by the title Augustus (both Caesar and Augustus helped the ruling emperor to legitimize his power by referring to his 'predecessors'). It was quite normal for an emperor to adopt some of the family names of his predecessor, e.g. Antoninus Pius' personal names after adoption became Hadrianus Antoninus (referring to his adoptive-father, Hadrian). After their death some emperors were deified, and were accorded the title divus. If the successor was the son of an emperor who had been deified, he could be termed divi filius (son of a god). But there are also various extra titles... A briljant example of Imperial nomenclature is an inscription at a statuebase from Ostia, in honour of the emperor Sepitmius Severus, AD 196 (now in the Corile della Pigna, Vatican Museums): Imperatori Caesari Marci Antonini Pii Germanici Samatici filio divi Commodi fratri divi Antonini Pii nepoti divi Hadriani pronepoti divi Traiani Parthici abnepoti divi Nervae adnepoti Lucio Septimio Severo Pio Pertinaci Augusto Arabico Adiabenico pontifici maximo tribunicia potestate IIII imperatori VIII consuli II patri patriae. Meaning: To the emperor Caesar, son of the deified Marcus Antoninus Pius, victor over the Germans and the Sarmatians, brother of the deified Commodus, grandson of the deified Antoninus Pius, great-grandson of the deified Hadrian, great-great-grandson of the deified Trajan, victor over the Parthians, great-great-great-grandson of the deified Nerva, Lucius Septimius Severus Pius Pertinax Augustus, victor over the Arabs and the Mesopotamians, chief priest, holder of the tribunician power four times, saluted Imperator eight times, consul twice, father of this country.

I would like to interview just a 'normal Roman', I'd like to know how daily life was in Rome? How did the plebs struggle? I think that is rather interesting than to know what a high magistrate thought about the way Rome worked (we already know much more about the emperors and high magistrates than about the normal man of the Roman streets...).

My absolute favourite is Hadrian; the man who brought unity into the Empire! Stabilizing the frontiers, reorganizing the army, brought the Greeks at the same level as the Romans, interested in art (beautiful heritage from the Hadrianic Age!), travelling around the empire to let everybody know who was the emperor (former emperors were trapped in Rome )... such a man deserves the title: 'Best Emperor'.

I think the end of Roman Britain as a very dramatic episode, but not as dramatic as the sixth-century monk (Gildas) says and not as dramatic as you say ('was mostly overrun by Germanic invaders'). In the historiography there are probably five major camps. The short-chronology camp (which isn't really a short one) says that the decline started in de third century and was reduced to nothing in the early fifth century (409/410). What I can't believe is that the Romanness on the British Isles just ceased after 365 years of Roman occupation! (or a generation, maybe two, after 409/410). Why didn't the "Germanic invaders" see the benefits of the Roman culture (hearth vs. hypocaustum)? On the other hand there are some historians/archaeologists who are saying that the Roman culture flourished in Late Antique Britain (especially Ken Dark), although this doesn't convince me at all... again... a difficult problem, because of the multilayer causes... (I also think that Christianity is very important, because that religion became sort of an export-product of the British Isles in Late Antiquity, although there aren't much corresponding rooms (churches, etc.) known, from Britain in the 5th-6th centuries, in contrast with the Continent...')

Okay... finally I found a Roman Empire forum! So, I'm planning to become an active member (not to active off course.. there's no need for a coup d'

Well, I'm especially talking about the social perspective, because the end of the province in a political sense is not really an issue (although there are some doubts about the Rescript of Honorius). I'm talking about the fluid process which brought the Romanitas in Britannia to an end. I want to know why Britannia lost her Romanness and not why the island lost her legions, because that process had already started in the reign of Domitian. And by the way, I'm glad to join the club!

When I wrote my thesis about the end of the towns in Roman Britain I had some HUGE problems defining the causes which led to the end of Roman Britain. Maybe we could accumulate all causes to get a complete vision on the end of the 'separatist province'. What sources should we use? Just archaeological, or also (mostly unreliable) written sources as Gildas, Zosimus or Bede? How should we judge the Anglo-Saxon 'invasion' (yeah... invasion, not my words... just recalling Ammianus Marcellinus...)? And what about the Germanic mercenaries? A lot of questions for a difficult (and probably insoluble) problem...

Barry Cunliffe has written two books about 'The temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath', en one book (in 1984) called Roman Bath discovered. I haven't read them, but I'm sure they are full of information about the Roman occupation of the site.

There is still one piece of the inscription of the triuphal arch of Claudius in de Capitoline Museum. One of the lines of the inscription says that the inscription (and the arch) were erected: 'because he brought eleven kings of Britain, defeated without any loss, to a surrender, and was the first to bring barbarian tribes on the far side of Ocean into the sway of the Roman people'. So there wasn't really a list of British kings it was rather a part of the inscription that there were British kings and that they were now subject of the Roman Emperor.