Greek artefacts, craftsmen and artists had penetrated Rome since regal days; from the second century BC this trickle had become a continuing and influential flood, contributing together with Italic and Etruscan architecture and art, and the developing central Italian and Roman concrete architecture, to the rich tapestry of the art of the capital. Vespasian (69-79), founder of the Flavian dynasty, showed an astute pragmatism in his handling of architecture and art. In the provinces the architectural and art forms characteristic of the Flavian era continued to flourish. Dynamism returned to imperial commissions with the Romano-Spanish Trajan. The age of Hadrian (117-38) proved to be extraordinary, largely because of the extent to which he was able to impress upon it his own many-sided personality: ruler, philhellene, architect, dilettante, poet, traveller and romantic. The rich artistic harvest of the Flavian to the Antonine ages was not just an imperial, but a corporate achievement, one which offered a worthy inheritance to following generations.

Art and architecture

Rome and its development under Augustus and his successors

Part I. Narrative: 1. Rome and Iran to the beginning of the third century AD 2. Rome and the Sasanian Empire - a chronological survey Part II. Sources and Contexts: 3. Political goals 4. Warfare 5. Military confrontations 6. The diplomatic solutions 7. Arabia between the great powers 8. Shared interests - continuing conflicts 9. Religion - Christianity and Zoroastrianism 10. Emperor and King of Kings 11. Exchange of information between West and East Part III. Appendices.

Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals

The work of the last generation of historians has represented a large step towards a better understanding of the early imperial court. Several major studies have extended the detailed knowledge of the freedmen personnel, the equestrian amici principis, and of links among the senatorial elite. Above all, study of contacts between emperors and their subjects, the decision-making process and the distribution of resources and patronage, show the network of imperial personnel in operation and reveal something of the structures within which they operate. In discussing the nascent court of the Julio-Claudian period, it is necessary to generalize more broadly about the function of the court in the structure of imperial power. The social rituals of a court may act as a facade to screen the realities of power. Between Augustus and Nero the patterns of court life were developing, and still far from fixed. The court was a system of power which tended to its own perpetuation.

The imperial court

The two major literary sources, apart from the Histories of Dio, are Suetonius' lives of Augustus and Tiberius: the Lives are immensely important, but they are organized thematically rather than chronologically. In any case, the new formula for Agrippa was only the first stage in a bigger reformulation, the 'constitutional settlement' of 23 BC Augustus made many other political dispositions in the eastern provinces. In AD 13 the constitutional powers of Augustus and Tiberius were renewed again for ten years, and the imperium of Tiberius was at last declared equal to that of Augustus: he was collega imperil. Factual power would depend on whether the system had become sufficiently ingrained in Roman political life to survive, without seriously imaginable alternative, the rule of successors less skilful and less ruthless than Augustus; and in that respect his long reign had helped to make success somewhat more likely than not.

Political history, 30 B.C. to A.D. 14

Geographical and historical content - physical and human geography historical survey aerial photography and archaeological prospection history of archaeological air reconnaissance in the Middle East pioneers and their research methods identification of ancient sites future work the sites. Appendix: the Roman emperors.

Rehav Rubin

Papers

Rome's Desert Frontier from the Air