In this paper I reconsider the Roman law on magic through an examination of three key “moments”: the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis; the trial of Apuleius as known from his Apology; and a passage from The Opinions of Paulus. I argue that the Roman law on magic grounded in the Lex Cornelia gradually shifted from a focus on harmful and uncanny actions to a concern with religious deviance. This shift was already underway at the time of Apuleius' trial, (...) if only on an ad hoc basis, and was firmly established in the formal discourse of Roman law by ca. 300 CE, the date of The Opinions of Paulus. I argue for the importance of retaining “magic” as a heuristic category, since it is the only term fluid enough to function as an inclusive rubric for this shifting set of concerns. (shrink)

In 1967 Alan Cameron published a landmark article in this journal, ‘The fate of Pliny'sLettersin the late Empire’. Opposing the traditional thesis that the letters of Pliny the Younger were only rediscovered in the mid to late fifth century by Sidonius Apollinaris, Cameron proposed that closer attention be paid to the faint but clear traces of the letters in the third and fourth centuries. On the basis of well-observed intertextual correspondences, Cameron proposed that Pliny's letters were being read by the (...) end of the fourth century at the latest. That article now seems the vanguard of a rise in scholarly interest in Pliny's late-antique reception. But Cameron also noted the explicit attention given to the letters by two earlier commentators—Tertullian of Carthage, in the late second to early third century, and Eusebius of Caesarea, in the early fourth. The use of Pliny in these two earliest commentators, in stark contrast to their later successors, has received almost no subsequent attention. (shrink)

In the year 308 CE, the African army raised to the purple the agens vices praefectorum praetorio Lucius Domitius Alexander. This rather unique case of a vicarius becoming emperor is deserving of investigation. Scholarly interest on the matter has traditionally focused on the broader political significance, treating Alexander as a traditional usurper. This paper argues that, contrary to traditional studies, the regime of Alexander focused on very local, African tropes. The uniqueness of the advertisement suggests that this African usurpation was (...) the product of discontent internal to Africa; in other words, it is a departure from the usurpations of the third century. The achievements of Diocletian, who supposedly stabilized the Empire, ended when he withdrew, and the rebellion of 308–310 demonstrates that there remained unaddressed tensions between the provinces and the remaining tetrarchs. (shrink)