As part of a long-term survey of southern Etruria, the site of Monte Gelato, about 30 km north of Rome, was excavated from 1986-90. An exceptionally rich stratigraphy provided excavators with a detailed occupation narrative. An Augustan villa where dormice were eaten and eels kept as pets was abandoned in the early 3rd century AD. Sporadic settlements on the `frontier zone' of Lombard incursions were succeeded by the establishment of a fortified ecclesiastical centre and papal estate in the 9th century AD. Two major issues shaped the project design: firstly the chronology of the abandonment of Roman villas and the move to fortified castelli and secondly, the cycles of isolation from and linkage to Rome which continue to affect this beautiful area of Italy.

This issue of JRPS is devoted to a comprehensive study of stamped decoration of flue tiles. There is a catalogue of the known patterns and a complete corpus of the known examples of each with their distribution. It is a volume that will be valuable for future reference as well as for an understanding of the manufacture and trade in the tiles.

This volume of the Dakhleh Oasis Project presents a first edition of the texts of three orations by or attributed to Isocrates ( Ad Demonicum , Ad Nicolem and the Nicocles ) as found in a new 4th century AD codex from Ismant el-Kharab in the Dahkleh Oasis (ancient Kellis). Isocrates himself lived in the 4th century BC; he was an Athenian orator who wrote many famous and influential speeches (although he never delivered them in public) which provide us with an extremely valuable commentary on the great political issues in the Greek world during the 4th century. This codex is immensely exciting as it is the earliest text of Isocrates ever to have been found. It was discovered lying in the sand on the floor of a house excavated in Kellis and consisted of nine wooden boards tied together with string, inscribed in Greek on both sides of each board. Members of the project believe that it was probably the copy of a local schoolmaster as the general quality of the handwriting and the spelling errors make it unlikely that it was owned by a refined scholar. Moreover the orations contained in the codex were popular for school reading in antiquity. This volume reproduces the text of the codex in full, together with commentary on selected passages and discussion of the discovery, date and purpose of the codex, codicological observations and a tabular comparison of variant readings. Thirty black and white photos of the codex allow us to get extremely close to this remarkable document and provide a good impression of its size, texture, construction and appearance.

Eighteen papers from the 1996 TRAC gathering. The contributions are: Theorising Roman Archaeology ( J C Barrett ); Romanization'-imperialism': What are we talking about? ( P Freeman ); Technologies of power in Roman Britain ( C Forcey ); The enemy without, the enemy within: more thoughts on the images ( I Ferris ); The role of African Red Slip ware vessel volume in Mediterranean demography ( J W J Hawthorne ); Samian: beyond dating ( S Willis ); Symbols, pottery and trade ( P Rush ); Native or Roman? Ironwork hoards in Roman Britain ( A R J Hutcheson ); Abandonment, rubbish disposal and special' deposits at Newstead ( S Clarke ); The use of animal bone in the intepretation of the Iron Age to Roman cultural transition ( J E Richardson ); Human sacrifice in Roman Britain ( R M J Isserlin ); Elite settlements in the Roman and Sub-Roman period ( D Petts ); Settlement and the construction of ethnicity in Roman Sardinia ( E Blake ); Invisible peasants and consumer subcultures in north-west Britannia ( K J Matthews ); Aspects of Romanization in the Wroxeter hinterland ( R White and M van Leusen ); The use of water for social control in the Roman Empire ( S P Ellis ); Towards a theory of Roman urbanism: beyond economics and ideal-types ( M Grahame ); Roman' urban form and culture difference ( S Clarke and D J Robinson ).

The contributors to this volume seek to decipher the Hellenistic citizens' views on vital elements of their society: the city, the ruler, religion, magic and astrology, everyday life and social relations (family and gender), morality, uses of the past, and the iconography of death. How did the changes in political and social ideas affect actions and practices, which in turn again altered concepts? Moreover, the authors distinguish between the views of the common people and the elite, the evidence from inscriptions (seen as popular sentiment) and the evidence from literature (from the elite). The authors' conclusions have broad ramifications for future scholars in a field that has not hitherto received much attention. This volume is essential reading on the early development of individualism and the history of ideas.

Introductory report and a detailed illustrated catalogue of the pottery finds from this second millennium BC Assyrian site, in modern northern Iraq.

Williams shows how an understanding of Ovid's exile poetry is incomplete without recognition of the contribution of Ibis , particularly for its persona and mood.

Updating and enlarging on a lifetime's work on Augustus and his `constitutions' Lacey discusses the process of gradual encroachment whereby Augustus unobtrusively and with minimal opposition accumulated more and more power, whilst outwardly retaining the facade of a republic. Chapters examine the constitutional settlements of 27 and 23 BC, to which Lacey attributes less importance than most, the nature of the role given to Agrippa, the evolution of tribunician power, his religious prominence and dynastic arrangements. This all adds up to a very thorough and incisive study of how under Augustus the republic finally died and the principate was born.

The naval history of the Lower Danube and the Black Sea in Roman and Byzantine times is here brought to light in a series of essays that look at the historical and archaeological evidence for the fleet and its role as a frontier force; the structure of the fleet; the types of ships; the ports and harbours; the activity and use of the fleet during the first to sixth centuries AD; and the epigraphic evidence for it. The text is in French throughout.

The latest volume in this series of papers from Britain's premier classics conference, contains 22 papers on Roman poetry and prose, Greek poetry, etymology and historiography. Contents include: Money-loving Romans (Andrew Erskine); Virgil: a paradoxical poet? (P. R.Hardie); Herodotus warns the Athenians (John Moles); The magic of names: some etymologies in the Cyranides (David Bain).

A report on seven hoards of Greek and Greek Imperial coins, four hoards of Roman Imperial coins and catalogues of six other collections of mostly provenanced coins. There is also a die-study of the extensive bronze coinage of Gordian III minted at 6 Caesarea in Cappadocia. This volume provides a companion to `Recent Turkish Hoards and Numismatic Studies'.

In chronological order, recounting the interplay of political, social and economic factors, the author brings a unique understanding of the individual and combined roles in forming this great empire. Moreover, Rome's history is presented form two perspectives, both from that of the Romans throughout the Empire's existence, and from that of the present, as posterity has tried to understand what happened. The narrative throughout this work will provide the reader with a rare insight into what is understandably referred to as 'the eternal city'.

The eighth volume of PLLS 8, under the distinguished editorship of Dr Roger Brock (University of Leeds) and Professor A.J. Woodman (Durham University), is dedicated to Ronald Martin for his 80th birthday. Many of the papers assembled in it reflect Ronald Martin's two main areas of scholarly endeavour, Latin comedy and Tacitus.

A collection of papers that document some of the huge wealth of archaeological material currently being discovered around the shores of the Black Sea. Papers include: Thracia Pontica ( Alexander Fol ); The problem of Krounoi-Dionysopolis: one settlement ot two? ( Zlatozara Gocheva ); Colchis and Bosporus: two models of colonisation? ( G A Koshelenko and V D Kuznetsov ); Joint excavation in Tanais ( Burkhard Böttger ); Achilles and Helen on White Island Euxine Sea ( John Hind ); The Bronze-Working and toreutics of the Pontus ( M Y Treister ); Stone matrices with griffins from Nymphaeum and Euesperides ( M Treister and M Vickers ).

Topics include: fragments of a lorica hamata from Fluitenberg; a bronze spearhead from Augusta Rauricorum; stone barracks built to replicate tents from Spain; The de munitonibus castrorum; Hedgehogs, caltrops and palisade stakes; The ownership and disposal of military equipment in the Late Roman army; decorative objects from a Roman villa at Wange; Two dolphin scabbard runers from Carlisle.