George Cupcea – författare

In 2016, in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, some forty scholars from around the world attended the People of the Ancient World conference. This was organized within the framework of the Romans 1 by 1 project, and its main focus was on improving knowledge on ancient populations, employing a variety of methodologies, tools and research techniques. The presentations provided the editors with ten papers to be further developed and reunited under these covers. They encompass diverse approaches to Roman provincial populations and the corresponding case-studies highlight the multi-faceted character of Roman society. The volume takes four main directions: prosopography (from Italy to Spain); ancient professions and professionals (merchants in Noricum, Lower Moesia, general nomenclature and encoding of professions, associations and family life); onomastics and origins, and finally, the military (iconography of funerary monunments and centurions’ social life). The publication is intended, on one hand, to enhance knowledge of the diversity of Roman social standings, of the exhibited social markers and – perhaps most important – stress the variety of forms which express status and place within the community, and on the other, to reiterate a series of fresh, modern views on these matters, resulting from a gathering of mostly junior researchers.

Written as a volume of distinct exhaustive studies, ‘Latin Inscriptions form the Legionary Fortress of Apulum’ is more than a technically crafted corpus of inscriptions, treating each discovery as a ripe source for unique information on Roman army life and politics.The inscriptions discovered in the legionary fortress of Apulum, the capital of Dacia, are exceptional finds, exclusively in situ, most of them from the headquarters (principia), but also from the barracks area. Because of this particular quality, they are more than individual texts, also becoming objects that, because of their precise findspot may reveal valuable information on use of space, private or public functionality of monuments or iconographic language of the political acts of the army.In the volume one can find collective or individual statue bases of emperors, on their precise findspot, lists of centurions and special dedications by important officers and governors, the emergence of Serapis in the official spaces of the army, the worship place of the century in the barracks and not last, the first double confirmation (epigraphic and archaeological) of a military prison. With an inventory of the earlier epigraphic finds in the fortress, the volume attempts to suggest the magnificent view that one could have had when strolling through a legionary fortress: alleys between barracks decorated with statues and altars to the genii, crossroads with garnished sundials and the principia courtyard filled with imperial statues on impressive marble bases, finally the sanctuary of the eagle, where only Jupiter and Mars were also tolerated.Because of its multi-level of information provided, the volume could be a valuable instrument both to the student of the Roman army and epigraphy and to the experienced scholar, envisaging wider, more inclusive approaches.