Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua (ISSN 0213-0181, ISSN-e 1988-3080) was founded in 1983. Originally issued on an annual basis, since 2017 the journal edits two issues every year. It covers topics connected to the Ancient World, particularly from the point of view of Ancient History, but contributions from complementary disciplines such as Epigraphy, Archaeology or Philology are also welcome, as long as they present a historical approach.
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Approach to the Monetary Circulation of Upper Guadalquivir (Jaén) under Roman Rule
The article presents, through an exhaustive compilation and systematization, the study of the ancient numismatic documentation of the Alto Guadalquivir. With this, we intend to outline the monetary circulation of said spatial framework in Roman times, a work of synthesis necessary for being unpublished. This is a preliminary exploration will serve as a basis for future works that will specify and complete our vision. In this way, we will contribute to offering information –clearer than that provided by literary texts– regarding the economic rhythms and the historical evolution that this remarkably urbanized territory experienced during the centuries of Roman rule.
Copyright (c) 2023 Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua
The Theokóloi of Athens: Their Function within the Athenian Religious Context of the Second Century AD
The term theokolos appears already during classical times within several inscriptions from the sanctuary of Olympia listing the cult personnel. Furthermore, within Pausania’s description of the rituals of Olympia, the olympic theokoloi are said to be appointed to the supervision of the monthly sacrifices to several sanctuary deities. The term theokoloi also appears in several inscriptions from the second century AD, a few from Athens, found in Hadrian’ Olympieion and in Dionysos’ Theatre, and others from cities that belonged to the Panhellenion Legue. This article analyzed the Olympian theolokoi as a possible model for their Athenian counterpart and the role the latter could have played within the rituals of the imperial cult in honour of Hadrian.
Copyright (c) 2022 Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua
Priscillian of Avila and His Creed: A Case Study on the Creeds in the Western Church during the Second Half of 4th Century
Creeds are an important element of the controversies over the doctrine in the ancient Church. This article deals with the usage and the text of a creed which Priscillian testified, who was condemned and executed as a sorcerer and heretic like Mani in the late 4th century. His creed was not an invention and his interpretation of the word symbolum was not strange, he was rather a witness to the situation in which the creeds were used in the ancient Iberian Church.
Copyright (c) 2021 Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua
Hecataeus in Arrian (FGrHist 1 F 26 = Anabasis 2.16.5)
Hecataeus' fragment 26 is a clear expression of a rationalizing treatment of myths. Although Heracles´ tenth labour is traditionally set in the far west, the Milesian logographer defends, however, a geographical setting closer to Greece. Nonetheless, even though Arrian is a trustworthy source, the digressive context in which he addressed the topic, the different aspects he enhances and his interest in the ethnic characterization of a Cadiz Heraclion, who he severs from a Greek cultural background, make necessary a contextual revision of his text in order to seek for evidence to integrate it in his development of Alexander the Great's history, value its scope and gain further precision in the analysis.
Democracy and Empire in Athens in George Grote’s 'History of Greece'
In his History of Greece, George Grote celebrates the Athenian democracy and considers it an exemplary political regime. Grote despises oligarchy and believes that Athenian popular sovereignty has put an end to factional struggles. In particular, the reform of the courts ensured respect for the law and prevented the strongest and richest from taking power. However, the popular dikasteries were also an effective system for controlling and governing the subjects of the maritime empire. Grote compares the Athenian rule with the British Empire: both are governments of dependencies, in which the subdued states freely manage their internal affairs, but depend on the dominant state in foreign policy. The disputes between Athens and its allies were discussed in the Athenian courts where, according to Grote, the Greeks found fairness and tolerance, and were thus rewarded for the loss of their autonomy.
Copyright (c) 2019 Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua
African Coloni: Resilience, Self-determination and Religious Coercion (4th -5th Centuries)
The historiography on the coloni of the Later Roman Empire has resulted in different conflicting perspectives. In particular, the researchers discuss the resilience of at least certain groups of coloni against the advancement of the landlords’ prerogatives based on the advance of private powers in front of the Imperial State. However, it is very likely that the conditions of resistence or exploitation of coloni could have had different degrees, nuances and balances in different regions of the Roman Empire. I will study these conditions through some letters of Augustine of Hippo at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth century, related to a greater or lesser extent with the repression of Donatist groups. I will try to analyze in particular the scope of the capacities of collective agency and religious self-determination of African coloni as an important aspect in the context of the loss of freedom traditionally suggested by historiography on the colonate
Copyright (c) 2020 Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua
Theseus’ Democracy, a Model for Fourth-Century Athens and for the Empire of the Antonines
Among the literary genres, Attidography is the one most clearly devoted to the construction of the past in order to interpret the present as rooted in the most prestigious past of Athens. Theseus seems instrumental to that effort, a hero whose traditions provide useful material to conceal the troubles of the IV century BC. On the other hand, Plutarch contributes during the Early Empire to recover a vision of the past adapted to the interests of the emperors.
The Power of the Polybian Anacyclosis in the Constitutional Period of USA
One of the central features of the United States’ Constitution is the separation of powers. The division of responsibilities into legislative, executive and judicial branches is only possible through a system of checks and balances. The Founding Fathers proposed this principle and a mixed government for the new republic as powerful weapons to prevent the threat of “anacyclosis”, the natural degeneration of the three simple forms of government. Polybius’s explanation of “anacyclosis”, found in Book VI of the Histories, had a decisive influence as we can see in the Constitutional Debates.
The “Municipal” "praefecti" in Light of the Documentation Preserved in Roman Spain: Reflections and Main Testimonies on a Civic Promagistracy
This paper firstly propounds that the prefecture as a civic promagistracy must have already been instituted in different Italic municipalities and colonies since the end of the Republic (44-42 BC), coexisting with the interregnum. Between 43 and 32 BC, the prefects appointed by local senates must have begun to appear and to replace gradually the interreges. Then, in the matter of the nature of the single prefect which figures in Chapter 25 of the leges Irnitana y Salpensana, our analysis tries showing that this rule was in a limited period of validity. Finally, we make a detailed study of the sociopolitical profile of those who were municipal praefecti in the cities of Roman Spain.
An Imperial Slave and a Freedman (not) from Livorno: Notes on an Almost Recovered Fragment and on the tabularius sacrarum pecuniarum provinciae Cretae
In an article that appeared in the Florentine newspaper “La Nazione” in 1883, an epigraphic fragment and an inscription were described. Both documents are now lost, but at the time they were preserved in Livorno, where they may have arrived due to antiquarian collecting. For the fragment, it seems possible to identify a publication of a scientific nature a few decades later, but in a different form from that of the first mention. The second document instead, a funerary inscription commissioned by an imperial freedman for his alumnus, constitutes the only attestation of a tabularius sacrarum pecuniarum provinciae Cretae. The analysis of the use of the locution sacrae pecuniae in other epigraphic sources and in the Cretan context leads us to believe that this office, long related to the administration of imperial property on the Aegean island, is instead to be considered as a specificity of that province, where the use by the imperial authority of funds belonging to temples or sanctuaries for the realisation of works of public utility is attested.
Copyright (c) 2026 Gerión. Revista de Historia Antigua
"Coniurationes matris et filiae": An Analysis of the Intrigues Attributed to Faustina the Younger and Lucilla
This article analyses three political conspiracies led by the Augustae Faustina the Younger and Lucilla. The plots, independently undertaken by mother and daughter, took place at different moments between the years 169 and 182, and were directed against the emperors and their relatives Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus. To this end, the study is structured around the accounts of classical authors who recount these episodes, as well as the main contemporary research that examines them. Thus, the introductory section sets out both the foundations and the main conspirational motives of imperial women during the Principate, as well as a critical methodological approach to biases of Roman historiography regarding female participation in political machinations. Likewise, throughout the article, an effort is made to determine whether their alleged involvement corresponds to contexts and intentions considered plausible by the academic community or whether, on the contrary, there are doubts about their veracity. Be that as it may, authors such as Cassius Dio, Herodian, and the biographer of the Historia Augusta employ, regarding mother and daughter, certain literary commonplaces embedded in the perpetuation of a biased and hegemonic discourse on female conduct deemed extra mores within the political sphere.
The Military sacramentum in the Epistulae of Pliny the Younger: Analysis and Interpretation
The Military sacramentum was a requirement as important for Roman military organization as it was difficult to locate and define for modern research, which has traditionally prioritized some sources over others. Among the literary sources that have received the most attention, there have been works that have been used far more --such as Livy's Ab urbe condita or Tacitus' Annales and Historiae-- than others, and among these works, the Epistulae by Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus stands out. In this work, inserted into the rich literary genre of epistolography, there are two mentions made by the author of the sacramentum, which, despite being few, provide a tremendous amount of information. The objective of this work is precisely to underline the importance of this information, long overlooked, and to provide some interpretations that shed light on the time of recruiment of recruits into the Roman Army, as well as on the influence this phenomenon had on the Christian lexicon of the Latin West from the third century AD onward.
The Greek City and its Games: Notes on the Olympic Boule and the Actian Boule in the Roman Imperial Period
The agones were administered jointly by the sanctuary that hosted them and the city on which it depended. In Roman imperial times, Greek cities used these ceremonies to increase their prestige and visibility in relation to other civic communities. This is why many games were created ex novo in Greek-speaking territories. Some of these agons became so famous in the Roman Empire that its cities used their names to designate some of their institutions, such is the case of the Olympic Boulé and the Actian Boulé. This article will analyse the functions attributed to both institutions, expressly indicating their relationship with the agones, and will study the possible members that made up the Actian Boulé.
El conjunto monumental de Cercadilla (Córdoba) : posible sede del vicarius de la Dioecesis Hispaniarum y posterior centro cristiano de culto martirial.
In this work we present an interpretation of the structures discovered at the archaeological site of Cercadilla (Córdoba), based on the analysis of the epigraphic and legal documentation, as well as the archaeological testimonies, concluding the hypothesis that this monumental complex, located in what was the suburbium occidentalis of Corduba, was built and had as its first function that of the headquarters of the vicarius of the Dioecesis Hispaniarum, subsequently passing, by decision of Constant I, into the power of the ecclesia cordubensis of Bishop Osio, who gave the complex a second use of a cult nature, establishing, among other elements, a martyr basilica.
The Commentariolum petitionis by Quintus Cicero and the adulescentes nobiles: the barbatuli iuvenes. On the "Intergenerational Conflict" in the Late Republic
This paper, which begins with a review of the study of youth in the late Republic, analyzes the references to youth in general, and to young noblemen in particular, in that peculiar little work composed by Arpinate's brother and known as the Candidate's Manual, in order to ask ourselves, among other questions, who constitutes this group of youths mentioned therein. Our proposal is that the youths referred to by Quintus Cicero in his pamphlet can be identified with the barbatuli iuvenes mentioned by his brother in letters to Atticus dated the first half of 61. Furthermore, and closely related to this first question, we believe that, contrary to what some authors have suggested in recent years, the events that occurred in the Urbs of the 1960s should not be viewed at all as an intergenerational conflict, a situation that, in our opinion, did not occur, at least not at that time. The erroneous interpretation of these events as a conflict between generations stems from an incorrect definition of this fundamental term.
Lusitanian Banditry in the Context of Migratory Movements from Northwest Hispania towards the Tagus Valley
This paper analyzes the various hypotheses that have been put forward regarding the phenomenon of so-called "Lusitanian banditry" and the causes of the Lusitanian Wars of the 2nd century BC, presenting a novel proposal that complements previous ones in order to provide a more robust and precise interpretation of these two issues. In this sense, it is argued that a fundamental cause for the emergence of what the Romans generally referred to as latrones and praedones in the southern territories of Lusitania during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC was the result of a series of gradual migratory movements that had been developing since the beginning of the 2nd century BC, originating from the northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, towards the Tagus Valley. This would have generated a disruption of economic and social equilibrium in this territory, provoking conflicts in the southern regions of Hispania already conquered by the Romans and contributing to the outbreak of the Lusitanian Wars.
Sobre el origen del poblamiento de Canarias
The origin of the human settlement of the Canary Islands is an open problem that tests the limits of historical knowledge. The aim of this research is to propose an explanatory model that allows us to understand the obscure process by which the archipielago became part of the inhabited world, part of humanity. The first part of this study reviews the archaeological record of the archipelago in order to establish the basic historical references. The second investigates the ethnic organisation of ancient Africa under Roman rule with the intention of revealing the complexity of the possible social contexts of origin of the first settlers of the islands. It explores the network of political, social and economic relations maintained between the Roman authorities and the African gentes, revising the old historiographical paradigms that conceived the links between them in Manichean and simplistic terms. As a result, I propose the hypothesis of an autonomous settlement (without any external intervention) forced by necessity, as the ultimate solution to a historical conjuncture such as to face the colonisation of a territory never contemplated as a habitable world until the 3rd century A.D.
Hadrian, Pater Patriae, and the cohors I Ulpia Dacorum. A New Fragment of a Military Diploma from AD 128
This article presents an unpublished fragment of a Roman military diploma preserved in the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida, dated to AD 128. The fragment belongs to tabula I of a diploma issued during the reign of Hadrian. The significance of the document lies in the fact that it constitutes one of the earliest epigraphic testimonies that can be dated with precision in which Hadrian is granted the title Pater Patriae, definitively accepted by the emperor in that same year. Furthermore, the study of the extrinsecus allows the diploma to be attributed to a soldier of the cohors I Ulpia Dacorum, a unit raised under Trajan and stationed on the Syrian front. The possible identification of the prefect Tiberius Claudius Maximinus suggests that the fragment may correspond to the earliest known discharge of this cohort, thus providing new evidence for the administrative and military history of the Roman East.
Governing the emergency: political organisation and social cohesion in a city under siege in Philo of Byzantium’s Μηχανικὴ Σύνταξις
This paper analyses Philo of Byzantium's reflections on the liveability of cities under siege, focusing on Μηχανικὴ Σύνταξις as a key text in Hellenistic siegecraft manuals. Through an examination of the sections dedicated to defence, supply, and community management, the article proposes to interpret Philo's work as an integrated model of urban emergency governance. The resistance of the polis is outlined not only as a military problem, but also as a political, economic and social issue, based on preventive preparation, rational resource management, and civic cohesion. In dialogue with the theoretical tradition and historiographical evidence on sieges, the contribution highlights how Philo anticipates a concept of “urban resilience” in which liveability, social order, and the legitimacy of public authority are structurally interdependent elements.
A New Epigraphic Find from Lucena (Cordoba): The Epitaph of Deutera
This paper presents the edition of a new funerary inscription recently discoverd within the municipal territory of Lucena (Cordoba). It is a white limestone stele preserving the epitaph of a woman named Deutera, dated to the Julio-Claudian period. The find is remarkable for its onomastic interest, as the uninominal structure of the name suggests that she was a slave, reinforced by the Greek origin of the anthroponym, which is moreover sparsely attested in Hispanian epigraphy. Consequently, her attestation in such an early historical context, within an area of incipient Romanization, allows us to suggests a link with a family of Roman citizens or or with a deeply Romanised. In this regard, a possible association with the Fuficii is proposed, a gens of propable Italic origin, possibly settled in Augusta Firma (Astigi), which may have owned rural estates in what is now the Campiña Sur and Subbética regions of Cordoba.
Michele Renee Salzman, Las caídas de Roma. Crisis, resiliencia y resurgimiento en la Antigüedad tardía, Madrid, Editorial Gredos, 2025, 576 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-2499-890-5]
Marta Szada, Conversion and the Contest of Creeds in Early Medieval Christianity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2024, 360 pp. [ISBN: 978-1-009-42644-2]
Pedro Trapero Fernández – André Carneiro (eds.), GIS Applications in Roman Landscape and Territory: Methodologies and models in Hispania (=BAR International Series 3139), Oxford, BAR Publishing, 2023, 190 pp. [ISBN: 978-1-4073-5418-7]
Guadalupe López Monteagudo – Gregorio Carrasco Serrano, Los mosaicos romanos en Castilla-La Mancha (=Ediciones Institucionales 151), Cuenca, Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2025, 209 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-9044-727-7]
Stephen Dando-Collins, César contra Pompeyo: El mejor general, estadista y constructor nacional de Roma, Córdoba, Erasmus, 2025, 304 pp. [ISBN 978-8410199453]
Gian Luca Gregori – Estela García Fernández (eds) Onomastica romana e stato giuridico. Hispania e Nord Italia a confronto: alcuni casi di studio (Atti del Seminario Internazionale Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 6-7 marzo 2023) (=Studi Miscellanei 43),
Laura Sancho Rocher – Manel García Sánchez (eds.), Democracia, ley e instituciones (Antiguas y Modernas), Madrid, Guillermo Escolar Editor, 2024, 381 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-19782-94-6]
Juan Pablo Ramis, Conflicto interno y concordia en el pensamiento político de Isócrates, Ciudad de Mendoza, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo-Edifil, 2025, 306 páginas [ISBN: 978-950-774-441-9]
Katia Margariti, Dogs in Athenian Sculpture and vase painting of the Archaic and Classical periods, Oxford, Archaeopress, 2025, 401 pp. [ISBN: 978-1-80327-997-8]