This volume, based on a doctoral dissertation, examines Aquileia’s role as a cultural and economic intermediary between Rome and the peoples beyond the Alps, arguing that trade, diplomacy, military alliances and personal contacts contributed to the gradual spread of Roman influence into Noricum well before its formal annexation. The book provides a useful overview, though some of the arguments could be more precise.
Following a long introduction, which anticipates themes discussed repeatedly throughout the volume, including the well-known episode of the Transalpine Gauls, Chapter 1 examines the pre-Roman landscape, in which Aquileia was founded in 181 bce, and the complex, fluid ethnic setting of the surrounding region (Carni, Histri, Taurisci, Norici etc.). Material and cultural evidence is not always clearly distinguished from ethnicity, and more attention could be paid to the distinction between the various pre-Roman languages and writing systems, since the Venetic alphabet was used to write languages other than Venetic (cf. the inscription from Ovaro).
Chapter 2 surveys Roman policy in north-eastern Italy, although at times repetitively, with particular emphasis on the Caesarian period, which profoundly reshaped the region previously dominated by Aquileia. Inscriptions from regio X are cited from the Ubi Erat Lupa image database (or printed corpora where absent), rather than the Epigraphic Database Roma (EDR), which now includes 2,763 of Aquileia’s c. 4,600 inscriptions. But the incorrect imperial dating of one of the two inscriptions of the magistri vici of Nauportus (EDR 156071) (p. 122) seems to derive from EDR (see also EDR 128824 and now M. Šašel Kos, Emona, Inscriptiones Latinae Sloveniae (ILSl), 3 [2024]). Section 2.6 discusses the ‘silent’ annexation of Noricum and unresolved issues, including the absence of the Norican peoples – except the Ambisontes – from the Tropaeum Alpium. B. Steidel’s recent proposal for an earlier annexation (Raetia und Noricum. Bevölkerung und Siedlungsstruktur [2024]) also merits consideration, but this may have appeared too late to be included.
Chapter 3 is particularly valuable, offering an effective synthesis of Aquileia’s role as the principal economic intermediary between Italy and Noricum from the Late Republic to the High Empire. Special attention is devoted to ferrum Noricum, with Aquileia presented not only as a redistribution centre but also as a centre for ore processing, as reflected in specialised occupations such as the rare faber aciarius from the Adriatic city (EDR 073175). Analysis of stamps on terra sigillata and amphorae likewise identifies Aquileia as the principal distribution hub for Mediterranean products destined for Noricum.
The use of epigraphic evidence for the Aquileian families involved in these activities raises several methodological concerns. An ivory round token inscribed with the name Barbius is interpreted as a tessera nummularia, leading to conclusions about the financial role of the gens, which also played a significant productive role (p. 149). Yet the object, recently (after the book’s publication) reinterpreted by C. Zaccaria (Scritti in onore di Giuseppe Camodeca [2026]) as L. Barbi/us L. f. // census L, lacks the formula characteristic of tesserae nummulariae, which is also absent from the two examples from Iulium Carnicum repeatedly cited alongside those from the Magdalensberg. The Carnic pieces may instead be tesserae lusoriae (like some items presented in G. Baratta, Benest, malest [2019]). Onomastic evidence is likewise employed rather freely, for example in order to demonstrate the financial activities of the Aquileian Postumii (pp. 155–6), although Donatus is a common cognomen and not exclusive to that family. Similar problems arise in the case of the Cominii, whose supposed mercantile activities rest on the erroneous attribution (p. 156) of the merchant ship relief on a Tergeste stele (EDR 007346), which should instead be associated with either the deceased, P. Clodius Quirinalis, or the dedicator, P. Clodius Chrestus.
The discussion of the gens Titia depends on a misinterpretation (p. 158) of the reliefs on the funerary monument of the sevir Q. Titius Faustus (EDR 117525): the three objects depicted are not tesserae nummulariae but tokens bearing the numerals I, II and III (ius trium liberorum?) beside an unfurled rotulus identifying the deceased’s sevirate. In the case of the Titi Kanii, the strongest connection with Aquileia is overlooked. It lies not in the praenomen Titus (p. 160: ‘The connection with Aquileia can be found in the praenomen, which was always Titus’), but in the occurrence of the same TK graffito on terra sigillata from Noricum and on a Conspectus 21 cup from Aquileia (Museo di Antichità ‘J. J. Winckelmann’, Trieste).
Chapter 4, dealing with the administration of Noricum after its provincialisation, includes a useful synoptic table (p. 218) of the known magistrates and their family affiliations. Nevertheless, the volume frequently posits connections with Aquileia that rest on insecure onomastic arguments while paying less attention to the imperial date of many Norican attestations (e.g. the Castricii mentioned below or the Terentii [p. 161], who are – without any basis – linked to the founding of Aquileia). Given the high degree of mobility in the imperial period, it is difficult to identify the various Norican Castricii – including the duplicarius alae attested in ILLPRON 948 – with the Aquileian Castricii, themselves questionably regarded as one of the colony’s founding gentes. Although Castrucius (EDR 118949) is an early attestation, Castrucius and Castricius are distinct nomina.
Similar problems arise in the otherwise detailed discussion of the publicum portorium Illyrici, probably established under Tiberius, where epigraphic evidence is not always interpreted in its proper chronological and topographical context (p. 244). Prepotto (Trieste), for example, was not the site of a statio of the portorium Illyrici (see C. Zaccaria’s [2010] revision of the stationes, cited in the bibliography), but of a sanctuary of Minerva frequented by personnel of the Aquileian customs administration. Likewise, Agato, portitor sociorum servus (EDR 118820), and Abennaeus (EDR 118963) (p. 243), whose inscriptions can be dated to the late second century bce on palaeographic grounds, were more probably employees of the Republican Aquileiense portorium mentioned in Cicero’s Pro Fonteio (1.2).
The chapter is at its strongest in its discussion of the Norican landscape, mineral resources and customs administration, especially in its treatment of Ti. Claudius Macro, conductor ferrariarum Noricarum, whose vilicus Velox dedicated a Mithraeum at Aquileia (EDR 116886), and of M. Trebius Alfius, the Aquileian conductor and praefectus iure dicundo (ILLPRON 604). By contrast, the attribution of Q. Septueius Clemens, conductor ferrariarum, to Aquileia (p. 238 n. 279) remains speculative, given the widespread occurrence of the nomen and the fragmentary character of the Aquileian evidence. Section 4.5 provides an excellent synthesis of the military units attested in the province and their administrative role, but again relies too heavily on onomastic evidence. Common imperial nomina such as Arrius, Cassius and Decius are too widely attested to serve as reliable indicators of Aquileian origin. Likewise, although Fig. 4.12 offers a useful overview, many of its proposed connections remain conjectural.
Chapter 5 offers a valuable survey of the cults attested both in Noricum and at Aquileia, although it includes several inaccuracies. The earliest of the 66 Aquileian inscriptions to Belenus, described by Herodian as the city’s ἐπιχώριος θεός (8.3.8), does not date to the Augustan period (p. 317), but to the late second century bce (EDR 118845). This inscription, identifiable by its square interpunctions, is carved on a truncated pyramidal cippus, a monument type well established in Latium from the third century bce (Lavinium and Praeneste) and best represented in the Adriatic region by the cippi Pisaurenses (see C. Zaccaria, I luoghi della mediazione [2009]). On typological as well as chronological grounds it is therefore unlikely that the cult originated in Noricum – where it is attested only in the imperial period – and subsequently spread southwards.
Chapter 6 illustrates the close relationship between Aquileian and Norican artistic production through numerous examples and illustrations. It is surprising, however, that the studies of M. Cadario (2017 and 2021) on sculpture, including the so-called Navarca of Cavenzano, are not taken into account.
Overall, Z.’s volume makes an important contribution to the study of the relationship between Aquileia and transalpine Noricum. A more critical assessment of the epigraphic evidence, greater caution in the use of onomastic arguments and more rigorous editing would have been desirable.
