Michael Crawford, the lead author for this new edition of the Price Edict, has had a long familiarity with the topic, as evidenced by the short bibliography (191–3). Although he himself suggests (ix) that this publication should be seen ‘as a supplement to the Lauffer edition’ (Siegfried Lauffer’s Diokletians Preisedikt, 1971), there is little doubt that the book aims at offering a completely new edition of the Edict.
The book opens with two prefaces, a section of abbreviations and then the concordances of the editions by Salway. Then comes a short introduction by C., followed by an architectural reconstruction of the basilica’s façade and its location by Stinson. The reconstructed text itself (31–120) represents the core of the book, structured upon the Aphrodisias discoveries, and completed by the other parallel texts that have surfaced in about 42 other locations, listed in the chapter immediately following. The last (short) chapter offers a few comments on and a new edition of the contemporary Currency Edict. The book ends with a translation of the Edict into Turkish by Somersan, Somersan and Demiröz and, in appendices, the edict of Fuluius Asticus at Aezani, a list of extant pieces from Aphrodisias by Lenaghan, and finally a bibliography, sources of illustrations, an index of Latin words and a Plates section of selected photographs.
The introduction itself offers some comments and contextualisation, although quite a few of the author’s observations are debatable. C. states that the Currency dossier ought to have followed the Edict based on its location at the top left of the façade after the Edict would have filled all the space (1–2). Assuming the two edicts arrived weeks apart, the local council had to convene, appropriate some funds, decide on a proper location and then commission the work. The whole process took necessarily several months before any implementation, which means that the respective locations of the edicts do not need to be related to the order in which they were received. Quite contradicting himself, C. later acknowledges that the doubling of the coins was known prior to the Price Edict (12).
C. provides seventeen prices for gold, including two ‘I do not understand’ (9). This is because the original papyri used the Egyptian talent of 6,000 drachms. The denarius being worth four drachms, the numbers simply needed to be divided by four to become compatible with the others. With respect to the dating of Diocletian’s coinage reform in 293 thanks to the early nummi minted in Heraclea that omit the two Caesares, there is no need to refer to ‘an unpublished paper by Roger Bland’, but to P. Bruun’s article in ÀJN 24 (1979), 129–48. Several other issues in this chapter cannot be listed due to space constraints.
The reconstruction chapter by Stinson offers something entirely new, presenting the entire layout of the Edict’s chapters as they stood originally. The maps, drawings and figures constitute a beautiful, clear and highly useful addition to the resources previously available.
The master edition of the Edict that follows is divided into 70 distinct chapters, a definitive count. Mommsen had 12 and Lauffer 37, which is the number used in the 2016 translation by Antony Kropff — which is not acknowledged. For the first time, the whole text is presented in a single place and a single format, which represents a massive improvement compared to the situation as it existed before, where researchers had to peruse multiple editions to retrieve the information they needed.
C. has chosen to present the entire text in its Latin or latinised version, even for passages where only Greek has survived. Although this is clearly indicated in the text with underline letters, and it helps with the production of a cohesive text from the beginning to the end, the choice not to display the Greek extracts implies some information loss.
This is particularly true for those items where Latin and Greek are both available but offer slightly different, more specific or expanded meanings. In ch. 6.2, sponduli or sfonduli (both spellings are encountered in the Edict) is used to mean ‘artichoke hearts’. The Greek version, with slight differences between Megara, Aigeira and Argos, comes as σφόνδυλοι κιναρῶν (Lauffer, 110–11), literally ‘the head of an artichoke’, which is a lot more specific. Sfondulus was itself borrowed from Greek, the original meaning being ‘vertebra’, to designate ‘joint’ or ‘backbone’, and it then derived as ‘mussel’ and ‘oyster meat’, with quite a few instances in Latin literature. In Edict 5.10 it is used for ‘sea mussels’, sfonduli marini, equivalent to σφόνδυλοι θαλάσσιοι. However, I could not find any other instance of spondulus or sfondulus used as ‘artichoke heart’, which seems to imply a sloppy translation from Greek at the time of the Edict’s promulgation. Such an observation has significant implications, since the Greek text is generally considered as a derivative of an original in Latin.
There are sometimes some slight unexplained differences with the 1989 edition by J. Reynolds in C. Roueché (ed.), Imperial Regulations (1989), 252–318. In the Edict’s Preamble, l.4, C. writes ‘M. Aur. Val’, instead of ‘M. Aur. Va[l’. In l.8, iuxta immortales (sic) seems to imply that iuxta immort came from another fragment, since it is italicised (cf. C.’s list of editing conventions, 31), while Reynolds had ‘iu[xta immor]tales’.
More of a concern, some of the recent fragments that had been communicated to the author seem not to have been fully accurately included. This is notably the case for one found in 2006, whose text was attributed by Angelos Chaniotis to chapter 56. C. includes it on p. 94 in 6.222–5 and the fragment is displayed in plate 27. It appears in Appendix 2, p. 186, with l. 225 missing for no apparent reason. But ll. 223–4 should have read as follows since the ‘t’ of ‘telam’ l. 223 is perfectly readable and the ‘u’ of ‘unam’ l. 224 is only partly preserved even if compelling:
In one other case, a word appears that does not figure on the original fragment, as per its photograph: latus, in 24.5. I am grateful to Professor Chaniotis, who shared the original texts and photographs, which he will publish separately.
Even with these various shortcomings, this edition nevertheless represents a major contribution to the field, offering a resource that will facilitate future research. This is worthy of praise.
