Emptio bovis frisica: The 'Frisian Ox Sale' reconsidered

Journal of Roman Studies

Volumn 99, Issue , 2009, Pages 156-170

  Bowman, A K ^a   Tomlin, R S O ^b   Worp, K A ^c  

^a BRASENOSE COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

^b WOLFSON COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

^c LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77950136830     PISSN: 00754358     EISSN: 1753528X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3815/007543509789744693     Document Type: Review

References (41)

1. Notable exceptions being tablets from Dacia, Pompeii, and Herculaneum; also Vindolanda tablet inv. no. 836, for which see A. K. Bowman and R. S. O. Tomlin, 'Wooden stilus tablets from Roman Britain', in A. K. Bowman and J. M. Brady (eds), Artefacts and Images of the Ancient World (2004), 7-14
2. For a survey of Roman stilus tablets see E. A. Meyer, Legitimacy and Law in the Roman World, Tabulae in Roman Belief and Practice (2004). Abbreviations used in this article for editions of papyri and writing-tablets may be found in the Checklist of Editions of Greek and Latin Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets, available at: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html
3. C. W. Vollgraff, 'De tabella emptionis aetatis Traiani nuper in Frisia reperta', Mnemosyne 45 (1917), 341-52
4. (whence AE 1919, 51)
5. A. G. Roos, 'Quo tempore exarata sit tabella emptionis in Frisia nuper reperta', Mnemosyne 46 (1918), 201-15
6. U. P. Boissevain, 'La tablette d'achat de Tolsum (Frise)', REA 21 (1919), 91-6
7. E. Cuq, 'Une tablette à la cire du musée de Leeuwarden', CRAI 1919, 265-82
8. (whence AE 1920, 42)
9. E. Weiss, 'Römisch-Germanischer Kaufvertrag vom Jahre 116 n. Chr.', JÖAI 23 (1926), 331-46
10. There is a drawing of the tablet, evidently based on Vollgraff's, in M. Reuter and M. Scholz, Geritzt und Entziffert: Schriftzeugnisse der römischen Informationsgesellschaft (2004), 29, fig. 41
11. W. A. van Es, De Romeinen in Nederland (2nd edn, 1981), 264 (with comment on 266) also has a reproduction of the photo published by Vollgraff
12. E. Slob, 'De koopakte van Tolsum', Tijdschr. v. Rechtgeschiedenis 66 (1998), 25-52
13. In Britain, RIB II.4, 2443.17 (London) was found in 1841, and noted by Roach Smith in 1854; and a block of tablets was found in c. 1850, but the sole surviving leaf was only published by Tomlin as 'A Roman will from North Wales', Arch. Camb. 150 (2001), 143-56
14. For tablets from the Roman provinces see Meyer, Roman Belief and Practice op. cit. (n. 1), ch. 7; she refers to this tablet at 149 n. 64, 150, 177 n. 38, 180 n. 51, 181 n. 55. There is another recently discovered tablet from the Netherlands (Est/de Steendert) with some visible, though in practice illegible, traces of writing
15. A. Degrassi, I Fasti consolari del'impero romano (1952), 34-5
16. Slob, I Fasti consolari del'impero romano (op. cit. (n. 4), 33-7, with full references to the earlier discussions
17. Vollgraff, I Fasti Consolari Del'impero Romanoop. cit. (n. 2), 349
18. For an account of the technique see M. Brady et al., 'Shadow stereo, image filtering and constraint propagation', in Bowman and Brady, I Fasti Consolari Del'impero Romanoop. cit. (n. 1), 15-30
19. and for fuller description of the procedure on this tablet, see the article by Ségolène Tarte (Literary and Linguistic Computing, forthcoming in 2009). We are very grateful to Dr Tarte for her skilful image-processing and also for some acute observations on the readings in the text (particularly in line 9 on the front and line 6 on the back). Dr Charles Crowther, Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents, University of Oxford, was responsible for the digital image capture (using a PhaseOne Lightphase H20 digital camera backmounted on a Hasselblad 501CM medium-format camera body with CFE 4/120 macro-planar lens); he also helped us to find our way around the multiple images in reading the text and made substantive suggestions and observations concerning the traces and the readings
20. First developed by Hewlett Packard. See T. Malzbender, D. Gelb and H. Wolters, 'Polynomial texture maps', in SIGGRAPH '01 (Proc.) (2001), 519-28
21. See forthcoming paper by Tarte, SIGGRAPH '01 (Proc.) (2001), op. cit. (n. 13). With the support of grants from the British Academy and the Haverfield Bequest we have been able to enlist the collaboration of Dr Graeme Earl (University of Southampton), who has used the technique to produce images of the stilus tablets from Vindolanda
22. The method of transcription and abbreviation follows the Leiden conventions (as summarized at the beginning of volumes of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri or Tab.Vindol. III, p. 19). m2, m3 etc. denote the different individual hands in the text
23. The Flavian tombstone of a veteran at Scupi prompted A. Mócsy, Pannonia and Upper Moesia (1974), 81-2, to posit a transfer to the Danube by Vespasian and subsequent loss (which does not affect our argument)
24. P. A. Holder, Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army from Augustus to Trajan, BAR Int. Ser. 70 (1980), 110-11
25. E. Birley, 'Local militias in the Roman Empire', The Roman Army, Papers 1929-1986, MAVORS 4 (1988), 387-94
26. M. W. C. Hassall, 'Batavians and the Roman Conquest of Britain', Britannia 1 (1970), 131-6
27. See H. Bellen, Die germanische Leibwache der römischen Kaiser des julisch-claudischen Hauses (1981)
28. Examples collected by Bellen, Die germanische Leibwache der römischen Kaiser des julisch-claudischen Hauses (op. cit. (n. 22), 103-20
29. T. Derks and N. Roymans, 'Seal-boxes and the spread of literacy in the Rhine Delta', in A. E. Cooley (ed.), Becoming Roman, Writing Latin? Literacy and Epigraphy in the Roman West, JRA Suppl. 48 (2002), 87-134
30. eidem, 'Returning auxiliary veterans: some methodological considerations', JRA 19 (2006), 121-35
31. See also N. Roymans (ed.), From the Sword to the Plough: Three Studies on the Earliest Romanisation of Northern Gaul (1996)
32. idem, Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire (2004)
33. Hassall, Ethnic Identity and Imperial Power: The Batavians in the Early Roman Empire (op. cit. (n. 20)
34. R. Syme, Tacitus (1958), I, 269; II, Appendix 69 (the revolt of Boudica, misdated by 'inadvertence'?)
35. See also Tacfarinas at Ann. 2.52 and J. Ginsburg, Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus (1981), 46
36. See the article by J. Lendering, at http://www.livius.org/ga-gh/germania/ flevum.html, citing A. Bosman, Het culturele vondstmateriaal van de vroeg-Romeinse versterking Velsen-1 (1997)
37. See also J. C. Wilmanns, 'Die Doppelurkunde von Rottweil und ihr Beitrag zum Stadtwewesen in Obergermanien', ES 12 (1981), 1-182
38. Speidel counts seventy-six instances of this in Tab.Vindon., p. 2
39. For illustrations and discussion of the typical letter-forms of Old Roman Cursive (ORC) and New Roman Cursive (NRC), see Tab. Vindol. I, pp. 51-71; II, pp. 47-61
40. and cf. B. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography, Antiquity and the Middle Ages (trans. D. Ó Cronin, D. Ganz; 1990), 64
41. See Derks and Roymans, Latin Palaeography, Antiquity and the Middle Ages (op. cit. (n. 24)