The Justinianic Code attributes a law that “the people of the city” and “those employed in all trades” rest on Sundays.

A constitution preserved in Justinian’s Code (CJ 3.12.2) attributes to the emperor Constantine the introduction of a general Sunday rest in the Roman Empire. In modern historiography, this famous constitution has long been considered a crucial step in the Christianization of the Roman calendar in Late Antiquity. However, this modern consensus contrasts with the silence of ancient sources regarding the promulgation and reception of the law. Moreover, contextualizing this rule within the fourth-century legislative and religious documentation pertaining to Sunday observance proves extremely problematic. Through an analysis of the text and its transmission in the ancient law codes, this paper challenges the traditional interpretation of the document, demonstrating that the introduction of a general Sunday rest cannot be attributed to the first Christian emperor and that the content of CJ 3.12.2 does not reflect the legal situation of the fourth century.

The full paper by Andrea Bernier in JLA is here.

In this paper, my aim is to rely on Graeco-Roman sources to explore further the ways in which future directed imagination may quench, rather than fuel, our emotions. In this context, I take imagination to involve lingering in thought on possible future scenarios with or without picturing something to oneself. Thus, imagination differs from perception in that it does not require the imagined thing to be present, and it differs from memory in that it does not require the imagined thing to be something one experienced in the past. I focus in particular on the Stoics and the Cyrenaics. As Cicero reports (Tusc. 3.28-31; 3.52; 3.59), the Cyrenaics advocate pre-rehearsal of future evils (praemeditatio futurorum malorum) to prevent grief or distress. While there is no explicit report that the Stoic Chrysippus also endorsed this practice, Cicero’s reconstruction of his view at Tusc. 3.52; 3.59; 3.76 suggests that he could have endorsed it and he could have also explained how it works. Finally, Galen reports that the Stoic Posidonius also recommended pre-rehearsal, understood as dwelling in advance on the image of future evils. I look at how these practices work, and I show that they can be seen either as affecting the structure of our beliefs or as providing a sort of surrogate satisfaction or desensitisation.

If my reconstruction of these ancient sources is correct, it suggests that they uncover unexplored ways in which future directed imagination can affect our emotions. Unlike contemporary scholars, who focus on how future directed imagination and episodic future thinking affect planning (Ballance et al. 2022), or on how imagining future goods improves our well-being (Benoit et al. 2016), these ancient thinkers focus on the benefits of imagining future evils.

That is from a new paper in Apeiron by Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi.

What were public buildings like baths and monuments built on top of in ancient Rome? Sometimes residences and neighborhoods, which problematizes euergetism, although evidence of eminent domain in the Roman empire still seems to be thin, according to a new article in G&R by Christopher Siwicki.

Said Cicero when his house was destroyed during an exile (de Domo Sua 41.109, trans. Watts):

What is more sacred, what more inviolably hedged about by every kind of sanctity, than the home of every individual citizen (domus unius cuiusque civium)? Within its circle are his altars, his hearths, his household gods, his religion, his observances, his ritual; it is a sanctuary so holy in the eyes of all, that it were sacrilege to tear an owner therefrom.

An article in the latest Journal of Roman Studies upsets decades of consensus on Christian persecution in the first three centuries.

We tend to read backwards, seeing contemporary issues as having their origins in the distant past. We often see Christian exceptionalism, then, in the Roman empire, including in our understanding of how Christians were treated. Persecution is the most common lens. And certainly we see this in the New Testament, not least in Jesus’ words to the apostles and in 1 Peter.

The standard account created by modern Roman historians rests on a letter from Pliny to Trajan (10.96). The letter has been used as the sole legal basis for suspicion toward and prosecution of persons for being Christians. One problem is that this account ignores the evidence provided by Christian authors of the range of charges brought against their number (cannibalism, arson, theft, murder, and so on), not only the nomen Christianum.

James Corke-Webster assembles a picture that accounts for most of the evidence. He interprets identification as a Christian as a marker that then could, and often did, lead to suspicions and charges for other crimes. He sees this as fitting a newer interpretation of the use of law in the early empire, as a weapon against opponents, creating a litigious culture. He suggests this was not only the case with criminal charges but, with less evidence, civil charges, too.

One implication is doing away with the standard three-period persecution arc: pre-Nero, pre-Decius, and post-Decius. Instead, “Christians experienced Roman law just like their non-Christian contemporaries—as the means by which diverse local antagonisms acquire institutional force.”

There was, still, the religious identity. It may only have concerned magistrates or neighbors as a “marker.” But it appears in any case to have been a distinctive identifier, the likes of which didn’t trouble practitioners of most other religions.

The new reading does perhaps shed light on the earliest ethical exhortations to Christian communities. A Christian, 1 Peter says, should live such a good life (τὴν ἀναστροφὴν καλήν) among their neighbors that they cannot be accused of any crimes or misdemeanors but cause others to praise God by their good works (τῶν καλῶν ἔργων, 2:12).

In the Acts of Justin, the prefect’s question suggests this: Τίνα βίον βιοϊς, What sort of life do you live? (Acta Just. Rec. A 2.1)