Preface ixWe believe that this chronological arrangement of essays (rather than by pub-
lication date of the essays) gives intellectual coherence to each volume on its
own and to the collection as a whole. Overall, as Millar himself has defined
it, the subject of this collection is ‘‘the communal culture and civil govern-
ment of the Graeco-Roman world, essentially from the Hellenistic period
to the fifth century..’’ (‘‘Author’s Prologue,’’ volume , p. ).
Publication of a three-volume collection of essays, drawn from a wide
variety of journals and edited volumes, over more than four decades of schol-
arly production, presents editors with some major stylistic challenges. Our
collection contains fifty-four essays (in addition to a prologue and an epi-
logue written by Millar especially for the present collection). Most of these
essays originally were published in learned journals or books, each of which
had its own house style. Some learned journals also have changed their house
styles over the time when Millar has published in them. For these reasons we
have not attempted to bring all of the citations in the texts or notes of the
articles in the collection into perfect stylistic conformity. Conformity for the
sake of conformity makes no sense; moreover, to achieve such conformity
would delay publication of the collection for years.
Rather, the stylistic goal of our collection has been to inform readers
clearly and consistently where they can find the sources cited by Millar in his
essays. To help achieve that goal we have included a list of frequently cited
works (with abbreviations for those works) at the beginning of each volume.
Thus, in the text or notes of the essays, readers will find abbreviations for
frequently cited journals or books, which are fully cited in our lists at the
beginning of each volume. For example, references in the notes to the abbre-
viationJRSrefertotheJournal of Roman Studies. For the abbreviations them-
selves we have relied upon the standard list provided inL’Année Philologique.
In certain cases, where there have been individual citations in the original
texts or notes to more obscure collections of inscriptions or papyri, we have
expanded the citations themselves in situ, rather than endlessly expanding
our list of frequently cited works.
In accordance with Fergus Millar’s wishes, for the sake of readers who do
not know Latin or Greek, we have provided English translations of most of
the extended Greek and Latin passages and some of the technical terms cited
by Millar in the text and notes of the original essays. In doing so, we have fol-
lowed the practice Fergus Millar himself adopted inTheEmperorintheRoman
Worldin and inThe Roman Near Eastin . We believe that providing
these translations will help to make Millar’s essays more widely accessible,
which is the essential goal of the collection. Readers who wish to consult the
original Greek, Latin, and Semitic passages or technical terms that we have