Roman Sicily

Offuscata dal contrasto con gli splendori dell’età greca, l’epoca romana in Sicilia è apparsa per secoli una lunga parentesi di decadimento. Attraverso la testimonianza delle fonti antiche – testi scritti, ma anche monumenti, epigrafi, monete –, rilette alla luce dei più recenti studi, il volume offre, invece, un volto nuovo dell’isola, quello di provincia politicamente periferica, ma socialmente e culturalmente vivace, economicamente promettente e immancabilmente sfruttata.

Obscured by the splendours of the Greek age, the Roman era in Sicily appeared for centuries to be nothing more than a long period of decay. From the testimony of ancient sources (written texts, but also monuments, epigraphs and coins), reread in light of the most recent studies, the book aims to present a new side to the island, which despite being a politically peripheral province, was also socially and culturally vibrant, economically promising and unfailingly exploited.
“Roman Sicily” tells the story of a defeat: after the First and Second Punic Wars, the once free Sicilian cities came under Rome’s rule. The constitutional efficiency and internal cohesion typical of Rome overcame the disunity of the island cities, which were in fact incapable, as Polybius said, of “thinking together” and “acting together”.
Such battles were not limited to the political and military spheres: Sicilians conquered their overlords in turn by means of their culture, art and history as well as through their resources. During the Roman age, Sicily was almost always referred to as a rich land: in men, products, art and culture.
“Roman Sicily” abandons the preconceptions and models imposed by classical historiography in order to hunt down the traces of a past that is still mostly unknown, through a patient and reflective re-reading of the few literary sources and many material remains (monuments, epigraphs and coins). Like the shadow cone, which partly obscures the motif of the mosaic on the cover of this book while at the same time highlighting its colours, Sicily, whose dynamism was eclipsed by the Roman conquest, enjoyed a long period of peace in the course of which important aspects of its potentiality were significantly enhanced.

1. Pyrrhus in Sicily
My book begins by talking about Pyrrhus, king of Epirus: he is the link between the “history of Greek Sicily” and the “history of Roman Sicily”. Some famous and less well-known anecdotes from Pyrrhus’ history are reviewed in light of his expedition to Sicily. While returning to Italy, having given up on conquering the island, he exclaimed: “My friends, what a wrestling ground for Carthaginians and Romans we are leaving behind us!”

2. Hiero II
This chapter reconstructs, from coins, epigraphs and literary and archaeological evidence, the character and rule of the Sicilian monarch who was able to impose himself as a partner on the international scene while renouncing territorial expansion.

3. The First and Second Punic Wars in Sicily
This chapter traces the causes of the outbreaks of both conflicts, their main events, and the most significant archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic remains, in a reinterpretation of literary sources aimed at telling a compelling story.

4. The first Roman province
This chapter deals with some of the most complex topics in the book: Roman administration in Sicily, the institutional status of cities and the tax system, reinterpreted with the experience of a specialist who has studied them for twenty years and taught them for eighteen.

5. City life between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC
At the conclusion of the Punic Wars, life in Sicilian cities achieved renewed splendour, to which the “journey” through the remains of some cities undertaken in this chapter with the aid of literary evidence testifies. Sicily, “Roman” from a merely political perspective, was in reality a melting pot of peoples, cultures and traditions; contact between them had given rise to an “intercultural” society on the island, in which the coexistence and intermingling of the races had brought various benefits, not least of which was that of predisposing the inhabitants to contact (albeit not without attitudes of mistrust and suspicion) with the “new” and “different”.

6. The servile revolts
The Sicilian servile wars are reread in light of the ability of some of Sicily’s inhabitants (freemen as well as slaves) to come together, thus “thinking together” and “acting together”; it was this ability, together with errors of judgement on the Roman side, that would go on to make these revolts famous for centuries.

7. The disputed island
In the 1st century B.C., Sicily became a disputed territory, contested by the main protagonists of Roman history: Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Antony and Octavian were concerned with securing control over it and gaining its allegiance, each in different ways, at times militarily, at times by granting Latin law and at others by granting Roman citizenship.

8. The Augustan era
The Augustan era was a time of important transformation for Sicily. The chapter deals, on the one hand, with the difficult issue of institutional change in Sicilian cities and the tax system and, on the other, with the ways in which the territory was exploited and the variety of Sicilian products placed on the Roman market during this time.

9. From Julius-Claudius to the Antonini
This chapter analyses links between the emperors and Sicilian cities, the main historical events that occurred between the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., forms of land use and the variety of cults attested to on the island.

10. A century of continuity and transformations
The Severan age and, in general, the third century A.D., are the focus of this chapter’s investigation. Building interventions on the one hand and some events of political instability on the other, together with the rise of Christianity, give evidence of processes of continuity and transformation.

11. Late antique Sicily
The administrative transformations during the period of the Tetrarchy led to the inclusion of Sicily in the Italic diocese. During this same period certain cities gained importance within the Empire and the island was increasingly chosen as a place of residence by various aristocratic gentes. The barbarian invasions marked the history of the 5th century, but never definitively isolated the island, which boasted strong links with both the Western and Eastern empires.

Anthropophagy in Medieval Sicily: a cultural theme between chronicle and representation. Anthropophagy is the consumption of human flesh and the most extreme form of destruction of the human body, a physical violence which is the quintessential taboo of the self-described “civilized” societies. It provokes disgust, surprise and sometimes fascination, creating a deep connection between the text and the reader, and between the message and the audience. With regard to Sicily, anthropophagy is a cultural theme useful to discern between the account of real events and their representation. The construction of the image of Sicily, and even more of its inhabitants, the Sicilians, is based on an accumulation of clichés, often of ancient origins, transmitted and interpreted over the ages. One of them is surely the “bestiality” of its first inhabitants, intended as the ancient Cyclops or the Giants sons of Saturn, both of them “tyrants” described as man-eaters. During the Early Middle Ages the idea that the Sicilians eat human flesh was transferred to the new conquerors of the island: the Muslims, an infidel enemy to be fighted and considered beyond the boundaries of humanity and nature, meant as a divine law and therefore “civilization”. In both cases the accusations came from the outside, i.e. from groups as the ancient Greeks or the Christians (both Byzantine and Latin-Norman) who had an interest in representing the old and modern inhabitants of the island as anthropophagists to be feared, conquered, subjugated and converted to religion and/or civilization.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 4 th-Century CE Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina, Sicily contains the largest collection of mosaics in the Roman world. However, due to accessibility issues (e.g., remote location, weak online presence), the Villa remains nearly unknown in comparison to popular sites like Pompeii, despite its cultural importance. VILLAE, a collaboration between archaeologists, classicists, and game designers at the University of South Florida and the University of Arkansas, aims to build academic and public engagement with the Villa through a serious game played directly online using WebGL. Addressing the issues of accuracy in 3D reconstruction versus digital embodiment and meaningful game play, this paper outlines the project's pipeline for synthesizing the extensive 3D documentation of the site to create the digital prototype for an immersive narrative that unfolds the Villa's history against the development of modern archaeology in Italy and focuses the human story and professional life of a pioneering female archaeologist, Ersilia Caetani-Lovatelli.

Morgantina in central Sicily has been the site of human activity since the Neolithic era and settlement since at least the Bronze Age.  However, the periods of its history best known to archaeologists are the Iron Age, Archaic, Hellenistic, and Roman.  Employing the settlement component of Franco De Angelis’ proposed model for understanding ancient state formation, this paper analyzes patterns in the settlement data across these periods according to categories of domestic, agoratic, sacred, and fortified space.  It concludes that Morgantina’s settlement type best fits that of a town.

This paper was developed as part of a group project in Dr. Franco De Angelis' Fall 2014 graduate seminar on the formation of the Greek polis.  Each student chose a topic in the areas of settlement, economy and society that bear upon state formation at Morgantina and were expected to make use of each other's research.  As such, this paper cites student presentations (in particularly that of Brad Morrison on demography) in addition to published academic sources.

A methodical search for the likely prototype of an extremely barbarous ancient coin is described. The coin's obverse shows parallel line segments projecting from an approximately rectangular solid shape. Several different obverse orientations are considered. The reverse appears to show a stick figure facing frontally, standing on a ground line or low platform, and holding a staff upright at the left side. Likely prototypes are sought by considering coins of relevant metal, fabric, diameter, shape, weight, and thickness, and with an emphasis on their designs. These factors combined with overall frequencies of occurrence seem to point primarily to Eastern coins as likely prototypes. However, indirect consideration of provenance based on source and context information alters the result. A Western prototype of the area from Sicily to North Africa, more specifically a so-called Lopadusan coin type, is deemed more likely though still uncertain.

Chamber pots are perhaps one of the more challenging ceramic forms to identify with certainty in Roman pottery studies, despite the availability of detailed ceramic typologies. Here, we describe the analysis of mineralized concretions taken from a Sicilian ceramic vessel of the fifthcentury CE, and propose paleoparasitology, the identification of intestinal parasites, as an helpful method for contributing to the detection of chamber pots. Microscope analysis of the mineralized concretions revealed the presence of eggs of the intestinal nematode Trichuris trichuria (whipworm), confirming that the vessel originally contained faeces. This is the first time that parasite eggs have been identified from concretions inside a Roman ceramic vessel. Systematic parasitological investigation of calcified deposits from ceramic vessels may therefore help to establish function. In addition, the identification of intestinal parasite eggs has the potential to advance our understanding of the sanitation, diet, and intestinal health of populations who used these chamber pots.

The human settlement of the Pelagie Islands is marked by discontinuity from the prehistory to the modern era.
The location of the islands in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea gives them a strategic relevance as a landing point along the maritime trading routes but at the same time both the geographic isolation and the exiguity of the resources severely interfere with a durable settlement.
Every time that the archaeological research confirmed the human presence on the islands, it can be always connected to the broader events affecting more generally the Mediterranean basin. So it is in the prehistory, when the islands are involved in the Mediterranean overseas trade earlier for obsidian and later for metal supply or during the Roman Empire, when the marine resources were exploited on large scale, or even in the Late Antiquity when a whole community in disagreement with the central power for religion and politics exiled itself to the border of the Vandalic Reign.

On the footsteps of ancient suphur mines, in the landscape around Agrigento, it is possible to know a piece of a railway between Favara and Naro. This train had to give to owners of the mines the opportunity of quickly transport the sulphur to the ports of Porto Empedocle and Licata. In this paper I will try to explane how an ancient railway, modern and ancient sulphur mines could be part of an “eco-museum” of lower Naro river valley. This can improve the knowledge of local people and could be attractive for touristic mainstream of the Temple Valley increasing local economy.

The battle of Naulochus (36 B.C.) gave Octavian control over Sicily. In the following years the cities of the island were submitted to a political strategy characterized not only by an attitude of domination and conquest, but also by the search for forms of mediation and gradual inclusion of the inhabitants within the legal and institutional framework of the empire that Augustus was creating and that was defined in subsequent centuries.

THE UFFICIO SCAVI ARCHEOLOGICI OF CATANIA. FROM AN UNPUBLISHED FORMA URBIS TO THE RECONSTRUCTION OF A ROMAN THEATER - Born from a previous custody service of ancient monuments, between 1958 and 1987 the Ufficio Scavi Archeologici, which was located at the Roman Theater, performed in Catania and over much of eastern Sicily, a function similar to that of an archaeological superintendency. In the years in which the city underwent important and often radical urban transformations, the Ufficio Scavi administrated a constant control of the undergrond finds, which flowed into a detailed forma urbis of Catania that will remain unpublished. It was precisely the Roman Theater, seat of the Ufficio, the goal of one of the major post-war archaeological enterprises, which remained unfinished: the total liberation of the monument with the demolition of an entire district of the city.

What happens to art in time of war?  Who should own art, and what is its appropriate context? Should the victorious ever allow the defeated to keep their art?  These questions were posed by Cicero in speeches he gave in 70 BCE, when he prosecuted the Roman governor of Greek Sicily, Gaius Verres, for extortion during his time in office. Cicero’s  published speeches had a very long afterlife, affecting debates about collecting art in the 18th century, and reactions to the looting of art by Napoleon. The focus of this book is on those speeches by Cicero, and what they reveal about the context of Verres’ trial, Roman attitudes toward Greek art, and how the text illuminates the history of Greek Sicily. The subsequent impact of Cicero’s arguments on legal thinking about cultural property is also discussed, concluding with the decisions made by the Duke of Wellington after Waterloo in Paris in autumn, 1815.

I Monti Sicani, situati tra Agrigento e Palermo, erano in gran parte sconosciuti dal punto di vista archeologico. Il survey, effettuato su 274 km², ha fornito un nuovo e ricco quadro delle strutture insediative, presenti nell’area tra l'età del rame e il medioevo. I siti preistorici ci forniscono un’immagine chiara della sequenzialità dei primi insediamenti e della sorprendente penetrazione delle influenze greche in queste remote aree montuose, in cui, oltre ai santuari di confine, sta emergendo anche un piccolo numero di fattorie di epoca greca. Un vero e proprio utilizzo intensivo del territorio si registra a partire dall’età ellenistica, ma è soprattutto nella tarda antichità che si avviano ristrutturazioni e si intensifica il numero di insediamenti. Il panorama che si delinea spazia dalla fase arabo-normanna fino al medioevo. Oltre 260 tavole a colori, mappe, disegni e supplementi documentano per la prima volta l'archeologia delle zone interne della Sicilia in maniera intensiva.


Die Monti Sicani zwischen Agrigent und Palermo waren archäologisch weitgehend unbekannt. Der Survey auf 274 km² hat ein neues und dichtes Bild der Siedlungsstrukturen zwischen der Kupferzeit und dem Mittelalter ergeben. Die prähistorischen Fundstellen zeichnen ein dichtes Bild von der Abfolge der frühen Siedlungen und vom erstaunlichen Vordringen griechischer Einflüsse in diese küstenfernen, gebirgigen Bereiche, in denen neben Grenzheiligtümern sogar eine kleine Zahl von griechenzeitlichen Gehöften entsteht. Eine Konzentration der Landnutzung beginnt im Hellenismus gefolgt von einer Neustrukturierung und Siedlungsverdichtung vor allem in der Spätantike. Der Blick reicht über die arabisch normannische Phase bis zum Mittelalter. Über 260 Farbtafeln Karten Zeichnungen und Beilagen dokumentieren erstmals die Archäologie des sizilianischen Binnenlandes.

La storia della Sicilia in età imperiale è stata spesso considerata una storia “marginale”: quella di una provincia che, dopo aver vissuto un passato di grande splendore caratterizzato dall’autonomia politica, diviene parte integrante del dominio di Roma. In tal senso, generazioni di studiosi, con significative eccezioni, l’hanno riletta quale storia di crisi e decadenza, individuando solo pochi momenti in cui l’isola avrebbe conosciuto fasi di sviluppo.
Il presente contributo mira a ridiscutere una simile interpretazione: attraverso la disamina di alcune testimonianze significative, si vuole dimostrare che, lungi dal subire un destino che la condannava all’oblio, l’isola era ben inserita in una fitta rete di relazioni di varia natura, spesso originate da precise strategie politiche messe in atto dal potere centrale.

Il volume racconta il monumento nei suoi dettagli, dalle origini greche alla sua trasformazione nel quartiere catanese chiamato “Grotte”, fino alla sua riscoperta nella metà del ‘700 e alla progressiva liberazione dalle case che nel tempo lo avevano nascosto. Ma il volume racconta anche di quanto intimo e quotidiano fosse il rapporto tra questo grande spazio pubblico e gli antichi catanesi, di come vi si svolgessero gli spettacoli, dalle tragedie greche di età classica alle commedie romane, di come si ingannasse il tempo tra uno spettacolo e l’altro, attraverso gli oggetti smarriti dagli spettatori, attraverso le centinaia di lucerne che illuminavano al crepuscolo la grande cavea e la strada del ritorno a casa.

Sulfur was used in several fields: military, tanning, wool’s disinfection and many other activities. Nevertheless, the largest quantity of sulfur was definitely used in agriculture, particularly in viticulture. Sulfur was used to contrast fungal diseases especially in areas of grapes production. Sicily, and in particular the area surrounding Agrigento, was the main site of sulfur extraction. This helped to build strong relationships with Rome and other agricultural centers in the Mediterranean Sea. Among the historical sources and archaeological evidence it is important to mention the Tabulae sulphuris which, regarding the sulfur exploitation, exclusively refer to the Agrigento’s area. Recent finds (Zambito 2014) and studies (Zambito 2010) gave a chronology between the end of the IV and the VI century for some tegulae sulphuris, and then for sulphur explotation.
It will be possible to enter Sicily and, in particular, the “area solfifera” in the circuit of economic and trade relationships arisen in the classical age and ensuring constant contact with the main importers of sulfur. We have to be connect these commercial and cultural ties in fact, with the wheat and other commodities export. Particular aim of this poster is to show these new data and the way the exploitation structures and mining landscape changed between Late Antiquity and Byzantine times. Finally the fiscal center of Agrigentum seems to lose its function, perhaps because the benefit of other centers had acquired this function in the Byzantine period. Other economic and fiscal towns and centers aroused but the sulfur exploitation never stopped.

Starting from an analysis of Verres' early cursus honorum, the paper focuses mainly on his role as propraetor and governor of Sicily between 73 and 71BC. There, when he was in charge, according to Cicero's In Verrem, he committed the most atrocious crimes and intrigues. The most relevant of them is the crucifixion of Publius Gavius from Compsa, who repeatedly shouted he was a roman citizen before dying. The relevance of roman citizenship in the ancient world is then explored, with its prerogatives and benefits, such as the provocatio ad populum. Finally, a deep analysis of Verres' actions and the legal basis of his conduct are presented, trying to understand what could have brought to his condemnation in the concussion process before the jury.

This examination of C. Duilius (consul in 260 BCE) and his achievements consists of a series of linked hypotheses, each suggested by direct evidence for Duilius' activities and contextualized by near-contemporary precedents (wherever possible) or relevant analogues from slightly later periods. Taken together, these hypotheses suggest that the elogium on Duilius’ rostral column may be read not only as an account of a capable commander who destroyed the myth of Carthaginian supremacy at sea, but also as an encomium on a generous benefactor to Rome’s citizenry. The inscription’s redactor successfully asserted Duilius’ preeminence among his peers, symbolized by the imagery and position of the rostral column commemorating his naval victory that was erected by order of the Senate and Roman people near the Comitium and Rostra. The cumulative evidence also suggests that the inscription’s reference to Duilius’ distribution of ‘naval booty’ to the Roman people involved the conversion of massive amounts of captured bronze, including the rostra removed from Punic ships, into “coinage,” i.e., the brick-sized aes signatum coins dated to c. 260 which bear naval imagery. Thus, by turning a mundane medium of exchange into a vehicle of propaganda through which his exploits and generosity could be ‘broadcast’, Duilius was able to reemphasize his new status as the first Roman celebrate a naval triumph. He could do this because the coins constituted a special triumphal/manubial issue under his authority, and he was therefore not subject to the constraints, real or implied, that kept Rome’s annual moneyers from issuing coins with personally significant types for another 125 years. His sudden emergence as a leading figure in Rome was rewarded with other honors, including a prestigious censorship in 258 and a perpetual personal honor, also bestowed by the SPQR, that allowed him to “triumph” to the end of his long life.

From the article's conclusion:
"Gaius Duilius has long been acknowledged as the first Roman to win a sea-battle, the first to celebrate a naval triumph, the first to be honored with a rostral column, and the first to present a gift derived from naval booty to the Roman people. Indeed, he came to be seen primarily as the man who set Rome on the road to maritime expansion and, ultimately, domination of the Mediterranean world. He was remembered also as the first (if not only) man to have a flute-player and wax-torch bearer accompany him home from feasts, as if he were perpetually triumphing. Now, we may add to Duilius’ list of firsts: he was the first politician to utilize Roman coinage to broadcast a new ideology of Rome’s (hoped for) naval greatness and dominance of the Mediterranean; he was also, it seems, the first Roman politician to use coinage as a medium for self-promotion, a century and a quarter before anyone would do it again."


Key words:

Gaius Duilius
Rostral Column
Naval Triumph
Naval Warfare
Battle of Mylae
Aes Signatum
Roman Navy
Roman Republic
Roman numismatics
Roman Topography
Punic Wars
First Punic War
Roman Epigraphy
Latin Epigraphy
Trireme
Quinquireme
Roman ships
Fasti Triumphales
Summi Viri
Octavian
Augustus
Forum Augustum / Augusti

Conca d’oro è il nome della fertile piana, compresa tra mare e monti, che circonda la città di Palermo per una estensione di ca. 100 km2, celebrata per la sua feracità sin dalla antichità classica. Il presente studio intende delineare la storia del toponimo, indagando le implicazioni linguistiche e culturali ad esso connesse. Attestato come Co(n)ca  aurea nella temperie di rinnovamento culturale che investe la città di Palermo intorno al 1470, il toponimo potrebbe celare una formazione paraetimologica ibrida arabo-latina, in analogia ad altri casi siciliani già noti (es. Mongibello).

ANCIENT CATANIA. NEW PERSPECTIVES OF RESEARCH is a miscellany of contributions written by scholars who discussed this theme in various ways and from different perspectives.
In addition to traditional archaeological reports, outlining the urban development from prehistory to the late antiquity, there are writings dealing with the history of research, including through archival records, issues concerning the identity of the ancient city and the reverberations of antiquity within the modern city, both in its urban structure as in the collective imagination.
In the contributions are included numerous informations until now unpublished, even by recent researches, which taken as a whole provide a picture of Catania and its ancient monuments certainly new.
Born from a prehistoric eruption of Etna, the Montevergine hill on which stands Catania is strategically located between the sea, the volcano and the largest plain of Sicily. Upon it, starting from the Neolithic, there was a vast settlement. However, the area was perhaps already uninhabited when, in 729-728 BC, Greeks from Chalkis in Euboea, headed by Evarco founded Katàne.
The Greek city, site of an important sanctuary of Demeter, enjoyed its best season in the fifth century BC. In 476 Hieron I of Syracuse refounded it, replacing the original inhabitants and changing its name to Áitna. From this episode, which lasted fifteen years, chanted by Pindar and perhaps topic of a lost tragedy by Aeschylus, remain silver coins among the most refined of antiquity. Once back the old name and the original inhabitants, at the end of the century, during the Peloponnesian War, Katàne sided with Athens against Syracuse. Conquered by the Syracusans in 403 BC, dispersed its inhabitants and repopulated with Campanian mercenaries, for the city began a decline that ended with the Roman conquest in 263 B.C.
Càtina became Colonia Augustea in 21 BC. From that moment the city was endowed with large public buildings that will turn it into one of the most distinguished centers of the empire which in the following centuries, until today, will influence its urban development.
The city was the site of an early Christian community and by the fourth century, if not earlier, it had a bishop. To the Christianity are linked the transformations of some buildings and the abandonment of others, and the slow process of development from the ancient city to the Middle Ages.

The present research paper aims to introduce and discuss the special issue dedicated to The Sicilian Questions. Thanks to the increase in studies and research there seems to be an urgent need today, more than ever, to bring together all the fragments of an uniterrupted historical dialogue between Sicily, understood in its widest geo-political meaning, and the Arabo-Islamic world. The study of the Arabic elements in this history of Sicily has been presented with well-defined chronological and cultural limits (ninth to thirteenth centuries), set out in the work of Michele Amari. Nonetheless, as the present work demonstrates, a diachronic and transdisciplinary perspective allows new and unexpected viewpoints to open up. The need emerges to broaden chronological limits to the entire Middle Ages and beyond, whilst fully aware of other disciplines and areas of knowledge, which have until now been overlooked, isolated or simply considered secondary or subordinate.

Sundials in Roman and Byzantine Mosaics (1st – 9th Century AD). A scientific monograph. The sundials on ancient mosaics have not been the subject of scientific studies so far. The author has gathered together  in this  publication  the sundials  already known (Torre Anunzaiata, Sarsina, Trier, Saint-Romain-en-Gal, Antioch and Brading; Figs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9) and those which have  not  previously  been  identified.  Thanks  to  the author’s  new  identifcations,  the  catalogue  has  been enlarged  by  six  new  sundials (Grand,Tarsus, Antiochia – interpreted by H. Pamir; Figs.  3, 6,  8, and 10. Tayibat al-Imam, Jerusalem and Umm al-Rasas (Sebastis); Figs. 10, 11, 12) and three monumental gnomes-columns with multiple functions that were used as monumental sundials [Madaba (Jerusalem), Umm al-Rasas (Kastron Mefaa) and Rome (Jerusalem); Figs. 13–15]. In addition, recognizing fully John H. Humphrey’s  interpretations,  the  author  enriches  the catalogue  by  eight  ancient  mosaic  representations  of obelisks in  circuses (Lyon, Barcelona, Volubilis, Piazza Armerina - two mosaics, Girona, Carthage and Gafsa; Figs.  16–23).  They  performed the roles of monumental sundials. In this way, the catalogue includes  twenty-three  mosaics with  the representations of sundials. They come from the Western and Eastern Provinces of the Roman Empire. The first mosaic is dated to the beginning of the 1st century AD and the last dates to the 9th century AD. The author, after  a  short  description  of each monument,  summarizes the issue discussing the role of sundials in Roman and Byzantine society, their complex signifcance and symbolic dificult linked with the progress of time on which nature and human life are dependent. See Pdf : https://www.academia.edu/22653583/