Reduction of risk of human and food animal infection with Toxoplasma gondii is hampered by the lack of epidemiological data documenting the predominant routes of infection (oocyst versus tissue cyst consumption) in horizontally transmitted toxoplasmosis. Existing serological assays can determine previous exposure to the parasite, but not the route of infection. We have used difference gel electrophoresis in combination with tandem mass spectroscopy and Western blot to identify a sporozoite-specific protein (Toxoplasma gondii embryogenesis-related protein, TgERP) which elicited antibody and differentiated oocyst- versus tissue cyst-induced infection in pigs and mice. The recombinant protein was selected from a cDNA library constructed from T. gondii sporozoites, and this protein was used in Western blots and probed with sera from T. gondii infected humans. Serum antibody to TgERP was detected in humans within 6–8 mo of initial oocyst-acquired infection. Of 163 individuals in the acute stage of infection (anti-Toxoplasma IgM detected in sera, or <30 in the IgG avidity test), 103 (63.2%) had detectable antibodies that reacted with TgERP. Of 176 individuals with unknown infection route and in the chronic stage of infection (no anti-Toxoplasma IgM detected in sera, or >30 in the IgG avidity test), antibody to TgERP was detected in 31 (17.6%). None of the 132 uninfected individuals tested had detectable antibody to TgERP. These data suggest that TgERP may be useful in detecting exposure to sporozoites in early Toxoplasma infection and implicates oocysts as the agent of infection.

This paper looks at the words, pictures and shapes that people in the Roman provinces placed on the thousands of coins that were made by each of several hundred cities, and uses the patterns that can be found to discuss the contribution provincial coins can make to our understanding of how relationships developed between the early Roman emperors, especially Augustus, and their audiences in provincial cities.

‘Identity is Now Seen Not as an Eternal given, but as something actively constructed and contested in a particular historical context, based on subjective, not objective criteria.’ For all that it may be a contingent construct, identity is a powerful driver of action, as we know all too well from our own experience. Identity matters. Coins have been described, in the words of Fergus Millar, as ‘the most deliberate of all symbols of public identity’. Yet the Roman historian will look in vain for any good introduction to, or systematic treatment of, the subject. That, in a nutshell, is the need which this volume seeks to address. It is worth emphasizing the words deliberate and public. It is relevant to recall the late second-century BC inscription which states the reasons why the people of Sestus decided to use its own bronze coinage. The first reason given is so that the city’s coin type should be used as a current type. In this context at least, coins were seen as a deliberate advertisement of public identity. What coinage most obviously provides is an enormous range of self-defined and explicit representations of public/official/communal identities, principally civic in nature. The material thus largely allows us to avoid the thorny problems associated with externally defined, implicit, and private identities. A public medium like coinage is not the place to look for overt opposition to Roman rule. And it invites, rather than answers, the question of to what extent public identities might have been understood as covert ‘resistance’ to Rome, to what extent they represented a self-definition designed to accommodate or play up to Roman attitudes, and to what extent they may even have been inspired or promoted by Rome itself. Identity has been a major focus of research in recent decades, for the obvious reason that it is particularly an issue when under threat. That consideration applies as much to our own scholarly context as it does to our subject, the Roman empire. The advent of the Euro has inevitably drawn attention to money in this context. Naturally there are major differences between now and then.

A LARGE number of hoards of silver coins are known from late fourth-century Britain, 1 and every year still more come to light. 2 These hoards usually contain more or less the same sorts of coin and it may be helpful to give a summary of the main issues, as they are not presented very clearly in the standard reference book for the period, RIC IX. 3 The earliest coins to be represented are the first issues of Constantius IPs new coinage of silver siliquae, struck at the mint of Aries in the late 350's in the names of Constantius (PL. VI, I) and Julian Caesar, and the succeeding massive issues from Aries, Trier and Lyon minted during the reign of Julian Augustus (360-363) (PL. VI, 2) in his name and, for the first year, in the name of Constantius as well. Only a few coins from the beginning of the reign of Valentinian I and Valens are found in British hoards, particularly the VOT V MVLT X and contemporary VRBS ROMA coins struck at Rome between 364 and 367. There was then effectively a ten-year gap in silver production, until the start of the enormous issues minted at Trier for just over a decade. First came VRBS ROMA, Roma seated to left on throne, in 375-377 for Valentinian I (at first), Valens (PL. VI, 3) and Gratian. In 377 this type was replaced by VRBS ROMA, Roma seated left on cuirass, for Valens (until his death in 378) and Gratian (PL. VI, 4), and VICTORIA AVGGG, Victory advancing left, for Valentinian II (PL. VI, 5). With the accession of Theodosius in 379, each of the three Augusti had a different type: VICTORIA AVGGG was continued for Valentinian II, while CONCORDIA AVGGG, Constantinopolis seated facing, was introduced for Theodosius (PL. VI, 6) and VIRTVS ROMANORVM, Roma seated facing, for Gratian. During the usurpation of Magnus Maximus (383-388) nearly all of the silver coinage was struck in his name with Gratian's VIRTVS ROMANORVM type (PL. VI, 7). From Maximus' death in 388 there was almost a cessation of minting at Trier, until the common VIRTVS ROMANORVM, Roma seated left on cuirass, minted in 392-394 in the names of Valentinian II, Theodosius, (particularly) Arcadius (PL. VI, 8) and Eugenius. The last coins to be found plentifully in British hoards have the same type, but were minted at Milan in the names of Arcadius and Honorius (PL. VI, 9) after 395.

Many Aspects of Different Cultures can help to throw light on their differing identities—language, architecture, religion, and many other things, such as the ‘range of landscapes, ways of thought, racial groups, roof-tops and cheeses’. In fact, almost anything. A particular category is provided by the institutions people observe, a category which might embrace an enormous range of different things, from burial practices to legal systems, or from different calendars to different systems of weights and measures. The link between coins, weights, and measures was clear to the Greeks and Romans, and that coins could be regarded as an expression of some at least of the values characteristic of a particular society is evident from an anecdote reported by Pliny as taking place in the reign of Claudius. He relates how a Roman was forced by a storm to Sri Lanka (ancient Taprobane), and how he told the local king about Rome: A freedman of Annius Plocamus, who had brought the tax collection for the Red Sea from the Treasury, was sailing round Arabia. He was carried along by winds from the north past Carmania and, on the fifteenth day, made harbour at Hippuros in the island; and in consequence of the kind hospitality of the king he learned the local language thoroughly over a period of six months, and afterwards in reply to his questions described the Romans and Caesar. In what he heard the king got a remarkably good idea of their honesty, because among the captured money there were denarii which were of equal weight, even though their various types indicated that they were issued by several persons. I want to apply this approach to the Roman world, and use coins in a way that may throw light on some of the ways that Romans regarded themselves, having a special look at the differences between the western and eastern parts of the empire. I want to suggest that we can use this sort of approach to help explain the fundamental change that took place in the currency of the Iberian peninsula, Gaul, Italy, Sicily, and Africa in the first century AD—how people there stopped using locally made coins and started to use coins imported from Rome, coins which might otherwise have been regarded in some sense as almost ‘foreign’.