The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at 2pm on Saturday 1 June 2019, in the Woburn Suite, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. The President, Professor Tim Cornell, was in the chair and welcomed members and non-members.
The President reported on the Society's activities over the previous year, starting with its publication programme. He thanked the Publications Secretary, Dr Lynn Pitts, the current Editors, Professor Christopher Kelly (JRS) and Professor Hella Eckardt (Britannia), and the Reviews Editors, Dr Peter Thonemann (JRS) and Dr Will Bowden (Britannia). In 2018, the Society published Britannia Monograph 31: Alexander Smith, Martyn Allen, Tom Brindle, Michael Fulford, Lisa Lodwick and Anna Rohnbogner (eds), Life and Death in the Countryside of Roman Britain, the third in a series of volumes (New Visions of the Countryside of Roman Britain) and Britannia Monograph 32: Michael Fulford, Amanda Clarke, Emma Durham and Nicholas Pankhurst, Late Iron Age Calleva: The Pre-Conquest Occupation at Silchester Insula IX. Silchester Roman Town: The Insula IX Town Life Project: Volume 3. The President also noted that two further editions of Epistula had been published online and emailed to members, and he thanked the Editor, Dr Matthew Symonds, who was now stepping down. He would be succeeded by Dr Frances McIntosh.
The President then turned to the programme of events and lectures. In the session 2018–2019, the usual programme of lectures held in London at Senate House featured Dr Christopher Whitton (The Arts of Imitation in Latin Prose: Pliny's Epistles / Quintilian in Brief) and a well-attended joint event with the Hellenic Society on the topic of Memorialisation, with Dr Jon Hesk, Dr Tiziana D'Angelo and Dr Valerie Hope. In November, we hosted the Joan Pye Lecture with the Roman Research Trust (Professor Simon Esmonde Cleary, Chedworth: Excavation and Reimaginings at a Roman Villa 1864–2018), and our usual joint conference with the Association for Roman Archaeology at the British Museum was on the topic The People of Roman Britain, with lectures by Dr Tom Brindle, Professor Hella Eckardt, Dr John Pearce and Dr Tatiana Ivleva. The Archaeology Committee has supported a number of events, including the Hadrian's Wall Forum; the 2019 Regional Heritage Centre's Archaeology Forum at Lancaster University; and, notably, at Senate House, a day conference on ‘Sensory Experience’, organised by Tom Derrick and Giacomo Savani.
The President drew attention to a number of forthcoming events to look forward to, including our joint lecture with the BSR on 4 June when Professor Ian Haynes and Dr Thea Ravasi will speak on: Enriching the Soldiers, Scorning the Rest? New Evidence for the Impact of Septimius Severus’ Restoration of Rome. This event is very kindly sponsored by Peter Smith, a long-standing member of the BSR and the Roman Society. On 3 July, the Society will host a conference jointly with the Hellenic Society on ‘Saving Ancient Treasures for the World’, generously sponsored by Christian Levett. From 4 to 8 July, the FIEC / CA 2019 conference will be held at the Institute of Education and Senate House. As one of the UK member-ogranisations of FIEC, the Roman Society is one of the hosts and sponsors, and a Roman Society panel exploring the history, the journals and the impact of the Society, with Professors Tim Cornell, Catherine Steel, Hella Eckardt and Werner Eck, will take place on Saturday 6 July.
In the autumn, there will be a half-day conference on Germanicus (12 October); the book launch of Peter's Wiseman's The House of Augustus (12 November); the joint conference with the ARA at the British Museum on Roman Temples in Britain and Gaul (on 16 November); and a joint conference with the Royal Institute of Archaeology on Romans in North-East England: Recent Research (29 November–1 December). On Wednesday 16 October, there will also be a HARL event, Homer Today, featuring a panel chaired by Martha Kearney, in aid of the library fundraising campaign.
The President thanked Dr Matthew Symonds (Chair of the Archaeology Committee), for all his work in organising collaborative events, especially the next Roman Archaeology Conference, to be held in Split in April 2020; Professor Roland Mayer (Hon. Secretary and Chair of the Roman Studies Committee); Dr Clare Harvey (Chair of the Schools Committee); and everyone who has served on the Society's committees and the Council, including the retiring members: Professor Simon James, Dr Christina Kuhn, Dr Jerome Mairat, Dr Roberta Tomber and Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill.
The President also thanked Ms Joanna Ashe and the team of librarians. On the fundraising campaign for the Library, the President reported that since the last AGM, the HARL Campaign Board has been making progress with the campaign. Two readers ran the Athens marathon to raise money for the Library; we have received a number of donations from individuals and foundations — either towards the Endowment Fund or the annual giving scheme. And we have received two donations for specific projects: a grant from the Classical Association for a digitisation project; and £60,000 from the A.G. Leventis Foundation for a two-year post to work on digitising the collection.
Lastly, the President thanked Dr Philip Kay, the Hon. Treasurer, for all his work on the accounts this year, especially given the poor performance of the auditors, MacIntyre Hudson, in completing the audit.
Dr Kay explained that the audit manager had been suffering mental health issues since February, and that the audit partner, Duncan Cochrane-Dyet, had failed to put in place another team who could deliver the accounts. No accounts had been produced for the March Council meeting, and a draft version had been received at the last minute for an additional Council meeting on 7 May. These were the figures which had been used in the financial statements within the Annual Report which had been posted to members. Despite much chasing for final sign-off, the version which had just been circulated to the AGM had only been received the previous evening at 7pm and therefore he and the Secretary had had little time to review it. He noted that MacIntyre Hudson had also failed to produce accounts for the Hellenic Society, HARL and the Classical Association. The Roman Society would be seeking a fee reduction, and, with the Hellenic Society, would be looking for a new firm of auditors for the 2019 accounts of the two societies and HARL.
Dr Kay gave an overview of the Society's financial position, noting that this was the third year of the new twenty-five-year arrangement with the University of London under which the Roman and Hellenic Societies pay fees to the Hellenic and Roman Library (HARL), mainly to fund the salaries of the librarians of the Joint Library. The need to fund the Society's share of these new arrangements had continued to have an impact on net income before unrealised investment gains and losses and cash flow in 2018, though both had improved somewhat compared to 2017. The accounts show net income before investment gains in 2018 of £8,921 (2017: net income of £49,002, after unrealised gains) and net expenditure of £51,545, after unrealised investment losses (2017: net expenditure of £91,814). Net income fell 3 per cent to £424,565, mainly because of a 10 per cent fall in income from the publishing agreements with CUP for JRS and Britannia. This followed record publication income in 2017, and in fact income in 2018 was still above the level achieved in 2016. More worrying in the medium term, however, is the trend towards Open Access and it is still not clear how negative the impact of this trend on the Society's publication income will be.
The Society's investments are managed by The Newton Growth and Income Fund. Though outperforming its benchmark by 4.6% in 2018, the Fund had a difficult fourth quarter, in common with its competitors, as global equity markets fell amid fears of a US/China trade war and concerns about an economic slowdown. By the end of the year, the value of the Society's investments stood at £1.4m, a fall of 4.5% from its value at the end of 2017.
Each year, a portion of the Society's income and endowments, as presented in the Statement of Financial Activities, is income in kind and therefore does not impact on cash flow. In 2018, this amounted to £46,000, comprising periodicals exchanged and donations of books. Encouragingly, the net increase in cash for the Society in 2018 was £19,000 compared to a net decrease in cash in 2017 of £34,000.
Dr Kay finished by noting that the funding of the Joint Library will continue to be a significant expense for the Society, but the money that has already been raised in the Library fundraising campaign, through annual giving and one-off donations, will help to reduce further the payments that will need to be made to HARL by the Society in 2019. He therefore encouraged members to make a donation of any size to the appeal.
Dr Kay read, as usual, the extract from the auditor's report: ‘In our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the state of the charitable company's affairs at 31st December 2018 and of its incoming resources and application of resources, including its income and expenditure for the year then ended.’ As the auditors had signed off the accounts, he asked members to approve this version, subject to any minor amendments. On this basis, the Report and Accounts for 2018 were approved on the proposal of Dr Andrew Burnett and seconded by Mrs Sally Carter-Esdale. That the Council be authorised to agree the remuneration of the Auditors was proposed by Dr Tim Leary and seconded by Dr George Maher. That the President, the Hon. Treasurer and Secretary be authorised to review the audit arrangements and, if necessary, to recommend the appointment of a new firm of auditors for 2019 for approval by the Council was proposed by Dr Ross Thomas and seconded by Dr Helen Cockle.
Professor Peter Wiseman proposed and Ms Hazel Bird seconded the following nominations for Council: as Vice-Presidents for 2019–20: Dr A. M. Burnett, CBE, FBA, FSA, Professor C. H. Edwards, Professor D. W. Rathbone; as Hon. Treasurer and Hon. Secretary for 2019–20: Dr P. B. Kay, FSA and Professor R. G. Mayer, respectively; and as Council members for 2019–22: Dr S. Chomse, Dr I. K. L. Goh, Dr M. McAuley, Dr J. McNamara, Dr D. O'Rourke and Dr B. Xinyue. All the above Resolutions were passed nem. con. There was no other business.
The AGM was followed by a colloquium on Roman Dictators and Dictatorship. The speakers were Professor Tim Cornell: Roman Dictators and Modern Politics, Professor Catherine Steel: Sulla's Dictatorship: Revival or Recreation?, Professor Federico Santangelo: From Paris to Turi: Constructions of Caesarisms and Professor Maria Wyke: Roman Dictatorship in Britain: Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra on Stage and Screen.
