ABSTRACT
In the nineties of the first century AD, a literary jury at Rome reached a unanimous verdict: the prize for poetry should be awarded for the first time to an African, P.Annius Florus. But the young man never received it. At the last moment, the Emperor Domitian, who had instituted the prize, refused to ratify the jury's decision. It was unheard of—unthinkable—that a provincial should carry off his prize from under the noses of Italian competitors.
