The opinion of those historians and archaeologists who regard with scepticism or incredulity the possibility of extracting from the reliefs of the Trajan Column at Rome a continuous and detailed narrative of the Dacian wars of that Emperor has not been developed, so far as I know, in any reasoned and elaborate argument. Their general statements and obiter dicta represent one of two distinct points of view (though occasionally confusion of thought leads to a ‘contamination’), the first, that although we have in the reliefs a repertory of Roman warfare of inestimable value, yet since the pictures there chiselled stand for little more than conventional scenes of Roman frontier warfare, all or almost all exactitude of historical narration is entirely to seek. The second view concedes that the reliefs were designed to be an historical record of the Dacian wars, but contests the possibility, or lays deterrent stress on the difficulty, of winning from their study any results of historical value. It reminds us further how freely oblivion has scattered her poppy over the vast contemporary literature of these wars, leaving us with little more than the ‘glimmerings of an abridgment.’ This view, in short, may be regarded as pithily summarised in Benndorf's description of the reliefs as a ‘book with seven seals.’

Lucus Feroniae, the scene of a great yearly assemblage in honour of the goddess Feronia and subsequently the site of an Augustan colony which took the name of the ancient grove, lay somewhere in the territory of Capena in south-eastern Etruria. The region presents great topographical difficulties. Except for Capena itself, which has been located with some degree of certainty on the hill of Civitucola, none of the ancient settlements, of which there are several in the city's extensive ager, has been definitely identified. This paper has been written in the belief that a fresh consideration of the evidence for the goddess's shrine will aid in determining its location and will present material of value for its bearing on the history of Capena and the origin of Feronia's cult.

Obv. Head of Caligula, bare, r. c caesar avg germ p m tr pot cos.

Rev. Head of an Emperor, radiate, r. Star, 1. and r. in field.

No legend.

av. 8; 119 gr. B.M.

Struck at Lugdunum, A.D. 37, soon after the accession of Caligula (March 18th)—the first issue of the new reign. The features of the Emperor on the rev. are those of Tiberius, as seen on coins of about the years A.D. 22–23. Other specimens of this aureus show features which suggest Augustus rather than Tiberius and, in the next issue, this rev. type gives place to a radiate head r. without stars and with legend ‘divvs avg pater patriae.’

The publication of a second fourth-century epitaph from Laodicea Combusta, engraved on the tomb of two of its bishops, Severus and Eugenius, calls for fresh study, from a new angle, of the epitaph of the persecuted bishop Julius Eugenius of the same city, which was first published (with a provisional text) in the Expositor in 1908, and has already become the subject of a considerable literature. An opportunity therefore offers itself to present English readers with a complete and (I hope) final text of the bishop's epitaph. This is all the more necessary that an English version, inaccurate in almost every detail, has been incorporated in a text-book issued by the Cambridge University Press.

During the war the 40-acre gravel pits, the property of Messrs. Chambers at Barnwood, two and a quarter miles south-east of old Gloucester (Glevum Colonia) and lying in the Severn Vale immediately east of and adjoining Irmin Street, became not merely valuable to the Government Munitions Department, but of very special interest to the archaeologist and the palaeontologist. The extent of the oolitic sand deposit is naturally far greater than the excavated area which we had to observe, and lies along, and beyond, both sides of the road. Too frequently, however, is it found underlying houses and gardens to be quite satisfactory as a quarry for the archaeologist. Above the lowest depth now excavated, that is to say from 12 to 15 feet from the surface of the ground, occur freely the tusks and teeth of elephants (both Antiquus and, it is said, Primigenius), rhinoceros of two, or perhaps three, varieties (including Merckii), Cervus Elephas, and Equus Caballus; while the teeth of wolf, fox, and smaller mammals are met with at higher levels. There we are constantly hoping for traces of Palaeolithic man; and one ‘find,’ of a palaeolith, close by, the first example of its kind in Gloucestershire, more than justifies this expectation. The sand, richly deposited above these remains, consists of superposed layers of oolite grit abounding with Echinoids and Brachiopods.

Did the seven years' governorship recorded by Tacitus begin in A.D. 77 or in 78 ? The question has been often discussed: it is of some importance for the history of the time, and of special interest in our own country. Most authorities have hitherto supported the later date; but recent writers are still divided, and the latest and fullest discussion seems to require some additions and qualifications. In the absence of evidence directly conclusive, the decision depends upon a series of indirect arguments, which raise subsidiary questions of some independent interest. Hence it may be permissible to return to the subject.

Modern writers have remarked with surprise upon the absence of a postal service under the Roman Republic. The fact that Latin literature makes no mention of any such service would not, taken alone, be sufficient to prove that it did not exist; but Suetonius in his account of the institution of the Imperial post by Augustus speaks as if it were a new departure in the history of Roman administration, and it is clear from many incidental references in Cicero's correspondence that in his time there was no government postal service which an official could make use of. A provincial governor sent his despatches by one of his own lictors or orderlies (statores) or by the tabellarii of the tax-farming companies, there being no other means of transmission available. “Your orderly has brought me two letters from you,” writes Cicero, then governor of Cilicia, to Sallustius, proquaestor of Syria. “I have thought it advisable to send my orderlies and lictors to you with despatches,” he writes about the same time to his own quaestor.

In the course of a paper on ‘Roman Colchester’ in volume ix of this Journal, Mr. Philip Laver and the writer drew attention to the vaults which underlie Colchester castle, and claimed for them a Roman origin. The claim is based primarily upon constructional evidence which is readily appreciated in the presence of the actual remains, but the published summary perhaps requires some amplification for the reader who is unacquainted with these. Until its recent acquisition for the Colchester Corporation, the castle was in private possession, and was only partially known to the public; nor does the mass of literature which has gathered round the structure include any detailed study of its architectural problems. Hence the dark and comparatively barren vaults have hitherto escaped more than passing notice.

In the course of some operations recently undertaken to preserve the ancient Ponderarium at Tivoli from the infiltration of moisture, the torso of a statue of excellent workmanship was discovered lying on a marble pavement. Good results being thus assured, the Ministry of Public Instruction decided to continue excavations on the site. The work was carried out under the supervision of Professor Alessio Valle and Cavaliere Silla Rosa de Angelio, Honorary Inspector of Ancient Monuments at Tivoli, and was speedily crowned with success. There came to light, besides, two other fragments of the statue, another part of the bust and a head of different proportions; and it was also ascertained that the pavement, made of slabs of white and violet-coloured marble, belonged to a rectangular chamber which showed traces of an apse let into one of the shorter sides and which was in an excellent state of preservation.

Ammianus Marcellinus has in this country long suffered undue and unfortunate neglect. No edition of him, so far as I know, has ever been produced in England. A translation executed between thirty and forty years ago by the late Professor C. D. Yonge, for Bohn's Classical Library, is, I think, not now readily accessible. Mr. Fisher, before he was called from the University of Sheffield to a larger and more laborious sphere, had bestowed much study on him; some of its results appeared in an article in the Quarterly Review for July 1918, which was last year republished in his volume of Studies in History and Politics. The Teubner text edited by Gardthausen in 1874–5 has long been out of print.

When the South Sea Bubble burst, a passionate member of the British Parliament called for the application of the Lex Pompeia on Parricides to those who had defrauded the nation. Just as the Romans, he argued, face to face with a monstrous and unprecedented crime, devised for it a monstrous and unprecedented punishment, so the British were invited to tie the directors of the South Sea Company into sacks with a dog, a cock, a viper and an ape in each, and sink them in the Thames.

§ 1. The document (or rather two documents) which has come down under the title Notitia Dignitatum is well known to all students who have concerned themselves, however incidentally, with the government of the Roman empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. It sometimes strikes one that it is referred to in a way that betrays a defective realisation of what it was. Some of those who quote it appear to think that it was compiled for the purpose of giving information to the Roman public as to the organisation of the civil and military services and belongs to much the same class of work as e.g. the Synecdemus of Hierocles or the Notitia of Polemius Silvius. It was, of course, nothing of the kind, and it has been known since the days of Pancirolus precisely what it was; but even by some who were fully aware of its character and purpose deductions have been drawn which its character and purpose exclude. For students of Roman Britain it is particularly important to have a full grasp of the general questions connected with the Notitia, since it contains a great deal of the little evidence we have for the fortunes of that country at the beginning of the fifth century.

§ 2. The primicerius notariorum was one of the highest officials of the second class (i.e. those who had the rank of spectabilis). In A.D. 381 an imperial law elevated him above the vicarii and placed him in the same group as the proconsuls.

During the past six years the problem of the chronology of Niger's revolt in Syria has been studied in detail in three separate works. My own appeared in the United States in 1915, a book by Platnauer in England in 1918, and a work by Hasebroek in Germany in 1921. Due to poor means of communication during the war, Platnauer did not see my study, and Hasebroek saw neither Platnauer's nor mine. Since the appearance of his book Platnauer has also published a short paper in The Journal of Roman Studies, taking issue emphatically with my views. This paper, too, escaped Hasebroek's attention. The three studies independently produced are not in harmony. They agree very well on the beginning of the revolt, but differ concerning its course, and concerning the date of its end. Since my own view does not now coincide with either of the other two, but has been modified by both of them, it has seemed worth while to examine them carefully, to study again the available evidence, and, with what new evidence can be brought to bear, to suggest a solution of the problem.

The two hoards of fourth-century Roman bronze coins here described were obtained in Egypt by Professor Petrie: and, as they cover a period on which not much work has been done, a detailed account of their contents may be of value.

The classification adopted is by means of reverse types and mints. It does not seem necessary to refer at length to the obverse types, which exhibit little variation in most reigns concerned: any points of interest are mentioned in the notes prefixed to each list. The types are arranged in what appears to be their chronological order: the earlier issues, mainly of Constantinus I and his sons, which are represented only by stray specimens, are grouped together.