Introduction.—The systematic exploration of Ptolemais (modern Tolmeita), in Cyrenaica, began in 1935 under the auspices of the Italian Government, and under the direction of the first-named writer. The general programme of excavation took into consideration not only the important Hellenistic period, which gave the city its name and saw its first development as an autonomous trading-centre, but also the late-Roman age when, upon Diocletian's reforms, Ptolemais became capital of the new province of Libya Pentapolis and a Metropolitan See, later occupied by Bishop Synesius.

As one of several starting-points for the study of this later period, there was selected the area first noted by the Beecheys as containing ‘heaps of columns’, which later yielded the monumental inscriptions of Valentinian, Arcadius, and Honorius, published by Oliverio. Here excavation soon brought to light a decumanus, running from the major cardo on the west towards the great Byzantine fortress on the east. Architectural and other discoveries made in 1935–36 justified the provisional title ‘Monumental Street’ assigned to this ancient thoroughfare. In terms of the general town-plan, which is extremely regular, this street may be called ‘Decumanus II North’, since two rows of long rectangular insulae separate it from the Decumanus Maximus leading to the West Gate, still erect. The clearing of the Monumental Street and its frontages revealed the well-known Maenad reliefs, attributed to the sculptor Callimachus, a late-Roman triple Triumphal Arch, and fragments of monumental inscriptions similar in character to those previously published from the same area.

Diocletian's reform of the coinage included the following elements :—

(1) The raising of the weight of gold coins from a norm of about 70–72 to the Roman pound to one of 60 to the Roman pound.

(2) The abandonment of the silver-washed coin now known as the antoninianus and its replacement by a silver coin of the weight of Nero's reduced denarius, i.e. at a rate of 96 to the Roman pound.

(3) The introduction of the so-called follis—a copper coin of about 10 gm. in weight and struck at all ‘reformed’ mints with something very near uniformity of types. The follis was accompanied by fractional denominations.

The date of (1) is discernible (even if it cannot be fixed with absolute precision) by weighings of dated gold coins from a.d. 284, when Diocletian succeeded to power. ‘There was a change in basic standards not later than a.d. 286. One hundred and twenty-seven coins from the mints at Rome, Cyzicus, Lyons, and Antioch dated in the years 284 to 286 show an average weight of 71 grains, indicating a basis of 70 or 72 to the pound. Twenty seven coins from the mint at Cyzicus dated in a.d. 286, twenty-three from the mint at Rome dated a.d. 286–7, and at least ten each from the mints at Siscia and Antioch dated in a.d. 286–9 all show average weights of 82 or 83 grains, indicating a basis of 60 to the pound. No later group containing five or more coins varies more than 5 per cent from this average, except one dated a.d. 296–9 from the mint at Treves.’ The same phenomenon had previously been observed by K. Pink, who associated the change of standard with Maximian Herculius' elevation to the rank of Augustus on 1st April, a.d. 286.

Since its publication in 1930 by G. Vitelli and M. Norsa (Bull, de la Soc. roy. d'Alexandrie n.s. VII, 1930, 9 ff.) the text conveniently known as the ‘Boule’ papyrus, or (to give it the serial number under which it was republished) PSI 1160 (x, 1932), has been the centre of a furious controversy. Is the text an official document from the Egyptian archives, or is it non-documentary, whether that means ’rhetorical exercise’, suasoria, or semi-fictional narrative ? H. A. Musurillo's admirable collection The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Oxford, 1954) sums up present views and excuses me from giving a bibliography.

One important piece of evidence has, however, been strangely neglected, namely the language of the text. It can, I think, be demonstrated that PSI 1160 is a Greek translation of a Latin original. The decisive point is the grammatical form of the sentences in col. 11, in which φημὶ ταύτην φροντιεῖν ἴνα μὴ beginning in line 1 continues to govern subjunctives down to the end of line 14. A total of seven finite verbs in the subjunctive occur in these lines, all owing their mood to this introductory phrase, a phrase never repeated or reinforced even though there are two breaks of sense sufficiently distinct for Musurillo to mark one with a colon, and one with a full stop.