The central and revolutionary period of Roman history runs from the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus to Augustus' seizure of sole power and establishment of a constitutional monarchy. Caesar's heir prevailed through the name of Caesar—‘puer qui omnia nomini debes’; and he perpetuated the name, as title, cult and system, to distant ages. Yet Augustus as Princeps did not invoke Caesar's rule to provide precedent and validity for his own. Quite the reverse. What rank and role in the transformation of the Roman State should therefore be assigned to the Dictatorship of Caesar—mere episode or cardinal moment and organic part?

The problem is large, the debate continuous and acute. During the last generation, opinions about Caesar's imperial policy and the shape which he intended to give to the Roman State have ranged to the widest extremes, roping in for parallel or contrast the figures of Sulla, Pompeius and Augustus.

Round the ancient abbey of S. Maria della Strada, its casale and its church, perhaps the most important Romanesque building now remaining in the province of Molise, there has accumulated an abundant literature, because of the many problems, historical as well as artistic and archaeological, which it presents. These problems have of recent years been the subject of fresh studies by Avv. Dott. V. E. Gasdìa and Dott. E. D. Petrella, who have reviewed the existing work on the subject, and have also called attention to a very considerable body of documentary evidence for the history of the church. Gasdìa in particular has laid the Angevin Registers and Fascicoli under contribution, and Petrella has called attention to some hitherto neglected printed sources. Gasdìa has, moreover, carried out a minute and observant examination of the building and its monuments, often with happy results; and on this and on the Angevin evidence has based his interpretation of the circumstances of the foundation and history of the monastery.

The available evidence concerning the history of the Extortion Court, the quaestio repetundarum, at Rome is tabulated opposite page 114. In view of the bulk of this evidence, it is at first sight surprising that this should be one of the most confused chapters of Roman history. Indeed, it is improbable that all Roman historians would agree upon any more precise statement of certainty than the following: that C. Gracchus, whether by a lex Sempronia iudiciaria, or by a lex Sempronia de repetundis, or by a lex Acilia de repetundis which may, or may not, be reproduced in the lex repetundarum, fragments of which are preserved at Naples and at Vienna (CIL i, 583), established equites (selected either from owners and past owners, within certain age limits, of the equus publicus, or from all those who possessed the equestrian census) either in place of, or in association with, senators as jurors in the quaestio de repetundis; that Q. Servilius Caepio, probably in his consulship in 106 B.C., proposed, and perhaps carried, a judiciary law in the interest of the Senate; that C. Servilius Glaucia either in m (Mommsen), 108 (Carcopino) 104 (Last) or 101 B.C. (Niccolini) carried a lex repetundarum and perhaps other judiciary laws in which he possibly either gave for the first time, or restored, to the equites complete possession of the juries and certainly effected two reforms in procedure, (a) by legalising the prosecution not only of recent magistrates and pro-magistrates, but also of their accomplices and (b) by introducing the form of ‘double action’ known as comperendinatio; that M. Livius Drusus, as tribune in 91 B.C., endeavoured unsuccessfully to establish, or to re-establish, as the case may be, mixed juries of senators and equites, and to make equestrian as well as senatorial jurors liable to prosecution for accepting bribes; that in 89 B.C. by a lex Plautia of the tribune M. Plautius Silvanus mixed juries were established, certainly for trials of maiestas, and perhaps for repetundae too. After this, the way is clearer, Sulla re-established senatorial juries, which survived until 70 B.C., when, by the lex Aurelia, jurors were selected from three panels—from senators, equites and tribuni aerarii.

In the course of a study of Etruscan bucchero, I had an opportunity in the spring of 1937 to examine the contents of the graves from Selinus in the museum at Palermo. For permission to publish these I wish to express my thanks to Dr. P. Mingazzini, then Director of the Museum, who most courteously gave me every facility for studying them, and provided me with the photographs here reproduced. I gladly availed myself of the opportunity to publish the contents of two of the early tombs (nos. 27 and 55), not only because they contain bucchero and other pottery closely resembling bucchero, as well as Corinthian vases, but also in view of the fact that although the dating of more than one category of Greek pottery rests on the foundation date of Selinus, none of the early tombs from this site has been published in detail. The published information on this material is contained in an article by Cavallari in the Bulletino della Commissione di Antichità e Belle Arti in Sicilia, no. 5 (1872), pp. 10 f.

The position of the Sublician Bridge and its relation to the Island of the Tiber are vexed questions in Roman topography. The discussion which follows is the result of a re-examination of the existing evidence during a short period of topographical study at Rome.

The Traditions of the Regal Period

According to the narrative of Livy, the Pons Sublicius, the first bridge across the river, was built by Ancus Marcius, and its raison d'être was to establish communication with the Janiculum, which (if Livy's words are taken at their face value) was also included within the city-walls, although this is before the time of the Servian Wall.

The first of these Studies was concerned chiefly with the history of Ostia during the period when the city was still growing and its prosperity increasing. Even so, during the period already considered, the prosperity of Ostia, though real, was to this extent artificial, in that it depended upon factors over which the citizens themselves had no control. Ostia was the port of Rome, and nothing else, and in consequence any lowering of the standard of living in, or reduction of imports into the capital city must have had immediate and marked repercussions upon her prosperity. She even lacked to a great extent those reserves of wealth which in other cities might be drawn upon to tide over bad times. The typical citizen of Ostia came to the city in the hope of making his fortune there; but when he had made it, he usually preferred to retire to some more pleasant town, such as Tibur, Tusculum, Velitrae, or Rome itself, where he could enjoy his leisure. Few families seem to have remained in the city for more than two, or, at the most, three generations. Whilst therefore fortunes were made in Ostia, wealth was not accumulated there.