It seems to be the accepted view among historians who deal with Egypt under Roman rule to regard the two first centuries after the Roman conquest as a period of prosperity and happiness in Egypt, and the last three before the Arab invasion as one of absolute ruin and misery, though there are differences of opinion as to the point when the decline began and the causes to which it is to be ascribed. There is, however, considerable ground for believing that the condition of the country steadily deteriorated from the very beginning of Roman rule, and that this deterioration was the inevitable result of the mistakes made in the scheme of organisation adopted by Augustus.

In the collection of ancient sculpture at Pawlowsk, near Leningrad, there is a Roman sarcophagus which has never been published (plate I, a-c), though long known to students of ancient sarcophagi. A certain amount of information as to its history is supplied to us from the following sources. Stephani appends to his description of the sarcophagus in Die Antiken-Sammlung zu Pawlowsk, 1872, p. 24, no. 42, a short notice of its previous career. ‘Der Sarkophag ist in Rom im Mausoleum des Augustus, worin bekanntlich. nähere und fernere Verwandte der kaiserlichen Familie bis gegen die Zeit Hadrians beigesetzt wurden (Becker, Handb. der röm. Alterth. Th. I, s. 639), gefunden und gelangte zunächst in die Sammlung Lyde Brown—Cat. L. Br. 1779, sarcofaghi, no. I, “un bellissimo e ben conservato sarcofago, largo quattro piedi e mezzo, ornato con sei maschere di Fauni e Satiri e con festoni e putti di ottimo gusto; fu trovato nel Mausoleo d'Augusto.”’ On the negative side we can trace the history of the sarcophagus still further.

The commentary on the notable inscription of Hadrian's time from Ishekli (J.R.S. xvi, 1926, p. 74, no. 201) does not, it would seem, give adequate consideration to the fact that under the Empire permanent military garrisons were regularly stationed even in proconsular provinces administered by the Senate, although such garrisons consisted of no more than one or several auxiliary regiments. A few instances that I happen to have at hand may be mentioned here by way of illustration.

Readers of the Journal will no doubt welcome a reproduction of the highly interesting and important edicts of Augustus which came to light some six years ago in the course of the Italian excavations at Cyrene and have now been published by G. Oliverio in the rather inaccessible Notiziario Archeologico, fasc. iv, 1927, pp. 13–67. As I have busied myself with the interpretation of the documents to the extent of delivering an address on them to the Roman Society on October 25th, I repeat here the substance of what I then said, with some omissions and some additions. The purpose of my address was, not to furnish a complete commentary on the texts, but to attempt an estimate of their historical significance. In consenting to repeat it, I am well aware that pitfalls beset pioneers and that differences of view are not only possible, particularly in regard to the last edict of the series, but will no doubt find expression in the near future. But it is only by the interplay of various minds that the truth can be reached.

The following monument was seen in the course of a visit to the upper Tembris Valley by W. M. Calder and C. W. M. Cox in July 1924. The MS. of this paper was completed in March 1926; in the revision of the proof-sheets we have been privileged to use the notes, impressions, and photographs made by C. W. M. Cox and A. Cameron in the course of an exhaustive survey of the Tembris Valley monuments in May 1926. The notes on no. 230 have been written by Calder.

In cube tombs the mouldings which exhibit the greatest variation are the ‘lip’ and the ‘bell.’ It has been said above (J.R.S. XV, p. 22) that the ‘bell’ is the dynamic element of the upper part of the decorated façade.

Generally the depth of the ‘bell’ is equal to its height. When the former exceeds the latter, the crowning member naturally recedes, and the whole appearance of the upper decoration is less heavy. In the contrary case it becomes heavier. The large band is almost always somewhat high and is proportional to the height of the ‘bell.’

The Thracian tribe Bessoi are spoken of in Herodotus (vii, III, 22) as if they were a religious sect or subdivision of the larger Thracian trib e of Satrai—Βησσοί δὲ τῶν Σατρέων εἰσὶ οἱ προφητεύοντες τοῦ ἱροῦ (on Pangaion). Whether they were of wider distribution in the fifth-century B.C. is not known, but in the time of Livy and Pliny they seem to have been considered a large tribe. According to Pliny they lived on the left bank of the Strymon, which naturally includes their Pangaean settlement, while Strabo places them slightly further inland on Haimos—τὸ πλέον τοῦ ὄρους νέμονται τοῦ Αἵμου—and even on its northern slopes along the upper waters of the Hebros. We are thus able to identify them as being in their original home until the early years of our era. They were subdued by M. Lucullus in 72 B.C., and later by C. Octavius in 60 B.C. In 29-28 B.C. M. Licinius Crassus handed their sanctuary to the care of the Romanophil Odrysai.

Two attitudes, broadly speaking, are possible to the problem of dating the Notitia Dignitatum. (1) We may suppose that the original document from which our text is derived was from first to last an official copy kept in the principal chancellery of the Western Empire at Ravenna, that the text suffered no material alteration in its subsequent history, and that, in consequence, items, such as late military formations whose period can be fixed, may safely be used to date the picture of the Empire presented by the document as a whole. Or (2) we may regard the original as a copy (perhaps an early one) which had passed into private hands and had suffered interpolation of items of later date.

In a paper which appeared under the above heading in Vol. xvi of the Journal mention was made (p. 7, footnote 2) of a previous ‘publication’ of the bronze leg from Milsington by Sir Walter Scott. At the time of writing I had been unable to trace the passage in which he referred to the matter. I am now in a position to quote it. It occurs in a letter addressed to Lord Montague on 22nd February, 1820.