The provincial coinage of the Roman Empire has proven to be a rich source for studying civic experiences of Roman rule, but the coins struck outside Rome during the expansion of the Roman Republic have, by contrast, received relatively little attention. This article aims to begin redressing this neglect by exploring the active rôle of coinage in conceptualizing and representing Roman Republican power. A variety of approaches to this neglected material are employed in order to highlight its potential as a source. Ambiguity, iconology, and entanglement are used as frameworks to explore case studies from across the Roman Republican world, from Spain to Syria. This approach to coin imagery under the Republic reveals the complexity and variety in which the Roman presence, and Roman imperium, was represented before the advent of the Principate.

A remark on p. 117 of this Journal for 1936, made by Mr. A. H. M. Jones in a review of The Bucheum has reminded me that I have never given my reasons for the view taken by me in CAH x, 36, regarding stela no. 13 from the Bucheum, reasons which could not of course be given in CAH itself; and, as readers of my chapter will find no reference there to any of the other stelae, I am glad of the opportunity of stating why that is so. Sometime before 1932 Professor Glanville brought stela no. 13 to my notice (I think it was exhibited somewhere) and with it a translation, which I used in writing my chapter. Late in 1932 I had some correspondence with Mr. Fairman, who was about to return to Egypt; he told me there was a whole series of stelae and kindly lent me his notes.

The fortunes of Scipio Africanus after the Second Punic War raise a difficult problem for the student of Roman history. Through his political standing and his personal gifts Scipio's influence must be considered an essential element in the public life of Rome at the decisive period of her imperialistic development; yet the glimpses in recorded history, though significant, are so fleeting that it is almost impossible to gain a complete impression. We know, of course, his Carthaginian policy and his strategy against Antiochus; but in matters relating to Gaul, Liguria and Spain, and in the internal politics of Rome, there is scarcely any evidence of his hand. Most obscure of all is the Second Macedonian War; where the questions of policy were similar to those in the Syrian War, yet Scipio had no share in them that can be directly discerned. Did he withdraw after his victory over Carthage and only re-appear to meet Syria ? Then why should his defeat of Antiochus be followed by his own dishonour, in the face of the claims of gratitude ? His fall suggests a persistent and important political activity, which could only be countered by extreme measures of opposition.

One of the finest Attic sarcophagi of its class, and certainly one of the most striking pieces to have reached the western provinces, is the well-known Hippolytus sarcophagus which was found in 1891 at Trinquetaille, across the river from Aries, and which is now one of the chief ornaments of the Musée Romain in that city (pl. 1). There is no need to describe it in detail, since it has been fully published, with good photogravure reproductions of all four sides, by Robert, and again in more summary form, by Espérandieu. It will be enough in the present context to note that it is a typical example of what Rodenwaldt, in his penetrating discussion of the evolution of the Attic kline-sarcophagus, has shown to be an advanced and presumably, therefore, relatively late variant within that series. The lid, with a single male figure reclining on an embroidered mattress upon a couch with animal-headed mounts, has altered very little from the prototype; but on the body all that remains of the Caryatid figures that once supported the couch at the four angles is the pair of vestigial pedestals at either end of the recessed moulding along the base of the rear face. The mouldings, too, a delicately carved acanthus scroll along the upper border, an elaborately lobed leaf-and-tongue motif along the re-entrant surface behind the line of the heads, and a panel of conventional bay-wreath ornament along the lower border, all of these, with their very shallow relief and fluid surfaces, represent an altogether more advanced stage of development than the boldly cut, purposeful architectural mouldings of earlier practice. In these later Attic sarcophagi the emphasis has shifted decisively from the architectural framework of the design to the figures themselves, which now form a virtually uninterrupted frieze round the four sides of the body.

The efforts of scholars have failed to find a generally accepted single reason for the institution of what it will be convenient to call Consular Tribunes, i.e. Tribuni Militum consulari potestate or consulari imperio or pro consulibus. The irregular oscillation between pairs of Consuls and three, and later four, Consular Tribunes which is attested for the first forty years of the institution (444–406 B.C.) appeared to Beloch, not without reason, to contain an element of irrationality and to be without parallel in ancient constitutional practice. But even those scholars who are least inclined to trust the consular Fasti would admit that, though they may contain interpolations or omissions or the misreading of names, the fact of this oscillation cannot be denied, and, moreover, that the names of magistrates of this period are, in the main, to be trusted.

I. Dio Cassius mentions Augustus' plans to conquer Britain under the years 34, 27, 26 B.C. (49, 38, 2; 53, 22, 5; and 53, 25, 2). Dateable literary evidence supports Dio. Before 36 B.C. and after 23 B.C. there is no clear allusion in contemporary poets to any intention or desire to attack the Britons.

Quinque consulates in 65 B.C. gave evidence against C. Cornelius, accused under the lex Cornelia de maiestate. One of them was an Aemilius Lepidus. Though not generally perceived, a problem of identity exists.

In the first part of his comments on Mr. P. W. Duff's study of Personality in Roman Private Law (Cambridge, 1938) Dr. Daube remarks (JRS 33, 1943, 88) that ‘the Fisc, as Mr. Duff explains,… was owned by the emperor. (This view, established by Mommsen, was attacked by Hirschfeld who maintained that the Fisc from the first belonged to the State. Mr. Duff, pp. 51 ff., argues convincingly in favour of Mommsen.).’ Dr. Daube's summary of Mr. Duff's account may be accepted; for Mr. Duff, though he is less dogmatic than Mommsen, begins his attempt ‘to reconstruct the Roman view’ (o.c. 59) with the words ‘it seems clear that Augustus regarded as his all taxation, confiscated property and the like, which did not go into the aerarium’. He is unmistakably on Mommsen's side; and his adhesion to a doctrine, entitled indeed by its authorship to respectful consideration but still somewhat surprisingly described by Mr. Duff (o.c. 51) as ‘orthodox’, invites some brief notice. The observations which follow will not be long; for they may be unnecessary.

The so-called Senatus Consultum of Adramyttium, a fragmentary inscription which was found in that city and has been known for some eighty years, contains part of a letter sent by a Roman authority. This letter records the report of a κρῖμα emanating from a praetor ex S.C., περὶ χώρας, ἥ|[τις ἐν ἀντι]λογία(ι) ἐστὶν δημοσιώ|[ναις πρὸς] Περγαμηνούς, and its terminus post querm was generally held to have been the Lex Sempronia de provincia Asia (123 or 122 B.C.), on which the excellent discussion by Hugh Last in Cambridge Ancient History should be consulted.

Twenty years ago A. Passerini published and discussed some other fragmentary texts, which had been found together in the Agora of Smyrna and had received only brief notice. The first contains two fragments of the Senatus Consultum and of the κρῖμα περὶ τῆς χώρας already mentioned.

Mathrafal, the ancient seat of the Princes of Powys, has in the past been regarded as a Roman site, on the strength of certain tiles found there. Mr. F. N. Pryce has investigated the site; he finds that the tiles are not Roman and are associated with much modern pottery, and suggests that they belong to the seventeenth or eighteenth century.

The tower at Coed-y-Garreg (Whitford parish, Flints.), whose identification as a Roman lighthouse was long ago rejected by Haverfield, is dated by Mr. B. H. St. J. O'Neil to the sixteenth or early seventeenth century.

Whatever the devices that operated or the forms and pageantry on public show, access to the consulate was carefully regulated by the Caesars from the beginning. History discloses no sign of any senator reaching the fasces against the will and wish of Caesar Augustus. If later writers speak of the ruler as having ‘given the consulate’, it is an abbreviation rather than a misconception.

It is notoriously difficult, in all or nearly all military history, to disentangle the conscious purposes and previous plans of the commanders from the results of pure chance or the improvisation of the moment; probably few wars have ever worked out entirely according to plan, and even an accurate analysis of the chief factors in the success of any particular campaign would, to those who really knew the facts, appear as an over-simplified diagram. Yet there is a correct use of diagrams, and we need not be ashamed of trying to pick out the true strategical significance from even the most complex military events, provided we are honest with ourselves. In attempting such a task with regard to the Jugurthine War, we must take very special care to notice the limitations that surround us : our results can be, at best, hypothetically sound, since our authorities are neither complete nor notably trustworthy in such important matters as personal impartiality and chronological detail. We have no contemporary source. Sallust is notoriously partisan, on the political if not also on the military side; he is, moreover, open to the suspicion, to put it mildly, of choosing for detailed description the more picturesque rather than the more vitally important episodes; and comparison with Orosius (who almost certainly derives from Livy) suggests that one battle, if not more, may have been altogether misrepresented.

This tablet was found on 10th December, 1960, by Mr. Roger Wilson of Thrumpton, Notts, after ploughing had taken place on the lower slope of Red Hill in the parish of Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Notts. Roman pottery, bone counters and other objects have been found on Red Hill, which appears to be a Roman site. It is at the junction of the rivers Trent and Soar (where also Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire meet). The tablet was folded roughly into three when found. The material, discoloured by corrosion and of a browny copper colour, proved on analysis to be essentially lead (in an impure state). Its maximum measurements are 8·4 cm. in height, 5·7 cm. in width. Both sides have been lightly incised, perhaps with a needle, with Latin cursive writing. The hand is regularly formed and clear and shows skill on the part of the scribe. To judge from parallels from Egypt, it should be assigned to the end of the second or the early part of the third century A.D. For the earlier limit compare the receipt P. Lond. 730 (plate in Écriture Latine 26) of A.D. 167; and for the later, P. Oxy. VIII, 1114, a declaration of inheritance of A.D. 237 (plate ibid., pl. 7). Both of these, however, show a slope to the right, whereas in this tablet the slope is to the left in the older manner.

At the suggestion of Professor T. B. L. Webster these lines deal with the reliefs of a sarcophagus which, through the kindness of the owner, J. Baskervyle-Glegg, Esq., of Withington Hall, Chelford, is illustrated on Plates vi–viii. It has stood in the garden of Withington Hall since it was brought from Italy by the grandfather or great-grandfather of the present owner, perhaps when on his Grand Tour.

It is a fluted sarcophagus. The central relief shows the group of the three Graces before a curtain. The spaces on either side contain the figures of husband and wife, who were buried in the sarcophagus—on the left, the woman in the manner of the ‘petite Herculanaise,’ on the right, the man in classical toga. Both stand before the usual curtain (pl. vii). Only the main forms of the head are blocked out; the man was intended to have a beard. By the woman stands a little girl holding a box; by the man a boy is represented in an unusual running posture, carrying a vessel. Even if the final processes, which were still to come, are taken into account, the heads of the man and woman are disproportionately large, as is common in Roman art when the artist is a local craftsman. The corners of the sarcophagus are rounded; on each of the ends vertical fluting is followed by a pair of crossed shields, behind which axes and spears can be seen (pl. viii).

This brief and summary survey of a large and complicated problem falls into three main parts: (I) Prolegomena, or general considerations; (2) remarks on the topography and history of the Vatican zone in ancient times; (3) an account of the pre-Constantinian shrine of St. Peter beneath the high altar of the Vatican Basilica.

Exiger des otages ou en donner, afin de garantir des engagements reçus ou pris, est un fait courant pendant toute l'Antiquité — pour ne pas parler des temps qui l'ont suivie. Rome a fréquemment appliqué cet usage. Plus qu'aucun autre Etat antique? Les données brutes de la statistique conduiraient à l'affirmer. Mais elles demeurent sans portée, puisqu'elles ne peuvent pas se pondérer en fonction de la durée de chaque Etat, de l'activité de sa politique extérieure, de l'abondance et de la précision des détails fournis par nos sources sur cette politique. De toute façon, le recours aux otages n'était fait pour surprendre aucun de ceux que les hasards de la diplomatie ou de la guerre plaçaient au contact des Romains. Bien avant de connaître ceux-ci, tous connaissaient déjà le procédé, au moins pour l'avoir vu utiliser autour d'eux et, la plupart, pour l'avoir eux-mêmes utilisé à l'occasion. Il n'en a guère été de plus normal ni de mieux admis dans la pratique des rapports internationaux.

This paper considers the interplay of Latin and Greek in the workings of both State and Church in sixth-century Constantinople, and the way that these two languages are represented in the written records of each. The richest source of evidence is provided by the Acts of the Church Councils and Synods, because at the end of a session, or of a multi-authored document, it was the custom for those involved to make a one-sentence statement of assent in their own handwriting. These processes also leave room for reflections of the use of Syriac (but not for items of actual Syriac text), but of no other language.