In JRS vol. XXIX (1939), 45 ff., Mr. C. A. Ralegh Radford reported on a considerable number of the discoveries of recent years in Rome and Italy. To these have been added others made in the period from 1938 to 1945. They are in part already published, but others still await publication. I wish to give a complete picture of all these in a rapid and general survey, to show how greatly our knowledge of Roman archaeology has been increased in the last few years.

Among the discoveries in Rome mentioned by Mr. Radford, there are several which deserve a fuller description in the light of-later information provided by the excavators, namely the Domus Augustana on the Palatine, and the reliefs of the Cancelleria, whereas the accounts of the temples in the Largo Argentina (p. 46), the Mausoleum of Augustus (p. 47), the Ara Pacis (p. 48), the theatre of Marcellus (p. 49), the Barberini Mithraeum (p. 50), the Senate House (Curia) (p. 51), and the Castra Severiana of the Equites Singulares (p. 52), can be considered complete.

The question of the date on which Caesar's command in Gaul expired has recently been reopened by Mr. Stevens (below, n. 10). His bold and original theories more than justify yet another contribution to the interminable controversy, but they also excuse this attempt at refuting them. This paper is concerned with re-establishing the view, which seemed so obvious to Mommsen and Hardy, that Caesar's governorship was to end on 28th February, 49 B.C. Since the last defence of this theory appeared (n. 6), scholars have more and more inclined to the view that the terminal date was in 50, and it will therefore be my task first to discuss in turn their refutations of the ‘traditional’ view. I propose to deal last with Mr. Stevens's theories, and then to suggest a new explanation of the important words of Caelius in Fam. 8, 8, 9, since I find it hard to accept either Mommsen's sanctio or Stevens's ‘appointment-period’. It is hoped that some light may be thrown on the events of 55–50 B.C., and on the motives and actions of the principal actors. I do not, of course, pretend to have found the final answer to the puzzle, but perhaps some useful points may be established.

In 1936 Professor J. D. Beazley kindly drew my attention to the exquisite late archaic bronze statuette (pl. vii) which was said to have been found at Uffington, Berks. The war, however, made it impossible for me to obtain the owner's permission to reproduce the bronze in my Tyrrhenika.

Having been on loan in the Ashmolean Museum from 1923 to 1936, the statuette was bequeathed to the Museum in 1942, being handed over in July, 1943, after the death of the owner and his widow. The testator, Mr. A. E. Preston, F.S.A., of Abingdon, Berks, bought it years ago at the sale of the effects of a Mrs. Beesley, who also lived at Abingdon. With the bronze there was given in 1943 a full-size water-colour sketch of it, on which was written, in the hand-writing of the artist, ‘Found by a labourer near Uffington, Berks,’ and a statement that it was in the possession of Mr. Beesley of Abingdon. The painter was Jesse King, of Appleford, Berks, an antiquary of some repute of about the middle of the nineteenth century, a very careful man, who in making drawings almost invariably recorded where the relics were found. He could have no object in putting anything on the drawing except what he believed or knew to be a fact.

The early history of the coastal lowland to the south and south-east of Lake Scutari (Lacus Labeatis), through which the Bojana (Barbanna) and Drin (Drilo) rivers find their way to the sea, is not recorded, although archaeology suggests that this region, an obvious point of departure for penetration of the interior, was developed earlier by Greeks and played a greater part in their affairs than the writers of antiquity alone would allow us to believe. It contains two sites of local strategic importance, both admirably adapted to ancient settlement. First, the prominent sugar-loaf hill rising sharply above the village of Lesh on the south bank of the Drin to a height of 186 m., to overlook the low ground about the mouth of the river and to command a convenient point for a crossing. Second, the natural acropolis formed by Scutari citadel, enclosed on three sides by rivers and dominating access from the coastal lowland to the lake.

The following remarks are intended to call attention to a profound difference between manumission censu and some other ancient modes of manumission; a difference emerging if, in examining the several modes, we pay regard to form and original setting rather than to the general role they came to acquire in fully historical times.

Modern scholars appear to seek for a uniform pattern of early manumission (I). In point of fact, whereas the fundamental idea underlying some other modes was release of a slave by his master, though this release was controlled or ratified by the public authority (II), that underlying manumission censu was incorporation of a man by the State, though, as a rule, the incorporation was made only with the master's consent (III).

The following pages contain a brief review of the discoveries made by French archaeologists during the difficult years of the German occupation of France.

Caesar's Gallic campaigns have inspired several important pieces of work in the field. New excavations have been undertaken at Gergovia on the ‘large’ and the ‘small’ camps as well as on the line of the double ditch joining them. These control excavations have made it possible to demonstrate the correctness of statements made by Colonel Stoffel, who had been commissioned by Napoleon III to discover traces of field-works undertaken in Caesar's campaigns. Excavations begun in the large camp at Le Bois-Des-Côtes, on the plateau of Nointel, near Clermont-de-l'Oise (Oise), were interrupted by the war. The discoveries have furnished evidence on ramparts, entrenchments, siege-works, and strategic roads, contemporary with the conquest.

Messrs. Mattingly and Robinson gave a comprehensive account of the theories which have been propounded by numismatists from the time of Eckhel onwards with reference to the history of the earliest coinages of Rome in a paper in the Numismatic Chronicle for 1938: in this they summarized the points on which they claimed that general agreement had been reached as follows. These points are (1) that there is a long chapter of Roman coinage prior to the ‘X’ denarius (i.e. the silver nummus with the mark of value X): (2) that of the silver in that chapter the ROMANO issues come before the ROMA issues and the quadrigatus (i.e. the didrachms bearing on the reverse the legend ROMANO or ROMA): (3) that the victoriate is a drachm of the light series of didrachms: (4) that the small bronze coins associated with ROMANO-ROMA silver represent token coinage: (5) that the bars are approximately contemporary with the first Aes Grave: (6) that the ROMA silver and the light ‘Latin’ Aes Grave run in parallel series: (7) that as the ‘X’ denarius is certainly contemporary with the sextantal as, all heavier asses must be looked for earlier: (8) that the quadrigatus didrachm and the Janus-prow as are more obviously connected with the later coinage of Rome than the Romano-Campanian silver and the ‘Latin’ Aes Grave: and, probably, (9) that the ‘X’ denarius was not struck till many years after 269 B.C.

What the Roman tradition, literary and artistic, has to tell us of the heavenly spheres is of Greek and Oriental origin, and it would be futile to go behind hellenized Rome: early Roman religion, though it had an extensive worship of heavenly gods, ignored the universe entirely. An examination of the Etruscan tradition leads to different conclusions. It offers, roughly speaking, three larger complexes to such an examination. One is the bronze model of a liver from Piacenza, used for extispicy and divided into many sections. The second is the doctrine about lightning, mainly to be found in Pliny and Seneca. The third is a list of gods, distributed among the sixteen regions of the heavens, in Martianus Capella (fourth-fifth century A.D.). The aim of this paper in its first part is to analyse this third complex (with occasional reference to the other two).

In JRS xxxiii, 58, Dr. F. Schulz writes: ‘The place is Alexandria or, as our documents always put it, Alexandria ad Aegyptum. This is a translation of the Greek’ Ἀλ. ἡ πρὸς Αἰϒύπτῳ which occurs in pre-Roman times. The legal meaning in the period of our documents is nothing else but “Al. in Aegypto”’; and in a footnote he states: ‘Wilcken's opinion … is not acceptable’.

This statement, which is utterly contrary to the prevailing view, gave me, I confess, something of a shock, for I had myself more than once made the assertion that Alexandria was, for the Romans, not officially a part of Egypt; but so dogmatically was Dr. Schulz's obiter dictum formulated that I was so far shaken as to make up my mind to investigate the point before again committing myself. I was at the time too much occupied with other work to do so, but recently I have had an opportunity to examine the evidence, and I think it desirable to place the result of this examination on record without delay.