Two sharply contrasted views are held about the duration of Roman government in Britain and in the West generally. The traditional view, which I believe to be substantially correct, dates the abandonment of Britain early in the fifth century. The late Professor Bury put forward in 1920 a theory that the occupation was maintained down to A.D. 438. The theory was based primarily on a later dating of the Notitia Dignitatum, and on a mistaken estimate of the numismatic evidence.

Livy i, 18, 6, describing the accession of the second King of Rome, provides food for much thought on the part of those who are interested in the religious ideas of early Italy, and gives us the material for a brisk controversy which is far from being settled. Despite therefore the familiar contents of this passage, I quote the part of it which is most important for our purpose.

Accitus … de se quoque deos consuli iussit. inde ab augure, cui deinde honoris ergo publicum id perpetuumque sacerdotium fuit, deductus in arcem, in lapide ad meridiem uersus consedit. augur ad laeuam eius … dextras ad meridiem partes, laeuas ad septentrionem esse dixit.

Numa then is facing south ; the augur is facing east. Both are engaged in the same important ceremony. Why do they not look the same way, but at right angles to each other, and what is the significance of their respective attitudes ?

The inscription which we published in this Journal, XLVIII, 1958, 117–129 (hereafter referred to as ‘F – N’) from a photograph, has now been collated by Fraser (June, 1961), and we offer here some improved readings, and consider their consequences (I). We also consider (II) some points raised by others.

It is very remarkable, though quite intelligible that, while the province of Britain belonged for centuries to the Roman empire, its inhabitants took practically no share in the administration of the empire. No evidence suggests that a native of one of the municipalities, whether colonia or municipium, of Britain ever made his way into the Roman senate or the higher ranks of the equestrian order, and yet, if that had happened, inscriptions would exist among the monuments of Britain recording such honours won by Britons. The literary life of the empire was equally strange to the Britons; as Mr. J. R. Green says, “none of the poets or rhetoricians of the time is of British origin.” So too the lower military commands are never held by Britons. No cohort or ala is known to have been commanded by a man born in the island. Even the lower officers, the centurions, were rarely taken from the province, either for the legions quartered in the island or for those in other parts of the empire. Baehr and I had actually denied the existence of any legionary centurion of British origin, but Mr. Haverfield has pointed out to me a centurion of the XXIIth Legion stationed at Mainz, who appears to have been born in Lincoln (Lindum); and my attention has now been called to a legionary centurion whose British origin is not, indeed, absolutely certain, but who belongs in one way or another to Britain, and deserves to be introduced to the Britons of to-day.

The current view of the Agricolan occupation of Scotland is conveniently summed up in Furneaux's declaration that ‘it is impossible to suppose that the conquest had been as thorough as is suggested [by Tacitus].’ York is sometimes alleged to have been the farthest point that was permanently secured, and a German historian has solemnly rebuked the Roman general for the fundamental fault of pushing forward without consolidating the ground that he had won. This scepticism as to Agricola's military capacity and achievements was justifiable enough so long as the historical notices stood alone. Moreover it appeared to be perfectly consistent with the ‘perdomita Britannia et statim missa’ of Tacitus himself. And, when archaeology made its first contribution to the discussion, the new evidence promised to be merely corroborative. The little Agricolan fort on the Bar Hill, discovered by a happy accident in 1903, was garrisoned for only a brief period, and had been abandoned fifty or sixty years before Lollius Urbicus built the wall from Forth to Clyde.

Scholars have long discussed whether the Golden Gate is a monument of Theodosius I, as the inscription which formerly adorned it strongly suggests, or whether if was built at the same time as the walls under Theodosius II. The inscription must in the latter case apply to a minor rising of the Primicerius Iohannes in 423. However, Schneider, the last scholar who has examined the walls, points out that they were nearly complete in 422, when a rescript assigned to travelling soldiers the lower stories of the towers. Iohannes' rising was not crushed until 425; and not even Schneider has maintained that the Golden Gate was built later than the walls.

It seems more natural to suppose that the inscription refers to the conquest of Maximus by Theodosius I. In this case the gate may be assumed to have been comparable to the triumphal arches of Roman colonies, and to have stood on the original pomerium. Its existence may account for the line of the wall, which joins the Sea of Marmara after the shore has turned south-west; for the line of the fortifications is thus made considerably longer without much gain of interior space.

The tables which follow need but a word or two of explanation. They are an attempt to show in a graphic way the extent of our knowledge concerning certain phases of the commercial activity of Egypt during the Roman and Byzantine periods, 30 B.C. to A.D. 640.

When Ovid was relegated in A.D. 8, he left a notorious problem for scholarship. Some attribute his downfall to the Ars Amatoria, whose second edition appeared about 1 B.C., but that raises questions about the time-lag as well as about the misunderstanding of literature. Others emphasize the disgrace of Augustus' grand-daughter Julia, banished for adultery in the same year as Ovid, but doubts remain about the degree of complicity needed to explain the poet's punishment. Again it has been supposed that the domestic scandal masks a political plot, a possibility that has also been canvassed over the disgrace of the elder Julia in 2 B.C. Unfortunately the evidence for the various theories is so scattered that it may distract attention from the tone of particular poems, yet in this psychological drama over-all impressions ought to count as well as fragments of fact. Here I shall try to interpret a single elegy, Tristia 4. 3, looking at it in sections as it comes; though the debate about the exile will not be repeated in detail, a view will emerge at the end about what happened.

The two hoards of fourth-century Roman bronze coins here described were obtained in Egypt by Professor Petrie: and, as they cover a period on which not much work has been done, a detailed account of their contents may be of value.

The classification adopted is by means of reverse types and mints. It does not seem necessary to refer at length to the obverse types, which exhibit little variation in most reigns concerned: any points of interest are mentioned in the notes prefixed to each list. The types are arranged in what appears to be their chronological order: the earlier issues, mainly of Constantinus I and his sons, which are represented only by stray specimens, are grouped together.

Since the antiquaries of the eighteenth century—Hunter, Gordon, and Horsley—identified the forts on Hadrian's Wall with the stations per lineam valli by means of inscriptions found in them, further epigraphic material has accumulated, as a result of which all the forts except those at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Rudchester, as far west as Birdoswald, have produced evidence of the regiments assigned by the Notitia Dignitatum to the stations Segedunum-(C)amboglanna. But, in a number of instances, there have also come to light inscriptions set up by regiments that do not occur in the Notitia, or that are placed elsewhere in that list; the purpose of the present paper is to consider the significance of these inscriptions.

It is with considerable reluctance that I offer a few comments on the possible significance of the Flavian reliefs discovered between 1937 and 1939 close by the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. For the interpretation of monuments such as these is largely subjective; and, in a matter on which any student may claim as good a right to his own opinion as any other, the use of space in this Journal to make suggestions which few may think convincing needs special justification. That justification must be found in the encouragement to ventilate the ideas which follow (ideas first aired before the Anglo-Swedish Classical Conference at Lund in August, 1947) given me by various friends—particularly Dr. Arvid Andrén, Professors Axel Boëthius and Einar Gjerstad, Dr. P. G. Hamberg, and Professors A. D. Nock and A. W. Persson. None of these gentlemen should be assumed to agree with any of my conclusions, but to all of them my hearty thanks for useful discussion are due and are hereby offered. Furthermore, it must be made plain that these remarks are not intended even to touch on the problems connected with the development of Roman art in the Flavian age to the evidence for which these friezes are a most notable addition. They are confined to the question, What are the reliefs about ?

Eusebius, quoting Hegesippus, records that during Trajan's reign Symeon son of Cleopas, a cousin of Christ, was martyred in Judaea as a Christian ἐπὶ … Άττικοῦ τοῦ ὑπατικοῦ —which at first sight appears to mean ‘when Atticus was consular legate’. Atticus was clearly the legate of Judaea at the time. The suggestion that he was legate of the consular province of Syria can be disregarded, as there is no reason why an event in Judaea should be dated by the governor of another province. Two problems arise—the date of Atticus' command, and his rank as legate.

Within the past five decades a great volume of work has advanced our knowledge of the Roman Empire. No single essay can hope to describe this mass in detail or even to consider fully the many cross-currents of opinion. If there is a common tide in recent scholarship, it flows less clearly than did the course of investigation in the nineteenth century. Here I shall try first to single out some of the main forces which have shaped the views of the present and past generations; then shall comment on developments in the utilization of evidence and on shifts in the areas of our principal concern; and finally shall suggest an assessment of the present position of research on the Roman Empire.