Tacitus as an historian has long been critically revalued: as an artist, I think, he has been spared too much. To promote that further revaluation is the purpose of these notes.

Among the many valuable epigraphical discoveries which have rewarded the labours of the Italian Archaeological Mission at Cyrene, not the least interesting is that of which I here present a brief account.

It is the special function of the poet to create beauty. Loveliness may appear in many thousand forms, but among these one of the most satisfying is the ‘pen-picture’, the Homeric or Virgilian simile, complete and perfect in three or four lines. Pope speaks of

‘The Simile that solitary shines

In the dry desert of a thousand lines.’

Few readers of the Bacchae will disagree with Professor Gilbert Murray's statement that ‘for excitement, for mere thrill, there is absolutely nothing like it in ancient literature’. Most readers will probably also feel that the whole thing is cruel and barbarous, and that it is difficult to suppose that Euripides had much real sympathy with the wild revellings and orgies so beautifully depicted, or that he thought it a good thing for women to get into a state in which they mistook men for animals, and deserted their own babies to suckle the offspring of wild beasts. Such being the results at Thebes of the new ritual, it is hard not to feel from the first that Pentheus is right in trying to suppress it, and right in denying the divinity of Dionysus. It is not easy to agree with Tyrrell in finding in all this the marks of an ‘ethical contentment and speculative calm’. The man who should be ethically contented with that would not be worth reading.

The greatest contribution which Rome made to the history of the world is perhaps to be found in her government, in her solution of political problems, and in the machinery she devised to carry out the hundred and one duties that fall to the lot of executive powers. No one institution of Rome is so interesting and intriguing in its origin and development as the Senate, which from the early days of the Republic down to the foundation of the Empire played an enormous part in moulding the whole political life of Rome; and even when the golden days of senatorial authority were over, its name and tradition remained to exercise a great influence and fascination on succeeding times. When we read of the Senate and its part in Roman history we try to think of parallels in our own government, and the first thing that suggests itself to us is the Houses of Parliament and more particularly the House of Commons. But there are so many differences between the two that it is worth while briefly to describe the Senate and in so doing compare it with our own system.

The excellent article by Professor Droop in the May number of Greece and Rome leaves little to add. There are, however, one or two points on which it seems to me necessary to enlarge and perhaps to join issue.

In most branches of classical study, in the interpretation of history, in criticism, whether textual or literary, and most noticeably in archaeology, the present generation knows more than its parents did; that a similar advance has not been made in the strictly linguistic studies is perhaps due partly to an unexpressed assumption that we already know all that we are likely to know about the classical languages, but is certainly due even more to a love of tradition for its ownsake; what was good enough for Kennedy is good enough for us.

The inscriptions to which I have called attention in previous issues of this journal have all been ‘historical’ in the sense that they relate to men whose names are well known to us from the literary records of Greece and Rome. But it must constantly be borne in mind that, of the many services rendered by inscriptions to classical studies, not the least is that of illuminating certain obscure tracts of ancient life, on which the extant literature sheds little or no light, and of recalling to our minds some of its aspects which we are in danger of overlooking. For historical literature tends to concentrate our thought upon the city rather than upon the countryside, upon rulers and governments to the neglect of the common people, upon wars and abnormal occurrences to the exclusion of the everyday occupations and interests of the average citizen. And so no apology is, I hope, needed if, out of the mass of recent epigraphical discoveries, I select one which, at first sight, can claim but little importance, one which, found in an obscure sanctuary, records the concerns not of a people but of a parish, and affords a glimpse of a local temple, priest and festival, suggesting the opportunities of ambition and distinction open to men who, maybe, rarely attended the meetings of the Athenian ecclesia and played little or no part in the public life of the State.

Tacitus as an historian has long been critically revalued: as an artist, I think, he has been spared too much. To promote that further revaluation is the purpose of these notes.

It is curious that Tacitus had little reputation among later Romans. Pliny looked for his friend's immortality; but was this politeness or Plinian affectation? ‘The next generations showed faint interest in his writings.