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.

As our knowledge and understanding of ancient art increase it is possible to discard old theories that impede the proper appreciation of a certain period. I should like to place in this category of outworn creeds what is commonly called the classicizing or neo-classical art of the first centuries B.C. and A.D., as well as later. It has been thought that during that time there was a reaction from the baroque taste of the late Hellenistic period and a return to the quieter, serener spirit of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.; and that this is indicated both by the many famous works of the classical epoch that were copied and recopied in the late Republican and early Imperial periods and by the sculptures in that general style that were created at that time. Pasiteles and his school have been credited with being pioneers in this neo-classical style.

In the first part of this paper, I have tried, by an examination of certain words, the ways in which they are used, their tone, and the contexts in which they occur, to infer some unknown details of earlier Roman marriage ceremonies. In the second part, I have tried to suggest solutions to two unsolved problems in Latin literature, making use of ideas from the first part and tracing further the history of certain Roman ideals of marriage, which seem immediately relevant to the solution of these problems.

The two passages have often been compared, but with no agreed result. For instance, H. Last, CQ XVII, 1923, 153 f., and K. Btichner, Lateinische Literatur und Sprache, Bern, 1951, 81 f., give the priority to the invectiva; A. Klotz, Berl. philologische Wochenschrift, XLIII, 1923, 261 f., and O. Seel, Klio, Beiheft XLVII, 1943, 73 ff., to the epistula; R. v. Pöhlmann, Sitzungsb. der K. Bayer. Akad., 1904, 27, and G. Carlsson, Eine Denkschrift an Cäsar über den Staat, Lund, 1936, 57, think that the passages may have a common source; B. Edmar, Studien zu den Epistulae ad Caesarem senem, Lund, 1931, 105 f. leaves the solution open. Progress can hardly be made without fresh evidence.

It has long been known that during the late third and early fourth centuries A.D. over 80 previously unfortified towns of Gaul were surrounded by new defences. These can be distinguished from those of the twenty-five ancient cities fortified in the previous centuries by the thickness and height of their walls, by the number of their projecting towers, and by the fact that their foundations were in nearly every case constructed from re-used blocks, tombstones, and architectural fragments coming from earlier buildings. Although at several places such walls survived almost intact until the nineteenth century, having formed the principal defences of towns such as Bordeaux, Dax, and Sens throughout the Middle Ages, the best preserved example still remaining is at Le Mans (Sarthe), the capital of the province of Maine. There can be seen more complete and more easily accessible specimens of features existing in poorer condition at Beauvais, Carcassonne, Jublains, Périgueux, Senlis, Tours, and other towns. A full description of the walls of Le Mans will serve to illustrate the characteristics of the late Roman fortifications of a medium-sized Gallic city.

C. Licinius Macer is little known outside the citations by Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Cicero classifies him among the Roman historians but says nothing about the scope or contents of his work. From the fragments we can see that it dealt with the whole field of Roman history from the earliest times, evidently in the conventional manner used by Annalists and with considerable detail. Livy cites him seven times but not beyond the first Decade since he appears to prefer other Annalists for later history. These citations, however, are of great value because they reveal what sources Licinius himself quoted, e.g. 4, 7, 12, ‘Licinius Macer auctor est et in foedere Ardeatino et in linteis libris ad Monetae inventa’; 23,1 ‘… et Tubero et Macer libros linteos auctores profitentur … Licinio libros haud dubie sequi linteos placet’; 20, 8 ‘libri quos linteos in aede repositos Monetae Macer Licinius citat identidem auctores’. Thus we are taken behind our surviving authorities to the question of their information in the Roman historical tradition.

It is known from an inscription at Aquileia, of which he was a patronus, that A. Platorius Nepos, friend of Hadrian, consul suffect in 119, and legate of Britain from about 122 to 124, had been at one time tribunus plebis. Of some 16 inscriptions that name him and that are remarkable in being all exactly or approximately datable the Aquileia one is the only one that gives his name complete— ‘A. Platorius A. f. Serg. Nepos Aponius Italicus Manilianus C. Licinius Pollio’. From this it would appear (though, so far as I know, no one has previously drawn this conclusion) that his original name had been ‘C. Licinius Pollio’, but that he was adopted by one A. Platorius … Manilianus (whose name also looks like the result of adoption at some stage) and took Platorius’ name, adding at the end of it his own original name for formal completeness, as normal at this period. (Elsewhere he is named ‘A. Platorius Nepos’, ‘Platorius Nepos’ [in the same diploma, by error, also ‘Pretorius Nepos’], in the brickstamps ‘Plaetorius Nepo(s)’ or ‘Pl. Nep.’, and in the Augustan History Life of Hadrian ‘Pletorius Nepos’ or simply ‘Nepos’.)

In the autumn of 1957 a well, from which three altars and five pieces of sculptures were recovered, was excavated by the writer in the Farnworth Gravel Pit, Great Chessells, Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire.

The well is the fifth to be found in the gravel pit, where remains of circular hut-floors, ovens, a corn-drying oven, and other domestic sites, accompanied by many potsherds, coins, and other objects of Romano-British date have come to light during the last 25 years. One rectangular building, 40 ft. long and 28 ft. wide, with foundations of masonry, was also uncovered and appeared to be the chief house of the village, while a whole series of superimposed drainage-ditches, outlining small fields, lay on the eastern slopes of the ground towards the Fosse Way, the latter just skirting the settlement, on its way to Bourtonon-the-Water, a mile distant.

I. Two manuscripts of the fifteenth century—Cod. Bruxellensis (Pulmanni), bibl. regia 9755–63 and Cod. Oxoniensis (Bodl. Canon. Class. Lat. 131)—have preserved for us a ‘corpus’ including three pamphlets: (1) the so-called ‘Origo gentis romanae’ (a title, we shall see, not supported by evidence); (2) the ‘Liber de viris illustribus urbis Romae’; (3) ‘Aurelii Victoris Historiae abbreviatae,’ more commonly known as ‘Caesares’. The ‘Liber de viris illustribus’ has also been transmitted to us in a different tradition which omits the last nine lives (Caesar, Octavianus, Cato, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Sextus Pompeius, Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra) and differs in other respects as well.

When, under the Flavian dynasty, the Senate began to be opened to men of outstanding ability and wealth from the eastern provinces, the Roman colony of Pisidian Antioch was sure of representation. The rise of the Caristanius family at Antioch has been discussed by Cheesman; their startlingly sudden disappearance from the colony at the end of the first century A.D. left a gap which was partially filled in the second century by another colonial family of note, the Flavonii.

The legislation of the Roman Empire, as exemplified in the two great Codes, may often be regarded as the consolidation in law of practices already current. This tendency, however, is most obvious in respect of those practices which were of administrative utility in the eyes of the government. Thus, while there is much information concerning the organization or regimentation of certain sections of the population in which the government, for good or ill, showed its interest, the more unofficial expressions of bias and prejudice arising from existing social convention tend to escape notice. Yet even the convention of snobbery has its place in the history of a society, and the purpose of this paper is to examine it, in certain aspects, in the life of the East in the fourth century.

This paper brings up to date accounts of discoveries by air reconnaissance in the field of Romano-British studies already published in this Journal (JRS XLI, XLIII, and XLV). In the last few years nearly every major Roman site in Britain has been repeatedly reconnoitred from the air in a yearly course of flights especially planned for the purpose of research. The body of information thus obtained shows that even air survey conducted over several successive years does not exhaust the possibilities of acquiring new knowledge at places already known, while discovery of sites hitherto unrecognized continues apace. The incidence of the discoveries, however, proves to vary. Scrutiny of military sites in the area of Hadrian's Wall and its hinterland, which yielded so much information in the decade 1945–55, has in the last three years added comparatively little to the record.

So far as the author knows, no other recension of this much-quoted text has appeared since the original publication by Hunt, reprinted with only slight changes by the New Palaeographical Society. Yet it is a document of the highest importance both palaeo graphically and historically. As some sort of pridianum, that is, an annual report of a military unit's condition in respect to personnel, it is valuable for Roman military organization. It is unique in being the report of a unit stationed in Lower Moesia; and its value is further enhanced by its date early in Trajan's reign, during his preparations for his first Dacian war. The papyrus is therefore worthy of every effort to establish an accurate text, the more because Hunt himself conscientiously emphasized the provisional nature of his own transcription. The present paper, then, though unsolved difficulties still remain, is intended to make available the numerous improvements in reading and interpretation which result from a new study of the original which the author was able to undertake in the winter of 1956–1957.

The inscription here published was communicated to me in 1956 by Mr. L. Benaki of Alexandria who saw some of the fragments in early summer of that year in a dealer's shop in Alexandria and was subsequently able, by dint of considerable perseverance, to recover a few more pieces. Mr. Benaki assembled the pieces himself and had them photographed, and the excellent photograph (fig. 10) is the source of the text given below. He has also put me in his debt by verifying a few points and sending me paper rubbings of individual fragments where the photograph left the reading in doubt. The stone itself is now, thanks to Mr. Benaki, in Alexandria Museum.