The considerable literature that has already gathered round the Palestinian inscription on violation of sepulture published by M. Cumont in 1930 leaves little new to be said. There is, however, a gap to be filled for the English reader; moreover discussion has now cleared away certain initial misconceptions, so that a restatement may be useful. I have tried to acknowledge all substantial obligations, but beg to be excused the tedium of meticulous citation. Here, once for all, are the previous publications known to me; subsequent reference will generally be by author's name only.

In the Antiquitates Romanae, Dionysius of Halicarnassus presents the Romans as a nation of Greeks. Throughout his narrative, Dionysius shows how the Romans have surpassed other Greek nations in the quintessentially Greek areas of morality and conduct. However, this assessment of Rome's cultural and ethnic identity proves to be much more nuanced when read side by side with the narrative of the concluding books of the Antiquitates Romanae, a largely unexplored section of the work dealing with the war between the Romans and Pyrrhus. The culturally-based definition of Roman ‘Greekness’ is accompanied, particularly in the last portion of the narrative, by a troubling awareness of its inherent instability as the Romans increasingly display the tendencies which eventually caused the ‘barbarization’ of Greece.

Codex Theodosianus 3.14.1, issued in the early 370s, has been understood in the past to indicate a ban on all marriages between ‘Romans’ and ‘barbarians’. But this interpretation contradicts evidence that Roman-barbarian marriages occurred with great frequency, and the lack of any other evidence for such a ban. This study argues that the specific wording of the law, referring to gentiles (barbarian soldiers) and provinciales (residents of provinces), suggests that the ban was imposed to ensure the continued performance of specific duties incumbent upon these two classes of individuals, and had nothing to do with ethnicity-qua-ethnicity.

When Vespasian sought to give new vitality to the decadent aristocracy of Rome by admitting the local gentry of the Italian towns to the senate, he was drawing upon a class which was destined to play an important part in the government and defence of the Empire. The municipal nobility, first of Italy and later of the provinces, not only managed the affairs of all the smaller communities, but also came to fill most positions of authority, both military and civil, in the imperial administration. To understand the Empire, therefore, we must know something of this aristocracy, and must study it in that local setting which our literary authorities despise. Here Pompeii affords valuable evidence, through the comparative abundance of the material presented, and through the tragic definiteness of its chronological lower limit. It is true that this evidence, for all its copiousness, is defective, since a large part of Pompeii remains unexcavated; and our lists of magistrates and of candidates for office are compiled from casual finds, not from official sources, so that negative evidence cannot safely be used. It is true also that Pompeii, owing to its unusually favourable economic conditions, is less representative of other Italian municipia than could be wished. Within these limits, however, a study of its ruling Ordo should throw some light upon the character of these bodies in and even beyond Italy.

In this paper I propose to consider Ovid's poem as a document of literary criticism, which offers us a striking treatment of the role of the audience in reception. Ovid's concerns are twofold: on the one hand he is concerned with the ostensible manner in which his own works have been read, but he also discusses a wide range of other texts, and in doing so, offers readings of them, which, I will argue, illustrate the open-ended nature of reception and meaning.

Now, undoubtedly we are sometimes too willing to label works as ‘anti-Augustan’ or ‘Augustan’, as if that was all that could be said about them; the glib use of such terms often seems to obscure more complex and more interesting questions (the Aeneid and the Georgics are familiar examples). But with Ovid, however, such issues are at least raised by the poet himself, since the exile poems do deal with Ovid's attitude to Augustus, and the twin possibilities of writing poetry which can offend the emperor, or which can please him. Now while Ovid's famous explanation of the causes of his exile as ‘carmen et error’ (Trist. 2.207) may perhaps be a smokescreen — Ovid adducing the Ars Amatoria as his fault in order not to have to go into the details of what the error was that had offended Augustus — Tristia 2 must still be considered on its own terms; Ovid writes as if it is possible for Augustus to be offended by his poetry, and therefore the issue is an important one.

At this late date there is not much prospect of producing new and cogent emendations in Tacitus. ‘Hoc artificium periit.’ Past excesses counsel sobriety, and there has been a strong revulsion. Among the items which scholars unjustly impugned and prematurely corrected were a number of proper names, their sole offence often being rarity or an unusual shape. However strange a name may look, it should not lightly be altered. The vast and vivid nomenclature of ancient Italy invades the lower orders of the Roman Senate well before the Republic ends, and proliferates under the Caesars.

Names of a more familiar contour can still be a source of perplexity. The senatorial annals of Tiberius' principate carry a plethora of persons, among them the recurrent and aristocratic members of a few families. The consular historian, however, was adequately equipped for his task. He knew the methods of documentary inquiry, he was ferociously accurate, and he was interested in all the characters of his narrative, down to the most obscure—‘originem non repperi’ (VI, 7, 4). That being so, two Aemilii Lepidi, a Marcus and a Manius (the consuls of 6 and of 11), gave him no trouble. That he could avoid error everywhere, too much to hope. There are slips. And he might be held guilty of inadvertence. For example, it is an annoyance that the same person should appear as ‘Cotta Messallinus’ in the year 16 (11, 32, 1), as ‘Aurelius Cotta consul’ in 20 (III, 17, 4).

In this paper Virgil's description of a plough (Georgics, 1, 169 ff.) is re-examined in the light of modern records of wooden ploughs from SW Europe, taken in a broad sense to include Italy and the Swiss canton of the Grisons, and from neighbouring Mediterranean regions. This on the assumption that Virgil is describing a single type of plough, not ‘integrating’ types; in other words, that there is such a thing as ‘Virgil's Plough’ and that one may hope to find its modern analogues. To archaeological evidence only incidental allusions are made, mainly to evidence appearing later than Gow's and Drachmann's articles.

When the passage from the Georgics is set out in separate sentences of 2 + 2 + 3 lines with their differing evocations, the field and woodland scenes evoked do not appear so closely related to each other and to the references to parts of the plough as they do if the passage, which is fundamentally a structural account of the plough, is interpreted in the light of a visit to a craftsman's shop with outdoor evocations arising from the craftsman's explanations to his visitor. The thesis now put forward is that Virgil's description arises from just such a visit, which would open quite naturally with talk about the ‘knee timber’ needed for the curved beam (buris) as the part taking the principal strain. So to-day in talks with Spanish ploughwrights, one of whom even used Virgil's verb when explaining to the writer in 1935 that, in a certain valley from which he bought the elm for his beams, ‘doman el ramito de año,’ they tie down the yearling branchlet.

The relations between the Empire and the Church are a subject of such major interest, which has attracted so much attention from historians both ecclesiastical and lay, that it would be rash to suppose anything relevant and of value still to remain unsaid. Nevertheless, if it be permissible to think that the most familiar accounts are not the most satisfactory, some service may be done by emphasizing again certain considerations which, though they have not completely escaped notice hitherto, have too often been overlooked; and for such an undertaking the present occasion is perhaps made appropriate by the interest in early Christian history which the scholar whom we honour has combined with his studies of pagan Rome.

‘The sovereign power of the dictator, the imperium, was … an unrestricted regal power, taken over ca. 504 B.C. by the 300 horsemen of the noblemen-bodyguard, who constituted then the patriciate, i.e. the closed circle of the potential holders of the imperium’. This is a quotation from A. Alföldi's latest book, Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor), 1965, p. 44, and summarizes his theory of the origins of the Roman Republic. According to Alföldi the aristocracy of the monarchic period was an aristocracy of knights, and their coup d'état of about 504 B.C. brought about the end of the monarchy. As is well known, Alföldi developed this theory in a previous book, Der frührömische Reiteradel und seine Ehrenabzeichen (Baden-Baden, 1952) which is chiefly meant to prove that the various attributes of the senatorial order—including the special shoe for the patrician senators, the calceus patricius—were originally characteristic of the archaic knights. To the best of my knowledge, Alföldi never says explicitly that the senators of the monarchic period must have been identical with the 300 ‘celeres’ who were the king's bodyguard according to some of the ancient sources (Livy 1, 15, 8; Plut., Rom. 26; Zonaras 7, 3, 4). But this seems to be Alföldi's implication—in fact it was already Niebuhr's hypothesis.

Ever since that day when Michal, the daughter of Saul, looking out from a window saw her husband, David, ‘leaping and dancing before the Lord,’ and despised him in her heart (II Sam. 6, 16), it has been orthodox to scoff at the productions or performances of royal or imperial artists. Even more does this prejudice apply to Nero, and the world has agreed to accept the verdict of the unsuccessful rebel Vindex that he was a poor artist. I come neither to praise nor whitewash him, but simply to ask you to consider with me certain aspects of his reign and personality, which have been scantily treated, and which may throw light upon certain political tendencies of his time. The topics I wish to take are (1) Nero's voice and art; (2) the Domus Aurea and the reception of king Tiridates; and (3) Nero's tour of Greece, and the survival of his memory.

For a study of social and economic questions an assessment of population is indispensable. It must make a difference to our picture of the agrarian troubles that vexed the late Republic, whether we take Italy to have been densely or thinly settled.

Although debate continues on the causes, chronology, and extent of the ‘second-century crisis’ in Italy, a consensus has developed on its main symptom: the free peasantry, numbers already depleted by the burdens of military service, was displaced from the land by imported slaves and so continued to decline, a development which contributed significantly to the troubles of the succeeding century. Underpinning this consensus is widespread acceptance of what might be called the ‘Beloch-Brunt’ model of the demographic history of Italy in this period. This model suggests that between the late third century (Polybius' account of the numbers of Romans and Italians under arms in 225 B.C. permits an estimate of the total population) and the late first century (Augustus' first census of Roman citizens in 28 B.C., the first truly reliable one since the enfranchisement of the Italians) the free population had declined from about four and a half million people to about four million.

When the word ‘party’ became obscene in the context of the history of the Roman republic, it was frequently replaced by ‘faction’—or factio, to give an air of authenticity. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the occurrences of factio in writers of the republic and early principate in order to discover to what extent the usage of modern historians is justified by the sources. It will not be denied that there are numerous occasions when factio functions as a collective, with the meaning ‘group, clique, faction’. But originally factio had a verbal force, sometimes active—‘way of doing things’—sometimes potential—‘capacity to do things or get things done’. This verbal force is retained in many instances, including some where the rendering ‘faction’, i.e. ‘group’, has become standard. The precise shade of meaning may vary, but three principal connotations can be discerned: influence, concerted action, and intrigue.

The affinities of the group of Spanish town-walls now to be described are little known, and the walls themselves are of small fame outside Spain. Mélida's book containing a short account of the Lugo wall is rare; Astorga, Barcelona, León and Zaragoza have not been described in detail. Yet they form a distinct group, with common peculiarities which deserve attention, apart from the date and significance of the whole.

For the historian of the Roman period, the archaeology of Central and Southern Italy raises (and sometimes provides answers to) a fascinating variety of questions. The Pontine plain and the valleys of the Liri and Sacco were the areas first affected by Roman expansion beyond the Latial plain, and it was here that the Romans tested and perfected the techniques of organization and control of territory that were to be used with such success elsewhere in Italy and eventually throughout the Mediterranean: in particular, colonization, municipalization, and the transformation of the rural landscape which accompanied them. This area too saw the development of the villa system of agriculture, which came to be predominant in Central Italy during the first century B.C., and was imitated throughout the Empire; but there were also striking differences between agricultural practices in the plains and in the mountains above. This geographical diversity was paralleled by a complex cultural mix, as aspects of both Greek and Roman culture were adopted by the local populations, who themselves moved around an increasingly unified Italy with greater ease, leading to further cultural transformations.

In JRS 43 (1953), 77 f. I stated that in a number of passages Silius Italicus (1. 625 f.; 4. 150 f.; 6. 555 f.) seems to attest a version of history according to which not only the city but the Capitol also was taken by the Gauls. I therefore suggested that the same version I should be recognized in Ennius, Ann. 164 f.:

qua Galli furtim noctu summa arcis adorti

moenia concubia uigilesque repente cruentant.

ὁ δὲ Σεβῆρος … διοικήσας δὲ τὰ κατὰ Βρετανίαν καì

διελὼν ἐς δύο ἡγεμονίας τὴν τοῦ ἔθνους ἐξουσίαν….

Thus Herodian (III, 8, 1–2), referring to the time after the Battle of Lugdunum in 197. It is a sign of our imperfect knowledge of the history of Roman Britain that the character of this division, its purpose and even its date, are all matters of doubt. Not only is there no evidence to confirm Herodian's statement until a considerably later period, but there are several contrary indications which suggest that his date, at least, is wrong. Such a conflict of ancient testimony leads, not surprisingly, to differences in modern authorities. It is not necessary, however, for it to lead to such a confusing picture as they now seem to present. Ritterling and E. Birley drew attention to the problem, and S. N. Miller set out all the evidence in the Cambridge Ancient History. It therefore seems unfortunate that eminent authorities in more recent works continue to accept Herodian's date, or, more rarely, offer an alternative, without any warning that they are handling dubious or hypothetical material. My aim in this paper is, therefore, partly one of clarification and restatement. But I also wish to draw attention to a small addition to the evidence on the subject, and to treat the whole problem anew in the light of recent additions to our knowledge of Roman Britain in Severan times. Until a fortunate epigraphic discovery solves the problem for us, all such discussions are bound to be inconclusive; but while we wait for a British Julius Cerealis, an interim statement may crave a hearing.

The striations visible on the side and end surfaces of Romano-British ingots of lead aroused comment at an early date. They have sometimes been explained in the past as caused by the grain of wood used as a pattern for the mould—an explanation which neither accords well with their actual appearance as seen on many ingots nor with a variety of technical evidence now available which leads to the almost certain conclusion that the moulds were made of smoothed clay: but more generally the striations have been held to prove that casting was done plecemeal by the ladling of a series of small batches of metal into the mould, and early writers thus claim to have discerned from nine or ten up to twenty-seven or thirty ‘layers’ produced in ingots by such a method. This was the view categorically stated by W. Gowland in his important study of Roman lead at the beginning of this century: ‘Roman lead smelting furnaces used in Britain did not possess tap-holes, but … the lead was taken out … by means of a ladle,’ and he went on to say that the structure of many of the ingots reveals that they ‘consist not of solid blocks of lead, but of a series of distinct layers, tolerably uniform in thickness, which can be more or less easily separated from one another. Such a structure can only have been produced by pouring the lead into the mould in successive portions with a sufficient interval of time between each to allow of one solidifying before the next was added’.

The campaigns of Caesar and Augustus gave Italian merchants an opportunity of establishing relations with the free Germans. Intercourse was maintained after the withdrawal of the legions to the west of the Rhine, and literary references to the trade which grew up, though few in number, testify to its continuance throughout the time here to be considered. The conception of an illimitable forest primeval stretching unbroken from the borders of the empire into the furthest recesses of barbarism is very far from the truth. Great as were the forests, there existed open or lightly-wooded areas suitable for the settlements of primitive man, and communication between such inhabited regions can be traced from very early times.

In 1917 Dr. M. R. James, now Provost of Eton College, discovered in a manuscript belonging to St. Catharine's College Cambridge, and printed in the English Historical Review, a description by a certain Magister Gregorius of the most remarkable sights or ‘wonders’ of the city of Rome. The manuscript appears to be English, of the last years of the thirteenth century; and Dr. James thinks that the author was an Englishman, and lived in the twelfth century. Though this is the only copy of the work that is known, it is not the first that we have heard of it, for it was used in the fourteenth century by Ranulf Higden (d. 1364) in the description of Rome in the first book of his Polychronicon. We now know that he passed over some of the most curious and interesting of Gregory's statements, so that the discovery of the original is a real addition to our knowledge.