Tarpeia's role as a Vestal has become a matter of scholarly consensus in the past two decades. This article questions that consensus by suggesting that Varro and Propertius are the two major proponents of this ‘Vestal version’, which is not present in other major narratives such as Livy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch. Propertius’ version in particular, which depicts Tarpeia as a Vestal in love, has been overprivileged in analyses of this myth as a dramatisation of individual identity versus loyalty to the state. Varro's account, which also includes Tarpeia's Vestal status, suggests a different interpretation: it is likely that Varro considered Tarpeia a non-Roman Vestal whose Vestal status supported the state. This version resolves certain dissonances in early Roman myth.

In seventh-century Wiltshire, a scholar-monk began to write classicising Latin poetry. In bold terms he describes himself as the first of the Germanic peoples to write Latin poetry (‘neminem nostrae stirpis prosapia genitum et Germanicae gentis cunabulis confotum in huiuscemodi negotio [i.e. poetry] ante nostram mediocritatem tantopere desudasse’). His programmatic statements cite Virgil explicitly, and allude to Prudentius and Sedulius. His is a poetry that sets out a stall for the beginning of something new, but does so by making clear his predecessors. For Aldhelm, as for much of the Middle Ages, the canonical models of Latin poetry included classical Latin authors as well as the Christian Latin poets of Late Antiquity.

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.

In the establishing of Vespasian on the imperial throne an important part was played by Ti. Iulius Alexander, the prefect of Egypt. Before any decisive step was taken by Vespasian, the Egyptian prefect had deliberated with either Mucianus or Vespasian, or with both, and had pledged his support. The prefect was, moreover, the first to have his soldiers take the oath of allegiance to Vespasian, on July 1st, 69. The die was cast by Vespasian at the conclusion of a conference held with Mucianus at Mt. Carmel, and it is only reasonable to suppose that Ti. Iulius Alexander had a representative at this all-important meeting. I suggest that there was such a representative, a certain Basilides, concerning whom we have considerable information.

During the last two centuries of the Roman Republic, Italian business-men swarmed into newly acquired provinces and lands that had fallen under Roman influence. Sometimes they settled abroad with their families and, as landowners, obtained a form of wealth that raised them in the social scale. At the end of the second century B.C. Italians began to emigrate and become landowners in another way—by the foundation in the provinces of colonies, veteran and civilian. It was Gaius Gracchus who initiated colonization overseas, and it remained a radical, controversial policy—but an indispensable one. Both forms of emigration kept up their momentum until the Imperial age. As they passed through the empire or settled abroad, families of Italian negotiatores and colonists left evidence of their movements, mainly in the form of inscriptions. Under the Caesars we may, in some cases, trace their progress in reverse: the descendants of Italian émigrés—negotiatores, colonists, and landowners—returned to Italy and held posts to which some at any rate of their ancestors could never have aspired.

The most fascinating aspect of the language and style of Tacitus is that they may be seen in evolution. If we set aside the Dialogus as a special case because of its subject matter, for which a Ciceronian style was virtually obligatory, we may follow Tacitus' style through a continuous process of development from the two monographs to the Histories and then to its culmination in his most mature work, the Annals—though to use this word ‘culmination’ may be to prejudge the issue. Of course stylistic change and development may be found in the works of many writers, Cicero and Propertius for instance, but in few writers if any is the development so clear to see, yet also so complicated, as in Tacitus.

E. Wölfflin, who began the systematic investigation of Tacitus' language and style, maintained that there is in Tacitus' writings a persistent and continuous movement away from normal, hackneyed and colourless expressions towards novelty, colour and dignity, towards what the Greeks called σενότης—or, as some have chosen to put the matter, Tacitus in diverging more and more from the ‘normal’ became progressively more ‘Tacitean’.

Excavations were resumed at Vindolanda in the pre-Hadrianic section of the site in the summer of 1985. The prediction that the area was likely to contain further deposits of writing-tablets was strikingly confirmed and it can now be confidently stated that the publication, by the present authors, of the tablets discovered in 1973-5 was only the first instalment. It is as yet unclear when the full publication of the new finds can be expected or what precise form it will take. This is the justification, if any is needed, for presenting this summary account of the 1985 material. The inventory numbers under which the new tablets are catalogued run to almost 340; many contain several fragments; most, but not all, have at least traces of writing. It is at present envisaged that three more seasons of excavation will be undertaken in 1986, 1987 and 1988, investigating an area which extends some 15–20 metres to the north of the present terminus. There is some reason to think that the writing-tablet deposit may cover the whole or a substantial part of this area and it is therefore possible that the subsequent seasons may yield as many tablets as that of 1985.