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.

The products of a highly civilised community must always tend to drift across its political frontiers to less advanced peoples beyond. In the early centuries of our era the output of Roman workshops, following perhaps the older amber routes, was finding its way north of the Rhine and reaching Scandinavia. The same process was going on in Caledonia. The troops marching northward carried their supplies with them, and on the sites of their forts the excavator unearths their pottery and glass, their vessels of bronze, their ornaments, tools and weapons,—the familiar things of provincial Roman civilization. But out beyond the limits of the forts and camps the same products from time to time come to light—picked up near the lines of communication, gathered from the sites of native dwellings, or found far out among the hills or by coasts where the Roman soldier never penetrated, telling their tale of traffic or of plunder.

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 collection of four Latin bucolics ascribed to one Martius Valerius was only published in the twentieth century; they have been widely considered as twelfth-century compositions. Picking up on suggestions proposed by François Dolbeau, this study presents evidence that Martius drew directly on the bucolics of Theocritus, and that his poems are late antique, not medieval, literary productions, probably written in the sixth century. Such a conclusion will require a revision of the history of post-Virgilian Latin bucolic poetry.