Lucus Feroniae, the scene of a great yearly assemblage in honour of the goddess Feronia and subsequently the site of an Augustan colony which took the name of the ancient grove, lay somewhere in the territory of Capena in south-eastern Etruria. The region presents great topographical difficulties. Except for Capena itself, which has been located with some degree of certainty on the hill of Civitucola, none of the ancient settlements, of which there are several in the city's extensive ager, has been definitely identified. This paper has been written in the belief that a fresh consideration of the evidence for the goddess's shrine will aid in determining its location and will present material of value for its bearing on the history of Capena and the origin of Feronia's cult.

The important excavations conducted at Numantia by Dr. Schulten represent one of those rare cases in which the work of the archaeologist is brought into direct connexion with that of the historian. The patient and methodical exploration of the Celtiberian stronghold and the Roman siege-works surrounding it has yielded results which are not interesting merely to the specialist in Roman military history, but add largely to our knowledge of an important historical event and furnish a topographical commentary to our literary records. In view of these facts it is somewhat surprising to find that in a recent English history of the Roman republic, both detailed and elaborate, Dr. Schulten's work is ignored and the site of Numantia is said to be only known by conjecture.

The gold fibula shown on plate I is at present in my collection in Boston. It is said to have come from near Cervetri, a statement which admits of little doubt when one considers that technically it resembles closely the gold objects found in the Regulini-Galassi tomb. The date is thus accurately determined as earlier than the middle of the seventh century B.C. How much earlier, it would be difficult to say. The fibula shows evident signs of wear, and could easily have been in use half a century before finding its final resting-place in the tomb of some Etruscan matron or maid. In point of style it is superior to any of the gold objects with animal representations hitherto found in Italy. This point will be discussed more fully in the course of this article.

Of all the products of ancient Roman civilisation, few were more distinctive than the great villas which, especially in the last century of the republic and the first of the empire, sprang up in obedience to the owners' will, not only on the outskirts of the capital, on the lower slopes of the Alban Hills, and along the fair and salubrious shores of the gulfs of Baiae and Neapolis, but at many a remote point where pure air, fertile soil, broad views and running water, with, if possible, the proximity of a frequented highway, combined to attract the weary administrator or business man in search of repose and to offer the most fascinating of problems to the architect and dillettante.

My object in this paper is to present to students of Roman history a general view of the imperial coinage from Augustus to Vespasian, not of course in all its details, but mainly with reference to (1) the mints at which and (2) the authorities by whom it was issued. It is a subject on which recent numismatic research has yielded novel and interesting results, which are probably not yet familiar outside specialist circles. My conclusions are based mainly on independent research work, conducted in the Medal Room of the British Museum, in the years 1912–1914; but I gratefully acknowledge my debt to fellow-workers in the field—M. Mowat, E. Gabrici, the Rev. E. A. Sydenham, to name only a few—above all to L. Laffranchi, who has worked out in detail a number of points which I have only had time to raise and to whose work I shall have more than once to refer.

The ancient Lucania, the area of which corresponds, more or less, to that of the Neapolitan district of Basilicata, the modern province of Potenza, is little known even to the more leisured traveller in Italy; and we must turn to the pages of Keppel Craven and Lenormant for any but the most summary account of it. In the period of the Roman supremacy in Italy no events of singular interest are connected with Lucania, save only in the operations of the Hannibalic war around Grumentum. No military colony of outstanding importance, if we except Venusia to which Apulia lays an equal claim, was founded within its borders; no ancient remains to equal those of the country of the Samnites and the northern Sabellian peoples have attracted the attention of travellers and scholars; the Via Popilia, which ran through the heart of Lucania on its course from Campania to Rhegium, and the Via Herculia, the cross-road which cut through the northern half of Lucania between the Via Appia and the Via Popilia, are amongst the least known and the worst preserved of ancient Italian highways. Even the remains of the ancient Grumentum which lies in the upper valley of the Aciris in the heart of the Lucanian hills, are little known and less visited. Nor has Lucania been altogether fortunate in its local historians, whose weakness has lain especially on the topographical side.

When this interesting bust, identified and published by Sir Cecil Harcourt Smith, by whose kind permission I reproduce it here, in the Burlington Magazine 1908, was transferred to the British Museum for cleaning purposes in 1916, a close examination of it in its new state led me to think that the portrait character of this obviously Mithraic work had been overstated. The photograph in the Burlington Magazine somewhat exaggerates the prominence of the lower part of the face, which is neither so full nor so individual as the plate suggests; the low Zeus-like forehead differs essentially from the high and rounded brow of the emperor, while the parted hair, curling only at the ends, and the beard are, as Sir Cecil Smith notes, like those of a Zeus, though they are surely very different in character from the frizzed interlacing locks of Commodus. The admittedly Zeus-like character of the bust is in fact against the identification as a Commodus-Mithras, sicnce not only does the youthful god differ in every respect from the ruler of Olympus, but the one known mythological portrait of Commodus, the Commodus-Hercules in the Conservatori, far from modifying the emperor's features to suit his part, rather represents the portrait element as triumphing at the expense of the divine; so that the lion-skin is pushed back and unnaturally balanced on the crest of hair, in order to keep the latter unmodified by one lock or curl, and the polished beauty of the imperial arms supersedes the mighty muscles of the hero. Again, the features of the Salting bust are finer, straighter and less sensual than in any known portrait of the emperor, while the features of the Commodus-Hercules are presented in their most extreme form. Perhaps, then, the explanation of the bust of a portrait is untenable, and its Zeus-like character is perplexing in the case of a head intended for a Mithras.