The question of the classification of the red-figured vases of Magna Graecia is still highly controversial. So is the question of the foremost seat of the industry, and of the development of the fabric or fabrics. A good deal is being done at the moment in various quarters towards straightening out the problem, but divergence of opinion on essential points is still wide. This article does not attempt to give another complete classification, nor is it intended primarily to resuscitate admiration for works of art wilfully neglected, to cry shame on those who hurry through museum rooms of South Italian exhibits to reach the Attic. It suggests, however, that there might be a pause in these rooms if examples of the best South Italian work were always there. But not infrequently the best have been put among the Attic. Many too are in comparatively inaccessible places and are unpublished. There are several good ones in England that are little known, being in private collections or unexpected museums. Some of these I am publishing, as well as one or two of those that in their museums are thought to be Attic. I am also describing briefly the different groups to which these vases belong, in an attempt to lay down new lines on which the subject may be approached.

In an earlier volume of these Papers (xxxii, 1964), I tried to challenge a theory put forward by the late Professor Degrassi, that P. Popillius Laenas, cos. 132 B.C., began the building of two roads in his consulship—from Capua to Rhegium and from Ariminum to Aquileia—and that this programme was taken over and completed the following year by the praetor T. Annius T.f. My arguments have met with some opposition, and it is perhaps time to see to what extent they still stand up. Section I of what follows deals with the roads to Aquileia, section II with that to Rhegium.

In September, 1947, whilst digging trenches for the laying of the foundations of a building in the field known as ‘ta Trapna iz-Zghira’, in the parish of Zebbug (Ref. 394228 on the standard 2-inch map of Malta), five early tombs were discovered. The workmen, not appreciating the importance of the discovery, cut a trench 2 feet wide through the middle of two of these burials, thus partially destroying the deposit. Further destruction was prevented by Mr. Ian Small, Civil Engineer of H.M. Dockyard, who stopped the work and reported the discovery to the Museum; and on inspection of the site it immediately became apparent that we were dealing with tombs of a type hitherto unrecorded. The excavation of these remains was conducted with the fullest care to secure adequate records and ensure the recovery of all the archaeological material.

The tombs were five in number, irregularly disposed within an area of 50 sq. yards (Fig. 1). They all exhibited more or less the same features. Each tomb consisted of a saucer-shaped cavity roughly cut in the rock-bed, which at this point is the soft, white, Middle Globigerina Limestone and which underlies about 2 ft. of field soil. The diameter of the tombs averaged about 6 ft., and they attained a depth of about 2 ft. at the centre. A single layer of flat, roughly chipped slabs, derived from the local rock-bed, was used to pave the tomb floor. These slabs, about 4 in. in thickness and 10 in. in width, varied in length from 6 in. to 2 ft. 3 in. Overlying the slabs there was a layer of marl, about 6 in. in thickness, in which were embedded human skeletal remains, mostly in a fragmentary state and in utter disorder.

The object of study in this paper is four unpublished kilns excavated in 2012 at Montelabate (Perugia, Italy), in the framework of the Montelabate Project. The workshop, in use from the mid-first to the fifth century AD, which produced amphorae, coarseware and tile, offers an interesting model for the study of the economy of production in Regio VI (Umbria). The location of the workshop allows the exploration of wider issues such as connectivity, changes in local and regional markets, and continuity in the exploitation of natural resources: the site had a rich clay deposit and was surrounded by densely forested hills, whilst the flat fertile fields were suitable for agriculture and wine production; connectivity was ensured by the river Ventia, a tributary of the Tiber, and by an internal road that joined the Via Flaminia. The paper discusses the substantial number of failed flat-bottomed wine amphorae of the Spello type, discovered at Montelabate, that revealed a large-scale production with little standardization, as eight different local types were identified. The manufacturing complex provides new evidence for a production system that played an important role on a larger regional scale as well as in the local economic network, which continued until the fifth century AD.

Nei suoi Annales Romanorum (1615) Stefano Pighius pubblicò sotto l'anno 168 av.Chr. ciò che credeva di essere un frammento di una tavoletta antica promulgando gli acta urbana di sette giorni di quell' anno — infatti il 28 marzo al 3 aprile, epoca della partenza d' Emilio Paolo in Grecia per combattere il re Perseo. Il Pighius pretese che questo frammento fosse trovato tra i papieri di Lodovico Vivès, dotto spagnuolo chi al inizio del cinquecento esseva stato il protetto del re Enrico VIII d'Inghilterra e della regina Caterina d'Aragon. Gli Acta, accolti prima con dubbi, vengono ripubblicati da Tomasso Reinesius nel 1682 e proprio direttamente loro viene aggiunto dal Dodwell e i suoi amici un supplemento di altri acta, una miscellanea disordinata tratta dalla tarda repubblica. L'autore rintraccia la storia della trasmissione degli Acta e riesamina la plausibilità del materiale del Pighius e l'evidenza per una falsificazione dal Vivès.

Nella storiografia tradizionale, i mercanti di Messina appariscono come l'unico caso di cittadini dell'Italia meridonale nel tardo medioevo attivi sulla rete commerciale del Mediterraneo. L'articolo tenta di identificare un gruppo di Messinesi del tardo Duecento e dei primi anni del Trecento chi possedevano investimenti nel commercio levantino; il punto di partenza è la collezione di contratti commerciali lasciati dal notaio genovese Lamberto di Sambuceto, ed alcuni contratti messinesi e documenti pubblici del governo aragonese. Infatti esisteva uno stretto nesso fra commercianti e risorse Messinesi: il vino della Sicilia orientale era venduto ad Acri dai messinesi; la presenza di Genovesi, Pisani ed altri, basati in Messina ed attivi nel commercio di Cipro e dell' Armenia, è documentata. I mercanti messinesi, sebbene sotto una tutela settentrionale, avevano un ruolo permanente nel commercio del Mediterraneo nel tardo medioevo, un ruolo che riflette la nuova importanza della città come punto centrale nella rete mediterranea dopo la conquista normanna.

It is one of the paradoxes of the study of Roman architecture that what, in terms of the written record, is probably the most thoroughly and reliably documented phase of its whole development, the Augustan age, is from the point of view of the architectural historian still one of the most obscure and controversial. That it was a vital turning point in the history of Roman architecture one cannot doubt; and yet the number of monuments in the capital that can be accepted without hesitation and without reservation as representative of the age is very limited. No doubt the full and critical publication of the excavations of the last few decades will increase the number and provide a firm basis for further studies. But in the meantime we are still dependent—all too dependent—upon those few buildings which are securely and unequivocally Augustan, and which may be used therefore as a safe standard of comparison for some at any rate of the architectural practices current in Augustan Rome.

A short note published in 1925 in the Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana (vol. xlv, p. 153) briefly recorded the discovery of prehistoric material during quarrying for gypsum near Ariano five years previously. A footnote to an article by Rellini three years later was a little more explicit. The finds, from collapsed caves at the foot of a hill, were largely of the Apennine Culture of the Bronze Age with some painted Neolithic ware. The same statement is repeated almost word for word in Rellini's La Più Antica Ceramica Dipinta in Italia, p. 75. Then in 1950, in an article on the prehistoric collections in the Museo Nazionale di Napoli, Buchner wrote a short paragraph which attracted far less attention than it deserved. It recorded that in material sent in from the quarry between 1920 and 1938 impressed and scratched neolithic pottery was also present.

In 13 B.C. Augustus laid down that the minimum length of army service should be sixteen years. During the Late Republic it appears that at times only six years had been required of recruits, but it may be suspected that in the Civil Wars service had been lengthening—one can note already the gap of sixteen years between the great settlements of 30 and 14 B.C.

In A.D. 5, facing a shortage of recruits and an unwillingness of soldiers to remain in service beyond the statutory period, Augustus introduced a new package deal by which the praemia militiae were stepped up, perhaps considerably, but the minimum period of service extended to twenty years. Such are the figures given by Dio, but it is clear from the epigraphic and literary evidence—the latter provided in the main by Tacitus's account of the A.D. 14 mutinies—that Augustus sometimes succeeded in holding on to his soldiers beyond these limits, by retaining them as reservists sub vexillo, under a special standard, for a period of four years after 13 B.C., and for five years after A.D. 5, making totals of twenty and twenty-five years. Naturally this extension would not be stressed, and it should not be surprising if there is no mention in Dio of service sub vexillo.

Gli scavi e la ricognizione della collina conosciuta come Vacchereccia hanno individuato parte dell'insediamento alto-medievale descritto come Baccaricia nel Chronicon Volturnense. Questi scavi hanno messo in luce molte testimonianze di occupazione sul medio versante della collina, testimonianze che coprono un arco di tempo compreso tra il periodo tardo-Romano e la fine del XII o XIII secolo. Sono stati anche studiati i resti di un villaggio del XIII–XV secolo sulla sommitá della collina, sopra al sito piú antico. Questi scavi gettano una nuova luce sulla storia dell'insediamento rurale nell'Italia centrale e mettono in discussione il punto di vista tradizionale sulla agricoltura dell'Alto Medio Evo nelle proprietá dei grandi monasteri. I risultati pubblicati qui sono frutto della collaborazione tra l'Universitá di Sheffield e la Soprintendenza Archeologica del Molise, una collaborazione che avrá un ulteriore collaudo in altri siti medievali abbandonati nel'Alta Valle del Volturno, nel contesto del Progetto San Vincenzo.

The work of preparing this, the second portion of the description of the classical topography of the Via Latina, has shown me more clearly than before how impossible it is to hope to attain finality in dealing with the Campagna. The late Henry Stevenson's notes now in the Vatican Library (those which especially concern this district are to be found for the most part in Vat. Lat. 10572) are a perfect mine of information, especially when taken with his own copies of the Staff Map on which the ruins he found are marked (now bound up together as Vat. Lat. 10587 B), and one realizes more than ever the value and extent of the work he might have done had he lived longer. As I have examined them carefully, I have given full details of their contents. The maps for the present volume were unfortunately made before I had time to consult these valuable sources of information. And yet, when I came to go over the ground again, I found that there were many ruins that even he had not noticed, some of them of considerable size and importance.

Our expedition of 1909 to Sardinia lasted throughout the month of October. Mr. F. G. Newton was present all the time, and after our work upon the Megalithic Monuments was at an end, he even found time to study and draw many of the interesting Pisan churches in the island.

The Archaeological Authorities at Cagliari followed our work with their usual cordial interest. Important archaeological investigations in another part of the island prevented Professor Taramelli from saluting us at Macomer as he had wished; while Cavaliere Filippo Nissardi was kept at Cagliari by official duties, which did not leave him time to meet us at Nuoro or elsewhere on our way.

Our hunt for dolmens, in which as will be seen we had considerable fortune, would have been all the keener for the company of veterans like these.

In a recent important article on the mosaics of the basilica of St. Demetrius at Thessaloniki, R. S. Cormack proposes a list of churches in the city with mosaics ‘for which a late fifth century date must be considered.’ The list comprises the Acheiropoietos basilica, the first phase of the basilica of St. Demetrius, and Hosios David. The purpose of this article is to show that the mosaics of the second phase of the Rotunda (now known as the church of St. George) should be included in Cormack's list.

The first thing to note about the Rotunda mosaics is that there has been less than unanimity concerning the date of their construction. Volbach, Lazarev and Cormack, amongst others, follow Dyggve and Torp in dating the mosaics to c. 400 or slightly earlier; Diehl and Dalton dated them to the fifth century, Weigand to the sixth and Holtzinger to the seventh or eighth century, all on largely stylistic grounds. What are obviously needed are some objective dating criteria, and these are to be found, not so much in the mosaics themselves, but rather in the building fabric and the furniture of the converted Rotunda. The conversion of the Rotunda, incidentally, consisted of the blocking of an opaion in the cupola and the addition of an ambulatory, a monumental entrance to the south, an apse to the east (Plate XXIII) and various subsidiary buildings to east and west. The mosaics were placed in the cupola and in the niches which connected the main body of the Rotunda with the ambulatory.