In May 1959, while digging foundations for an electric switch-room in the grounds of the Overseas School, Via Cassia no. 811, workmen came upon the remains of a Roman building. The discovery was reported to the Superintendency of Antiquities for Rome and, by arrangement with the authorities of the Superintendency, the British School undertook to supervise and to record such work of clearance and record as might prove possible within the time and with the means available. The following is a brief, factual report upon this work. In presenting it, the writer wishes to record his indebtedness to Dr. Paul Webb, Headmaster of the Overseas School; to Professor Giulio Jacopi, Superintendent of Antiquities for Rome; to Dottoressa Valnea Scrinari, Inspector of Antiquities for the district; to Mr. John Crawley who supervised most of the work of excavation in conjunction with Signor Rigitano of the Superintendency; to Mr. and Mrs Michael Ballance who helped to record and photograph the results; to Mr. Brian Hartley and Mr. R. A. G. Carson, who kindly examined and reported on the pottery and on the coin, respectively, and to all those friends and pupils of the Overseas School and visitors to the British School who volunteered their assistance during the course of work.

The collection of Greek vases formed in Italy by the second Marquess of Northampton is the richest private collection in Great Britain and one of the richest in the world. A good many of the finest pieces are tolerably well known. One or two of them were drawn for Gerhard while they were still in the Roman market; and were published by him in his Auserlesene Vasenbilder. A brief notice of the collection was communicated to Gerhard by Birch and published in the Archäologische Zeitung for 1846: in 1863 Conze visited Castle Ashby and contributed some observations to the same periodical; but the notes which Furtwängler took in 1881 are much fuller and much more valuable. In 1888 a selection of the vases was exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club and described by Froehner in the catalogue of the exhibition: Froehner's descriptions have zest, and the illustrations, though not numerous, are good. In 1903 a different selection formed portion of another exhibition organised by the same Society, and found place in the illustrated catalogue issued in 1904. In 1903, two important fragments were published by Hartwig in his Meisterschalen.

Oramus, si forte non molestum est,
demonstres ubi sint tuae tenebrae.
Te campo quaesivimus minore,
te in circo, te in omnibus libellis,
te in templo summi Iovis sacrato.    5
In Magni simul ambulatione
femellas omnes, amice, prendi,
quas vultu vidi tamen sereno.
†avelte† sic ipse flagitabam,
Camerium mihi, pessimae puellae!    10
Quaedam inquit, nudum reduc <…..>
en hic in roseis latet papillis.
Sed te iam ferre Herculei labos est,
tanto te in fastu negas, amice.
Dic nobis ubi sis futurus, ede    15
audacter, committe, crede luci.
Nunc te lacteolae tenent puellae?
Si linguam clauso tenes in ore,
fructus proicies amoris omnes:
verbosa gaudet Venus loquella.    20
Vel, si vis, licet obseres palatum,
dum vestri sim particeps amoris.
22 vestri V (al. nostri R2m1G2) sim θ: sis V

Poem 55 poses a variety of metrical, textual and semantic problems: why do 13 of its 22 lines have only ten syllables instead of 11? Should ‘poem 58b’ be incorporated into it, and if so, where? What did the narrator say to the girls in line 9? What exactly did the girl say or do in line 11? Who are the lacteolae puellae of line 17? What is the reading (and the meaning) of the last line? This article, however, is concerned only with the topographical details in lines 3–6. I assume for the sake of argument that the poem is complete in itself (even if ‘poem 58b’ is added, it does not affect the topographical question), and I accept the traditional view that Camerius is a friend and approximate contemporary for whom the narrator is searching like Amphitryo for Naucrates, or Epidicus for Periphanes.

Personal names of animals, mostly of dogs and horses, are, as everyone is aware, recorded in the literature and archaeological monuments of archaic, classical, and hellenistic Greece. A few examples must suffice here, by way of preface to our present study. The most familiar of Homeric named beasts is, of course, Odysseus' faithful hound Argos (‘Swiftfoot’: Od. 17, 292). Hector's steeds (Il. 8, 185) were Xanthos, Podargos, Aithon, and Lampos—Tawny, Swiftfoot, Flash, and Fire: Achilles drove Xanthos and Balios—‘Tawny’ and ‘Dapple,’ offspring of the mare Podarge (Il. 19, 400); and Menelaus yoked Agamemnon's mare Aithe (Bay) and his own horse Podargos (Il. 23. 295). Names of classical hunting-dogs are quoted in Xenophon's Cynegeticus (7, 5). In hellenistic times the best-known animal-name is that of Alexander's favourite charger Boukephalas (‘Oxhead’) (Strabo 15, I, 29; etc.). Theocritus records the names of two heifers, Lepargos (‘Whitecoat’) and Kymaitha (Plumpling ?) (4, 45–46), and of a bull, Phaethon (‘Brightcoat’) (25, 139): the author of Idyll 8 tells us of Lampourgos (Firetail), a sheep-dog (65); while among metrical epitaphs on dogs dating from this age we have that of Philokynegos (‘Chasseur’) of Pergamon, accompanied by a portrait of the deceased and dating, probably, from the third century b.c.

Analyses of writing culture in tenth-century Rome have been impeded by an absence of manuscripts and documents that can be assigned unquestionably to scriptoria in the city. This paper will examine the possibility that one such document has hitherto been hiding in plain sight, as it were: the dower charter given by Emperor Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophanu on the occasion of their marriage in St Peter's on 14 April 972. Usually considered to be ‘Ottonian’, rather than ‘Italian’ or ‘Roman’, this document nevertheless states explicitly that it was undertaken at the Roman church of Santi Apostoli, and this possibility is assessed in light of what is known about that church, the Via Lata region and their connections to the foremost noble family in the city.

The Lupercalia is one of the most important and most controversial of Roman festivals. This paper addresses the issue of its topography, which has received renewed attention in recent years. It is divided into two main sections, the first discussing the hotly debated location of the Lupercal cave, and the second the course of the running Luperci. The former section reviews the literary and archaeological evidence for the location of the cave, discusses its significance as a unique religious site, and calls for further investigation in the area of the southwest Palatine. The second section seeks to challenge the most influential theories on the course of the Luperci by carefully examining the ancient evidence and the terminology it uses. A contextualization of the sources and the topographic elements they describe shows that many modern theories contain serious flaws when it comes to this subject. Most modern interpretations rely on a passage of Augustine which is very problematic because of his biased interpretatio Christiana. The conclusion is that the festival’s typology as a ritual of lustration is key to understanding the course of the Luperci.