The present report deals with excavations which have been spread over a considerable period of time, and is the work of various hands. For the greater part of the introduction, and for sections I., III., V., VII., IX. XIII., I am myself responsible; the note on the affinities of the Maltese pottery, and sections II., IV., VI., X., XII., are the work of Mr. T. E. Peet; section VIII. of Professor N. Tagliaferro, I.S.O.; and section XI. of Mr. R. N. Bradley. The difficulties of correcting the MSS. and plans, at some distance of time and space, have not been inconsiderable.

The drawing (reproduced on Plate XXXV.) to which I give this title and attribution was acquired for the British Museum from a private source in 1911, and is of particular interest from its relation to one of the sculptured panels which decorate the attic of the Arch at Constantine at Rome. The series to which this relief belongs has been fully and learnedly discussed by Mr. Stuart Jones (following Petersen and others) in Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. iii. pp. 251–268. Mr. Stuart Jones maintains, and may be regarded, I conceive, as having fairly established, the view that these reliefs were originally executed as part of a monument raised in celebration of the German and Sarmatian victories of Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 174, and that eight panels were removed thence by Constantine to decorate his own triumphal arch, where they remain in situ to this day, while three others of the same series are also extant in the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

On July 25th, 1127, duke William of Apulia died, and in the first days of August his kinsman and vassal, count Roger of Sicily, anchored his fleet in the bay of Salerno. Ambassadors left the ships and demanded the submission of the citizens to the count of Sicily, who claimed their allegiance on the ground of hereditary right. He asserted moreover that duke William, being childless, had during his life-time appointed him his heir. The Salernitans refused submission outright, because, they said, they had suffered much evil at the hands of the duke and his predecessors, and they expected no better from the count of Sicily. Not content with a plain refusal, they made their meaning clearer by killing one of the count's messengers. Roger in spite of this insult continued to urge his claim, and at length his politic self-control was rewarded. He obtained the submission of Salerno, but only at the price of confiding the custody of the castle to the citizens. In the meantime count Rainulf of Alife, the husband of Roger's sister Matilda, came to meet him and sought an interview on ship-board. Once more concessions were demanded as the price of homage.

The following description of Rome, as it appeared to the eyes of an English traveller in 1622, is taken from an MS. diary in the British Museum (Harl. 6867), which occupies folios 27–40 of a quarto volume of miscellanea. The writer's name is unknown, but it may be conjectured that he was a Roman Catholic.

The diary opens with a description of the Medici chapel at S. Lorenzo in Florence, which was often reckoned by English travellers among the wonders of Italy. The author goes on to give a account of a fund established by the Grand Dukes Ferdinand and Cosimo II. in order to give dowries every year to seventy poor maids. The money for the fund was provided by economies in the Dukes' funerals who wished, says the diarist, to be buried like poor men. After a visit to Pisa and Leghorn, where contrary winds prevented him from going by sea to Rome, our traveller went there by the usual posting road through Siena and Viterbo.

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.

The reliefs of the column of Trajan lie before the world in the two sumptuous publications of Fröhner and Cichorius, where they are reproduced with all the accuracy of modern technical process; but, in an age when historical composition is out of favour, they fail to awaken interest outside the immediate circle of antiquaries and historians. In the Early and Middle Renaissance, on the other hand, when the only view of the column was obtained either from the neighbouring houses, or by means of scaffolds or other perilous devices, artists discovered in its sculptures a treasury of form and expression, whence they freely transferred to their own compositions single motives, and even whole scenes. The six dated sheets reproducing reliefs of the Trajan column now published on plates XXXVI., XXXVII., XXXVIII. afford an unexpected proof of the interest awakened by the column as early as the year 1467. They belong to the rich collection of Italian drawings at Chatsworth, and are reproduced by the kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century the trade in antiques in Rome was largely in British hands. Matthew Brettingham the younger was only employed as the agent of Lord Orford, Lord Leicester, and Lord Egremont (Michaelis, Ancient Marbles, 71 sqq.); but another artist resident in Rome, Gavin Hamilton, served his patrons not merely by purchasing, but by excavating antiques for them in the neighbourhood of Rome; and his enterprise was rewarded by discoveries of great artistic importance, though later archaeologists would have been far more grateful to him had he registered more accurately the sites and circumstances of his researches, still more had he made anything like a plan of the buildings he examined. It has not, it is true, been as yet possible to control his results; for I do not believe that any site which he searched has ever been re-excavated subsequently.