Ill fortune bore down the family of the Labieni, and an ill repute hangs over their memory. Q. Labienus, an ally of Saturninus, perished miserably, cut down in the Curia by good citizens. His nephew, T. Labienus, Caesar's legate in Gaul from the first campaign to the last, deserted to Pompeius Magnus at the outbreak of the Civil War, conveying promises which he failed to implement, was held in scant honour by his new allies, and met his death at Munda. The son of Caesar's marshal, a renegade styling himself ‘Parthicus imperator,’ invaded the provinces of the Roman People and swept through Syria and Cilicia into Asia with an army of Parthian cavalry: he was defeated in battle and killed by Ventidius the Picene and the Marsian Poppaedius, generals of Antonius.

Professor Tenney Frank has recently proposed to effect in the text of Strabo a transposition which gives to one sentence an infinitely greater significance. The whole of the relevant passage is as follows:

The proposal was to transfer the last section of this passage (from ϰαὶ τὸ στρατιωόν ) to the next section, thus placing it in the general survey of Cisalpine conditions (p. 218 after οἱύτη Ῥωμϰῑοι) rather than in a section dealing with Liguria. Such a transposition—fully justified by the state of Strabo's text—would provide us with an important statement on legionary recruiting and the presence of equites in the Northern Italy of Augustus' day, a statement wholly confirmed by the epigraphical remains. Yet there are certain difficulties which perhaps make it worth while to examine the passage again.

Mr. M. P. Charlesworth's Raleigh Lecture, ‘The Virtues of a Roman Emperor: Propaganda and the Creation of Belief,’ serves admirably to illuminate a new aspect of the history of the Roman Empire, in which the debt of pure history to numismatics (and notably to the work of Mr. Mattingly in the British Museum Catalogues) will be plain. From the numismatic point of view there is, indeed, one curious omission in Mr. Charlesworth's argument; and attempts to make good the omission have opened up a series of speculations which are here discussed.

The problem of the duration of the first Roman occupation of Scotland is an interesting and important one, and it has been the subject of considerable discussion since the excavation of Newstead added the evidence of archaeology to that of the scanty literary sources. There can be no doubt that, by the time that Hadrian's Wall was planned, Agricola's conquests north of Cheviot had been relinquished by the Romans, but it is not definitely known at what date after his recall, late in the year A.D. 84, the withdrawal took place. There are four emperors under whom the change of frontier policy thus effected may have occurred—Domitian, Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. The latter's evacuation of most of Trajan's Eastern acquisitions seemed, at one time, to qualify him as the author of a similar limitation of the Empire's extent in Britain.

The fortunes of Scipio Africanus after the Second Punic War raise a difficult problem for the student of Roman history. Through his political standing and his personal gifts Scipio's influence must be considered an essential element in the public life of Rome at the decisive period of her imperialistic development; yet the glimpses in recorded history, though significant, are so fleeting that it is almost impossible to gain a complete impression. We know, of course, his Carthaginian policy and his strategy against Antiochus; but in matters relating to Gaul, Liguria and Spain, and in the internal politics of Rome, there is scarcely any evidence of his hand. Most obscure of all is the Second Macedonian War; where the questions of policy were similar to those in the Syrian War, yet Scipio had no share in them that can be directly discerned. Did he withdraw after his victory over Carthage and only re-appear to meet Syria ? Then why should his defeat of Antiochus be followed by his own dishonour, in the face of the claims of gratitude ? His fall suggests a persistent and important political activity, which could only be countered by extreme measures of opposition.

I am writing this note on Mr. G. W. Richardson's Actium (JRS xxvii, 1937, 153) for the sake of one general principle, drawing attention briefly to the main points.

First, Horace. Mr. Richardson says sinistrorsum will not fit my interpretation because it is ‘commonly assumed’ that Antony's centre was opposite the mouth of the Gulf. Horace wrote within a few days of the battle, and was in a position to know; suppose we keep to what he says, and forget all about ‘common assumptions.’ If he says sinistrorsum, he means that Antony's whole fleet was north of the Gulf. Antony came out in line ahead—he could not do otherwise through the narrow exit; he could turn either north or south, and Horace shows he turned north, i.e. to his right. When all his ships were out—he could not do it earlier—he changed to line abreast; the last ship out, now the last on his left, might still have been opposite the mouth of the Gulf, but the three squadrons of the centre and left, taken as a whole, were northward of it, and if they wanted to get back into the Gulf they would go sinistrorsum. It is simple enough, provided we follow the primary evidence. Mr. Richardson further seeks to get rid of Horace's reference to the desertion of Antony's fleet, or of part of it, by saying that it means ships fleeing from (or after) the battle. But puppes navium citae, as a long line of commentators have pointed out, can only mean backing water, i.e. going stern first; and I am sure no galley ever fled from a lost battle stern first.