The Romans are said to have ascribed their power of conquering the world as much to the strigil as to the sword; in other words, the exercises appertaining to the bath rendered their limbs so supple, and their bodily movements so active and powerful, that it was rare for them to find any other people who could long stand against them in the hand-to-hand engagements which characterised the warfare of those times.

In the interesting collection of antiquities from the Cyrenaica which the Museum has recently acquired through Mr. Dennis, is the handle of a bronze strigil, on which are stamped the words ΤΡΙΑΚΑΤΙΩΝ ΑΘΛΟΝ. The letters, which are in relief within an oblong incuse, are of a good period. The τριακάς was a political division of the φυλή at Athens, and of the ὠβή at Sparta, and the τριακάτιοι were the ephebi belonging to a τριακάς. In an inscription discovered by Smith and Porcher at Cyrene, and published in their History of Discoveries, p. 110, No. 6, which gives a list of various military divisions, we find, line 14, τριακατιάρχαι, and lines 51 and 52, ζύμμ[οροι]? τοῖς τριακατίοις. This inscription, taken in connection with that on the strigil, confirms the statement of Eustath. in Odyss. p. 292, 1. 26, ed. Lips. 1825, ἐν Κυρήνῃ τοὺς ἐφήβονς τριακατίους καλοῦσι. See Hesych. s. v. τριακάτιοι. ed. Albert, ii. p. 1412, and note 26, ibid. The inscription on the strigil shows that it was the prize given to the ephebi, probably for a victory in some gymnastic contest.

With the Faliscan inscription already published in Archæologia there was found another and smaller bronze plate, with inscriptions on either side, varying in date. I will now give the more recent of these, deferring to another occasion the other and more ancient one, which is in Saturnian verse. This plate, like the former, has been torn away from some wall, to which it had been attached by six nails. Hence it has sustained a transverse fracture, and some small fragments are missing. But, fortunately, the sense of the inscription is uninjured, and the loss is confined to a few letters.

A few years ago my attention was directed to the very interesting Church of Wymondham, Norfolk, and the remains of the abbey adjoining it, with the intention of adding a survey of it to the collection I had already made of Norfolk monastic ruins. Extensive excavations were necessary, and, these involving time and expense, the project was deferred, and will now probably never be carried out.

The recent excavations in Rome, of which I gave you some account at this time last year, have been carried on with constantly increasing vigour, and the results obtained in the way of more accurate information have not been less important.

Site of Porta Capena disputed.—By fixing the site of the Porta Capena we almost necessarily fix the sites of other buildings in that part of ancient Rome—the first regio of Augustus—and we demonstrate that the whole of the fourteen regiones were within the existing walls, as there were strong reasons to believe on other grounds.

In a previous paper the subject of Long Barrows, unchambered and chambered, was treated of, and we may now proceed with the second division of the subject—Round Barrows; premising only that the Introduction, with which the first part was prefaced, belongs equally, or even more decidedly, to that on which we now enter.