Livy wrote of the great Scipio at the conclusion of the second Punic war ‘primus certe hic imperator nomine victae ab se gentis est nobilitatus’. But already more than half a century earlier M'. Valerius Maximus, consul of 263 B.C., who captured Messana and was honoured with the cognomen ‘Messalla’, had received a title from a conquest in war. In the century and a half after Scipio became Africanus, many such honourable cognomina were acquired by others. In only six cases is there evidence of the cognomen descending within the family: Valerius Messalla, Scipio Africanus, Scipio Asiaticus, Metellus Creticus, Servilius Isauricus, and (with a slight difference) Pompeius Bithynicus.

Two localities of ancient Cyrenaica bore the name Βόρειν. The first, recognized by the ancient geographers as the eastern extremity of the Greater Syrtis, was a promontory and harbour which, from the evidence of the Stadiasmus Marts Magni, lay 131 stades (23·5 km.) south of the city of Berenice. It has been convincingly identified with the modern Ras Taiúnes, a small headland at precisely that distance from Benghazi. There is no evidence that this promontory was ever the site of permanent settlement in the form of a village or fort.

Among the inscriptions acquired in Italy by Sir Charles Nicholson in the 1850's or 1860's is a small group of sepulchral texts referring to seamen of the Praetorian Fleet at Misenum.

These texts were published in 1945, with a brief commentary, by Mr. G. R. Manton, to whom I am indebted for first drawing my attention to them. They had been previously published, very inadequately, by Reeves in the Catalogue of the Museum of Antiquities of the Sydney University (1870), and four of the seven which compose the group are included (in one case from a very imperfect copy) in CIL x. Of these two are described as found ‘in agro Puteolano’, one ‘in agro Neapolitano’, and one at Misenum. Of the provenience of the remaining three and their history before passing into the hands of Sir Charles Nicholson no record can be traced. It is reasonable to suppose that, like other inscriptions in the collection, they come from the Naples region and ultimately, directly or indirectly, from the naval cemetery at Misenum.

The discovery two years ago, in Amiens, of an analogue of the famous Rudge cup has raised interest among the historians of the Roman world. The new patera has been summarily described in the Comptes-Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1949, p. 125 ff.) and will be more completely surveyed in the next volume of the Monuments Piot. Nevertheless it was thought that some account of the main differences between the two vases would be appreciated by students of Roman Britain.

In December, 1948, there appeared in Antiquity an article by Lady Fox in which she hoped that ‘it should not be long now before a sequence of dated Roman house types is established for Britain’. At that time, the writer was engaged on a study of the Roman villas of Britain and hoped that from the mass of data collected there would emerge such a sequence of types. But the facts would not fit. It became apparent not only that houses of all types existed at all periods but also that the early types continued long in existence and that houses of every type were being built at all periods.

Editors, and other students, of the text of Tacitus have of late been taken up with the problems of the two codices unici and perhaps have tended to neglect the contributions made by their predecessors. If this be true, Dr. J. Ruysschaert has rendered a service to scholarship in publishing a book on Juste Lipse et les Annals de Tacite: une méthode de critique textuelle au XVIe siècle. It is safe to say that up to the nineteenth century a commentary on the text of Tacitus in the main consisted of comments by, and on, Lipsius. Much of this lore was gathered together in I. Bekker's Variorum edition of 1831 and, augmented by G. H. Walther's more unorthodox notes and a critique of them, in Ruperti's four volumes of 1832–39. At that time, however, a breach in the tradition occurred and the Corpus Lipsianum (if this name may be applied to the lore in the Variorum editions) became less known than it deserves.

The purpose of this paper is to review discoveries made by air reconnaissance during the five summers 1945-9 in the Roman military districts of Northern Britain. Most of the sites described were revealed by differences in the colour or growth of vegetation above them, and during this period the exceptional drought of 1949 gave unusually clear definition, covering much of the material now under review. The cereal crops in particular responded so sensitively to buried features as to reveal not merely the outline of buildings, but finer details such as buttresses to a wall, or floors in stone or concrete. Even in pasture, the Military Way behind Hadrian's Wall could be seen for miles together as a ribbon of parched grass (pl. v); and, most remarkable of all, the foundation-trenches of timber buildings in the legionary fortress at Inchtuthill appeared as thin green lines in the parched surface (pl. viii, 2). Such conditions occur rarely; but even in a wet summer carefully planned air reconnaissance will afford plenty of information.

It is universally assumed that the peregrine praetor from the outset had jurisdiction (a) in lawsuits between peregrines, and (b) in lawsuits between a peregrine and a citizen. This view is indeed supported by Pomponius, provided we regard him as saying that the second praetor was called peregrine ‘because his jurisdiction was mostly between peregrines’, i.e. mostly in case (a). On this rendering the author would imply that the praetor in question always had jurisdiction in case (b) as well. However, for one thing, the words ‘quod plerumque inter peregrinos ius dicebat’ conceivably mean:‘because his main business was jurisdiction between peregrines ‘—sc, though he was often used by the Senate for entirely different purposes.

In JRS XXXV, 1945 (p. 98), Mr. Hugh Last proposed that any further discussion of the SC Calvisianum appended to the fifth edict of Cyrene should start from a review of the Republican law of repetundae and of Mommsen's doctrines in Röm. Strafrecht (SR) 705 f. This service was performed by Mr. A. N. Sherwin-White in PBSR 1949, 5 f. The object of the present article is not to re-argue the controversy (Mommsen's errors have too often been the dragon's teeth), but to inquire into the terms of the problem.

The excavation of Lepcis Magna and of Sabratha has yielded a number of inscriptions that document the supply and use of marble for architectural purposes under the Roman Empire. The texts of these inscriptions will appear shortly in the collection, ‘Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania,’ which is now being prepared by Miss J. M. Reynolds and the writer for publication by the British School at Rome (referred to hereafter as IRT). Few of them have been previously published, and of none has the significance been discussed. They have, however, an important bearing both on the architectural and on the economic history of their times; and the pages that follow are an attempt to indicate something of their character and significance, and to suggest further useful lines of inquiry.

Vindonissa, the only Roman legionary fortress in Switzerland, was occupied during the first century A.D. to guard the frontier against Germany. Because of the exactly defined period of habitation the pottery of this place is of special importance.

The legionary fortress at Vindonissa is situated on a plateau between two rivers and on the north side the ground slopes steeply down to the R. Aare. Some time after the foundation of the fortress, which is probably to be dated shortly after the Varus catastrophe of A.D. 9, perhaps after the third decade of the first century, the soldiers began to throw all the rubbish of the fortress down this slope.

There has been a tendency among some modern scholars to regard the constitutional position of Augustus as of negligible importance. This is a natural reaction from the excessive legalism of Mommsen and his school, and has had valuable results in elucidating extra-constitutional elements in the position of the first Princeps, such as his outstanding auctoritas and his huge clientela. I do not think however that we can lightly brush aside the constitutional basis of his power. I do not wish to suggest that the restored Republic was intended to be genuine, or even that Augustus meant to share his power with the Senate and People: never for one moment did he part with his control over the great bulk of the legions. But I would suggest he would not have created the elaborate facade of Republican legitimacy, and moreover have subjected his original scheme to at least one radical revision, unless there had been some important element in the State to which the constitution mattered, and mattered so profoundly that its dissatisfaction would endanger the stability of the régime.