The composition of the Roman Senate from the death of Nero in A.D. 68 to that of Alexander Severus in A.D. 235 changed in respect to both the social classes and the geographical areas from which new members were drawn. Detailed studies have been, and continue to be, made of the membership of the Senate during different reigns within these limits and it is the purpose of this paper to draw together into a general picture the results of the following such studies: —

That the power of the Kings had somehow been transferred to the Consuls was a fable convenue, a part of the familiar panorama of Roman history as a recurrent translatio of power from one nomen to the next. It was not a serious analysis of this power, unless Greek philosophy was anticipated by Valerius Publicola. Polybius, on the analogy of the two kings of Sparta, had cast the consuls for the academic rôle of τὸβασιλικόν in a Mixed Polity of which no element was absolute. In Roman antiquarian theory, accordingly, the kingship is approximated to a limited magistracy, and the two consuls are jointly reduced to that due limit by the symbolic alternation of twelve fasces. Cicero can concede them the courtesy title of potestas regia while affirming, in the same breath, the supremacy of the Senate—as Livy concedes it while affirming the superiority of the Dictator. No inconsistency was felt. ‘Potestas tempore dumtaxat annua, genere ipso et iure regia’—in its context and in Roman minds—was a resonant but abstract cliché, connoting neither a real βασυλεία nor the regnum (antithetic to ius) of political rhetoric—still less the theoretically boundless Befehlsrecht attributed to imperium by Mommsen.

Among the many fields of Roman history which Mr. Last has illuminated the later Roman Empire is not the least, and it was he who first encouraged me to embark on its study. I hope, therefore, that he will accept this contribution to the volume dedicated to his honour both as testimony to the wide range of his interests and as a token of personal gratitude.

The problem of capitatio and iugatio has provoked much controversy and many ingenious theories have been propounded for its solution. In the limited space available it would have been impossible to traverse these theories in detail, and I have therefore thought it best simply to set out the evidence and to see how much can be deduced from it. Two general points must be premised. First, the accurate use of technical terms is not to be expected from the draftsmen of the Codes.

Both Victor and the Epitomator, who are the only ancient authorities to mention the matter, clearly understood Trajan's alleged remark about Nero's quinquennium as a compliment: in which case it is very high praise indeed from an impressive quarter. Both also clearly understood the quinquennium as the first five years, when Nero was a mere youth. Consequently, when it became fashionable to rehabilitate the reputations of Roman emperors, historians of the reign of Nero, at any rate in England, seldom forbore to invoke the authority of Trajan for a favourable verdict on the administrative record of its opening years. They would then proceed to catalogue examples of good government, both at home and abroad, down to A.D. 59, or even to A.D. 62. In 1911, in the first volume of this Journal, J. G. C. Anderson, who later preceded Mr. Hugh Last in the Camden Chair at Oxford, made a sharp attack on this procedure, and suggested an entirely new interpretation of the quinquennium. Since then historians of Nero have been, with some exceptions, more guarded on the subject, partly because of Anderson's paper, and partly, no doubt, because the degeneration of emperors after virtuous beginnings was recognized as a common topos in imperial biography. A few have explicitly accepted Anderson's thesis. None of them, however, has discussed Anderson's arguments in detail, which is what I wish to do here.

‘The famous Ballad theory of Niebuhr of which we seldom hear now except in connexion with Macaulay's lays’ … These are the words of Mr. Last's tutor—W. Warde Fowler. When he wrote them, in 1912, Warde Fowler was apparently not aware that the ballad theory had been revived a few years before by an Italian historian who was to exercise a deep influence on Mr. Last. But the ballad theory involves other names—such as Perizonius, Vico, Niebuhr, Schwegler, Mommsen—which have been ever present in Mr. Last's mind and have often recurred in conversation. In more recent years the ballad theory has lost nothing of its prestige in Italy; two pupils of De Sanctis, A. Rostagni and L. Pareti, have made it the cornerstone of their interpretation of archaic Latin literature and historiography. Indeed, the theory has again found favour in England.

Towards the close of the Epitaphios of Libanius on Julian we read:–

I have mentioned representations (of Julian); many cities have set him beside the images of the gods and honour him as they do the gods. Already a blessing has been besought of him in prayer, and it was not in vain. To such an extent has he literally ascended to the gods and received a share of their power from them themselves.

The statement that Julian was made synnaos theos, or something of the sort, has many precedents. On the other hand, the assertion that he had hearkened to prayer calls for special consideration.

Under the title ‘Bilingual Document’ H. A. Sanders published in 1947 a small text written on the verso of a piece of papyrus in a cursive hand, consisting of three lines of Latin followed by eleven of Greek, all incomplete. On the recto was a Latin legal text, probably a record of court proceedings, ascribed to the late first or early second century A.D. It was natural to assume, as Sanders does, that the text on the verso was also legal, the more so as a combination of Greek and Latin is not uncommon in records of judicial proceedings, especially in the late third or early fourth century A.D.

This paper is offered to my former tutor both in deep gratitude and in answer to a challenge. When as Camden Professor he was encouraging me in my project for a historical commentary on the Letters of Pliny, he remarked that with the available evidence the problem of the date of Pliny's praetorship did not appear to be capable of definite resolution. This is an attempt to decide the matter, partly by a fresh examination of the evidence and partly by the production of a new argument.

The aspiration to fame being open, avowed, and honourable, it was no scandal if a Roman of consular rank insisted on a mention in books of history written by a friend and destined (it was clear) to undying renown. Pliny saw his chance (Epp. VII, 33). There was another way and device. By publishing his own correspondence, Pliny was able to put in circulation a kind of autobiography, subtle and unimpeachable. The collection carries no fewer than eleven letters to the address of Cornelius Tacitus, and he is referred to in four others. Pliny quietly established a claim to parity in the field of eloquence.

The so-called Senatus Consultum of Adramyttium, a fragmentary inscription which was found in that city and has been known for some eighty years, contains part of a letter sent by a Roman authority. This letter records the report of a κρῖμα emanating from a praetor ex S.C., περὶ χώρας, ἥ|[τις ἐν ἀντι]λογία(ι) ἐστὶν δημοσιώ|[ναις πρὸς] Περγαμηνούς, and its terminus post querm was generally held to have been the Lex Sempronia de provincia Asia (123 or 122 B.C.), on which the excellent discussion by Hugh Last in Cambridge Ancient History should be consulted.

Twenty years ago A. Passerini published and discussed some other fragmentary texts, which had been found together in the Agora of Smyrna and had received only brief notice. The first contains two fragments of the Senatus Consultum and of the κρῖμα περὶ τῆς χώρας already mentioned.

The main roads that led north from Rome into Etruria have received surprisingly little attention from students of classical topography. With the exception of the Via Flaminia, which has been the subject of a characteristically detailed study by Ashby and Fell, the course of none of these roads has been systematically worked out on the ground. Martinori's monograph on the Via Cassia (and Clodia) is little more than a compilation of facts about the places along its presumed route; and Lopes Pegna's recent articles, though a useful contribution, are concerned rather with the problems raised by the study of the Classical itineraries than with their topographical implications. And yet for two millennia these roads have played a major, often a determining, part in the history of the regions through which they pass They have become a part of the essential pattern of life, and it is perhaps for that very reason that they have so often been taken for granted.

The Tabula Hebana ( = TH) has brought fresh evidence about the honours decreed for Germanicus after his death in A.D. 19. These clauses of the tablet, in contrast to the central, legal, clauses, have been unduly neglected in the discussion. I do not claim that they are as important as the legal clauses; but I feel that they are worth greater attention than they have so far received and that at least one of the two honours which I propose to discuss in this article, the provision of the empty curule chairs (1. 50 ff.), is of considerable interest. My answer to the question it raises need not be the right one; but often questions are more important than the answers.

The immense detail of the work that was devoted to the study of Livy's style during the last century brought Livian scholarship almost to a standstill, as it were, by its own bulk. Historians still needed to analyse his subject-matter, and there was scope for examination of the manuscript tradition; but the literary critic who considered treating Livy's style, syntax, and diction could hardly expect to do more than refine on the results of his predecessors. And who, unaided, would set himself alongside Madvig or Weissenborn ? More recently, however, three separate lines of research have given us a fresh perspective.

The ruins of Ghirza are the remains of a settlement of the Roman period which lie 250 km. (150 miles) south-east of Tripoli in a direct line, or about 375 km. (225 miles) by road and track, and some 130 km. (80 miles) from the nearest point on the Syrtic coast. The site (p. 176, fig. 3) is on the left bank of the Wadi Ghirza, about 10 km. south-west of its junction with the Wadi Zemzem, and is the southernmost Romano–Libyan frontier settlement known to have existed in the region between the Gheriat and Bu Ngem. Its two groups of mausolea with their striking and varied sculptures have been known for many years, but little attention has hitherto been paid to the settlement itself. A general survey of Ghirza, its tombs and its settlement, is being carried out by the writers in collaboration with Dr. E. Vergara-Caffarelli, Director of the Department of Antiquities of Tripolitania. It is the purpose of this article to summarize the results of the survey of the buildings and associated features of the settlement, initiated in 1952 and 1953 and nearly completed in 1955.

The batch of papyrus fragments which were numbered P. Mich. Inv. 4800 was discovered, according to an attached note, right at the site of Kôm Ushîm (or Karanis) during the campaign carried out so efficiently in the year 1926 by the University of Michigan. Of the pieces which concern us here, all written in the same hand and on the same roll, we have three large fragments (i, ii, and iii, measuring 13·9 by 14·7 cm., 14·4 by 10·9 cm., and 7·7 by 5·5 cm. respectively) and twelve small ones (fragments a to 1). It is difficult either on the basis of content or of fibre-alignment to unite any of these fragments very closely; it may be said, however, that it is just possible that frag, iii may belong to the bottom of frag, i (col. i) on the left side.

It is commonly assumed that the vigintivirate and the military tribunate, held in that order, were necessary preliminaries, except in the case of adlection, to a senatorial career in the ‘cursus honorum’ established by Augustus. There is, however, reason to believe that certain variations occurred, of sufficient number to warrant consideration as a class, and as evidence for social distinctions among the candidates. The significance of the vigintivirate in determining the future career of senators has already been brought to notice by Professor Eric Birley. The ever-increasing powers of the emperors in the creation and advancement of senators were of great importance in the political and social transformation of that body in the first century of the Empire. This paper is concerned with careers of the Julio-Claudian period, the most relevant from this point of view. The use of later inscriptions, however, as illustrations, could not be excluded.

Among a group of ten mirrors B2864 found together at the corner of Church Street and Watermoor Road in 1926 is a bronze disc 0·053 m. in diameter (fig. 7). During recent treatment of these at the Ashmolean Museum, traces of letters became visible on both sides of it. From these it was evident that the disc had been cut from the second of the two bronze plates forming the certificate of honourable discharge and grant of privileges to a time-expired soldier of an auxiliary regiment. It may be recalled that these tabulae honestae missionis contained on the first of their four pages a memorandum repeating the certified copy of the decree, on the second and third pages this certified copy, ending with the name of the recipient and on the fourth page the names and seals of the seven witnesses which made the document a legal instrument.