The dramatic date is the Feriae Latinae of 129 B.C., the consulship of Tuditanus and Aquilius, the scene the gardens of Scipio Aemilianus, the theme for discussion the Roman state. Who could expound the subject better than Aemilianus himself for, says Laelius, ‘not only is it proper that an eminent statesman rather than anyone else should discuss the State, but also I recollect that you used to converse very frequently with Panaetius on this subject in company with Polybius—two Greeks who were perhaps the best versed of them all in politics—and that you assembled many arguments to prove that the form of government handed down to us by our ancestors is by far the best of all.’ Here is Cicero's assurance that sometime before 129 Panaetius, Scipio and Polybius used to discuss the Roman State together—though he does not tell us when or where. According to Velleius Scipio kept Polybius and Panaetius, praecellentis ingenio uiros, beside him domi militiaeque, so many opportunities for such conversations offered themselves. Was Panaetius perhaps present, like Polybius, at the siege of Carthage? Possibly, though there is no proof. For it is now generally agreed that Panaetius' voyage with Telephus' fleet and the two years devoted to general education (πρὸς φιλομάθησιν)—or was it research?—before he went to Athens (which we learn of from a fragmentary passage in the Index Stoicorum discovered at Herculaneum) have nothing to do with any ships the Rhodians may have sent to help Rome during the siege of Carthage (as Cichorius thought), but belong to Panaetius' early years.

Eduard Norden's well known claim that pagans only read the New Testament when they wanted to refute it has never been seriously challenged. During the first four centuries of the Christian era the only pagans who can be shown to have had a thorough acquaintance with Christian writings and knowledge of Christian teachings are Celsus, Porphyry, and the Apostate Julian —all of whom wrote detailed refutations of Christianity.

Yet it has often been alleged that there are allusions to Christian doctrines and even echoes of New Testament phrases in the epigrams of Palladas of Alexandria. Now this, if true, would be of great interest and importance; for although it has, from time to time, been contended that Palladas was a Christian, there can in my opinion be little doubt that, like so many other schoolmasters in fourth and fifth century Egypt, he was a pagan. It is sufficient to refer to his caustic couplet on the monks, his numerous poems on Τύχη so characteristic of pagan writers of the day, and his ironic comments on the ‘conversion’ of the statues of the old Olympians, and on some Victories adapted to herald the victory of Christ (further evidence is adduced in § II).

From the moment Rome's port city of Ostia was founded, boats of all kinds were needed to take care of the traffic about the Tiber's mouth and up-river to the capital. As the centuries passed, and both Rome and Ostia grew, the number and variety of such boats increased apace.

Ancient writers and, more important, inscriptions give the names of many of these craft and of the men who specialized in operating the particular types. We hear of codicarii, lenuncularii, scapharii and so on. What were their boats like? What special service did each perform?

On the life of Poseidonios there is but little reliable information elucidating the theme of this paper. The probable years of his birth and death are 135 and 51 B.C. About his background nothing is known except that Apameia in Syria was his place of origin. In view of the mixed population of that country one might surmise the presence of non-Hellenic ethnical components in his ancestry, but nothing is known about this. He was a disciple of the stoic philosopher Panaitios of Rhodes, probably at Athens; afterwards he became himself the head of the stoic school in Rhodes, where he must have acquired the citizenship, for he acted as a magistrate (‘prytanis’) and as an ambassador of the city. Strabo's praise of the exemplary social-welfare work at Rhodes (14, 653) seems to be derived from Poseidonios; in any case it is characteristic of Poseidonios' interest in social problems (see below p. 48).

The origo of C. Iulius P. f. Hor…………‥ Cornutus Tertullus, friend and colleague of the younger Pliny, has always been a matter of speculation. B. Stech thought he might have come from Africa; Professor Syme, observing the name of the dedicator of the stone which records Cornutus' career, C. Iulius Pla[n]cius Varus Cornutus, suggests Perge in Pamphylia. Professor Syme further remarks on the existence of a C. Iulius Cornutus at Perge, who set up a bilingual dedication to Nero. These names are also borne by C. Iulius Cornutus Bryonianus, ἀγωνοθέτης at the Varian games at Perge.

Groag remarked that one would not normally expect to find the praenomen of Cornutus Tertullus' father, Publius, coupled with the nomen Iulius. Cornutus Tertullus might, then, have been adopted, possibly by the C. Iulius Cornutus who set up the dedication to Nero: the gap in his nomenclature, as it appears in the inscription set up by C. Iulius Pla[n]cius Varus Cornutus, could have contained his original nomen.

The outbreak of the Social War brought in its wake a furious succession of criminal prosecutions with important political implications. The wheels of ‘justice’ were set in motion by the notorious lex Varia, a criminal law passed on the motion of the tribune Q. Varius Severus Hybrida. It was not long before numerous prominent individuals came under attack and the Roman political scene was thrown into turmoil. The lex Varia will repay close scrutiny.

Modern scholarship has been content with the analysis of this measure delivered by Appian. Some time after the death of M. Livius Drusus, the tribune of 91 B.C., the equites endeavoured to make his liberal policy towards the Italians a ground for malicious prosecution of their enemies, and to this end they induced Q. Varius to pass his law. The purpose was to bring the entire senatorial oligarchy under the odious charge of sympathy with the Italian insurgents and to entrench equestrian control of the state. Such is the version of Appian. It is certainly true that, as was by now customary, external crises were made the pretext for attacks upon political opponents. The charge of bearing responsibility, in some sense, for the outbreak of war could be stretched to fit a wide variety of activities. But a careful examination of the lex Varia and of the cases heard under it will demonstrate that Appian's judgment leaves much to be desired. Legal and political consequences have never yet been fully understood or analysed, and the law can shed much light on Roman internal struggles in this period.

Systematic air reconnaissance of Romano-British sites has continued during the last few years, with results that are summarized in this paper which supplements accounts of earlier surveys already published in this Journal. In both the summers of 1963 and 1964 a prolonged dry spell affected much of eastern Scotland, but this region apart, the weather was not particularly favourable for the development of crop marks in the period under review: the dry spell in central and southern England in 1964 came too late to affect the cereal crops, but was the cause of remarkable differential growth in certain roots, particularly beet.

The greatest gain in information is in the military zone of north Britain, where photography repeated year by year never fails to yield discoveries: in the civil districts of the Province, Romano-British settlements and their agriculture are the most rewarding subjects to study. Nearly every feature here described has been examined on the ground, for only so can an accurate impression be gained of a site in relation to its surroundings: except where noted otherwise, no remains are ordinarily visible on the surface. The records and photographs on which this account is based are housed in the offices of the Committee for Aerial Photography of the University of Cambridge.

The Social war broke out when Rome refused to grant the allies' demand for citizenship. Any explanation of this refusal is conjectural; on this subject I have nothing new to say. This paper is concerned rather with the attitude of the Italians. I shall argue, like Professor Gabba, that they sought a share in political power, though not only, if at all, for the reasons he suggested; and that their desire to become Romans reflects the success of Rome in unifying them in sentiment and was stimulated by the Cimbric war and by the career of Marius and other novi homines of his time.

I. Cato's title and commission: the problem.

II. Cic., fam. XIII, 48: C. Sextilius Rufus, quaestor in Cyprus, and his family.

III. The arrangements for annexation and administration.

IV. The precedent: P. Lentulus Marcellinus and Cyrene.

In 58 B.C. M. Cato, then of tribunician standing, was sent to Cyprus to confiscate and realize the King's property. The mission, with its political context, has been frequently discussed—best by S. I. Oost, with his usual historical insight and critical acumen. The present article proposes to base itself on Oost's discussion and investigate some further matters that did not come within the scope of his enquiry.

I

We must start with Cato's title, on which the truth has only quite recently been recognized. Amid dozens of references to the famous mission, we have only two that purport to give his title accurately. The author of de uiris illustribus tells us that Cato was sent to Cyprus as quaestor. Since he is notoriously inaccurate in such matters, to the confusion of much modern scholarship, this would not be worth a great deal by itself. But it is fully supported by Velleius, who in fact gives more details: Clodius passed a law that Cato, as quaestor with praetorian status, and with a quaestor to assist him, should be sent to Cyprus to strip Ptolemy of his kingdom.

There has been much argument and little agreement about the date of the foundation of Florentia, about the purpose of its foundation with regard to Faesulae, and about the relation of the city's site and orientation to the Consular road which joined Arretium and Luca, the Via Cassia, and to the crossing of the River Arnus by the Roman equivalent of Ponte Vecchio. Although the Via Cassia is agreed to belong to the second century B.C., its precise date is uncertain, and for the stretch from Arretium to Faesulae and Florentia two different routes are recorded, one on the north bank (after the first few miles out of Arretium) and the other on the south as far as Ponte Vecchio. It is agreed that the southern route is later, but not whether it and the crossing of the Arno is a cause or a consequence of the foundation of Florentia.

What we know of Roman political life under the early Empire we owe mostly to senatorial writers, and to an eques, Suetonius; a single Imperial freedman, Phlegon of Tralles, has left some scraps of information about the Court in his own time and before. It is therefore worth paying some attention when we have a lengthy text which reproduces the observations on human life and fortune of a man who was himself the slave of an Imperial freedman. Epictetus has been little used as a historical source; it is the aim of this paper to bring out both the extent and the value of his references to Roman society and politics in his own time.

Before we can assess the value of these references, we must examine both the experience on which they are based and the authenticity of the text in which they occur. Epictetus originated from Hierapolis in Phrygia; according to an inscription he was born a slave. Either by birth or sale, he belonged to Epaphroditus, the freedman and a libellis of Nero, who after Nero's death survived unharmed until relegated, and then (in 95) executed, by Domitian. Whether Epaphroditus remained a libellis under the Flavians is not clear, though the likelihood is that he did not. This view would be supported if we could be sure that it was the same Epaphroditus who encouraged Josephus in the writing of his Antiquitates, completed in 93–4.

In ancient historiography, characterization of leading statesmen was often the central preoccupation. A Berber prince was an irresistibly exotic subject, and the composite portrait of Massinissa, king of Numidia between 201 and 148 B.C., well exemplifies this focus of historia. There is abundant detail of personal attributes—his handsome bearing, his extraordinary strength, his unrivalled powers of endurance. We read how at the age of eighty-eight, sans teeth but with other faculties unimpaired, he led his troops on horseback to decisive victory over the Carthaginians. His love-life attracted admiring attention; his affair with Sophoniba, invested with a historical significance quite fictitious, was depicted by historians and painters of both the ancient world and the Renaissance. The achievements of his virility were enthusiastically recounted; he sired a son at eighty-six, and forty-four (? fifty-four) children are said to have survived him. Nor did his interest in children end with procreation. He reared his grandchildren in his own residence, and Ptolemy Euergetes cherished his query to the Greeks who sought to purchase Numidian monkeys as household pets: παρ΄ ὑμῖν, ὦ οὗτοι, αἱ γυναῖκες οὐ τίκτουσι παίδια; There is detail of the luxury of his court-life: δεῖπνα ΄Ρωμαϊκῶς ἦν κατεσκεσκευασμένα, with Greek musicians, golden baskets, silver tableware.

In 1844 Italy was in travail; even the subjects of Ferdinand II Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies, knew it. The previous year had seen the failure of the ‘Moto di Savigno’, an attempt at a combined rising in Romagna and Calabria. In March occurred the massacres of Cosenza; on 12th June the Bandiera brothers set sail for the kingdom, only to be arrested on arrival and executed. The martyrdom inflamed liberals throughout Europe.

It was appropriate that the scholars of the Reale Officina de' Papiri Ercolanesi, engaged in the task of publishing the papyri found in 1752 in the Villa dei Pisoni at Herculaneum, should have reached a work of Philodemus called (so the editor Cirillo believed) περὶ τοῦ καθ΄ "Ομηρον ἀγαθοῦ λαῷ:

‘Hinc fit, Rex Augustissime, ut tomus hic quasi suo iure se Tibi tradat, cui divinitus fuit mandata Tuorum populorum cura, atque incolumitas (quae adeo acriter sancteque tueris) hoc praecipue tempore, quo vana quaedam, falsa, et perniciosissima philosophandi ratio caecas hominum mentes, animosque invasit.’

Any knowledge of the municipal system evolved in Italy after the Social War must turn, however we might wish it otherwise, upon the four bronze inscriptions found respectively at Tarentum, Veleia, Ateste and Heraclea. They have been much discussed, and it may seem that there is nothing more useful to be said; but the present state of opinion leaves room for doubt. To Mommsen and scholars of his generation they were at least ingenuous documents, but poorly engraved and in places obscure and inexplicable. Even that was challenged by Gradenwitz, who in a remarkable series of articles turned upon them an eye sharpened in the pursuit of interpolation in legal texts, and declared that at least two—the Lex Rubria and the Tabula Heracleensis—were products of inept draftsmen who inserted glosses and interpolations in defiance of style and sense. A. von Premerstein went further; like the Spanish charter from Urso, the Heraclea inscription was an unfinished draft of Caesar's published, after his murder, by Antony with reckless additions of his own; and more recently, the same has been urged by G. Beseler, F. Schulz and others of the Lex Rubria. The internal problems of these inscriptions are thus met by questioning their evidential value, but this seems, like a conjuror's explanation, to raise deeper mysteries than it solves.