Vergil's fourth Eclogue, foretelling a child whose coming would usher in the golden age, has often been supposed to be based upon eastern material; and it has even been suggested that, in the period of Roman history which ended with Octavian's final success at Actium, both East and West alike were expecting the Roman world to pass under the rule of one man, whether a Roman or a king from the east, to be followed by the birth of a child with whom should come the final kingdom of peace. But the ideas of the East in this matter have been deduced from western and Jewish material; and I hope in this paper to do a little toward ascertaining the view of the Greek East from a contemporary Greek document which has never been seriously examined, and considering its relation to the ideas of Vergil. I can only do a little, for most of the material vanished when Augustus later burnt 2,000 prophecies; but the secondary historians from whom we derive our current ideas of the East in the crucial years before Actium are so extraordinarily tendencious that every scrap of contemporary material, outside the circle of the victors' version, must be of value. My aim is to treat the matter solely from the historical standpoint; and the name of the boy Alexander Helios, son of Cleopatra and Antony, in whom East and West met, will serve to unite the two aspects of what I have to say.

On January 12th, 1732, John Horsley, Presbyterian divine and schoolmaster, died suddenly at Morpeth at the early age of 46. The following March or April witnessed the publication of his great book, in which real scholarship was for the first time brought to bear upon the interpretation of Romano-British antiquities. The occurrence of this double bicentenary seems to provide an appropriate opportunity for reminding readers of the Journal of the magnitude of the achievement represented by the Britannia Romana. A fully documented account of the author's career, together with an estimate of the value of his work, will appear in the forthcoming volume of Archaeologia Aeliana. For the present purpose, therefore, a brief summary will suffice.

Of the names that follow it is impossible to say in general that they give any obvious or likely clue to their origin. These notes merely indicate what seem possibilities in each case. The same order is followed as in the preceding group.

Άϰύλιος

This is the Greek form of the nomen Aquilius or Aquillius. It occurs as the name of a gymnasiarch with the praenomen Γάϊος at Asine in Messenia. Tod says that the letters are late and carelessly cut. No date can be fixed for the document. The only Roman official of this name who seems to have been connected with Achaia in imperial times was L. Aquillius C. f. Florus Turcianus Gallus, who governed the province probably not later than the reign of Augustus. Gaius is a praenomen in his family.

The considerable literature that has already gathered round the Palestinian inscription on violation of sepulture published by M. Cumont in 1930 leaves little new to be said. There is, however, a gap to be filled for the English reader; moreover discussion has now cleared away certain initial misconceptions, so that a restatement may be useful. I have tried to acknowledge all substantial obligations, but beg to be excused the tedium of meticulous citation. Here, once for all, are the previous publications known to me; subsequent reference will generally be by author's name only.