It is the purpose of this paper to consider a few of the more outstanding contributions towards the solution of this familiar problem propounded since the publication in 1898 of Sir Samuel Dill's book on Roman Society in the last century of the Western Empire (2nd edn., 1899). It may well appear somewhat surprising that I should venture to speak on such a topic, since my own work, such as it is, has been concerned rather with the history of the Byzantine Empire. And yet for a student of Byzantine history the problem has a special interest: he is forced to consider that problem not merely as a West European issue, but rather to compare and contrast the historical development in the western and eastern provinces of the Empire. He is compelled to raise the question: why was it that the Roman Empire failed to survive in Western Europe while it endured for a further millennium in the East ? The very fact that he is primarily interested in the history of the Byzantine Empire enables him to approach the Western problem from a different angle and to treat that problem in a wider setting and not in isolation.

This strange poem, preserved as part of the miscellaneous collection which Scaliger named Appendix Vergiliana, is interesting from more than one point of view. But if we want to understand it and form an idea of its background, we must first clear up some points of detail and also, where it is necessary, examine the readings of our text, based as it is on manuscripts whose quality is not all that we might wish. Since for this initial section a separation of the major points from the minor ones has not proved feasible, my comments will simply follow the order of the lines.

The immense mound of many million broken jars known as Monte Testaccio—still to be seen at the old emporium of Rome—provides in the trade-marks some material not elsewhere available for the study of Roman commerce; and Dressel's publication of many hundred of these marks (CIL xv, 2) deserves the highest praise for the patience expended in their transcription, despite the fact that later scholars have had to correct many of the conclusions that Dressel ventured to draw from them.

Since not a single one of these jars has been discovered unbroken, we must gain our knowledge of the customary items from the fragments of several jars. These items, not always found in the same order, are usually the following :

(1) The potter's trade-mark (usually the initials of the potter's name) was stamped on the handle before the jar was baked. See CIL xv, 2, nos. 2558 ff., for these.

(2) At the foreign customs or shipping office the full jar was marked in bold brush strokes with the weight of the empty jar, the name of the shipper (owner), and the weight of the full jar, thus :

(The shipper usually owned his cargo, hence the genitive form of his name.)

(3) By the side of an inscription of this kind there occurs another in smaller lettering containing a number of items that concern the customs house as well as the shipper—e.g. no. 4366 :

The interpretation is probably as follows (cf. Am. Jour. Phil. 1936, 87 ff.):

‘Received ; Hispalis ; value 20 sest. ; weight 215 lbs. ; from estate of Capito ; export duty : 2 asses; name of clerk; consular date (A.D. 179).’

No complete account of Pompey's settlement of Asia Minor has been preserved. The text of Cassius Dio is missing, and Xiphilinus supplies no more than a general phrase. Appian, after mentioning the foundation of Nicopolis in Lesser Armenia, describes the recognition of Ariobarzanes as king of Cappadocia with the accession of Sophene and Gordyene, of Castabala and certain other cities in Cilicia. These events he assigns to a time before Pompey's Syrian expedition. In a later passage, in which Pompey's achievements and arrangements are summed up, he speaks of the assignment of Armenia (Major) to Tigranes, Bosporus to Pharnaces, Cappadocia and the other places described before to Ariobarzanes. Seleuceia and other territory in Mesopotamia are given to Antiochus of Commagene. He continues: ἐποίει δὲ ϰαὶ τετράρχας, Γαλλογραιϰῶν μέν, οἳ νῦν εἰσὶ Γαλάται Καππαδόϰαις ὅμοροι, Δηιόταρον ϰαὶ ἑτέρους, Παϕλαγονίας δὲ Ἄτταλον ϰαὶ Κόλχων Ἀρίσταρχον δυνάστην. Then after referring to the appointment of Archelaus as priest-king in Comana and of the recognition as amicus populi Romani of Castor of Phanagoreia he adds: πολλὴν δὲ ϰαὶ ἑτέροις χώραν τε ϰαὶ χρήματα ἔδωϰεν.

Julius Caesar defeated Ptolemy xii on the Nile on March 27th, 47 B.C. After establishing Cleopatra and her brother, Ptolemy xiii, on the throne of Egypt, Caesar proceeded against Pharnaces whom he defeated at Zela, in Pontus, on August 2nd. How long did Caesar delay at Alexandria before leaving for this campaign ?

The length of his stay after the battle of the Nile is variously estimated. Ferrero says that Caesar remained at Alexandria for two months, leaving on the last day of May. Professor Adcock agrees with Ferrero and so does Carcopino. O. E. Schmidt and Rice Holmes calculate that Caesar left Alexandria on the 7th or 8th of June. Judeich and E. Meyer place the date of his departure on June 20th, while Heitland and Weigall give him a reprieve from active service till the first week in July.

The drawings (plates XII–XVIII) which accompany this article were prepared during my tenure of the Rome Scholarship at the British School at Rome; and, while they may be sufficient for the architect or the layman to obtain a better realisation of the original state of the monument, it has been thought that an attempt should be made to discuss, in greater detail than it is possible to present on the drawings, the various considerations and data upon which an essay in the restoration of an ancient building must necessarily be based. To this end the following article has been prepared.

I wish to acknowledge, with many thanks, the valuable help and advice which I have received from Dr. Thomas Ashby, late Director of the British School at Rome, especially in connexion with the first section of the article, and also the suggestive criticisms which I received from Dr. Ashby and Prof. Ch. Hülsen during the preparation of my drawings.

In this article we describe a series of computer algorithms that generate prose rhythm data for any digitised corpus of Latin texts. Using these algorithms, we present prose rhythm data for most major extant Latin prose authors from Cato the Elder through the second century a.d. Next we offer a new approach to determining the statistical significance of such data. We show that, while only some Latin authors adhere to the Ciceronian rhythmic canon, every Latin author is ‘rhythmical’ — they just choose different rhythms. Then we give answers to some particular questions based on our data and statistical approach, focusing on Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. In addition to providing comprehensive new data on Latin prose rhythm, presenting new results based on that data and confirming certain long-standing beliefs, we hope to make a contribution to a discussion of digital and statistical methodology in the study of Latin prose rhythm and in Classics more generally. The Supplementary Material available online (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075435819000881) contains an appendix with tables, data and code. This appendix constitutes a static ‘version of record’ for the data presented in this article, but we expect to continue to update our code and data; updates can be found in the repository of the Classical Language Toolkit (https://github.com/cltk/cltk).

The provincial coinage of the Roman Empire has proven to be a rich source for studying civic experiences of Roman rule, but the coins struck outside Rome during the expansion of the Roman Republic have, by contrast, received relatively little attention. This article aims to begin redressing this neglect by exploring the active rôle of coinage in conceptualizing and representing Roman Republican power. A variety of approaches to this neglected material are employed in order to highlight its potential as a source. Ambiguity, iconology, and entanglement are used as frameworks to explore case studies from across the Roman Republican world, from Spain to Syria. This approach to coin imagery under the Republic reveals the complexity and variety in which the Roman presence, and Roman imperium, was represented before the advent of the Principate.

On 15th August 1947 there came to light, during dredging operations in the River Wensum at Worthing, 15 miles N.W. of Norwich (fig. 2), a Roman decorated helmet, which is possibly the first military object of the Roman period to be found in Norfolk. The site and circumstances of the discovery, and the other finds made nearby, are described below (p. 26). To the fact of its having been sealed in a bed of peat under several feet of shingle we doubtless owe the remarkably fine state of preservation in which the helmet has survived.

Dr. A. A. Moss, who analysed the helmet in the Research Laboratory of the British Museum, has pronounced it to be of brass low in zinc content and corresponding approximately in composition to the alloy now called gilding metal. It weighs 1 lb. 5⅝ oz. and is 25·1 cm. in height, including the crest, 24·2 cm. in length, from back to front, and 20·2 cm. in its greatest width. The average thickness of the metal is from 1 to 1·5 mm.

At the suggestion of Professor T. B. L. Webster these lines deal with the reliefs of a sarcophagus which, through the kindness of the owner, J. Baskervyle-Glegg, Esq., of Withington Hall, Chelford, is illustrated on Plates vi–viii. It has stood in the garden of Withington Hall since it was brought from Italy by the grandfather or great-grandfather of the present owner, perhaps when on his Grand Tour.

It is a fluted sarcophagus. The central relief shows the group of the three Graces before a curtain. The spaces on either side contain the figures of husband and wife, who were buried in the sarcophagus—on the left, the woman in the manner of the ‘petite Herculanaise,’ on the right, the man in classical toga. Both stand before the usual curtain (pl. vii). Only the main forms of the head are blocked out; the man was intended to have a beard. By the woman stands a little girl holding a box; by the man a boy is represented in an unusual running posture, carrying a vessel. Even if the final processes, which were still to come, are taken into account, the heads of the man and woman are disproportionately large, as is common in Roman art when the artist is a local craftsman. The corners of the sarcophagus are rounded; on each of the ends vertical fluting is followed by a pair of crossed shields, behind which axes and spears can be seen (pl. viii).

Mathrafal, the ancient seat of the Princes of Powys, has in the past been regarded as a Roman site, on the strength of certain tiles found there. Mr. F. N. Pryce has investigated the site; he finds that the tiles are not Roman and are associated with much modern pottery, and suggests that they belong to the seventeenth or eighteenth century.

The tower at Coed-y-Garreg (Whitford parish, Flints.), whose identification as a Roman lighthouse was long ago rejected by Haverfield, is dated by Mr. B. H. St. J. O'Neil to the sixteenth or early seventeenth century.

The efforts of scholars have failed to find a generally accepted single reason for the institution of what it will be convenient to call Consular Tribunes, i.e. Tribuni Militum consulari potestate or consulari imperio or pro consulibus. The irregular oscillation between pairs of Consuls and three, and later four, Consular Tribunes which is attested for the first forty years of the institution (444–406 B.C.) appeared to Beloch, not without reason, to contain an element of irrationality and to be without parallel in ancient constitutional practice. But even those scholars who are least inclined to trust the consular Fasti would admit that, though they may contain interpolations or omissions or the misreading of names, the fact of this oscillation cannot be denied, and, moreover, that the names of magistrates of this period are, in the main, to be trusted.

Exiger des otages ou en donner, afin de garantir des engagements reçus ou pris, est un fait courant pendant toute l'Antiquité — pour ne pas parler des temps qui l'ont suivie. Rome a fréquemment appliqué cet usage. Plus qu'aucun autre Etat antique? Les données brutes de la statistique conduiraient à l'affirmer. Mais elles demeurent sans portée, puisqu'elles ne peuvent pas se pondérer en fonction de la durée de chaque Etat, de l'activité de sa politique extérieure, de l'abondance et de la précision des détails fournis par nos sources sur cette politique. De toute façon, le recours aux otages n'était fait pour surprendre aucun de ceux que les hasards de la diplomatie ou de la guerre plaçaient au contact des Romains. Bien avant de connaître ceux-ci, tous connaissaient déjà le procédé, au moins pour l'avoir vu utiliser autour d'eux et, la plupart, pour l'avoir eux-mêmes utilisé à l'occasion. Il n'en a guère été de plus normal ni de mieux admis dans la pratique des rapports internationaux.

This article argues that Oration 1 by Themistius was prompted by violence at Constantinople in 341–2, and that the likeliest date for the speech is as early as March 342. Detailed arguments are presented in support of this correlation, which contrasts with the usual assignment of Themistius' speech to either 347/348 or 350/351. The wider significance of these arguments is also highlighted. In particular, there are implications for our understanding of the chronology and overall trajectory of Themistius' early career; and implications for the development of imperial ideology in the 340s.

A handbook of astrology seems an improbable source of information about Constantine's dealings with the Roman Senate. Yet if the work were contemporary, and if both author and addressee were senators, then a few passages might betray a hint of transactions either not otherwise attested or not elsewhere documented in any detail. Such is in fact the case with the Mathesis of Julius Firmicus Maternus Junior v.c., of which one passage in particular can be made to disclose specific facts of some historical importance. Maternus discusses the horoscope of a man, whose father was exiled after twice being ordinary consul, and whose own career advanced from exile to the urban prefecture of Rome. Neither is named; they were familiar to both the author and the addressee of his work.