The potters who left the declining South Gaulish Samian factories in order to start their own workshops at Lezoux, in Central Gaul, experienced in their turn the loss of potters who, after learning the craft, went away to start the many small Samian factories which existed in East Gaul and Germany during the second and early third centuries. Many of these were so successful that their products were used in quantity in north-east Gaul and the Rhineland, and even reached many sites in Britain. To mention only a few, the wares from Lavoye and La Madeleine are notable at Corbridge and South Shields, and much Trier ware has been found at Corbridge.

The intention of this survey, as of its predecessors, is to assess the contribution to Roman studies of recent progress in epigraphy. Its aim is to draw attention to the more important newly-published inscriptions, to known or familiar texts whose significance has been reinterpreted, to the progress of publishing projects, and to a selection of recent work based upon epigraphic sources. It is mainly, but not exclusively, concerned with the implications of new work for Roman history and for that reason does not consider a number of otherwise interesting Hellenistic texts. It hardly needs to be said that there has been no publication remotely as significant as the SC de Cn. Pisone patre, which was reported in the previous survey, and to which we devote some further space here. But there are plenty of new or revised texts of sufficient interest: an honorific decree from Pergamon for a member of the city élite who clearly played a key part in the negotiations with the Romans at the time of the war with Aristonicus; the uncle of Cicero initiated into the Samothracian mysteries in 100B.C.; Octavian honoured at Klaros on account of his ‘quasi-divine exploits’; the Tessera Paemeiobrigensis or aes Bergidense, which appears to be an edict by Augustus of 15 B.C. alluding to a hitherto unknown Spanish province of this period — ‘Transduria(na)’; a startling re-interpretation of the significance of the ‘Tiberiéum’ inscription set up by Pontius Pilate at Caesarea Maritima; the splendid replacement for Henzen's Acta Arvalium; the foundation inscription of Sarmizegetusa; one of the very earliest references to waterwheels, called hydromēchanai (a word unknown to LSJ), in a long-known second-century A.D. text from Macedonia, where they were evidently employed on a large scale to produce income for the city; the transport by ‘barbarians’ of a Roman votive inscription, besides more obviously valuable booty, more than 200 km from the Roman frontier into what is now the Ukraine; and a re-reading suggesting that the well-known ‘milestone’ from Phoenicia honouring Julian as templorum restaurator was indeed, as Bowersock argued, erected immediately before the Persian expedition.

The republican art of Rome and Latium has been much neglected. Even the admirable article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica which is signed by one of our foremost scholars, the same writer's Companion to Roman Studies, and the article on Roman art in the Cambridge Companion to Latin Studies begin the subject of Roman art with Augustus, or give only the briefest of indications for what precedes; yet more can be done in the way of reconstructing a picture of the earlier period than most archaeologists suppose, and it is my purpose in the present paper to show how the fictile decorations from the early Latin temples can be used to this end. My examples are taken mainly from the collection of terracotta recently arranged in the new wing of the Museo di Villa Giulia. These form a homogeneous group from sites in the immediate vicinity of Rome, and they are exhibited as far as possible in chronological order, so that the development of this branch of art can be studied from its earliest manifestations to its decay in the last century of the republic, when terracotta decoration had to give way to the marble sculptures introduced in the wake of Hellenistic art.

“Virgile,” Sainte-Beuve wrote between fifty and sixty years ago in words which have become classical, “depuis l'heure où il parut a été le poète de la Latinité toute entière.” The saying has long been noted as marking what may be called the reinstatement of Virgil as a poet, after a period in which he had suffered some partial eclipse under the ignorant and impatient attacks of the romantic school. But to us now it may bear a further and a larger significance. The position of Virgil as a poet stands at the present day in need of no defence, but it is only during the last generation that his importance has come to be realised as an interpreter and recorder of Roman history and of the Latin civilisation. Classical study has during that generation been revolutionised. Our knowledge and understanding of the ancient world have become not only immensely greater in amount, but different in kind; year by year, almost day by day, we are getting more into touch with that world as something alive and solid. The studies of this Society, defined by us as those dealing with the history, art, and archaeology of Rome, Italy, and the Roman Empire, bear directly on our appreciation of the most learned and most comprehensive of Roman or Italian poets; and conversely Virgil's poetry yields up to the new methods and new enthusiasm of historians, artists, and archaeologists material which is so far from being exhausted that we seem still only beginning to sort it out, co-ordinate it, and use it.

There has been general agreement both in ancient and in modern times that Hannibal's hope of final victory rested mainly on the chance of arousing widespread disaffection to the cause of Rome among the populations of Italy. It was natural that he should overrate this prospect. He knew that many of the nations which had been welded into a great confederacy under Roman leadership had fought stoutly for their independence and retained vivid memories of the not far distant contest. I propose to study the extent to which the cities and peoples of Italy gave aid to the invader, and to show how the relations of the revolting Italians with the predominant power were changed thereby. Ancient authors made extravagant statements about Hannibal's success in sowing strife between Rome and her allies. In this respect there is nothing to choose between Polybius and Livy. They themselves enable us in large measure to detect the great insecurity of their hasty generalisations. Yet modern writers often echo the errors and fail to supply, or only inadequately give, the corrections. Solely by a thorough and somewhat tedious scrutiny of details can the untrustworthiness of the large general assertions be fully exhibited. The process must resemble somewhat that of cross-examination in a court of law, whereby unsound evidence is gradually broken down. I have been induced to undertake the task by failure to find elsewhere any treatment of the subject which makes an approach to completeness.

As long as poetry has existed, men. have wondered and argued about its relationship to reality. The Muses, meeting Hesiod beneath Mount Helicon, told him that they knew how to tell many lies that sounded like truth; Solon and Pindar echo the chastening refrain, and Plato and Aristotle are concerned to find new answers to the hoary problem. Poetry is in fact a very slippery stuff, which seems to turn into something else as we try to comprehend it; like Proteus, it can turn under our grasp into a raging fire—the revolutionary Marxist view, perhaps; or a wild beast—the Freudian id, as it might be; or, most commonly, into a stream of water, which flows away to nothing between our hands.

The harvest of new inscriptions from the past five years seems to be larger than ever, which is, no doubt, to be attributed to new developments in agriculture and building, especially in those countries which had hitherto changed little since antiquity; these are sharply increasing the number of monuments found (and sometimes destroyed) by chance, while more systematic search organized ahead of the machines in some areas (Italy is notable) has also increased the number found by design. It must be admitted that not all the new texts are being published very well; and that some are appearing only in sketchy or popular accounts and in newspapers or journals which are either irrelevant to Classical studies, or are mushrooms which die after a few numbers and so do not find their way into most Classical libraries. This is tedious, but better, surely, than that they should remain quite unreported. In any case, although the writer's own record in this matter is blacker than it should be, it seems reasonable to urge again that excavators and epigraphists should be more willing to give quickly an initial publication which does not aim to be definitive on the first round.