Since the antiquaries of the eighteenth century—Hunter, Gordon, and Horsley—identified the forts on Hadrian's Wall with the stations per lineam valli by means of inscriptions found in them, further epigraphic material has accumulated, as a result of which all the forts except those at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Rudchester, as far west as Birdoswald, have produced evidence of the regiments assigned by the Notitia Dignitatum to the stations Segedunum-(C)amboglanna. But, in a number of instances, there have also come to light inscriptions set up by regiments that do not occur in the Notitia, or that are placed elsewhere in that list; the purpose of the present paper is to consider the significance of these inscriptions.

The problem of the reckoning of the tribunician power of the Roman Emperors leads us along thorny paths; but they are paths which the seeker after a true chronology must tread. The method usually followed by historians to-day—that of Eckhel, as developed and amplified by Mommsen—certainly approximates to the truth and seldom leads one far astray. There remain, however, sufficient evidences to show that it is not the whole truth; and, where exactness in dating really matters, nothing but the whole truth will do.

A certain number of extant inscriptions and oral traditions which still linger in remote places, as in the Djebel Nefouca, to the south of Leptis Magna and Oea, indicate that there was a time when the cult of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul existed in Roman Africa; but the distribution of evidence, which is largely derived from the fringes of the Roman province, in Mauretania and in southern Numidia, invites the question why places so far removed from the Latin influence of the proconsular province should show such interest in the see of Rome and its founders.

In a previous article (JRS XXIV, 168–86) we reproduced the new text and discussed its critical significance. It contains two new passages, the contents of the first of which are studied here. The passage (PSI 1182, 11–43, Gaius 3, 154a) runs:

‘Sed ea quidem societas de qua loquimur, id est quae nudo consensu contrahitur, iuris gentium est; itaque inter omnes homines naturali ratione consistit.’ (Here the new text begins) ‘est autem aliud genus societatis proprium civium Romanorum. olim enim mortuo patre familias inter suos heredes quaedam erat legitima simul et naturalis societas, quae appellabatur ercto non cito, id est dominio non diviso : erctum enim dominium est unde erus dominus dicitur : ciere autem dividere est : unde caedere et secare dicimus. alii quoque qui volebant eandem habere societatem poterant id consequi apud praetorem certa legis actione. In hac autem societate fratrum ceterorumve qui ad exemplum fratrum suorum societatem coierint illud proprium erat, quod vel unus ex sociis communem servum manumittendo liberum faciebat et omnibus libertum adquirebat: item unus remcommunem mancipando …’

Livy i, 18, 6, describing the accession of the second King of Rome, provides food for much thought on the part of those who are interested in the religious ideas of early Italy, and gives us the material for a brisk controversy which is far from being settled. Despite therefore the familiar contents of this passage, I quote the part of it which is most important for our purpose.

Accitus … de se quoque deos consuli iussit. inde ab augure, cui deinde honoris ergo publicum id perpetuumque sacerdotium fuit, deductus in arcem, in lapide ad meridiem uersus consedit. augur ad laeuam eius … dextras ad meridiem partes, laeuas ad septentrionem esse dixit.

Numa then is facing south ; the augur is facing east. Both are engaged in the same important ceremony. Why do they not look the same way, but at right angles to each other, and what is the significance of their respective attitudes ?

Artemidorus, quoted by Strabo xii, 7, 2, enumerates the Pisidian cities as follows: Selge, Sagalassos, Petnêlissos, Adada, Tymbriada, Krêmna, Pityassos, Amblada, Anaboura, Sinda, Aarassos, Tarbassos, Termêssos. Some of these names are doubtful, and the list is short. Aarassos is otherwise unknown; Tityassos is a more common form of Pityassos, but variation between initial P and T through TW is characteristic of Anatolian words; e.g. Perseus was the herofounder of Tersos-Tarsos, now Tersous. It is proposed here merely to register some recent discoveries.

Amid all the disputes and controversies that have centred on the Roman army of the Empire since Mommsen's day, one important chapter in that army's history has remained curiously free from question; however many legions Augustus retained, whenever this legion was raised or that destroyed, all writers are in agreement that Vespasian, early in his principate, cashiered some of the mutinous legions of the Rhine armies.

The great majority of writers are agreed that the legions so dismissed were I, IIII Macedonica, XV Primigenia, and XVI Gallica; though Hardy, following Grotefend and Schilling, suggested that XV might have survived even into Trajan's principate: to-day, however, no one maintains this view, which was the outcome of a failure to account for Vespasian's apparent reduction of the number of legions.

Some fifty miles north-east of Jerusalem, on the rugged plateau between the Jordan and the desert to the east, lies a ruined city whose striking remains have attracted the interest of hardy travellers ever since the beginning of the last century—Jerash, the ancient Gerasa, in Transjordania. This district was the Decapolis of the Romans, though its cities numbered more than ten. Since that time war and the centuries have obliterated all trace of many of them; but Jerash, with its temples and theatres, its paved and colonnaded market and streets, its almost intact walls and its many Christian churches, is still beautiful and imposing. None the less, it is only very recently that its full significance has begun to be realised. Heretofore it has been usual to assume that Jerash attained prosperity and importance only under the Antonines, beginning with Trajan's annexation of Arabia in A.D. 105–6, and his assignment of Jerash to that province. This opinion was supported by the fact that the inscriptions supply dates of the second century or later for most of the public buildings; but a reconsideration of the archaeological and epigraphic evidence shows that the present plan of the city and the present form of the public buildings are due merely to alteration and rebuilding under the Antonines. From the materials which we now have it is possible to reconstruct a good picture of the flourishing and active city of the first century—further, to show that this prosperity was itself not new, but firmly based on a long and continuous past.

It is with considerable reluctance that I offer a few comments on the possible significance of the Flavian reliefs discovered between 1937 and 1939 close by the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. For the interpretation of monuments such as these is largely subjective; and, in a matter on which any student may claim as good a right to his own opinion as any other, the use of space in this Journal to make suggestions which few may think convincing needs special justification. That justification must be found in the encouragement to ventilate the ideas which follow (ideas first aired before the Anglo-Swedish Classical Conference at Lund in August, 1947) given me by various friends—particularly Dr. Arvid Andrén, Professors Axel Boëthius and Einar Gjerstad, Dr. P. G. Hamberg, and Professors A. D. Nock and A. W. Persson. None of these gentlemen should be assumed to agree with any of my conclusions, but to all of them my hearty thanks for useful discussion are due and are hereby offered. Furthermore, it must be made plain that these remarks are not intended even to touch on the problems connected with the development of Roman art in the Flavian age to the evidence for which these friezes are a most notable addition. They are confined to the question, What are the reliefs about ?

When we examine recent discussions about this fragment from the first book of the Bellum Poenicum (19 Morel, 44–6 Warmington, 7 Marmorale), we find an agreement such as otherwise is rare in classical studies. In many countries many scholars, old and young, have adopted Hermann Fränkel's view (Hermes LXX, 1935, 59 ff.) that the passage was inspired by certain sculptures which Naevius had seen at the temple of Zeus Olympios at Acragas. But whereas Fränkel himself drew only cautious conclusions (he assigned the fragment to the story of Aeneas and considered more than one possible way in which it might be connected with that story), several among his followers jumped to the history of the year 262 B.C. and used the fragment as a cornerstone for the reconstruction of the main narrative of the Bellum Poenicum.

The inscription which we published in this Journal, XLVIII, 1958, 117–129 (hereafter referred to as ‘F – N’) from a photograph, has now been collated by Fraser (June, 1961), and we offer here some improved readings, and consider their consequences (I). We also consider (II) some points raised by others.

During the fifty years that have elapsed since the great cycle of Dionysiac paintings was unearthed in the villa named after them at Pompeii, the search for their understanding has made reassuring progress. This search will never lead us out of ultimate ignorance about the deepest meaning which such visual imagery had within the context of an ancient mystery religion and we may resign ourselves to awareness of our own limitations in this respect. The best we can hope for is that we may learn to understand the surface meaning of images, whose full significance was only made clear to the initiated, to the degree to which, in antiquity, an uninitiated person could understand them. The last two published extensive discussions of this cycle of murals show clearly, however, that we are still far from having achieved even that degree of understanding. The impasse that has been reached can be overcome only by introducing new evidence and it is my hope that some progress can be made by doing so in the following pages.

The movements of the Second Legion (Legio II Augusta) in the first three decades of the Roman occupation of Britain have for long been a subject of speculation. In particular, the quest for the site of its first semi-permanent base, before the establishment of the fortress at Caerleon, has given rise to the conjecture that at Gloucester it would be found. The only evidence for this has been the size and shape of the Roman enceinte known to exist there and the general probability of the site, considered in relation to the Severn crossing. Other evidence adduced in the past by local antiquaries will not bear scrutiny in the light of modern knowledge.