So far as the author knows, no other recension of this much-quoted text has appeared since the original publication by Hunt, reprinted with only slight changes by the New Palaeographical Society. Yet it is a document of the highest importance both palaeo graphically and historically. As some sort of pridianum, that is, an annual report of a military unit's condition in respect to personnel, it is valuable for Roman military organization. It is unique in being the report of a unit stationed in Lower Moesia; and its value is further enhanced by its date early in Trajan's reign, during his preparations for his first Dacian war. The papyrus is therefore worthy of every effort to establish an accurate text, the more because Hunt himself conscientiously emphasized the provisional nature of his own transcription. The present paper, then, though unsolved difficulties still remain, is intended to make available the numerous improvements in reading and interpretation which result from a new study of the original which the author was able to undertake in the winter of 1956–1957.

In the early spring of 1937 I first visited the fort and quarries of grey granite (pl. V) at Mons Claudianus (Gebel Fitery) between the Nile at Qena and the Gulf of Suez at Sofaga, 33° 297prime; E., 26° 48′ N.—visited and described by Wilkinson, James Burton, Schweinfurth, and others, —and made notes and photographs of one very large column (pl. V, 3) and a part of another (8 ft. 6 in. and 7 ft. 9 in. diameter at the bottom and top respectively, and 59 ft. long), lying in the quarry from which they were hewn, and of the fragment of another of similar dimensions abandoned by the roadside on the way down from the quarries to wady level. There were several other columns, lying in the wady, of smaller dimensions (from 20 ft. long and 3 ft. diameter to 30 ft. long and 3 ft. 6 in. diameter).

In situations in which understanding is disrupted or made difficult, the conditions of all understanding emerge with the greatest clarity. Thus the linguistic process by means of which a conversation in two languages is made possible through translation is especially informative. (Gadamer)

This article was prompted by a reading of Pound's Homage to Sextus Propertius, and, in particular, by a basic question: why might the argumentative, edgy poet Pound have been drawn to Propertius? What might he have seen in him? Some of the attraction, no doubt, lay in Propertius' slightly marginal status as a Classical author, part of the main tradition but on the edge. But it does not seem to have been the romantically agonized version of Propertius that Pound saw. Nor the merely clever, witty, light and playful Propertius – though he saw more of the second figure than the first.

In a paper on Justus Lipsius and the text of Tacitus's Annals, published in the last issue of this Journal, the present writer did not touch upon the difficult question of interpolations. It has been asserted that ‘there are not many glosses in Tacitus’. This can hardly hold for the Histories and Annals XI–XVI, that is, for the works contained in the Second Mediceus. In fact, the two codices unici differ in this as in other respects. As for the Med. no. II, that is, for Histories and Annals XI–XVI, I still feel convinced by W. Heraeus's and C. D. Fisher's arguments. Arguments are indeed hardly needed in a case like Hist. II, 98, where a snatch of verse has been thrust into the text, cutting one Tacitean word in two. There are not a few cases where interpolation of glosses can be proved, and the whole subject might usefully be gone over again in its own context.

This survey is intended primarily to assess the impact on Roman studies in general of recent work in Roman epigraphy — whether newly published inscriptions, revised editions, or texts that have been reconsidered or newly analysed in the light of specific themes. We mean to draw attention to those epigraphic studies that make a significant contribution, in particular, to Roman history. Hence the considerable space we devote below to the newly published Senatus Consultum on Cnaeus Piso, of which any future study of the reign of Tiberius (or of the relations between senate and emperor in the early Principate) will have to take account. Other highlights include a centurion's own reflections (in verse) on his unit's building works at Bu-Njem in Tripolitania; a major revision of the inscribed texts of Roman laws; the first known letter of Lucullus; and a new text from Messene orchestrating the city's responses to the death of Augustus. At the same time, in this introduction, we note one or two developments in recent epigraphic practice. Though these aspects are necessarily more technical, we include them in order to help readers to find the epigraphic data they might need (publication is increasingly diverse, and in an ever wider range of media); and then to assess the texts, the dates, and the conclusions the epigraphists are offering. ‘What you get’ in epigraphy is not necessarily ‘what you see’.

That the lex Clodia of 58 B.C. repealed either in whole or in part the lex Aelia Fufia of c. 153 B.C. is adequately attested by our ancient authorities and universally admitted by modern scholars. The crux of the question is: was the lex Aelia Fufia wholly abrogated by the lex Clodia, and, if not, precisely what part of the former law was repealed by the legislation of Clodius? Despite the statement of Cicero—‘mitto eam legem, quae omnia iura religionum, auspiciorum, potestatum, omnes leges quae sunt de iure et de tempore legum rogandarum, una rogatione delevit’—which is obviously rhetorical and biased, no one, so far, as the writer knows, holds the view that all clauses of the lex Aelia Fufia were repealed by the lex Clodia. This inquiry, therefore, is an attempt to determine how much of the lex Aelia Fufia the lex Clodia repealed.

The Tabula Hebana ( = TH) has brought fresh evidence about the honours decreed for Germanicus after his death in A.D. 19. These clauses of the tablet, in contrast to the central, legal, clauses, have been unduly neglected in the discussion. I do not claim that they are as important as the legal clauses; but I feel that they are worth greater attention than they have so far received and that at least one of the two honours which I propose to discuss in this article, the provision of the empty curule chairs (1. 50 ff.), is of considerable interest. My answer to the question it raises need not be the right one; but often questions are more important than the answers.