At the outset the question may well be raised whether there is any real justification for the inclusion of a paper on such a theme in the programme of a Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Is Byzantine civilisation—in any true sense of the word—Roman at all? To judge from not a few modern studies of the life of the East Roman Empire, the answer to that question could only be in the negative. Take what is perhaps the best known brief presentment of Byzantine history—that of Professor Diehl of Paris—and the reader will not long be left in doubt. The preface proclaims the character of the Empire: Byzantium very quickly became, and was essentially, an oriental monarchy. In the sixth century, before Justinian's accession, one could well believe that the dream of a purely oriental empire was near its realisation.

The monument and tomb of a Vestal Virgin have recently been brought to light at Tivoli through a small landslide caused by heavy rain, on the edge of the lake formed in the bed of the Anio above the great waterfall. They lie between the river and the ancient Via Valeria, within a stone's throw of the railway station, and are about a quarter of a mile from the temple of Vesta, which crowns the rock of the citadel overlooking the Fall, and is perhaps the most beautiful and romantic of all the beautiful ruins of Italy.

The British Museum has acquired a military diploma (figs. 1–4) issued on July 17th, A.D. 122, to Gemellus, a non-commissioned officer of the Ala I Pannoniorum Tampiana, granting the usual privileges of a time-expired auxiliary—citizenship and the right to contract a legal marriage. It was found in 1925 at O-Szöny, the ancient Brigetio in Pannonia Superior, on the Danube fifty miles west of Buda-Pest. Seals and wiring have disappeared, though it is said that the bronze wire was still in position round the tablets when they were found. The two bronze tablets are complete; a corner of the rear one was broken by the pick, but the fragments have been rejoined and the break does not obscure the letters. There is a slight edging round the outer texts, the inner surfaces are flat. The dimensions are 6½ × 5¾ in. (·165 × ·148 m.).

Any attempt to sketch. Cicero's political ideals from his own treatises de Republica and de Legibus has to confront two difficulties, one of which, at least is real and insuperable. This obstacle is that both treatises are in their present condition so defective or fragmentary that we have to judge Cicero's ideal from a torso, not a complete work. The six books On the Republic were clearly finished and published just before Cicero started for Cilicia in 51 B.C.; but though the bulk of the first three books has been recovered from the Vatican palimpsest, of the last three we have only the Somnium Scipionis and the merest fragments, so that on education and, above all, on Cicero's specific remedy for the evils of the day, the ‘moderator rei publicae,’ we have to reconstruct his views from two or three isolated notices accidentally preserved. The de Legibus was begun as soon as, or before, the Republic was finished, but was discontinued during Cicero's proconsulate and the Civil War (51–48 B.C.).

61. Fig. 6. Three blocks forming the lintel of a doorway at the head of the steps descending into the Fountain Court from the north. The inscription originally ran across all three blocks, but the part on the last block has been completely obliterated by weathering. Height of inscribed face, 15 cm.; lengths, 78 cm. and 92 cm. Height of letters, 3·5 cm. The sign rendered ἔτους is L.

The work of the spade and the use of common sense have done much to mitigate the influence of Tacitus and Pliny and redeem the memory of Domitian from infamy or oblivion. But much remains to be done. The policy of this able and intelligent Emperor has been vindicated on the frontiers, but is still, in the matter of finance, condemned as extravagant and ruinous. Not only is this the view of those who, with the warrant of the senatorial tradition, see little in his reign but the dark night of despotism before the dawn of a new era of felicity—even a judicious historian like M. Gsell reproaches Domitian for not having done enough to restore the finances of the Empire, compromised as they had already been by Titus. So the charge is not baseless: and it is more with sorrow than with surprise that we read at the beginning of M. Carcopino's elegant and ingenious paper, Les richesses des Daces et le redressement de l'empire romain, the emphatic statement ‘c' est un fait reconnu de tous que Domitien laissa derrière lui une situation financière obérée.’

In the study of decorated Terra Sigillata from a chronological point of view the work of the potter Butrio occupies an important place, for it is not only typical of the Trajanic period, especially of the decade of A.D. 110–120, but in many respects the style is transitional between the characteristics of Flavian and Hadrian-Antonine potters. Most of Butrio's figure-types reveal (as will be shown) a close association with Libertus on the one hand, both potters using many types in common; whilst on the other hand the Hadrianic potters of Blickweiler and the Hadrian-Antonine potter Paternus of Lezoux have in turn utilised figure-types occurring on the bowls of Butrio. In fact, out of 97 figure-types known to have been used by Butrio, as many as 49 occur on bowls signed by Libertus.

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.