In an important paper contributed several years ago to this Journal1 Dr. Tarn presented an interpretation of the Battle of Actium radically different from that which had held the field for the past generation—namely that of the late Professor Kromayer. The paper was brilliantly and authoritatively written, and its chief conclusions appear to have been accepted by some scholars. They were subsequently embodied by Tarn in his section on Actium in the Cambridge Ancient History. Kromayer, however, was unconvinced, and in a reply published in Hermes maintained his original thesis and strongly criticised Tarn's. It seems presumptuous to enter the lists after the veteran scholar has made his own defence; but the question is an important one, and something perhaps remains to be said.

So far as I am aware, no classical scholar has devoted much attention to the interpretation of a lamp-festival assigned to the 12th August in the calendar of Philocalus. Mommsen, Wissowa, Wilcken, Nilsson and Cumont have made some reference to it, but none of them has attempted to identify it with any of the numerous lamp-festivals of Egypt. And so this feast, though suspected by almost all scholars to be an Isiac ceremony, has remained a mystery. The only Egyptologist who tried to solve the riddle, and who all but succeeded, is Brugsch Bey. The fundamental theory of Brugsch is sound, namely that the ‘Lychnapsia Philocaliana’ should be linked with the most important festival of lamps in Egypt, which began with the five epagomenal days added at the end of Mesore, the twelfth and last month of the Egyptian calendar, in order to harmonise with the solar year a calendar of 360 days divided into twelve equal parts. But the question is with what particular rite in this festive period the ‘Lychnapsia Philocaliana’ should be linked.

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.

Perhaps the most remarkable of the various forms of decorated ‘Samian’ vessels is the jug or vase which is the main subject of this paper. Previously, the precise shape of these vessels was a matter of doubt, the recorded fragments being incomplete, generally lacking neck, handle and base. An attempt was made in 1933 to restore fragments existing in London on the lines of the St. Rémy green-glazed form, Déchelette 62, but this restoration has been found to be only approximately correct for the particular fragments which belong to Hermet's decorated form 15, as shown in his work La Graufesenque (Condatomago).

Tentative suggestions which conform to the conditions of a scientific hypothesis may play a useful part in furthering the slow and unending process of rediscovering antiquity. Proof or disproof of them must naturally await the discovery of fresh evidence, and such evidence may never come; but if it does, its appearance is doubly welcome when it furnishes proof. It is nearly forty years since my travels in Anatolia took me into the angle of north-western Galatia, lying between north-eastern Phrygia and the southern boundary of Bithynia, which ran along the watershed between the middle Sangarius and its chief tributary the Tembrogius or Tembris. The southern side of this watershed, immediately to the west of the junction of the two rivers, is an infertile and thinly populated district, but farther west, towards the Phrygian border, the mountain slopes open out into a broad plain which runs down to the Tembrogius; near its head are the two villages of Upper (or Great) and Lower Igde-agatch. Westward of this plain and separated from it only by a low ridge is a pleasant valley, watered by an affluent of the Tembrogius.

There is little need now to emphasise the importance of the declaration of war against Philip V of Macedon in the history of Roman imperialism, or to formulate the problem of the causes of the Roman decision to intervene in the East. The work of M. Holleaux has defined the problem and indicated its historical implications, and subsequent research has kept the issue clear. We have rather to justify a paper upon this subject which returns to details of reconstruction already fully treated. Yet the reconstruction of events has not received its final exposition, and a better understanding of the details is essential for the historical interpretation of the political situation in 200 B.C.

A corrected version given by Zangemeister, CIL xiii, 7945, of an inscription from Iversheim, near Münstereifel, previously misread (see ILS 2459; cf. Corrigenda, vol. Ill, ii, p. clxxviii), discloses a possible connection with an inscription from the fort of Birrens in Dumfriesshire, CIL vii, 1062 (PSA Scot. xxx, 133, no. 6). The Birrens inscription is a dedication to Brigantia by an Amandus who describes himself as arcitectus. The Iversheim inscription mentions a Val(erius) Amandus who as discens (architectus) carried out structural work there under Iulius Castinus, legate of the Legion 1 Minervia, duobus Augg. cos. A clue to the identity of the Augusti is given by an inscription from Aquincum, CIL iii, 10471, which shows that Castinus was legate of Lower Pannonia in the joint reign of Severus, Caracalla and Geta (cf. Dio, lxxviii, 13, 2).

The Emperor Julian stood to the Roman world of the fourth century as the personification of the older faith, and with him died the hopes of a pagan restoration. His death came at a critical moment, and both pagan and Christian felt that it could have been no human hand which dealt the fatal blow. To Kallistos Julian was the victim of a demon : Κάλλιστος δέ, writes Socrates, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οἰϰείοις τοῦ βασιλέως στρατευόμενος (i.e. as one of the imperial domestici), ἱστορήσας τὰ ϰατ᾿ αὐτὸν ἐν ἡρωιϰῷ μέτρῳ, τὸν τότε πόλεμον διηγούμενος ὑπὸ δαίμονος βληθέντα τελευτῆσαι ϕηαίν. The comment of the Christian historian is interesting : ὅπερ τυχὸν μὲν ὡς ποιητὴς ἔπλασε, τυχὸν δὲ ϰαί οὕτως ἔχει· πολλοὺσς γὰρ ἐριννύες μετῆλθον. Libanius pictures the blessings which men anticipated under Julian's rule and adds ταῦτα ϰαὶ ἔτι πλείω προσδοϰώμενα χορὸς φθονερῶν ἀφείλετο δαιμόνων. To the Christian similarly it was the saints who had fulfilled the will of Heaven in removing the Apostate persecutor of the Church, though a human assassin could hardly have been condemned—σχολῇ γε ἄν τις ϰαὶ αὐτῷ μέμψαιτο διὰ Θεόν ϰαὶ θρησϰείαν ἣν ἐπῄνεσεν ἀνδρείῳ γενομένῳ.

It is now some ten years since Sir Flinders Petrie entrusted to me, with the wish that I would edit them, one Latin and seven Greek tablets acquired by him in Egypt and placed among the collections of University College, London. The Greek tablets I edited in the 1927 volume of Ancient Egypt. I began the decipherment of the Latin tablet at the same time but then laid it aside, and its publication has remained ever since in abeyance, one of the tasks to be attempted ‘at a more convenient season.’ The primary cause of the delay was the pressure of more urgent work; but I must confess that a contributory factor was the difficulty of decipherment. Not only is the hand by no means among the easier examples of Latin cursive (the writer makes little distinction in form between certain of his characters) but, more seriously, the outside of the tablet had been so much rubbed and defaced as to obscure the writing in many places.

So little is known of the importation into Britain of carinated bowls (form 29) made by Lezoux potters that the examples illustrated on the accompanying plates may enable their work to be more readily recognised. These specimens (with the exception of fig. 13, nos. 2, 8 and 9, in the St. Germain Museum) were obtained by me some years ago during a visit to Lezoux, when, by the kindness of Madame Plicque, the widow of Dr. A. Plicque, I was able to acquire the remainder of his collection, which was excavated by him about forty years ago, and the bulk of which is now in the St. Germain Museum.

In speeches delivered during the years 57–55 B.C. Cicero frequently mentions the events and transactions immediately preceding his banishment. Clodius, the tribune of the year 58, was the author of all the trouble, and Clodius is the target of his passionate attacks. Here as elsewhere Cicero shows himself a virtuoso in the technique of variation, ever changing the venue of his accusations. Yet one complaint is constantly reiterated—Clodius's abrogation of the Lex Aelia Fufia. The following pages are devoted to an investigation of the fate of that law, for lack of which many of the events of this crowded period remain incomprehensible.

The following pages must be regarded rather as stating a question than as claiming to answer it. This is fitting, since the revered scholar in honour of whom the article is written is eminently qualified to deal with the constitutional question involved and the writer certainly is not.

Essentially the question is: Could a civil action lie against an ex-magistrate (consul, praetor, proconsul or the like) on account of any acts done by him in professed exercise of his imperium ? And it suggested by the fact that, while the surviving lay and legal source tell us a good deal about criminal proceedings in such cases, we hear, as it seems, nothing about civil remedies.

This article has been suggested by a notable new book, H. Rudolph's Stadt und Staat im römischen Italien, in which the author propounds original solutions to several problems of the Roman administration of Italy. His principal contribution to this subject is a theory which assigns to Caesar a leading part in the reformation of the municipal constitutions.

According to Rudolph a first step, but only a short one, in the reorganisation of Italy after the Social War was taken by Cinna, who instituted the quattuorvirate as the universal type of magistracy in the newly enfranchised municipalities. The next step, by which Sulla concentrated the higher jurisdiction of Italy at Rome, was longer, but in a backward direction.

‘Ceteris in rebus statim ab initio principatus usque ad exitum civilis et clemens, mediocritatem pristinam neque dissimulavit umquam ac frequenter etiam prae se tulit. quin et conantis quosdam originem Flavii generis ad conditores Reatinos comitemque Herculis … referre irrisit ultro’ (Suet. Div. Vesp. 12).

Vespasian came of peasant stock; he succeeded to a position which had been occupied by men of the noblest birth. For the Julio Claudians no proofs need be produced; of their successors Galba boasted descent from Jupiter and (strangely) Pasiphae, and Otho from Etruscan princes; even Vitellius had a pedigree going back to Faunus and a local goddess, Vitellia. Vespasian was far too shrewd to make similar claims; he deliberately rejected the attempts of flatterers to find him a noble ancestor. Much of the Life of Suetonius is evidence for the statement ‘mediocritatem pristinam neque dissimulavit umquam ac frequenter etiam prae se tulit.’ His reign marked a return to simpler ways of living, and emphasised a contrast with the pomp and extravagance of a Nero, wealthy and degenerate (see infra, p. 55). It was a realistic and sensible policy, and likely to win support from the lower classes of population in Italy, whether peasants or city proletariate.

Since the time of Edward III, St. George has been the patron-saint of England, and his fight with the dragon is familiar wherever the gold sovereign has been in circulation. As a special guardian of soldiers, this hero of the Faith has won a world-wide fame: his achievements have inspired innumerable artists and have produced, a whole literature of edifying stories in many tongues. But the oldest legend of the Cappadocian martyr is so wild a fable, so utterly devoid not only of truth but of plausibility, that the great wonder-worker himself has sometimes been regarded—in my opinion wrongly–as purely mythical. The paucity of authentic information in the hagiographical writings increases the value for the historian of such popular traditions as are connected with his cult.