The immense mound of many million broken jars known as Monte Testaccio—still to be seen at the old emporium of Rome—provides in the trade-marks some material not elsewhere available for the study of Roman commerce; and Dressel's publication of many hundred of these marks (CIL xv, 2) deserves the highest praise for the patience expended in their transcription, despite the fact that later scholars have had to correct many of the conclusions that Dressel ventured to draw from them.

Since not a single one of these jars has been discovered unbroken, we must gain our knowledge of the customary items from the fragments of several jars. These items, not always found in the same order, are usually the following :

(1) The potter's trade-mark (usually the initials of the potter's name) was stamped on the handle before the jar was baked. See CIL xv, 2, nos. 2558 ff., for these.

(2) At the foreign customs or shipping office the full jar was marked in bold brush strokes with the weight of the empty jar, the name of the shipper (owner), and the weight of the full jar, thus :

(The shipper usually owned his cargo, hence the genitive form of his name.)

(3) By the side of an inscription of this kind there occurs another in smaller lettering containing a number of items that concern the customs house as well as the shipper—e.g. no. 4366 :

The interpretation is probably as follows (cf. Am. Jour. Phil. 1936, 87 ff.):

‘Received ; Hispalis ; value 20 sest. ; weight 215 lbs. ; from estate of Capito ; export duty : 2 asses; name of clerk; consular date (A.D. 179).’

The relations between the Empire and the Church are a subject of such major interest, which has attracted so much attention from historians both ecclesiastical and lay, that it would be rash to suppose anything relevant and of value still to remain unsaid. Nevertheless, if it be permissible to think that the most familiar accounts are not the most satisfactory, some service may be done by emphasizing again certain considerations which, though they have not completely escaped notice hitherto, have too often been overlooked; and for such an undertaking the present occasion is perhaps made appropriate by the interest in early Christian history which the scholar whom we honour has combined with his studies of pagan Rome.

Soon after the publication of my recent article on ‘The Dating-Value of Samian Ware’ I learned with much satisfaction that the attack I had endeavoured to meet was in reality no more than the preliminary bombardment of an isolated sector, and that it was to be followed very shortly by a general assault, in which no part of the front would be spared. This is what I have all along hoped for, having every confidence in the impregnability of the position. Nevertheless, hoste vicino, it may not be amiss to strengthen the defences by developing a line of evidence which has not yet been given the prominence to which it is entitled. I mean the literary tradition. Though accidental, the delay in dealing with it has been fortunate. In the interval the discussion has taken a turn which lends to the testimony of Tacitus a degree of significance that may well prove to be decisive, for it is Tacitus alone who counts. Before hearing what he has to say, it will be convenient to clear the ground by dismissing the less important witnesses.

It is rapidly coming to be agreed among scholars that a re-dating of the earliest Roman coinage, centring round the transference of the denarius from 269 to circa 187 B.C., is now inevitable. Such a re-dating is bound to have very wide effects outside the coinage. The whole question of the expression of values in terms of money must come up for reconsideration. It is my object in this paper to concentrate on one part of the general question—the property qualifications of the Roman classes. The evidence is scanty and, for the earlier period, of problematic value. The figures of the Servian constitution, in particular, even if we admit them to have any real reference to early Roman history, must have been expressed in terms of money at a comparatively late date. Until we know when they began to be so expressed, we do not know what they really mean in value. Even our scanty records, however, if critically examined in their correct historical order, will yield definite results of a somewhat surprising character.

Since Sir Henry Stuart Jones has included Mithraism among his many interests, it seems appropriate to offer to him on this occasion some remarks on its general significance. No phenomenon in Imperial paganism has attracted as much attention, and this is natural.

Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verum

quis in versamur, quis vivimus rebus, potesse.

Let us make another provisional attempt to determine the pretium verum of Mithraism.

We see in it something of eastern worship detached from its native content and developed in a new milieu; apparently it had no oecumenical organization; certainly it tolerated other gods, and lent itself to an unchecked local diversification of forms. In all these respects it was essentially on a par with the other ‘oriental religions in Roman paganism.’ Nevertheless, it differed from them in various significant ways. The normal exclusion of women and the moral demands made of the initiate have often been remarked; but that is not all.

A Botticellesque ‘Venus among Cupids’ in the National Gallery (no. 916) now attributed to Jacopo del Sellajo (pl. III) attracted my attention when I saw it again in July last for the similarity of the composition to the familiar group of Terra Mater and the children as represented on innumerable Roman monuments—a transcript almost of its rendering in the mosaic recently discovered at Antioch by the American mission (pl. iv, i). The influence of the ancient motive is likewise apparent in Sellajo's—or another's —repetition of the ‘Venus and Cupids’ motive in the Louvre (no. 1299—pl. v), and it makes itself felt, though less obviously perhaps, in Botticelli's ‘Venus and Mars’ in the National Gallery (no. 915—pi. vi). The un-Venus like character of Sellajo's goddess had, as I subsequently discovered, struck A. L. Mayer, who thought that the picture might represent an allegory of Fertility (Fruchtbarkeit)–an excellent suggestion, supported by the evidence of the bunch of grapes, from which, however, he omitted to draw the necessary conclusion. The dependence of Botticelli's picture upon an antique model has long been admitted, but the incongruity between the Mars who lies steeped in voluptuous slumber and the demure Florentine lady who faces him in seemly half-sitting posture had scarcely been noted : she, too, recalls Terra Mater, rather than any softly reposing nymph or Venus.

The world of learning owes debts many and varied to Sir Henry Stuart Jones: it is the Camden Professor and historian of Rome that Oxford knows best. In Roman history, wherever knowledge may be deepened and however horizons may be widened, the transformation of the Roman State and the transition from Republic to Principate must ever claim the centre of interest. For this reason a paper concerning one of Caesar's partisans, a military man from Spain, may be offered as a tribute from the School of Literae Humaniores—and from one of the three Colleges with which Sir Henry's life in Oxford has been identified.

When I received the welcome invitation to take part in this tribute to Sir Henry Stuart Jones, I realized, to my great regret, that other pressing obligations would not leave me time to prepare a paper worthy of the occasion. But, as altogether to miss this opportunity of expressing my respect and admiration would have been most distasteful, I have ventured to offer him the notes which follow, slight and modest though they are.

It had long been known that in Egypt under Augustus dates were given, in accordance with age-old custom, by his regnal years; but the papyri have revealed, as I was able to show with the help of two examples in 1895, that side by side with this system there existed another method of dating by the years τῆς Καίσαρος κρατήσεως θεοῦ υἱοῦ, both systems alike reckoning from the Egyptian New Year's day in 30 B.C. ( I Thoth = 29 August).

The Papyrus Tebtunis 33 contains the copy of a letter, probably from a high official at Alexandria, to Asklepiades, superintendent of revenues, announcing the approaching visit to the Fayûm of Lucius Memmius, a Roman senator who was coming as a tourist, and giving instructions for his reception and entertainment. The copy is enclosed in a letter, dated [(ἔτους)] ε Ξαντικοῦ ιζ Μεχεὶρ ιζ (i.e. 112 B.C.), from Hermias—probably the Hermias mentioned in the lengthy document P. Teb. 27 of 113 B.C.—to Horos, the royal scribe, telling him to take care that its instructions are followed.