The first commercial contact of the Greeks with Etruria is certainly earlier than the foundation of the Greek colony at Cumae. Vulci, Chiusi, Terni, Bisenzio, Vetralla, Capodimonte, Leprignano, Veii, Falerii, Tarquinia, Cerveteri, have produced evidence of the importation of Greek pottery of a style considerably earlier than that of the contents of the earliest Greek graves of that colony.

The general conclusions which can be derived from this evidence for the history of Greek commerce with the Western Mediterranean have been discussed elsewhere; it is the particular significance of it as evidence for the earliest Hellenization of Italy that I wish to consider here.

The turf-built sector of Hadrian's Wall was discovered in 1895 by the Cumberland Excavation Committee, at Appletree, east of Wall Bowers milecastle, 51. In the next three years, the associated ditch was traced underneath Birdoswald Fort and under the Stone Wall at milecastles 49 (Harrow's Scar) and 51, forming thus a two-mile loop-line (pl. 1) with the ditch of the Stone Wall which it preceded. The recognition of the new Wall as turf-built was made easy by the analysis of the Antonine Wall three years earlier, and Dr. Arthur Raistrick's pollen-analysis, given below in an Appendix (p. 18), puts the exact nature of the material beyond doubt.

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 …’

In volume xx of the Journal (pp. 55–70) there appeared an article by Mr. Syme on the imperial finances under Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. Briefly, his object was to shift on to the shoulders of Nerva the financial embarrassment often attributed to the reign of Domitian, and also to strive for a fairer recognition in general of Domitian's qualities. The following notes deal with some of the principal points at issue, and attempt a reconsideration of the financial policy of the period.

This paper had its origin in an attempt to elucidate the connexions of three fragmentary mould-blown glasses in the Ashmolean Museum (infra, pp. 172–3, nos. F i d and e and ii c) which bear the complimentary motto ΚΑΤΑΧΑΙΡΕ ΚΑΙ ΕΥΦΡΑΙΝΟΥ, ‘Your very good health.’ The first two of these on close examination proved to be so much alike in every detail that they must have come out of the same mould.

The photograph here reproduced (pl. XIII) was received recently by Dr. A. Mingana from the Syrian Patriarch Ignatius Ephrem I of Antioch. His Beatitude writes that the stone, which measures 55 cm. in height and 40 cm. across, and is white, was discovered in the course of digging in the yard of the church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at Ṣadad. Ṣadad is a small town some thirty miles east of Ras Baalbek station (Beirut-Aleppo line), on the edge of the desert, almost at, but a little south of, the point nearest to Palmyra. In antiquity the longer route from Palmyra to Damascus must have passed near its site. The stone is now preserved in the baptistry on the south side of the church.

The paper by Messrs. Davies Pryce and Birley on ‘The First Roman Occupation of Scotland’ is so obviously a friendly challenge addressed to myself that I cannot in courtesy allow it to pass un-noticed. My critics indeed were good enough to give me timely warning of their impending attack. Now that it has been delivered, my first impression is one of disappointment. I had expected them to deal with the various arguments that I have from time to time advanced, and I had hoped that their discussion of these would throw fresh light on what is at the best a very obscure episode. Instead, they have elected to concentrate on a single branch of the evidence, and that a branch in which the interpretation of the facts is beset with so many uncertainties as to make it peculiarly ill-fitted to serve as our sole guide. Being on the defensive, I have no alternative but to conform to the prescribed initiative. Hence the title I have chosen. For the rest, I can only ask those interested to read (or re-read) what I have written on the subject elsewhere. In particular, they might find ‘The Agricolan Occupation of Scotland’ a helpful tonic.

In this paper I propose to limit myself strictly to one particular aspect of Romano-British ethnology, the physical type, and to consider what light the available evidence throws on the general problem of the ethnological affinities of the Romano-British population. The subject naturally falls into three parts, the actual physical type or types of the Romano-Britons, their origin, and their relation to the subsequent population of England. The question was first studied as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century by Thurnam, by him and Davis and by Davis alone in general, and, on a particular site, Frilford near Oxford, by Rolleston. Pitt-Rivers in his excavations in Cranborne Chase and elsewhere made a specially valuable contribution. These original contributions were discussed by Beddoe and Ripley amongst others.

In attempting to fix the date of Pliny's praetorship there are three passages from his works which we must bear in mind:—

1. Ep. 3, II, 2–3: ‘equidem, cum essent philosophi ab urbe summoti, fui apud ilium (the philosopher Artemidorus) in suburbano et, quo notabilius, hoc est periculosius, esset, fui praetor, pecuniam etiam, qua tunc illi ampliore opus erat, ut aes alienum exsolveret contractum ex pulcherrimis causis, mussantibus magnis quibusdam et locupletibus amicis mutuatus ipse gratuitam dedi. atque haec feci, cum septem amicis meis aut occisis aut relegatis, occisis Senecione, Rustico, Helvidio, relegatis Maurico, Gratilla, Arria, Fannia, tot circa me iactis fulminibus quasi ambustus mihi quoque impendere idem exitium certis quibusdam notis augurarer.’

2. Ep. 7, 16, 1–2: ‘Calestrium Tironem familiarissime diligo et privatis mihi et publicis necessitudinibus implicitum. simul militavimus, simul quaestores Caesaris fuimus. ille me in tribunatu liberorum iure praecessit, ego ilium in praetura sum con secutus, cum mihi Caesar annum remisisset.’

3. Pan. 95, 3–4 : ‘vos modo favete huic proposito et credite, si cursu quodam provectus ab illo insidiosissimo principe, antequam profiteretur odium bonorum, postquam professus est, substiti; si cum viderem, quae ad honores compendia paterent, longius iter malui.’

The reign of Aemilian is one of the most obscure episodes in the dark third century of our era. ‘Obscurissime natus obscurius imperavit,’ wrote Eutropius of him, and the epigram has not lost its point to-day. But on one vexed question—the date of his reign—the coins, studied in connexion with the literary tradition, will yield an answer at least approximately certain, and from that answer results follow, which are of vital importance to the chronology of the whole succeeding period.

The duration of the reign of Aemilian was about three months. At Alexandria, where the year began on August 29th, Aemilian has not uncommon coins of year B, none of year A. This should imply that his rule did not extend far back behind the end of August. An inscription of Gemellae in Numidia shows Valerian and Gallienus as Emperors on October 22nd, 253; a detachment of Legio III Augusta, demobilized and sent home from Raetia, makes a dedication ‘pro salute Augg.’ to Victoria Augusta. We have here three pieces of evidence—all equally trustworthy. If we can succeed in combining them, we should be very near the truth.

Introduction. Until recent years it was believed that the Roman rule north of Cheviot did not long survive the recall of Agricola. Then, as a result of the excavation of the fort at Newstead, Sir George Macdonald advanced the view that the early occupation was prolonged into the principate of Trajan. Subsequently, in a period when excavation was out of the question, Sir George, in an important and valuable paper on ‘The Agricolan Occupation of North Britain,’ published in this Journal in 1921, reviewed the evidence then available from a number of Scottish sites: the sequence of structural changes, the coin-series, and (though the material was not considered in detail) the proportions of pottery assignable definitely to one or other of the two main periods of occupation. His conclusion was that the first occupation must have been nearly as prolonged as the second, lasting well into the principate of Trajan, and even perhaps into the early years of Hadrian.