The efforts of scholars have failed to find a generally accepted single reason for the institution of what it will be convenient to call Consular Tribunes, i.e. Tribuni Militum consulari potestate or consulari imperio or pro consulibus. The irregular oscillation between pairs of Consuls and three, and later four, Consular Tribunes which is attested for the first forty years of the institution (444–406 B.C.) appeared to Beloch, not without reason, to contain an element of irrationality and to be without parallel in ancient constitutional practice. But even those scholars who are least inclined to trust the consular Fasti would admit that, though they may contain interpolations or omissions or the misreading of names, the fact of this oscillation cannot be denied, and, moreover, that the names of magistrates of this period are, in the main, to be trusted.

Est postridie decretum in curia, populi ipsius Romani, et eorum qui ex municipiis convenerant admonitu, ne quis de caelo servaret, ne quis moram ullam adferret. Pro Sestio, 129.

Time and again Cicero abused Clodius for having, in his tribunate, both rescinded the lex Aelia Fufia of 153 B.C. and also destroyed the censorship. The ‘destruction of the censorship’ was, in fact, a seemingly just and reasonable bill to the effect that for the future no senator might be expelled from the Senate unless, after he had been given the opportunity of answering the charges against him, both censors were in agreement over his expulsion. It would, therefore, be reasonable to suppose that the ‘rescinding of the lex Aelia Fufia’, too, was far less drastic a measure than Cicero's vituperative language implies, even if there was not, as there is, abundant evidence in the years following Clodius' tribunate that the lex Aelia Fufia remained on the statute book.

In his collection of passages περὶ ἀνδρείας Stobaeus (Ecl. 3, 7, 12) quotes a poem in five Sapphic stanzas by Melinno and, in introducing it with the words Μελινοῦς Λεσβίας ἰςε ῥώμην, blunders. The poem, as Grotius saw long ago, is addressed not ἰςε ῥώμην, to physical strength, but ἰςε ῥώμην, to Rome, and has in fact nothing to do with ἀνδρεία. Nor is there any good reason to think that the authoress came from Lesbos.

For offering Dr. Last observations on a topic which over thirty years ago he reasonably described as ‘trite’ I have little excuse save that our own generation has given the Four Emperors less attention than did the two generations which preceded it. Perhaps the most valuable contribution has come from the numismatists, who have left the believers in provincial ‘nationalism’ with the need for a radical restatement of their case. Epigraphical studies, moreover, have told us more, but not nearly enough, about the origins of the chief actors in the drama, the soldiers and their commanders. Above all, the flood of writing on the thought of Tacitus has continued unchecked. A bibliography here would be tedious but one example will illustrate the theme of this paper. In 1939 Paola Zancan, later reviewed by Dr. Last in this Journal, sought to analyse each of the ancient literary versions of the year 69, and to show how each author's interpretation sprang from his personality, from his position in society, or from the time at which he wrote.

‘An opportune discovery–so opportune that forgery might be suspected, though the provisions of the will do not perhaps utterly pass belief.’ So Syme, judiciously; and the remarks that follow cannot be claimed to settle anything, but merely to draw attention to one feature of those provisions which seems to have escaped notice (or at any rate specific mention), and which may have a certain weight in the scales as between genuineness and forgery.

No apology is needed for presenting a strictly legal discourse to one who, while ranking among the most illustrious Ancient Historians alive, has by his teaching and writing made a unique contribution to the study of Roman Law. Our subject will be the role of finium demonstratio in Roman private law. There is no comprehensive modern treatment, with the result that scholars, confronted by one of the rare references to this institution, are apt to feel somewhat unsure. The difficulty is increased by the fact that in its main application, in the field of warranty against eviction, finium demonstratio partake in the tortuous evolution, classical and post-classical, of the rules concerning this warranty. The same fact, however, also adds to the interest, especially as the actual working of the system of warranty at its various stages becomes much clearer by tracing its bearing on a usage like finium demonstratio.

Julien, comme on sait, eut une enfance sévère et triste. Il n'a pas connu sa mere, mèrte quelques mois après sa naissance (Misop. 352 B); quand il avait sept ans (337), il a vu assassiner son père, un demi-frère aîné, un oncle et deux cousins. Il reste seul avec un demi-frére, Gallus, qui tourna en brute. Sa première éducation est due à l'eunuque Mardonius qui lui inculque une morale austère. C'est un des beaux traits de Julien que, plus tard, dans le Misopôgôn, il loue ce vieux précepteur de lui avoir, dès sa prime enfance, enseigné la vertu (Misop. 351 A ss.):—

When we consider the information concerning the history of the earliest days of Rome which ancient authors have handed down to us, we have to ask ourselves : which parts of it are acceptable and which are not ? What, after all, do we really know about early Roman history ?

Modern scholars view these problems from very different psychological standpoints. Some of them ask why we should refuse credence to a venerable tradition which has been given an artistic form of great beauty by writers of genius, and which is full of lessons of political and moral importance. Others, however, seized with the full frenzy of the critic, and with uncompromising devotion to logic, discard all, or practically all, the tradition. Whatever the cost, they intend to reach the truth. These two conflicting tendencies prevail turn and turn about in accordance with the views dominating in different periods or with the different temperaments or ages of individual scholars.

Few scholars in our time have striven so unceasingly and so effectively as Hugh Last has done to emphasize the essential aspects of the res Romana and of its impact on the history of our civilization. So it was inevitable that he should have reminded us time and again of our debt to the man who, though not one of the greatest Romans, was to become, together with Virgil, the most influential of all, Cicero. It seems fitting therefore that when I join the scholars who wish in this volume to give a token of their gratitude to a magnificent historian, teacher, and friend, I should speak of Cicero. But I do not feel capable of making a contribution to the deeper understanding of this complex and exciting figure. So, indulging in the minute ἀκριβολογία which is inherent in φιλολογία, I shall confine myself to a few remarks on some minor points arising from Cicero's letters to Trebatius. These seventeen pieces (Fam. 7, 6–22), introduced by the delightful letter by which Cicero recommends the promising young lawyer to Caesar (Fam. 7, 5), are perhaps the happiest series in the large epistolary output of this unsurpassed letter-writer.

The lively interest shown by Professor Last in the study of Roman Egypt is typified not only by his active interest in the Egypt Exploration Society but also by several articles in the field, among them that recently published on the powers of the Prefect of Egypt (JEA, 40, 1954, pp. 68 ff.). I hope that this note concerning Mark Antony will be of interest to him.