The events which led up to the formation of the Society are recorded in the history of the Hellenic Society written by Mr. George Macmillan and published with the Jubilee issue of the Hellenic Journal in 1929. We read that Dr. Ashby, Director of the British School at Rome, in the Session 1908–9, sent a memorandum to the Council of the Hellenic Society requesting it to approve the making of a grant comparable with that made to the British School at Athens. The Hellenic Society, unable to meet this request, recommended, on the advice of a special committee, that members of the Hellenic Society, the Classical Association and other bodies should be asked to approve the inclusion of Latin studies in the purview of the Hellenic Society with a corresponding increase in its annual subscription, or alternately, to support some other scheme which could command adequate financial support. The great majority replied that they were in favour of the creation of a new Society on the lines of the Hellenic Society, but for the promotion of Roman studies, and this solution was endorsed at a joint conference of the Hellenic Society, the British School at Rome and the Classical Association. The Hellenic Society most generously undertook to work in harmony and collaboration with the new Society and to offer it access to the Library, with the same facilities for borrowing books and slides as those enjoyed by its own members.

The collection of four Latin bucolics ascribed to one Martius Valerius was only published in the twentieth century; they have been widely considered as twelfth-century compositions. Picking up on suggestions proposed by François Dolbeau, this study presents evidence that Martius drew directly on the bucolics of Theocritus, and that his poems are late antique, not medieval, literary productions, probably written in the sixth century. Such a conclusion will require a revision of the history of post-Virgilian Latin bucolic poetry.

Readers have always acknowledged the comparatively clear macrostructure of De rerum natura 3. It begins with a prooemium in which is described the terrifying impact which the fear of death has on human lives, as well as the fact that Epicurus has provided a cure against this fear, namely his physical doctrines (1–93). Particular attention is paid to fears of an afterlife in which we have to suffer pain and grief in the underworld; cf., for instance, the programmatic lines 3.37–40 (translation by Ferguson Smith, which will be used throughout):

This prooemium is followed by a long passage (94–829) in which Lucretius explains the basics of Epicurean psychology and tries to show that the soul is (like the body) material and hence mortal; this last point is driven home with particular force in II. 417–829 where Lucretius lists twenty-five proofs for the mortality of the soul.

In his discussion of Roman wind-names, Seneca the Younger employs a striking metaphor to describe the integration of the name of the south-east wind, Eurus, into Latin. The name Eurus, Seneca says, has been ‘granted citizenship’. This is one of six instances of the metaphor of ‘granting citizenship to words’ in surviving ancient texts. In this article, I use this metaphor as an entry-point to reconsider the importance of citizenship and language to ancient conceptions of Roman identity and status. The metaphor is revelatory of ancient thinking about what citizenship meant, what it depended on, and to whom and on whose authority it should be granted, questions that became urgent as citizenship spread across the Empire. Different versions of the metaphor offer tellingly divergent views of citizenship and of language. These reflect the tensions between origin and culture, inclusion and exclusion, cosmopolitanism and nativism, in contemporary notions of what it meant to be or belong as Roman.

A. H. M. Jones died from a heart attack on a very rough crossing from Brindisi to Patras; he was on his way to give lectures at the Universities of Thessalonica and Patras. It was a tragically sudden end to a life of intense mental activity. Academically he had fulfilled his greatest ambition; for more than twenty years he had determined to complete a major work of synthesis on the late Roman Empire: the publication in 1964 of The Later Roman Empire 284–602 will still be recognized as a major work by our grandchildren.

The current view of the Agricolan occupation of Scotland is conveniently summed up in Furneaux's declaration that ‘it is impossible to suppose that the conquest had been as thorough as is suggested [by Tacitus].’ York is sometimes alleged to have been the farthest point that was permanently secured, and a German historian has solemnly rebuked the Roman general for the fundamental fault of pushing forward without consolidating the ground that he had won. This scepticism as to Agricola's military capacity and achievements was justifiable enough so long as the historical notices stood alone. Moreover it appeared to be perfectly consistent with the ‘perdomita Britannia et statim missa’ of Tacitus himself. And, when archaeology made its first contribution to the discussion, the new evidence promised to be merely corroborative. The little Agricolan fort on the Bar Hill, discovered by a happy accident in 1903, was garrisoned for only a brief period, and had been abandoned fifty or sixty years before Lollius Urbicus built the wall from Forth to Clyde.

It is with considerable reluctance that I offer a few comments on the possible significance of the Flavian reliefs discovered between 1937 and 1939 close by the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. For the interpretation of monuments such as these is largely subjective; and, in a matter on which any student may claim as good a right to his own opinion as any other, the use of space in this Journal to make suggestions which few may think convincing needs special justification. That justification must be found in the encouragement to ventilate the ideas which follow (ideas first aired before the Anglo-Swedish Classical Conference at Lund in August, 1947) given me by various friends—particularly Dr. Arvid Andrén, Professors Axel Boëthius and Einar Gjerstad, Dr. P. G. Hamberg, and Professors A. D. Nock and A. W. Persson. None of these gentlemen should be assumed to agree with any of my conclusions, but to all of them my hearty thanks for useful discussion are due and are hereby offered. Furthermore, it must be made plain that these remarks are not intended even to touch on the problems connected with the development of Roman art in the Flavian age to the evidence for which these friezes are a most notable addition. They are confined to the question, What are the reliefs about ?