In the course of building operations near Capalbio in the summer of 1949 a small hoard of Roman Republican silver was found by one of the workmen. The exact find-spot is not known, but it seems to have been close to the Via Aurelia, where this passes Lago San Floriano. The coins were contained in an earthenware jar, which was destroyed. Doris Taylor Bishop, who was excavating at Cosa at the time, was told of the discovery, prevented the hoard from being dispersed and made a list of its contents. At a later stage, she was able to buy the coins and export them to the United States.

On the peninsula of Capo di Pula, which lies some 32 km. west of Cagliari on the south coast of Sardinia, are the ruins of a Roman town overlying those of Punic date. The peninsula is shaped like a triangle; one corner now touches the mainland and forms a narrow isthmus of sand; the outer two corners are rocky promontories surrounded by scarps. Here stood the ancient town; excavation has revealed considerable urban remains, including the foundations of a temple of Tanit, with fine Punic masonry dating back to the fifth century B.C., a street plan with many houses, mainly Roman but some of Punic masonry and possibly dating to the sixth century B.C. In this area was the Roman theatre. At the base of the isthmus there are some Punic tombs along the shore and the Tophet; the earliest stelae may be of sixth century date but most appear to be late Punic in style. Nearby may be seen traces of a Roman aqueduct and the little Romanesque church of S. Efisio is still standing.

The site is generally accepted as that of the ancient Nora, one of the four principal Punic towns of Sardinia. Not only is this town known to have been near Cagliari, but a local inscription records a gift to the people of Nora made by Favonia Vera, and the dedication of the church recalls the tradition that S. Efisio was martyred at Nora.

Sardis, most famous as the capital of Lydia in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., was also a major Roman city under the Roman empire. The wealth of Croesus had dissipated, but the Roman inhabitants of Sardis again had the good fortune to live in a prosperous time. The fertility of the Hermus plain and its strategic inland position on the road to the Roman east stood the city in good stead. Nowhere among the ruins of Sardis is the opulence of the third century better to be seen than in the rich and elaborate Marble Court of the Roman gymnasium.

The Marble Court was first built, along with the gymnasium proper, under Lucius Verus in A.D. 165. At that time it served as an independent unit which was connected with—but did not lead directly into—the gymnasium. It was architecturally a part of the palaestra in front. Then in the early third century (212–213) elaborate additions were made : pavilions adorned three sides of the court, a monumental pedimented gate led into the gymnasium, and on the fourth side a screen colonnade was erected between the Marble Court and the palaestra. From this colonnade have come most of the head-capitals at Sardis (fig. 1).

The fragmentary upper part of a Corinthian capital which is the principal subject of this note can be seen near the north-east corner of the Temple of Saturn, between it and the Basilica Julia. Until a few years ago the two surviving fragments were separated, one piece lying approximately where it now is, the other among the debris stacked against the base of the temple. It was through the kindness of the Superintendent of Antiquities for the Forum and Palatine that the two pieces were placed together, confirming the writer's suspicion that they were parts of the same badly damaged capital. To Professor Carettoni, to Miss Vanessa Wills (Mrs. P. Winchester) who helped in the initial study of the fragments, and to Dr. F. Rakob and Dr. D. E. Strong, the writer wishes to express his warm thanks. The drawings and many of the photographs here reproduced are the work of Miss Sheila Gibson, A.R.I.B.A.

The two fragments are of a white Carrara marble of which some of the surfaces have been badly damaged by fire. Together they constitute the greater part of one carved face and of half of an adjoining carved face of a large angle-pilaster or anta capital which, when complete, occupied the full height of two courses of the masonry into which it was built. In addition to the two carved faces there are substantial remains of the upper surface and of the two inner vertical faces, and a short stretch of the under surface. On the upper surface can be seen the seatings of an architrave block laid at right-angles across the carved corner. The overall dimensions of the block, when complete, were 1·71 m. long, 70 cm. wide and 68 cm. high (fig. 1).

The geographical position of the monument of Adamklissi is at first sight unimpressive. There is nothing dramatic about the low and rolling hills of the southern Dobrudja, but in a wider setting its northern end looms large. Physically, it blocks the direct eastward flow of the Danube, causing the formation of the wellknown double bend by which the great river reaches the Black Sea. In fact, in relation to human movement, the Dobrudja and it alone provides a natural land bridge, from 25 to 30 miles wide, between Bessarabia and the Balkans, by which it is possible to avoid the numerous flat and marshy valleys which furrow the Wallachian plain and made it in ancient times an unwelcome spot. It is as the principal gateway to the Eastern Balkans from the teeming Scythian plains and from Eastern Germany that these hills became of importance, for this is a door which any power desiring mastery of Southern Europe must bolt and bar. In the narrow confines of the gate itself no deployment is at first possible : but at Adamklissi come the cross-roads. Here the invader makes his choice: shall he fare southwards to Turkey and Greece or westwards to Bulgaria or Serbia ? If this, then, is the stage, what of its furnishings ?

Medieval archaeology in the sense of a field study involving controlled excavation is in its infancy in Italy. Scarcely a dozen excavations have been carried out with the recovery of information about the middle ages as their primary objective and little attention has been paid to the material remains of everyday life. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the past the only medieval pottery to receive lasting attention has been the tin-glazed ware which was valued as the forerunner of renaissance maiolica. Nevertheless, in recent years programmes of surface collecting and selective excavation have been initiated in two areas with the specific purpose of studying the middle ages. The two areas are Lazio and Apulia. In Apulia the Society of Antiquaries sponsored a survey of the Tavoliere, or Foggia Plain, reports on which are in active preparation.

How much revenue did the College of Cardinals receive as a corporate financial organisation in the late fifteenth century? What was the share of individual cardinals from the corporate sources of the College?

These are questions to which as yet no answer has been given, though materials long known to historians of papal finance exist towards answering them. The most important of these records are the division registers of the College of Cardinals contained in the series of Vatican Cameral documents entitled ‘Obligationes et Solutiones.’ Only one such register (vol. 80 in the series) survives for the late fifteenth century, while a fuller number are extant for the earlier period, notably three under Eugenius IV forming a continuous series for the pontificate. These earlier volumes, some rather different in character, deserve closer study in themselves and will be used here merely for general comparisons.

While numerous sections of vol. 80 have been studied and printed the register has rarely been considered as a whole or for what its main original purpose was, namely to record the cardinals' shares in the service taxes.

The complex of tunnels and buildings described in this article was discovered by Keith W. Jones of the United States Navy and myself in the course of our general exploration of the underground antiquities of the Phlegrean Fields, made with the kind permission of Professor Alfonso de Franciscis, the Superintendent of Antiquities for Campania. They are the subject of a book recently published by myself (In the Footsteps of Orpheus, Hale, London 1967), but in view of their very unusual nature I have gladly accepted an invitation by the Director of the British School to contribute to the Papers a short factual account, together with the plans we made in the course of our survey (fig. 1).

When the terraced structures overlooking the bay and port of Baia were excavated in 1956–58, many tunnel entrances were uncovered. With the exception of the one short tunnel leading to the hot spring at the rear of the so-called Temple of Mercury, and a few obvious drainage ducts, the tunnels are all concentrated in the areas marked III and IV on the plans in the guide book, The Phlegrean Fields by A. Maiuri (3rd ed., 1958).

One of the problems which has arisen during the course of the work on the topographical survey of South Etruria has been that of the date and cause of the abandonment of many of the smaller medieval settlements of which there is evidence in the area. The study of deserted medieval villages has advanced considerably in northern Europe since 1945, but in Italy it is still in its infancy. There is therefore an almost complete lack of comparative material with which to work in the study of the deserted settlements in the area between Rome and Viterbo, and we have found traces, either documentary or physical, and often both, of over seventy-five such settlements in this area.

As I hope to take up the whole question of the deserted villages of South Etruria in the near future, I shall not here attempt to enlarge on the wider aspects of the problem of shifting rural settlements in the later Middle Ages. However, it is important to emphasise that the picture is on the whole very different from that in northern Europe.

This article is a study of the relationship between equestrian rank and local affairs in the cities of Africa Proconsularis, Numidia and the Mauretanias, during the period of the Principate. The discussion centres on the conferment of equestrian rank; the question of how far local office was an avenue to equestrian promotion; and the extent to which local men, having once achieved equestrian or juror rank, continued to take part in municipal affairs.

The enquiry is based on a classified list of knights and iudices in African cities, drawn from epigraphic evidence (pp. 166–183, below). Because the purpose is the limited one of investigating knighthood in the municipal context, some knights have been excluded from the list. Knights who held public office, and who would thus probably have spent substantial parts of their adult life away from their native town, have been omitted, except in cases where they are actually recorded as taking some part in municipal affairs. In fact, a substantial number of those who followed equestrian careers (as distinct from merely receiving equestrian rank) did also participate in municipal affairs, often at the beginning of their careers; and fifty-five entries in the list are made up of procurators (nos. 1-23), and holders of military posts (nos. 41–72).