The central act of manumissio vindicta, the imposition of the rod on the slave by the two parties—assertor libertatis and dominus, has been sufficiently discussed and explained by the lawyers. But the subject is fringed with some minor points in regard to which an ordinary reader of the classics may feel a legitimate curiosity, or may be embarrassed, sometimes by the inadequate statement of the available evidence, sometimes by the conflict of ancient or modern opinion. Among these points I purpose to focus attention on the terms festuca and alapa.

I. The date of the consular election in 63 B.C.—Cicero in his speech Pro Murena, which was delivered in November, 63 B.C, after Catiline quitted Rome, said that before the consular election of that year Catiline used to appear in public surrounded by troops from Faesulae and Arretium, and that in a private gathering (contione domestica) he had declared that the only true champion of the wretched was one who shared their wretchedness, that they should put no trust in the promises of the well-to-do, and that their destined leader must be utterly fearless and conspicuously miserable. The Senate, he reminded the jury, decreed therefore on his motion that the election, which had been fixed for the following day, should be postponed, in order that there might be an opportunity of discussing Catiline's conduct. On the following day, accordingly, he challenged Catiline to explain; and Catiline made the reply, which has been so often quoted, that in the State there were two bodies, one feeble with a weak head, the other strong but without a head. The Senate, Cicero thought, did not on this occasion act with sufficient vigour, for some could not realize that there was any danger, while others were too timid; and Catiline stalked triumphantly out of the House. Cicero, taking alarm at the slackness of the Senate and knowing that Catiline was bringing armed conspirators to the Field of Mars, went thither himself wearing a breastplate and accompanied by a bodyguard; whereupon all the respectable electors, seeing, as he had intended, that he was in peril, rallied round Murena. Then followed the election, in which Murena and Silanus were returned.

Modern inquiries into the history of the Roman army have elucidated the fact that there were two periods in the evolution of the Roman recruiting-system, whether of the Roman legions or of the auxiliary troops. The first period embraced the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, while the second began with Diocletian. The most characteristic features of the first period were as follows: recruiting of legions among the town population or territories attributed to a town; recruiting of auxiliary troops chiefly among the population of non-municipal territories; prevalence of the idea of conscription, which remained as a matter of fact chiefly theoretical as far as the legions were concerned, the latter consisting chiefly of volunteers; granting of Roman citizenship to soldiers who were serving in the legions at the moment of their being enrolled, and the receiving of Roman citizenship by the soldiers of auxiliary troops after the completion of their period of service; absence of any form of compulsion in the recruiting system. The second period presents entirely different features. The distinction between legions and auxiliary troops vanished almost completely, as both were recruited chiefly among the rural population; for the idea of conscription as the fulfilment of the duty of citizenship was substituted either the idea of military service for money, the idea of mercenary troops, or the idea of compulsory military service, this service being treated in the same way as the compulsory levying of taxes.

The lack of a statistical record compels us to base many of our conclusions in matters of ancient history on inference from casual notices. These notices, often obscure, are liable to misinterpretation. Even when rightly interpreted, their authority and their bearing on each other are often doubtful. In particular, there is an ever-present difficulty arising from the loss of other evidence, probably larger in bulk and not inferior in value. The discovery of new evidence sometimes upsets conclusions that at an earlier stage of inquiry were reasonable enough. Re-examination of old evidence often modifies them. But an early conclusion sometimes for lack of sufficient challenge glides into an assumption: if it falls in with the general views of historians, it imperceptibly affects their attitude as inquirers and gains authority by lapse of time.

After giving a six-months' emperor to Rome and setting the example of successful usurpation, the Spanish provinces took but little active part in the long agony which followed. It was, indeed, a contest not of provinces but of provincial garrisons, and the Spanish army was too small and remote again to take the lead; Cluvius Rufus, who succeeded Galba in Hither Spain, was not distinguished as a soldier. After a brief hesitation he recognised Vitellius, wishing perhaps to avenge Galba, and influenced by the strength and proximity of the armies of the Rhine. He proved his loyalty to his new allegiance by the measures he took against Albinus, the procurator of Mauretania, who threatened to rise for Otho. Fearing an invasion of Spain, he moved the Legio X Gemina southward to the coast of Baetica, and at the same time by active propaganda he won over the Mauretanian garrison to Vitellius; Albinus and his chief supporters were slain. Then being accused by Hilarus, an imperial freedman and probably a subordinate procurator of Hither Spain, of aiming at independent authority, he went to meet Vitellius in Gaul. His services procured him an easy acquittal; he was granted the privilege of governing his province through his legati, while he himself, attached to the imperial suite, returned to Italy and Rome.

The following dedications are for the most part written in Greek, and made to a god who bears apparently a Greek name; but their value lies mainly in the light that they throw upon the circumstances and fate of a Roman colony in a land where the educated spoke Greek, though the uneducated rural population long retained the use of the Phrygian language. Various writers have spoken about the inevitable fate of such a small settlement of colonists originally speaking Latin. They melted gradually into the surrounding population. After a certain lapse of years they lost the Latin language, and adopted Greek. The evidence for this formerly was fragmentary; but in the series of dedications at the Sanctuary an opportunity is offered of studying the process as it evolved itself through the centuries.

What may be called the orthodox view of the chronology of the revolt of Gaius Pescennius Niger during the early years of Septimius-Severus' principate is roughly as follows :—

Some time in the late spring of A.D. 193 both Septimius and Niger, then governors of Pannonia and Syria respectively, assumed the imperial title. The war occasioned by these rival claims opened in the neighbourhood of Byzantium somewhere in the autumn of the same year and consisted in a series of engagements of which the most noteworthy took place at Cyzicus, Nicaea, the Cilician Gates and Issus, ending with the total defeat of Niger on the last-named field. This defeat occurred in the autumn of 194 and was followed by the pursuit and death of the unsuccessful claimant on the banks of the Euphrates in the early winter of that year.

During the fourth century A.D. the coins issued from the different mints of the Roman empire commonly bore, in addition to the name of the city where the mint was situated, a letter or number indicating the particular shop of the mint in which each coin was struck. In a recent article I made a study of the tetradrachms issued at Alexandria during the first twelve years of the reign of Diocletian— i.e. till the date when the Egyptian currency was assimilated to that of the rest of the empire—to see what evidence could be found as to the existence of marks distinguishing the shops in this series: and I propose now to pass the whole of the Roman tetradrachm issues of Alexandria in brief review for the same purpose.

Early in the present year (1920) a Roman sepulchral relief was brought by its owner to the notice of the British Museum. It had been acquired by him from a dealer in North London, with the information that it had been lying for at least fifty years in a contractor's yard at St. John's Wood. He had placed his purchase so as to form the central feature of a rock garden at Putney, but was ready to pass it on to other keeping. It now occupies the wall of one of the compartments of the Roman Gallery, in the British Museum.

The wholly unexpected death of Francis Haverfield on October 1st, 1919, was a grievous loss to the Roman Society. More than any other single individual he had been behind the impulse that led to its foundation. He was its first President, and during his five years' tenure of office he toiled unceasingly to promote its welfare. The Journal in particular owes much to his guiding hand. It will be generally agreed that a tribute to his memory is due. Yet he would probably have thought that a mere personal notice of himself was scarcely appropriate here. A bibliography is different. He was a voluminous writer and, when he wrote with serious intent, his writing was so extraordinarily relevant that it will be unsafe for future workers to neglect what he has said. For the most part, however, his contributions to learning are scattered here and there through a multitude of publications. A list of them is therefore calculated to be of real value to the progress of the studies that lay so near his own heart. In a memorial with such a specific purpose he would certainly have acquiesced.