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.

When Ovid was relegated in A.D. 8, he left a notorious problem for scholarship. Some attribute his downfall to the Ars Amatoria, whose second edition appeared about 1 B.C., but that raises questions about the time-lag as well as about the misunderstanding of literature. Others emphasize the disgrace of Augustus' grand-daughter Julia, banished for adultery in the same year as Ovid, but doubts remain about the degree of complicity needed to explain the poet's punishment. Again it has been supposed that the domestic scandal masks a political plot, a possibility that has also been canvassed over the disgrace of the elder Julia in 2 B.C. Unfortunately the evidence for the various theories is so scattered that it may distract attention from the tone of particular poems, yet in this psychological drama over-all impressions ought to count as well as fragments of fact. Here I shall try to interpret a single elegy, Tristia 4. 3, looking at it in sections as it comes; though the debate about the exile will not be repeated in detail, a view will emerge at the end about what happened.

The products of a highly civilised community must always tend to drift across its political frontiers to less advanced peoples beyond. In the early centuries of our era the output of Roman workshops, following perhaps the older amber routes, was finding its way north of the Rhine and reaching Scandinavia. The same process was going on in Caledonia. The troops marching northward carried their supplies with them, and on the sites of their forts the excavator unearths their pottery and glass, their vessels of bronze, their ornaments, tools and weapons,—the familiar things of provincial Roman civilization. But out beyond the limits of the forts and camps the same products from time to time come to light—picked up near the lines of communication, gathered from the sites of native dwellings, or found far out among the hills or by coasts where the Roman soldier never penetrated, telling their tale of traffic or of plunder.

Since the antiquaries of the eighteenth century—Hunter, Gordon, and Horsley—identified the forts on Hadrian's Wall with the stations per lineam valli by means of inscriptions found in them, further epigraphic material has accumulated, as a result of which all the forts except those at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Rudchester, as far west as Birdoswald, have produced evidence of the regiments assigned by the Notitia Dignitatum to the stations Segedunum-(C)amboglanna. But, in a number of instances, there have also come to light inscriptions set up by regiments that do not occur in the Notitia, or that are placed elsewhere in that list; the purpose of the present paper is to consider the significance of these inscriptions.

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 ?

Scholars have long discussed whether the Golden Gate is a monument of Theodosius I, as the inscription which formerly adorned it strongly suggests, or whether if was built at the same time as the walls under Theodosius II. The inscription must in the latter case apply to a minor rising of the Primicerius Iohannes in 423. However, Schneider, the last scholar who has examined the walls, points out that they were nearly complete in 422, when a rescript assigned to travelling soldiers the lower stories of the towers. Iohannes' rising was not crushed until 425; and not even Schneider has maintained that the Golden Gate was built later than the walls.

It seems more natural to suppose that the inscription refers to the conquest of Maximus by Theodosius I. In this case the gate may be assumed to have been comparable to the triumphal arches of Roman colonies, and to have stood on the original pomerium. Its existence may account for the line of the wall, which joins the Sea of Marmara after the shore has turned south-west; for the line of the fortifications is thus made considerably longer without much gain of interior space.

The movements of the Second Legion (Legio II Augusta) in the first three decades of the Roman occupation of Britain have for long been a subject of speculation. In particular, the quest for the site of its first semi-permanent base, before the establishment of the fortress at Caerleon, has given rise to the conjecture that at Gloucester it would be found. The only evidence for this has been the size and shape of the Roman enceinte known to exist there and the general probability of the site, considered in relation to the Severn crossing. Other evidence adduced in the past by local antiquaries will not bear scrutiny in the light of modern knowledge.

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 …’

The following pages must be regarded rather as stating a question than as claiming to answer it. This is fitting, since the revered scholar in honour of whom the article is written is eminently qualified to deal with the constitutional question involved and the writer certainly is not.

Essentially the question is: Could a civil action lie against an ex-magistrate (consul, praetor, proconsul or the like) on account of any acts done by him in professed exercise of his imperium ? And it suggested by the fact that, while the surviving lay and legal source tell us a good deal about criminal proceedings in such cases, we hear, as it seems, nothing about civil remedies.