explored by Mr. F. Simpson. It measures only 150 by 200 feet, was walled with clay, faced neatly with coursed stone, now mostly plundered, and contained internal buildings of stone, of quite abnormal outline, also much destroyed. It seems to have been put out of use in Roman times, and may well have been erected while the Wall was abuilding, and have been robbed of its worked stone for the Wall. Like Castleshaw, it forms a definite addition to our knowledge of Roman fort-building.

Finally, at Newstead, hard by Melrose, Mr. Curle has continued his truly epoch-making excavations of the large 15-acre fort. He has now uncovered an annexe west of the main area, containing baths, has dug out in toto a large part of the earliest ditch, filled in in early Roman times, and has recovered from it and from other parts of the fort many valuable remains. His discoveries of individual objects, such as armour, are already unique, and to these he is adding valuable data elucidating both the history of Roman pottery and the varying fortunes of the stronghold at Newstead. When his work is done, it will form a great contribution to our knowledge of both Roman antiquities and Roman Scotland. It seems already plain that at Newstead we walk in the footsteps of Agricola, and that (like the rest of Scotland) the site was abandoned by Rome some years before the end of the second century.

We turn now to the civil, as opposed to the military, districts of Britain. At Silchester the long and patient uncovering of the town is drawing slowly to its completion, and (appropriately enough) interesting discoveries mark the "final scene." These consist of a temple of Romano-Gaulish (provincial) pattern, 35 feet square, assigned by the excavators -somewhat dubiously-to Mars, and several fragmentary inscriptions on Purbeck marble found in it, too imperfect to be restored with certainty, but referring possibly to a collegium [pere] grinorum. One of these fragments contains the word Callevae; and thus for the first time the RomanoBritish name of Silchester meets us inscribed on stone

Next year the excavators will probaby pass outside the walls of the town to the cemeteries, and such suburban buildings as may prove to exist.

At Caerwent, another excavation, which bids fair to be as historic as that of Silchester, has completed a new year. The principal discovery, and one of no small value, is the Foruma square surrounded on three sides by shops (?), and faced on the fourth by the basilica or public hall, the whole forming an oblong of about 180 by 240 feet. For its architecture we have some evidence in bits of good Corinthian capitals found amongst the débris.

Finally, in the far north, in the Tyne valley near Hexham, three miles south of Hadrian's Wall, excavations have revealed much of Roman Corstopitum. Placed a little behind the fortified frontier, and on a main road leading up from the south, this place, like the similarly situated Carlisle in the west, seems to have been rather a town than a fortress, dominated no doubt by military elements, but dominated in a social rather than an administrative form. A tentative examination of the site was made in 1906. This year, encouraged by the results, the excavation committee, aided by Mr. C. L. Woolley and Mr. R. H. Forster, have carried the good work further. They have found, firstly, on the slope of the hill rising from the Tyne, an extensive and complicated structure, often rebuilt, apparently a dwellinghouse, with baths, hot-air apparatus, and latrines. One curious feature of this house was a large base of masonry projecting towards the river, and intended probably to provide a Bellevue over the valley. Another yet more remarkable feature, assignable to its earliest period, was a watertank, in the débris of which was found the Corbridge Lion, a singularly vigorous, if somewhat grotesque, group of sculpture representing a lion standing over a dead stag. More than two thousand picture postcards of it were sold in Hexham within a week of its discovery, and its fame was established beyond words of mine. Close by were found vestiges of the road leading to the bridge over the Tyne,

much ruined by floods, but still showing massive masonry. At the top of the slope, on the flat hill top, even more extensive remains were detected. Here was a broad street, with large buildings on each side. One of these buildings contained part of a fine slab, bearing a dedication to Pius by Lollius Urbicus, A.D. 140-the date of the commencement of the Wall of Pius in Scotland. Another (as it seems) was the foundation of a massive cistern and public fountain, with an ornamental façade, erected (as a broken inscription testifies) by the Twentieth Legion. A third, less well built, was a pottery store or shop, ascribed by the finders to the latest period of Corstopitum. Its clay floor was buried deep in débris of burnt wood and broken potsherds, which lay in recognisable heaps : Samian in one corner by itself, local pelves in another, common grey and dark blue wares in a third, and a few coins of the fourth century (the latest circa A.D. 380) in a group together. The coins suggest that the store was burnt near the end of the fourth century. The occurrence of Samian is noteworthy, since none of this ware has yet been found, that is assignable to so late a period. The Corbridge pieces were unornamented cups' and saucers (Dragendorff 31, 32) bearing well-lettered potters' stamps, which of themselves suggest a much earlier date, as if the coins had got in at a later period than the burning.

Several rural dwellings ("villas ") have come to light. One at Grimston, near Lynn in Norfolk, is almost the first real example of a Roman country-house yet detected in that county. At Netheravon, in Wilts, drainage works required for cavalry barracks revealed part of another. At Strood, near Petersfield (Hants), Mr. A. M. Williams has uncovered a wing of what seems to be a large residence. At Ham Hill, and close by at Stoke-under-Ham, in Mid-Somerset, indications of two buildings, probably farmhouses or cottages, have received examination from Mr. R. H. Walter. At Hallasey, near Cirencester, traces of a village, or of some rural habitation, have emerged. At Newbury (Berks)-close to the Romano-British Spinae, itself as yet a name-foundations

of a house have been discovered in the Enbourne Road. Finally, on Lansdown, near Bath, the Rev. H. Winwood and Mr. Bush have continued uncovering a curious and noteworthy inhabited site. Among recent finds are potsherds of perhaps Gaulish character, and some remarkable moulds, in white lias stone, for patera-handles.

I may conclude by referring to a few hoards found at Little Orme's Head, near Llandudno (over 500 copper, 90 per cent. Carausius); at the Brooklands motor track (over 300 copper of Diocletian, Maximian, and Constantius I.); at Goring, in Sussex (300 copper coins of the Thirty Tyrants); at Colchester a similar hoard; and at Romsey (Hants) 42 copper (Agrippa to Domitian) and 18 British bronze coins. I may also note here two pieces (ingots ?) of inscribed copper found in two places in North Wales. Of neither is the text yet deciphered. A stone inscription, seen by the Cambrian Archaeological Association last summer, and assigned by someone to the early Roman period, seems to me, so far as I can judge from rubbings, to be much later than the end of this period.

F. HAVERFIELD.

XVIII

HELLENISTIC GREEK

A MARKED change has been coming over the world of Greek scholarship in regard to the later periods of the history of the language. The humanists of the last century were prone to hang on the upturned nose all Greek that was written after Aristotle; and if they deigned to read "bad Greek," it was only because of help that might be gained for the study of the classical period. And now we find so great a Hellenist as Wilamowitz-Möllendorf including in his representative Greek Reader not only specimens of post-classical literary prose, but also inscriptions and papyri which illustrate the colloquial Greek of the Kowń. The passing of the old narrowness brings with it better prospects for the study of the language as a whole. Classical Greek will be more intelligently studied when it is properly set, as a period in the growth of a language which we may watch through thirty centuries. And Biblical Greek will be far better understood when it is examined as the most extensive evidence extant for the delineation of the world-language of the Roman Empire. The isolation of this phase of Greek, which has made it long the private preserve of theologians, has been a very bad thing for theology. Its treatment by a master of classical philology, like the late Friedrich Blass,' let in a welcome amount of new light.

Another work which broke

1 Griech. Lesebuch, 2 vols. (Berlin, Weidmann, 1902).

Especially in his Grammar of N. T. Greek (E. T. by H. St. J.

Thackeray, 2nd ed., Macmillan, 1905).