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This webpage is an article published in the Supplementary Papers of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, Volume I, pp87‑107 and Plates XI‑XII (1905) Text and images are in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know!

 p87  La Civita near Artena in the Province of Rome

The remains of an ancient city which form the object of these researches are situated upon a lofty plateau at the northern extremity of the Volscian Mountains (now known as the Monti Lepini) at a distance of a mile or so from the village of Artena dei Volsci or Monte Fortino, as it was called till 1873. The ascent from the bottom of the village, involving as it does a steep climb of some 1000 feet, takes as a rule about an hour. This plateau is known as the Piano della Civita ("the plateau of the old town" — for this is the constant meaning of Civita in Italy) and attains a maximum elevation of 632 m (2073½ feet) above sea-level. It is isolated on the east and west by deep ravines, and is connected only on the south side with the main range of hills; but even on this side the ground falls away rather sharply, except along a narrow neck, which is traversed by the path to Rocca Massima (identified by many topographers with the Arx Carventana of Livy (IV, 53, 55, 56), though there is no decisive evidence either positive or negative). The view is very fine and extensive, embracing the Alban Hills from Velletri to Rocca Priora, the Hernican Mountains and the valley of the Sacco, and a part of the Pomptine Marshes with the sea beyond. The site is, in fact, the last outpost to the north of the Volscian range, and projects a long way forward of it. (See Map of La Civita near Artena and Environs, Plate XI.)

The distance from Rome to the modern village of Artena is only •twenty-four miles as the crow flies, while by the Via Latina, which passes just below Artena to the north, it is •twenty-seven; but the train-service is by no means good, while the village itself contains, as far as the senses can perceive, no decent night-quarters, and the virtue of cleanliness seems to be at a discount. An early start from Rome and a late return were found to give five hours at the most for work on the site, and often even less time was available. It will be obvious that these circumstances have added considerably to the difficulties of our task; but perhaps the greatest disappointment was the discovery, made when the survey was already well in progress, that the site had been previously described, and a plan made, by M. René de la Blanchère (Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'École Française de Rome, vol. I (1881), pp161-180, and plates iv, v). Further study proved, however, that his plan, although correct in its general outlines, was susceptible of improvement and amplification; while the description was capable of being supplemented by a series of adequate illustrations, the single sketch of a fragment of the city-wall (taken from the southern part of the west side)  p88 given by M. de la Blanchère being decidedly unsatisfactory. It was thought better, therefore, to complete the survey (see Plan, Plate XII) and publish the results.

The identification of the site with any of the ancient towns of the district, the names of which have been preserved to us, is not easy. De la Blanchère discusses the question at length and (p178) inclines to see in the name Monte Fortino, which belonged to the village in 1226 (Nibby, Analisi della Carta dei Dintorni di Roma, vol. I, p264, citing F. Contelori's history of the Conti family (Genealogia Familae Comitum Romanorum, Rome, 1650), who were once its owners), a survival of the Φορτινεῖοι, mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (V, 61) among the thirty cities which formed the Latin league in or about the year 384 B.C. (Mommsen, History of Rome, 1903, vol. I, p448); and he further identifies with them the Foretii, who occur in the list given by Pliny (N. H. III, 5; 69) of the peoples of Latium who, at the time at which he wrote, had utterly disappeared.

The modern name of the village is the result of the adoption of the theory of Gell (Topography of Rome and its Vicinity, p110) and Nibby (op. cit. p262). Artena is mentioned only once, by Livy (IV, 61):

From this description it will be seen that Artena was a city having a citadel distinct from the rest of the town; but Nibby is wrong in believing that this is the case at La Civita. As de la Blanchère points out (p174), the great terrace (No. 11 on our Plan) cannot have been the •arx. One might suppose that to have occupied the eminence to the north-northwest (which is connected with the rest of the hill only by a narrow neck) if it were not that this presents no traces of walls whatsoever, and would seem to have been omitted from the circuit of the city. It is precisely at this point that the road from the north entered it (No. 2 on the Plan).

Other names have been suggested: Ortona​1 (Liv. III, 30), Corbio (ibid.), which both seem to have been situated in the Alban Hills, and finally Ecetra, the position of which, as indicated in the classical authors, accords fairly well with that of the Piano della Civita (Liv. III, 4, 10; VI, 31. Dionys. IV, 49; X, 21). It seems to have been situated on the edge of the territory of the Volsci, and close to that of the Aequi, and also to have been on that side of the Volscian Hills which is closest to Algidus: both these features would agree with the site of La Civita. It was absolutely destroyed in 378 B.C., and Pliny enumerates it among the lost cities of Latium. It seems, therefore, at least possible to identify La Civita with Ecetra, though the similarity  p89 of the name Monte Fortino with that of the Φορτινεῖοι or Foretii has something to recommend it. But in either case, the statements of our classical authorities that these places were utterly destroyed would require to be taken cum grano; and it would perhaps be wiser to assume their correctness, and refuse to attempt to give a name to the place. For, in the present state of our knowledge, it must at once be said that it is quite impossible to assign a date to the remains we have before us. They consist of the circuit of the outer defensive walls, and of the remains of constructions in the interior, both for the most part built in what is variously known as the Pelasgic, Cyclopean, or polygonal style. There are, however, a few traces of concrete, faced with opus incertum, in situ, and numerous fragments of baked bricks and tiles are scattered over the site. The walls present, it is true, an extremely ancient appearance, being faced with boulders of the rough pale-gray limestone found upon the site itself, which as a rule is so stratified as to have a natural tendency to break into rectangular blocks. No traces of their having been worked or smoothed in any way are to be detected. They are laid without mortar, and the interstices are filled with smaller stones. The inner mass of the walls (which are as a rule embanking-walls, the only exception being at the northwest corner of the outer city-wall, between Nos. 2 and 20 on the Plan, Plate XII) is made up of smaller stones and earth.

The primitiveness of the construction, and the fact that mortar is not employed, may be held to argue a certain antiquity. Compared with the circuit-walls of other towns of the neighborhood, those of La Civita are extremely rough and badly built; though, considering how exposed the site is, the influence of the weather upon the stone should be taken into account. The old theory that all polygonal walls are prehistoric hardly needs refutation: a day spent among the olive-clad slopes below Tivoli will reveal a sufficient number of terrace-walls obviously belonging to Roman villas to prove its absurdity:​2 not even the so‑called ignorance of the principle of the arch, as displayed, for example, in the Porta Saracinesca at Segni, can stand as a proof of high antiquity. Similar cases may be found in a drain passing through the substruction of the Via Appia at Itri; in another drain passing through an embankment of the Via Salaria, •some thirty miles from Rome, which is known as Ponte del Diavolo (Annali dell' Instituto, 1834, p107); in a villa of the Roman period at Scauri, near Formia; and, finally, though on a far smaller scale, in a hypocaust-opening in a building discovered in 1902 in the Romano-British city of Caerwent (Venta Silurum), in Monmouthshire, England, the date of which cannot possibly be earlier than about 50 A.D.,​3 and is in all probability a good deal later.

And now excavations have brought proof that the fortifications of Norba, •about ten miles to the south of La Civita, on the western edge of the Volscian range, are of Roman date! The report (Notizie degli scavi, 1901, pp514-559) is worthy of study. The necropolis was unfortunately not found, and this is to be deplored, as the approximate date of the foundation of the city and the period during which it existed could thus have been more certainly determined than in any other way. But within the  p90 core and beneath the foundations of a part of the wall of the east side, in such positions that they could not have been introduced after the construction of the wall (op. cit., p548), fragments of pottery belonging undoubtedly to the Roman period were found; and so it would appear certain that the walls of Norba must be attributed at the earliest to the period of the foundation of the "nova colonia, quae arx in Pomptino esset" (Liv. II, 34) in 492 B.C. It is, further, remarkable that a careful examination of the walls of Norba has completely upset the traditional chronology of polygonal constructions.​4 The most recent writer on the subject, G. B. Giovenale ('I monumenti preromani del Lazio,' in Dissertazioni dell' Accademia Pontificia, serie II, tomo VII), while admitting that in certain cases they must be assigned to the Roman period,​5 divides them, in general, into three groups, corresponding to different styles and dates. In the first we have large blocks, hardly worked at all, with rough faces and rounded angles; in the second, smaller blocks, with the faces left more or less rough, but the joints smoothed; in the third, larger blocks again, but with the faces carefully smoothed, the joints worked, but not so finely as the faces, and a strong tendency towards horizontality. Small filling blocks and insets are not uncommon.

But, most unfortunately, at Norba we find the most perfect type (the third) used precisely in those places which were most exposed to attack, and would therefore have been the first to be fortified; and the angle to the left of the Porta Grande is the point of contact of walls of the second and third styles, in which it is clear that the third style supports the second. So that the usual chronology of these walls is not reliable; and hence, although perhaps the walls of La Civita are rougher than anything to be found at Norba, this roughness cannot in itself be regarded as sufficient evidence of high antiquity. Excavation alone can solve the problem definitely; and the site, being absolutely unoccupied by modern buildings, could easily be carefully examined, and would be well worthy of the attention of the Italian authorities.

It is worth noting, further, that the excavations at Norba brought to light traces of life on the site from the sixth century B.C. to the eighth or ninth of our era.​6 It is possible, inasmuch as Pliny (N. H. III.5; 69, 70) enumerates it again the cities of Latium "quae interiere sine vestigiis," that it suffered a temporary eclipse after its  p91 destruction by Sulla; but there is material evidence of a revival of prosperity under the Empire. As this may likewise have been the case with La Civita, the statements of the classical writers are perhaps no bar to either of the identifications proposed (p88).

We may now proceed to describe La Civita itself and the remains which are to be found there. The site attains its greatest elevation at the north end (632 m = 2073½ feet). The ground slopes away towards the south and west rather gently (the southern slope being by far the longer), but much more abruptly towards the north and east (except for the neck by which it is connected with the rocky knoll to the north-northwest). Its greatest extension from north to south is about 825 m, and from east to west about 525 m (de la Blanchère gives 894 m and over 650 m.)

The external walls are fairly well preserved along the whole of the west side and on the south and southeast. On the east side, a little to the south of the point where the path usually followed from Artena enters them (No. 4 on Plan), they disappear, and, the slope being very abrupt, they may not have extended farther to the north on this side. On the north side, however, they certainly existed, though traces of them are extremely scanty at the present time. De la Blanchère seems to have seen them in a far more perfect condition, for he remarks that they were preserved "sans solution de continuité" from C to D on his plan (No. 27 to No. 28 on our Plan) for a distance of 342 m (p166).

The city probably had two important gates. The first was at the northwest extremity, where there is a break in the wall, and where the col, connecting it with the knoll on which is situated the trigonometrical point 621, comes up to the plateau. Here are traces (marked 1 on the Plan) of the substruction-wall of a road ascending southwestward, which must have followed, more or less, the line of a steep modern path. Serangeli (see below, p101)º brings it up from La Cacciata, •some two miles northwest of Artena, passing on the way some reservoirs and a place where, in his day (1717), antiquities of a date posterior to the abandonment of La Civita had been found. This gate (No. 2 on Plan) must have been situated between the fragment of wall 3 (which has now disappeared) and 1.

The second important gate was almost certainly situated on the east side, near point 4, where the easier modern path enters the plateau of La Civita, perhaps on the line of the prolongation of a substruction-wall 5 (see below, p92), i.e. almost exactly where the city-wall ceases to be preserved, though, owing to the height of the bank, it may be safer to locate it nearer to point 4. In any case, however, de la Blanchère puts it a good deal too far north, the slope towards the north at the point indicated by him being very abrupt. Serangeli makes a road enter from this side, and de la Blanchère (p170) speaks of having seen its substruction-walls on the east side of the mountain, believing it to be the same as a road of which traces are to be seen in the hills between Segni and Monte Fortino.

Besides these two gates there are two small posterns on the west side (marked 6 and 7 on the Plan and shown in Figs. 1 and 2), each 2.85 m in width.​7 Owing  p92 to the precipitous character of the slope, neither of them can have had any great importance, or have served to admit anything more than a mountain path; that which entered at No. 6 may have ascended from the Grotta di Catauso, a natural fissure in the limestone rock, which it was impossible for us to explore owing to the water within. It is not unlikely that the water-supply of the ancient city may have been partly derived from this cave.

The curious inward bend of the wall just before the extreme south point is reached is not apparently connected with a gate, for the wall is well preserved, and there are no traces of any opening. It is possible, on the other hand, that there was a gate where a path now leaves the site at the south end (No. 8 on Plan), at which point there is now a gap in the wall; and there may conceivably have been another in the great angle in the west side, where a modern path also passes out of the site, but over the wall, the extreme angle being now covered by an accumulation of earth (No. 9 on Plan). The fragment of the substruction-wall which possibly belongs to a road (No. 5) may have turned slightly so as to reach this angle, or may have turned more, so as to lead farther northward, perhaps to the gate at No. 6 on the Plan.

The city-wall itself is constructed of blocks of the local limestone. An average size is difficult to give, but the faces of the larger blocks may be stated to measure about 1 m by 0.75 m. The thickness of the wall is given by de la Blanchère as averaging 2 m; we measured 2.13 m in the stretch of wall going southeast just  p93 beyond the gate at No. 7, and 2.25 m in the long stretch going south from point 10. The only portion now preserved above the inner ground-level is between points 1 and 7 on our Plan, and it measures 2.25 m in thickness at that level, above which it rises to a height of 2.80 m. An illustration is given (Fig. 3), showing a section of the similar city-wall of Circeii which is of about the same thickness; but this necessarily decreases as the wall rises, to insure its stability. The maximum height preserved in the circuit of the wall of La Civita is 3.80 m, but this is at a point near 10 in the Plan, where it does not rise above the inner ground-level.

It is obvious that walls of this style are unsuited to stand free, as in order to secure stability they must needs be wider at the base than at the top. For embanking-walls, on the other hand, polygonal masonry is not open to objection, and is often used even nowadays by railway engineers.

Specimens are given of the city-wall. Fig. 4 shows the outer wall near a point A between the two gates Nos. 6 and 7; Fig. 5 the same, just south of point No. 9; Fig. 6 the same, at still another point on the west side; Fig. 7 shows the entire southwest portion of the site (taken from near gate No. 6); Fig. 8 is a view from the south end of the site, showing the wall from point 6 to point 9 on the Plan.

The remains within the circuit of the wall consist, in the first place, of a great massive terrace (No. 11 on Plan) facing south-southwest, the front of which is 167 m  p96 in length (Fig. 9). The east-southeast side of it can be traced for a distance of about 87 m, but the west-northwest side has almost entirely disappeared. The work is a trifle more careful than it is in the city-wall. The maximum height is about 6 m near the west end of the front-wall (Figs. 10 and 11), the central portion of which is a good deal broken away. The part preserved there (Fig. 12), about 5 m high and 2 m thick, contains a block measuring on the face 2.40 by 2.40 m to its extreme points, — the largest we have found upon the site. At a distance of 10.50 m inward from the outer face of this wall another similar but smaller one (No. 12 on Plan), at present scarcely preserved above the ground-level, can be traced for a distance of 53.70 m going west-northwest and 12.50 m going north-northeast. There was, we were told, a concrete flooring to the platform which is supported on the south by these substruction-walls, at a depth of about 0.75 m. This area, which extends for about 90 m back from the front of the terrace to the rocks that rise decidedly behind it (No. 29 on Plan), — while its breadth is probably somewhat less than that of the great front-wall, — can never have been the arx; it is not in any way defensible and is over­looked by the highest point within the walls. De la Blanchère (p170) is probably quite correct in saying that it was the site of the forum of the city and also of the temple of the protecting deity. (Compare p90, note 3.)

At the highest point itself there is a rectangular depression in the rock, 2 or 3 m in depth (No. 13 on Plan), the sides of which are partly lined with masonry.  p99 It measures 22 by 13.40 m, and was very likely, as de la Blanchère suggests, a cistern (p169).

The long wall (No. 11) of the great terrace, near its west end (No. 14 on Plan), has a parallel wall of opus incertum built against it, 0.75 m thick, and from the terrace-wall run several parallel walls (Nos. 15 on Plan) of opus incertum, more easily traced at the time when de la Blanchère visited the site than at present. From the southwest angle of the terrace ran another wall (No. 16 on Plan), ending in a concrete foundation which is still to be seen (No. 17 on Plan). To the west, northwest, and southwest of this point no further remains of buildings were traceable, though the blocks of the limestone, which by nature fractures rectangularly, often tempt one to believe that one has detected traces of foundations, which after more careful inspection have to be rejected.

There are, however, other remains within the city-wall, which de la Blanchère seems to have failed to observe. To the east of the great terrace is another low wall (No. 18 on Plan), marked as uncertain by de la Blanchère (O on his plan) and connected by him with a gate which he wrongly supposes to have existed on the line of the prolongation east-southeast of the great terrace-wall (N on his plan). It runs almost parallel to the eastern side-wall of the terrace, and seems to have a rectangular termination at its northeast end. A little farther down the  p100 slope, and very nearly in the same straight line with it, is another wall which supports a road, 8.50 m in width (No. 19 on Plan), paved with large blocks of limestone. This road can be traced southward as far as 20, where it stops; but close to this point there was probably an important junction of roads coming from the gates, which we have conjecturally marked at Nos. 4, 8 and 9 on our Plan (see pp91 and 92 above). The wall 18 apparently marks the prolongation northward of this road, and the turn at right angles at its northeast end probably means that close to this point it turned and entered the area of the great terrace.

On each side of the lower portion of the road are foundations of polygonal blocks of smaller size; on the northwest side terrace-walls (Nos. 21‑23 on Plan — with possibly another terrace between 22 and 23), and on the southeast side the foundations of a small building (No. 24 on Plan). To the south of point 5 (see p91) we saw no definite remains of buildings. De la Blanchère speaks of roads as possibly traceable from the gates numbered 6 and 9 going towards the north end of the western side-wall of the great terrace and the highest point of all; of these we saw no traces. He saw also other traces of walls on the site, too indistinct to be put upon the plan.

It does not appear that there was much more to be seen two centuries ago. Serangeli, the author of a manuscript history of Monte Fortino (Notizie istoriche della Terra di Monte Fortino, 1717), now preserved at the Municipio of the modern village  p102 of Artena,​8 speaks of the site as "ripieno di varj vestigj di ruine e frantumi di terracotta." Already at his time it was entirely under cultivation, as it is at present, though the grain it produces is not very flourishing. He only saw some subterranean vaults (which de la Blanchère supposes to have been cisterns), and even these were partly destroyed. De la Blanchère, in commenting on this passage, remarks that fragments of bricks and terra-cotta are extremely rare upon the site (p168). Our experience does not bear out his statement: there is a great quantity of broken bricks, flange-tiles, and pottery of Roman date​9 (mostly, to be sure, in small pieces, of very coarse material and inferior manufacture, some baked red, some baked gray), and terra-cottas are said to have been found in two places at the east edge of the northern part of the site (Nos. 25 and 26 on Plan). Some of the latter, now in the archaeological collection of the University of Michigan, are shown in Fig. 13.

Of the modern village, little remains to be said. Half-way down to it, at a place called Serrone del Patto (or Fatto), Serangeli (manuscript, fol. 20) speaks of the discovery of debris of constructions, pieces of marble, and of a lead pipe one-third of a palm (7.41 cm) in diameter, bearing the inscription, L VINIVS ONESIMVS FEC, at intervals (CIL X, 5977). There were seen traces of a villa (possibly the same building), consisting of a wall, 80 cm thick, of small polygonal blocks, with debris of amphorae, tiles, etc., on the slope below the path which leads up on the east side of the site. In the church of S. Maria there is an altar (used now as a holy-water basin and placed upside down), bearing in low relief on the three sides which are visible the emblems of Jupiter (eagle and thunderbolt, Fig. 14), Juno (peacock), and Minerva (owl and helmet, the latter lettered Α Θ Η, Fig. 15). The material is Greek marble, and the work is good. The base measures 50 cm in length, the plain plinth 5 cm,  p103 the moulding 6.45 cm in height, while the sculptured panel is 35.5 cm high and 36.5 cm wide. The plain little church itself has been modernized, but contains many fragments of eighth-century carving built into the altar steps.

In the town there is little to be seen: the principal church (S. Croce), near the top of the town (Fig. 16), has two panels of Cosmatesque work (twelfth century) built into the façade, and two more within the floor. In the sacristy is preserved the inscription CIL X, 5987, seen by us, where Stevenson's DLCIMIO must be a misprint for DECIMIO, the whole running thus:

(p106)

Figure 17. — The West Side of Artena and the Chasm View from the terrace beside the church (see Fig. 16)

Beside the church on the west a very wide and deep fissure in the limestone has recently developed (Figs. 16 and 17), and a similar deep depression exists farther to the east, reducing the width of the town at this point to about 150 m.

 p104  Farther down the town we saw the inscription CIL X, 5984, described as "arca" (really a slab, 0.95 m in height), said by Serangeli to have been found in the quarto della Pescara, •three miles to the southwest of the village, "in una collinetta vicino alla selva," and to be in his own possession (manuscript, fol. 21). Stevenson saw it in the scuole comunali: it now forms the threshold of a doorway, and its right-hand side is no longer visible. We give what we saw of the text in capitals, and the remainder in small italics:

 p105  There is also in the Palazzo Borghese (belonging to the Roman family of that name, who are the owners of Artena) a tufa sarcophagus found at the Colle Treare, near the twenty-fourth mile of the Via Latina, described in Notizie degli scavi, 1890, p325, and a bust of a bearded Roman. Stevenson saw there a mill (catillus) of stone, bearing the inscription HOP (CIL X, 5997); the letters were, however, indistinct and the reading should probably have been HOS (cf. CIL X, 8057, 7).

Outside is the milestone, CIL X, 6884, the inscription of which is now almost illegible. It ran thus:

It must have belonged to the Via Latina from the place at which it was found. The number is quite uncertain; but the problems connected with it cannot be discussed here.

 p107  Opposite the palace is a fragment of a female statue.

The only sepulchral inscription which Stevenson saw here is CIL X, 5979,

CIL X, 5986, was also recorded as having been found here by Serangeli (manuscript, fol. 16), while two other authors give two different localities where they saw it, in neither of which could Stevenson find it. It runs thus:

There are no others belonging to Artena itself, as distinct from the Via Latina which passes close under it (see the small Map on Plate XI and Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. I, map VIII).

The authors acknowledge with pleasure their indebtedness to Messrs. Albert R. Crittenden, Henry M. Gelston, and John W. Beach, formerly members of the American School, for some help in surveying and measuring the walls of La Civita.

The present description has been compiled by Mr. Ashby, Assistant-Director of the British School, with the aid of Mr. Pfeiffer's notes, while the latter is in the main responsible for the plan, the photographs having been contributed by both of us. The work, being therefore fairly divided between us, is, in a sense, one of the first-fruits of the cordial friendship between the American and the British schools at Rome.

Thomas Ashby, Jr.,
George J. Pfeiffer.

Rome, March, 1904.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 This place seems to be mentioned also by Dionysius (VIII, 91; X, 26), but in both cases the reading is doubtful (de la Blanchère, p176).

❦

2 Cf. also p90, below.

❦

3 Archaeologia, LVIII, 2 (1903), p397, fig. 2.

❦

4 The remarks on this subject in W. Ridgeway's Early Age of Greece (vol. I, p68) require correction.

❦

5 The most striking of these is the platform of a large villa at Grotte Torri in the Sabine country, not far from the station of Fara Sabina, where the outer face of the wall of the platform is of very fine masonry, with the blocks carefully smoothed on all sides, while the inner face is of opus incertum. The whole wall is only 1.20 m in thickness, and is pierced by loophole-windows, which serve to light a cryptoporticus that runs around the inside of the platform: so that there can be no question of the contemporaneity of the whole wall, nor of the necessity of assigning it to the Roman period.

❦

6 Subsequent excavations in the interior of the city are described in Notizie degli scavi, 1903, pp229-262.

The site in its unexplored state so strikingly resembled what may be seen at Artena that the parallel is interesting and important.

A little below and to the south of the temple of Juno there is a large rectangular terrace, supported on three sides by fine walls of polygonal blocks (pp238, 239, figs. 8, 9). Its front, facing southwest, is 24 m long. In the centre of the terrace lies an area measuring 15 × 13 m (fig. 10), paved with smaller blocks. This is surrounded by a crepido and by a line of stones set on edge, which rise slightly above the area enclosed. The latter was discovered at a depth of some 40 cms. below the surface of the ground.

A paved road led to the terrace from the northeast.

❦

7 The site of the postern at point 6 may be seen in Fig. 8.

❦

8 In the course of our various visits to Artena, the lack of time has never permitted of our examining this manuscript, a task which, indeed, seemed unnecessary, inasmuch as it has been searched both by de la Blanchère and by Stevenson — the latter in his work of collection of materials for the tenth volume of the CIL (ibid. p591).

❦

9 A piece of black glazed pottery was also found; it is a part of the bottom of a small bowl. On its inner side are four impressions of a mark shaped like this figure, (in one-half of the actual size).º Judging from their positions, six were grouped in the centre of the vessel so as to form a regular figure like this, , the five outer ones having the open end turned inward.

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My warm thanks to Susan Rhoads, M.D. for her generous gift of the book from which I transcribed this page.
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