suspended are preserved. The tablet was found in 1848 at Agnone, and is an important monument of the Oscan language. It contains an enumeration of the statues and altars dedicated to various deities in a certain garden.

Case 105 contains objects more especially connected with Superstition and Magic.

Among the implements of superstition are:

874-876. Symbolic hands, covered over with the attributes of numerous deities and other objects in relief, intended to serve as a protection against the evil eye. (Fig. 62.)

A series of incantations and imprecatory tablets. To write such formulae on leaden tablets was a well-known practice of ancient superstition. It is, for instance, recorded that at the time of the illness of Germanicus,' songs and incantations against him, and his name inscribed on leaden tablets,' were found with other apparatus of witchcraft in the floor and walls of the house. Some of these tablets were found in the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at Cnidos. In one, for example, Artemeis solemnly dedicates to the deities the person, whoever he was, who borrowed and did not return the garments I had left behind, the cloaks, and tunic and short smock.' Another group of the tablets was found near Curium in Cyprus. These have more magic jargon. In one example the nail with which the folded imprecation was nailed up in a grave is shown. Several bronze nails are also exhibited, inscribed with magical formulae, and it may be noted that nails from a wreck were part of the equipment of an ancient witch.

A bronze tablet (890) containing a fragment of an oracular utterance (... t tibei firmus . . . nos) is a sors or lot. By some method of hazard one such lot was drawn from a bundle by the person consulting the oracle.

Case 106 contains several examples of the sistrum, a sort of metallic rattle. It was shaken so that the curved ends of the metal rods were brought into noisy contact with the metal frame. It was derived from Egypt, and was specially connected with the worship of Isis.

Wall-cases 107-110. Athletic and gladiatorial games.

Cases 107, 108. The objects connected with the Greek games include:

A pair of lead jumping weights (halteres) used by athletes to give an additional impetus to their spring, and a very cumbrous example in stone. Here is also a cast of an example of an early

stone jumping weight, found at Olympia, and now at Berlin.

The bronze disks were used for throwing, as in quoits, except that the object was to throw the disk to the greatest possible distance. For the method of throwing, see the statuette in bronze, and the Discobolos (p. 105) in the Second Graeco-Roman Room.

One of the disks (No. 3207) is inscribed with two hexameters* written in archaic letters, supposed to be in the character of Kephallenia. One Exoidas (?) dedicates to Castor and Pollux the disk with which he claims to have defeated the lofty-souled Kephallenians' (a Homeric epithet). Acquired in 1898 from the Tyszkiewicz collection.

A prize vase of bronze, from Cumae, has an archaic Greek inscription naming certain games of Onomastos at which it was offered.

Cases 107, 108 (below), and Cases 109, 110, are devoted to gladiators and the circus. The series includes statuettes of gladiators, and parts of their armour, and reliefs with combats of gladiators, of women gladiators, and of men with beasts. The cast (No. 1285) of a relief from Ephesus (the original is in the sculpture galleries) shows combats and corn waggons, the panem et circenses' demanded by the Roman populace.

The relief (No. 1286) shows the successive combats of a bestiarius, fighting with beasts at Ephesus.

The oblong tickets of ivory and bone were the property of the gladiators. They are inscribed (1) with the gladiator's name; (2) with the name of his master, in the genitive; (3) with the letters SP and a date of the day and month; (4) with the consuls of the year. The tickets certify that the gladiators had reached a certain point in their career, the SP being taken to represent either Spectatus (approved), Spectator or Spectavit (one who watched instead of fighting). The latter form is sometimes given in full.

Wall-case 111 contains Roman military antiquities. gives a bronze statuette of a Roman legionary soldier.

Fig. 63

Wall-cases 112-119 contain Defensive Armour, such as helmets, greaves, breastplates and the like. [For weapons, see the adjoining Table-case E, described below, p. 160.] The develop

ment of the Greek Corinthian helmet is shown in Cases 112-115. The Italian forms of the helmet are in Cases 116-119. Three of the helmets have inscriptions. One, in Case 115, appears to have been dedicated to the Olympian Zeus. No. 251 was Corinthian spoil, dedicated to Zeus by the Argives, probably in the middle of the fifth century B.C.

* Εχσοΐδα(ς) μ' ἀνέθηκε Διξὸς Q (ύ)ρουν μεγάλοιο
χάλκεον, ᾧ νίκασε Κεφαλλἂνας μεγαθύμου).

Among the greaves, etc., note a pair of very early greaves from Enkomi in Cyprus; and (249) a pair of greaves with archaic Gorgons in relief and incised.

[Wall-cases 1-24. See below, p. 171.]

Wall-cases 25-29. Remains of ancient furniture. In particular, a fine set of mules' heads from the arms of couches.

The principal object is a richly inlaid bronze and silver seat (2561) presented by Sir William Hamilton in 1784. The woodwork seat has been restored, and not altogether correctly. The seat ought to be a couch, and the carved pieces, terminating in mules' heads, ought to be fixed above, to support the cushions.

Other fine examples of such mule's head supports are shown in

the case.

ivory.

See also couch-arms with relief designs in bronze and

The leg of a finely-carved wooden chair from Kertch is also exhibited.

Two tripods are constructed to fold up. One example is also adjustable in height.

Wall-case 30. Candelabra, large and small, and various types of Lamps. The Candelabra, which are in many cases of tall and graceful shape, are mainly derived from Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Wall-cases 31, 32. Methods of lighting. The collection consists chiefly of lamps of various forms and materials, principally in bronze. Some of the shapes are beautiful, and others are fantastic. The finest lamps, in an artistic sense, are in the Bronze Room, and most of the clay lamps are in Table-case F in the Fourth Vase Room.

Case 32 also contains a lantern in good preservation, and the tops of two others. These are illustrated by a caricature of a quailcatcher going out with his lantern. Here, also, are hooks for hanging lamps, a lamp-feeder, and stands for lamps. Two lamps are mounted in such a way that the support can hang, or be fixed horizontally, or be stuck in the ground.

Wall-cases 33-36. These cases contain objects connected with the preparation and consumption of food.

Cooking implements of various forms, such as saucepans and frying pans; ladles (including one folding ladle from Amathus); moulds shaped as shells; graters, strainers, a filter; a wooden eggwhisk; stamps for cakes; spoons of various forms; also remains of actual foods-corn, fruits and bread - from Pompeii. Here also are statuettes of figures kneading dough, and a terracotta model of an oven. Below are pestles and mortars, the former usually in the form of a bent thumb.

Wall-case 37. Objects connected with the Bath, such as the strigils, or scrapers, used for scraping off oil and sweat, and oilflasks.

Wall-cases 38, 39 and 40 (below). water-supply and fountains.

Objects connected with

These include parts of two double-cylindered force-pumps. They differ slightly between themselves, but both are based on the system invented by Ctesibius of Alexandria. The two plungers in the cylinders (A A in fig. 64) were worked with a reciprocating motion by means of a rocking beam now lost. They alternately draw in water through valves at the bottom of the cylinder (B B), and force it into the vertical pipe in the middle, from which a continuous delivery is obtained. In the one case the valves are simple flapvalves (B D)—called by the Greeks assaria, farthings, from their obvious resemblance to coins. In the other, they are the more advanced spindle valves (E), in the form of cones which fall back into their seats by their own weight. F in the diagram shows a complete plunger, not belonging to this example. Double pumps, worked on this principle, were used as fire-engines. Found among the remains of a foundry at Bolsena.

Here, also, are pieces of leaden pipes, bronze taps of excellent construction fitted in leaden pipes, and bronze fountain jets.

Below are examples of bricks used for supporting the hollow pavement of the Roman hot air chambers in the baths; flues for conveying hot air, and specimens of drain-pipes. Here, also, are a bronze grating for catching rain-water, from the Mausoleum, and a terracotta gargoyle, probably from Pompeii.

Wall-case 40. Typical vase-shapes.

Wall-cases 41-44. Weights, scales, and steelyards.

=

The weights are of several series. The most important are (1) early haematite weights from Enkomi (eleventh cent. B.C.?); (2) the Attic Mina (mean weight 6,737 grains 15.4 oz. avoirdupois), and its parts; (3) the Roman Libra or pound (mean weight 5,050 grains 11 oz. avoirdupois), with its parts and multiples. See also a singular type of weights (mainly from Cnidos) in the form of a pair of breasts.

=

Among the scales, with equally-balanced pans, some folding examples may be seen.

The steelyards are based on the principle of a weight sliding along a long arm, suitably graduated, so as to make a counterpoise to the object to be weighed, suspended from the short arm.

In

most cases more than one hook can be employed as a fulcrum, and there is a graduated scale corresponding to each, so that the limits of the scale are greatly extended. Two steelyards in the lower part of Cases 43-44 have their long arms confined by bronze implements, whose function was long a matter of doubt they have been described as 'military standards' and the like but which seem most appropriately used as here.

On the left of the case is a cast of a relief with a scene in a cutler's shop, from the sepulchral altar of Cornelius Atimetus and Cornelius Epaphras, in the Galleria Lapidaria of the Vatican. Beside it is a cast of a relief of a pork butcher's shop, in the Dresden Museum. The butcher cuts up a joint, while his wife writes accounts in a set of tablets.

Wall-cases 45, 46. Tools and implements, such as axes, chisels, saws, and a collection of nails.

Also masons' squares and plummets (fig. 65). The plummet