Harvard Studies in Classical Philology : %III. (Longmana and Co.
Os. 6d. net.)—The " Politics of the Patrician Claudii," by George Converse Fiske, is a valuable contribution to the study of Roman history. The Claudii are a puzzling race, manifestly of great ability, but somehow marked with failure. Much of this failure was due, it is clear, to their inaptness for military com- mand. Unfortunately, the Roman Constitution had no arrange- ment for utilising separately civil and military capacities. There is another difficulty in the attitude of the house to plebeian claims. Sometimes it seems adverse, sometimes friendly. That it sought to depress the plebeian nobility and the capitalist class, while favouring the libertini (an undoubted fact) and the small traders, seems likely. If so, it played the r6le of the great noble seeking democratic support, and bore a resemblance to the Emperors of later centuries. "The Shield Devices of the Greek" is an archaeological study of which it is impossible to give any sum- mary. The illustrations from folk-lore of the Danaid myth are interesting.
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