The Inscriptions of Pyrgi

Abstract

The great honour, which the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies has done me in entrusting me with this first ‘M. V. Taylor Memorial Lecture’, is the last, not the least, benefit for which I am indebted to our venerable and most regretted friend. I do not think it is my duty, indeed I think it would be very improper for me to set about reminding you here of who she was and what she did. I suppose I am expected to try to dedicate to her memory a paper which would not be too unworthy of her. I shall try to do my best. But I must confess at once that I am not quite sure that my subject is one of those she would have entirely approved of. Not that she had confined herself to Roman Britain. Of course I am sorry not to be able to present her today with a new enameled patera enumerating all the forts of the Wall, like the Amiens patera which, fifteen years ago, inspired her benevolence towards me. I am sorry not to be able to guide her through the halls of the Baths of Cluny, as I had the pleasure of doing in September, 1963, when she came to Paris for the last time on the occasion of the Archaeological Congress. I know her range of curiosity and learning was limitless indeed. Only I wonder whether Etruscan matters would not have raised in her a sort of smiling and sceptical reluctance, as something which is not altogether serious. I might plead, with Professor Momigliano's authority, that the Emperor Claudius, though the father of these queer researches, did something after all for Roman Britain. Still, as I cannot help imagining Miss Taylor sitting here in the front of my audience, I shall be exceptionally careful not to say anything which could arouse her sometimes passionate severity. If I fail, as is probable, I appeal in advance to her, and your, indulgence.