PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 5 



centres scattered along the lone hillside, the shells of stately churches 

 with the effigies, bullet-starred now, of royal founders, once champions 

 of Christendom against the Paynim — nay, the actual relics of great 

 rulers, lawgivers, national heroes, still secreted in half-ruined monastic 

 retreats ! 



Sunt lacrimce rerum et mentern mortalia tangunt : 

 Even the archaeologist incurs more human debts, and the evocation 

 of the Past carries with it living responsibihties ! 



It will be found, moreover, that such investigations have at times 

 a very practical bearing on future developments. In connexion with 

 the traces of Eoman occupation I have recently, indeed, had occasion 

 to point out ^ that the section of the great Roman road that connected 

 the Valleys of the Po and Save across the lowest pass of the Julians, 

 and formed part of the main avenue of communication between the 

 Western and the Eastern provinces of the Empire, has only to be 

 restored in railway shape to link together a system of not less value 

 to ourselves and our Alhes. For we should thus secure, via the 

 Simplon and Northern Italy, a new and shorter Overland Route to 

 the East, in friendly occupation throughout, which is to-day diverted 

 by unnatural conditions past Vienna and Budapest. At a time when 

 Europe is parcelled out by less cosmopolitan interests the evidence of 

 Antiquity here restores the true geographical perspective. 



Whole provinces of ancient history would lie beyond our ken — often 

 through the mere loss of the works of classical authors — were it not 

 for the results of archseological i-esearch. At other times again it has 

 redressed the balance where certain aspects of the Ancient World 

 have been brought into unequal prominence, it may be, by mere acci- 

 dents of literary style. Even if we take the Greek World, generally 

 so rich in its literary sources, how comparatively little should we know 

 of its brilliant civiHsation as illustrated by the great civic foundations 

 of Magna Graecia and Sicily if we had to depend on its written sources 

 alone. But the noble monuments of those regions, the results of 

 excavation, the magnificent coinage — a sum of evidence illustrative in 

 turn of pubhc and private hfe, of Art and Religion, of politics and of 

 economic conditions — have gone far to supply the lacuna. 



Look, too, at the history of the Roman Empire — how defective and 

 misleading in many departments are the literary records ! It has been 

 by methodical researches into evidence such as the above — notably in 

 the epigraphic field — that the most trustworthy results have been 

 worked out. 



Take the case of Roman Britain. Had the lost books of Ammianus 



* ' The Adriatic Slavs and the Overland Route to Constantinople.' 

 Geographical Journal, 1916, p. 241 aeqq. 



