The Paris diptych of the consul Anastasius was long known as the diptych of Bourges, under which name it is well engraved in Montfaucon’s “Antiquities”: and no. 18 as the diptych of Compiegne; having been given by Charles the Bald in the ninth century to the abbey church of St. Corneille, where the leaves were preserved until its destruction in 1790, and were then transferred to Paris. The diptych is admirably figured in the Trésor de numismatique et de glyptique of Lenormant, who refers also to previous writers on this diptych. Basilius, consul of Constantinople, whose name is attached to no. 21, was the last of the long and illustrious line of consuls. They had continued, with a few short interruptions of the tribunes, for more than a thousand years. After Basilius, the emperors of the East took the title, until at length it fell into oblivion. The last consul of Rome was Decimus Theodorus Paulinus, A.D. 536. The second leaf of this diptych has been identified by professor Westwood: M. Pulszky believed it to have been lost. It is but a fragment of the right wing of the diptych, the upper half. Gori gives figures of both leaves: he decides against their being of the same pair. Mr. Westwood, however, says that “it is certainly the companion” to the leaf in the Uffizii. A detailed description and arguments about many of these diptychs will be found in the dissertations printed by Gori in his Thesaurus. Other authorities are Du Cange, Mabillon, and Montfaucon. Their statements have been ably and briefly summed up in the very interesting paper already mentioned, read before the architectural society of Oxford, by professor Westwood; and by M. Pulszky in his essay on antique ivories. A Roman diptych, undescribed, is preserved at Tarragona in Spain, and it is extremely probable that a careful search amongst the treasures still remaining in the churches of that country would discover others. The very learned editor of the Thesaurus of Gori (writing more than a hundred years ago) says: “Suspicio enim invaluit in locupletissimis Hispaniæ sacrariis, quo totius fere orbis donaria confluxerunt, multa hujusmodi abscondi, quæ nusquam adhuc comparuere, quia hactenus nec perquisita nec curata.” CHAPTER IV.