as the time of Augustus, for the art of making them had been lost. They were made of clay mixed with asphalt, and then burnt, but so slightly that the asphalt was not changed by the process, hence the lightness and extraordinary fineness of the material. The darkness of the colour arises from the admixture of asphalt. Professor Hausmann of Göttingen first re-discovered the nature of the composition, and the experiments he made with it which were perfectly successful. This is really an interesting discovery, of which good use might be made, if not in Germany, at least in Italy. The art had died away to such a degree, that in Caesar’s time amateurs collected vases from Capua as well as from Corinth, and even opened tombs for the purpose of obtaining them. The vases of Arretium continued to be manufactured in the time of Augustus. The Campanian vases are not jars containing the ashes of deceased persons, such as we find elsewhere in tombs: the body was not burnt, but the skeletons are found in coffins, and on each side of the coffin, four, six, or eight vases of this kind are set up. As they were so slightly burnt, they are often found broken and crumbled, and it is a rare thing to find a large one preserved entire. They must be treated with great care, when brought to light and exposed to the atmospheric air. CUMAE is the most ancient Greek colony in those parts, though it certainly cannot be as ancient as it is said to be. In the first edition of my Roman History, I had not sufficiently considered this point; it is one of the few subjects on which the objections raised against my view are well founded. I am now convinced, that the statement of Timaeus, for to him it belongs, is false. Certain it is, that Cumae was an ancient Chalcidian colony; but it might even be doubted whether the Chalcidian towns in Sicily were not more ancient. When Capua was taken by the Samnites, Cumae, too, was conquered, and lost its Greek character: the Greek population, which until then had formed the ruling class, became subjects; their fate was that of the American aborigines: they were not indeed extirpated, but lost their political existence. Gradually the Italicans spread more and more, and many families from Campania removed to Cumae, which thus gradually became Italian. The same also was the fate of Naples, though not to such a degree. Cumae for a long time ruled over the whole Phlegraean plain, that is, the Acte between the Vulturnus and mount Vesuvius. _Dicaearchia_, on the site of the modern Puzzuoli, was then the port town of Cumae. In the time of king Darius, it was colonised by Samians, probably in the reign of Polycrates and Syloson.