ASCULUM, the capital of the Picentians, was a very large place, as, according to report, may still be seen from its ruins. The historical importance of this town belongs to the Social War, which broke out there; it was here that the first act of hostility against Rome was committed in a tumult which broke out in the theatre, and in which the Romans were murdered. The new fragments from Diodorus, discovered by A. Mai, throw some light upon these events. The town was taken, and we may easily imagine what was the fate of a place whose inhabitants had imbrued their hands with the blood of the commissioners of the senate who were sent to reprimand them. Asculum was not destroyed, but its fate was probably like that of Capua. After that time a class of towns in Picenum are mentioned under the name of _praefecturae agri Piceni_, from which we may recognise that Cn. Pompeius Strabo deprived the Picentians of their municipal institutions, and constituted them in this new form. This also shows that the Italians did not gain the franchise as simply as we generally imagine. The Picentians are said to have been a very populous nation. At the time of their subjugation, after the war with Pyrrhus, their number is stated to have been 360,000, which evidently comprises not those alone who were capable of bearing arms. The most important town in that whole country is ANCONA, which is the Latin form of the name, the Greek being Ἀγκών. It is one of the latest Greek settlements, a truly Greek town, founded by Dionysius in the 100th Olympiad; but we do not know whether the colonists were Syracusan exiles, or colonists sent out by Dionysius according to a definite plan. I am inclined to believe that Dionysius himself established the colony. The latter period of the elder Dionysius and the first of the younger are obscure to us on account of the absence of a regular plan in the work of Diodorus: he sometimes becomes tired in following up a history which he has carried through a series of years with the greatest minuteness; he then passes away from it, and leaves it out altogether. There does not exist a more thoughtless writer than this Diodorus of Sicily. Ancona remained a Greek town for a long time, and continued at a very late period to be connected with Constantinople, whence in the twelfth century it placed itself under the protection of Manuel Comnenus against the emperor Frederic I. Ancona is one of the very few ports on that coast of Italy, and Trajan increased this advantage by building the molo which still exists. A people mentioned under the name of PRAETUTII bordered on Picenum; there is great uncertainty about them, and it is not clear, whether they were Sabines, or whether they belonged to the ancient Tyrrhenian population. The town of HADRIA, from which the sea derives its name, was situated there. THE UPPER CONFEDERATION OF THE MARSIANS, PELIGNIANS, MARRUCINIANS, AND VESTINIANS.