In this Exhibition an attempt has been made to bring together a number of miscellaneous antiquities which formed a part of the collections of the Department, in such a method as illustrates the purpose for which they were intended, rather than their artistic quality, their material, or their place in the evolution of craft or design.

Such a series falls naturally into groups, and it has been found convenient to treat these groups in accordance with a general scheme, the illustration of the public and private life of the Greeks and Romans.

The materials forming the basis of this scheme are, primarily, objects which already formed part of the Museum collections: for this reason it has not been possible always to preserve that proportion in the relation of the sections to the whole which would have been studied if the objects had been selected for acquisition with this purpose in view. Further, it is necessary to warn visitors that they must not expect to find the subject in any sense exhaustively treated here: the complete illustration of every detail of ancient life would be impossible for any museum as at present constituted. All that can here be done is to shape the available material into a system which may at least present a fairly intelligible, if limited, view of ancient life. Several new acquisitions, made since the appearance of the first edition of this Guide, have strengthened the exhibition in directions in which it was deficient, and it is hoped that this process will be continued. Meanwhile, some of the gaps have been filled by means of casts and reproductions of objects belonging to other categories in this Museum, or preserved elsewhere.

The preparation of the first edition of this Guide (1908) was entrusted to different members of the Departmental Staff. Mr. Yeames prepared a great deal of the necessary preliminary work: Mr. Walters wrote the sections on Athletics, the Circus, Gladiators, and Agriculture: Mr. Forsdyke those on Coins, Arms and Armour, Dress and the Toilet. The remaining sections were mainly the work of Mr. Marshall.

In the present edition the section on Arms and Armour has been re-written by Mr. Forsdyke, and the remainder has been mainly revised by myself. The proofs have been read by Mr. Walters and Mr. Forsdyke.

A. H. Smith.

British Museum,

March, 1920.