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The paper that follows calls for a brief preliminary word of explanation. In a characteristically stimulating note published over 20 years ago M. Louis Robert called attention to a number of inscriptions which attest the existence of an organisation of marble workers based on Nicomedia, an organisation of which he promised a fuller study in the near future. For a number of years I have myself been independently concerned with the archaeological and art-historical aspects of the same phenomenon, and although I had hoped to be able to publish the results of that work with the full benefit of M. Robert's unique knowledge of the epigraphic evidence, I am reluctant to delay publication further simply for that reason. In acknowledging my debt, I feel confident that M. Robert will correct, with his customary thoroughness, any errors of interpretation which I may commit.

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The excavations here described were undertaken by the British School at Rome on behalf of the Superintendency of Antiquities for Southern Etruria, through the courtesy of its Superintendent, Professor Renato Bartoccini, who has done so much to foster active archaeological research within an area that is undergoing drastic and archaeologically disastrous change, and with the active and cordial collaboration of his staff. The purpose of the excavations was the strictly limited one of examining, while there was yet time, one of the few remaining stretches of the defences of Veii where ploughing in recent years had revealed (and is now rapidly destroying) substantial remains of the ancient walls. In the course of the work such other features as came to light were examined and recorded so far as this limited purpose permitted; but no attempt was, or could be, made to follow up the larger implications of these discoveries, which must await another occasion and other hands.The work was undertaken in two short campaigns, each of between two and four weeks' duration. The first of these, in November and December 1957, was hampered by the ravages of Asian influenza, the work of supervision being shared in succession by Mrs. Selina Tomlin (now Mrs. Ballance), Mr. Guy Duncan and Mr. Michael Ballance; and it is greatly to their credit that, despite these difficulties, a satisfactory and coherent result was obtained. The second campaign took place in October-November 1958, and was supervised throughout by Mrs. P. W. Murray Threipland. Both in the field and the work-room a great deal of volunteer help was received both from students of the School and from friends and visitors, outstanding among the latter being Mrs. Anne Kahane and Mrs. Betty Eastwood and, during the second campaign, Mr. Eric Gray.