The Terra-cotta reliefs which form the subject of the present article have been for some years one of the minor attractions of the Acropolis Museum, and I am indebted for permission to publish them to the kindness of the Ephor General M. Cavvadias, and of the Ephors, MM. Staïs and Castriotis. The latter as superintendent of the Museum most obligingly put at my disposal all the information in his possession and afforded me every facility for photographing the tablets. No single tablet in the collection is perfect and of the 73 fragments which comprise it, the great majority came to light during the systematic excavations of the Acropolis which were carried on from 1885–1890; they were all found at some depth below the surface and as far as could be learnt, to the north, the east and the south-east of the Parthenon. The rest have been in the Museum since 1863; these were all found on or near the surface and it is possible that others were carried away by visitors and are now hidden in private collections. The publication of the Museum fragments may lead to their identification and the completion of some of the tablets whose design cannot at present be determined.

In the last number of the Hellenic Journal Professor Burrows has once more attacked Pylos and Sphakteria, this time with the aid of certain allies from the Peloponnese and a whole battery of photographs. I am, I confess, loth to dye this ink-stained field a deeper hue, and I have certainly no intention of sending friends of mine to Pylos with a view to reviving a controversy which has gone far enough. At the same time I do not wish to appear to undervalue the evidence of Messrs. Carr Bosanquet, Crowfoot, and Lindsay, though it is not of a very decisive character. I should therefore like to point out, as briefly as possible, its true bearing, and in doing so I have the satisfaction of not having to treat it as hostile, though brought into court by the other side.

I return to this subject, on which I wrote in 1921, because there is a good deal to be said which is new and which should, I think, be pretty conclusive. I have recently been compelled to write once again on Alexander's universalism, and the two matters are interconnected; also Professor Wilcken has put forward a new view of the principal plan, that for the conquest of the Mediterranean basin, which I think is untenable. The importance of the question of this plan for our ideas of Alexander needs no emphasising.

The document which contains the plans is given in Diodorus xviii, 4, 2–5, and Wilcken, like every German scholar to-day, believes that that document comes from Hieronymus and is therefore true. I have traced this belief back as far as I can, and cannot find that anyone has ever attempted to prove it; it arises from the unquestioned fact that (Agathocles apart) the basis and much of the detail of Diodorus' books xviii–xx are from Hieronymus. But the question of xviii, 4, 2–5 stands thus, xviii, 5 is certainly from Hieronymus.

The objects described in this article have for the most part been acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum in the course of the last four years through Sir Cecil Smith, late Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Sir Cecil Smith has kindly given his assent to their publication, and Mr. Arthur Smith, the present Keeper, has added his permission.

We know roughly, says Prof. Murray, how a rhapsode set to work. He would be tempted to introduce bright patches. … He would abhor the subordination of parts to the whole.

This tendency, he suggests, explains the occurrence both in Θ (555 ff.) and in II (297 ff.) of the well-known description of a cloudless sky: ‘Such lovely lines, once heard, were a temptation to any rhapsode, and likely to recur whereever a good chance offered. The same explanation applies to the multiplied similes of B 455 ff. They are not meant to be taken all together; they are alternatives for the reciter to choose from.’

I quote this pronouncement, not because I want to quarrel with the most generous of scholars, but because it hits on particularly instructive passages. The constellation of similes at B 455 ff. marks, I suggest, a provisional climax in the movement of the poem, and the images here chosen are poetically relevant, not only to the immediate context but to the whole design. Similarly, the image of Θ 555 ff. is not isolated, but provides a climax and a consummation to the whole series of images which decorates the movement Γ–Θ. The kindred, though more impressive, image of Π 297 ff, marks the beginning of yet another series.

In the early years after its foundation in 1857, the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington pursued its policy of acquisition with a vigorously catholic taste. Since then its scope has become gradually limited to exclude work of the pre-Christian era, but in addition to the original purchases of Greek vases, the accession of large miscellaneous collections containing antiquities has contributed to what is now an excellent group of Greek and Roman objects. Important Greek vases were included in the big collection of modern European ceramics transferred in 1901 from the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, and in 1910 the late George Salting bequeathed his entire collection, other than paintings, to the Victoria and Albert Museum. His good taste in every other direction was sufficient guarantee that the Greek civilisations should be represented by work of more than average merit. Unfortunately, Salting kept few records concerning the provenance of his acquisitions, and so one of the finest Etruscan engraved mirrors in existence came to the Museum without a past history.