J'espérais bien n'en plus parler; j'en ai parlé, jadis, assez longuement. Mais un important article, publié en 1915 dans l'Hermes par E. von Stern et dont je n'ai eu connaissance qu'en ces temps derniers, m'oblige à en dire encore quelques mots.

Il s'agit, une fois de plus, de ce Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Λυσιμάχου appelé aussi Πτολεμαῖος Έπίγονος dont fait mention un décret voté, en 240 avant notre ère, par les citoyens de Telmessos en Lycie; qui, par la faveur de Ptolémée III Évergètes, était devenu peu avant cette date prince souverain de Telmessos; et qui reçut des Telmessiens, en récompense de ses bienfaits, les plus rares honneurs.

The twenty-fifth chapter of the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens contains a circumstantial account of the overthrow of the Areopagus, which differs from the accepted version of the same affair in ascribing an important, though not the foremost, part in the attack to Themistocles. The newly discovered version does not, it is true, stand entirely by itself. But it is found elsewhere only in an argument to the Areopagiticus of Isocrates, written probably by a sixth-century Christian. As between the argument and the papyrus, it is the latter that alone can give any serious historical value to the former. But what is the historical value of the account in the Constitution? If it is true, then, as was recognised at once by Kenyon in his editio princeps, it revolutionises the history of the later part of Themistocles' career.

The notes which follow are intended to be a supplement to Professor W. M. Calder's Corpus Inscriptionum Neo-Phrygiarum in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, XXXI and XXXIII (1911–13), and above, p. 22. The Corpus is so complete and the interpretation of the inscriptions so ingenious and thorough that little room is left for addition and correction. My supplementary notes, therefore, will not be numerous.

(1) In No. LXIX it is clear that ξως κε πεις κε must mean ‘both living and dead,’ and that consequently πεις signifies ‘dead.’ Hence in No. XII we must read ζειρακεοι πειες κε, and translate ‘living and dead (let them go accursed to Attys).’ The verb has the plural suffix -νου, corresponding with -du in Boghaz Keui Hittite. This settles the reading of No. VII, which must be [ζειρ]ακεοι ειροι Ατι ετι ττ[ετικμενοι ειττ]νου. Ειροι perhaps means ‘untimely’; cp. ἦρι.

B.M. B46. The catalogue describes this vase thus:—

Acquired 1867: Blacas Coll. Dinos. Ht. 13 in. Diam. 12½ in. Slightly restored, imperfectly fired. Around rim, chain of lotus and buds; on shoulder, tongue-pattern. Two friezes: above, banquet scene, of seven couches, on each of which two male banqueters; between the two end couches, group of five servants, in attendance on the banqueters; below, animal frieze. Beneath this a broad zone of black, and on bottom, polypus pattern.

The principal scene shows a series of seven couches, on each of which recline two bearded male figures, facing to 1.; seven of them wear wreaths. Alongside each couch stands a table, bearing viands for the banquet. From 1. to r., the first, fourth, sixth, tenth and thirteenth hold out phialae in varying attitudes; the third, eleventh and fourteenth hold out kerata, in the act of drinking, or to have them refilled, while the seventh and eighth also have each a keras; the fifth holds out a kantharos; the twelfth raises an apparently empty r. hand; the second also raises his r. hand, but the object he holds is hidden by the first figure; the ninth plays the double flute.

In this article, I re-examine a little-studied stele from Thebes on Mount Mykale in Asia Minor for the light which it sheds on the position this minor community occupied as a territorial possession of Miletus. Two texts were inscribed on this stele in the early fourth century BC, on its front and back. Both are exceptional: IPriene 363 in delineating the territorial boundaries of Thebes for an internal audience; IPriene 362 in setting out an onerous schedule of sacrificial offerings which those who pastured sheep or goats were obliged to observe. After identifying another inscription, IPriene 361, as an additional fragment of the same stele, and presenting photographs, texts, translations and commentaries, I argue that the stele functioned as a coherent monument regulating the activities of pastoral producers and that it was probably erected by the Thebans themselves in order to reinforce their territorial integrity. As such it represents a unique case study for exploring issues of territoriality and communal dependence in the Greek world.

Excavations at Sparta have cleared up many of the problems connected with the class of pottery now definitely recognised as Laconian, but the great number of the mythological scenes, found mainly on kylikes, form a group quite distinct in spirit and design from the other types of decoration used on Laconian ware, and it is still a question whether the vases with these scenes (nearly all of them found outside Greece) could really have come from the workshops which turned out the vases found in Spartan soil. There must be some distinct and powerful cause, lying outside the normal growth of local artistic tradition, to account for this new development, and this cause, as I will try to shew, seems to be the coming of Bathycles of Magnesia to build the great Throne of Apollo at Amyclae.

Few Greek statues are so famous as the draped marble figure, somewhat larger than life, known under the name of ‘Sophocles,’ which has been for many years the chief attraction of the Lateran Museum (Figs. 1, 2). Indeed it was on account of this statue, and on the occasion of its discovery, that Pope Gregory XVI ordered a part of the Lateran Palace to be converted into a Museum, wishing to provide the gem with a worthy shrine of its own.

Nor is such fame undeserved.

The calm and dignified attitude, the high-spirited head, the clever and harmonious arrangement of the drapery, the careful, broad and supple workmanship—everything combines to make our statue not only a masterpiece of Greek art, but the classical type of an Athenian gentleman shown in the bloom of full manhood, as he may have been met with sauntering about the theatre or agora in the fifth century B.C.

Though all do not agree that we have here, as has been often said, the finest lifesize portrait which has come down to us from Hellenic sculpture, at any rate, since the first day of its appearance, artists and archaeologists have been unanimous in its praise.

I propound a question which I cannot answer. The period at which the Greek minuscule hand came into the world withdraws itself from direct evidence, and can only be approached by induction from dates apparently considerably distant. I have, however, facts to detail which do not seem to have been combined elsewhere, and which admit of a conclusion which I believe has not been drawn. And though the conclusion may not be right, the subject is of enough importance to justify a guess. With all the discoveries of papyrus and the survivals of uncial, the minuscule hand of the ninth to the sixteenth centuries is that in which we read nearly all our Greek classics, and imitated by the first printers has given us our present-day Greek type and modern Greek writing.

No tradition remained in Greece of the place, manner, or date of the origin of this hand. Of late a mistranscription of a sentence in the fourteenth century MS. Canonici graec. 23 by Cramer (An. Ox. iv. 400. 5) has given rise to some singular speculations (Gardthausen, Gr. Pal., p. 205).

Cho. 581–2

τὰ δ᾿ ἄλλα τσύτῳ δεῦρ᾿ ἐποπτεῦσαι λέγω ξιφηφρους ἀγῶνας όρθώσοντί μοι

In a recent article {JHS Iv. 20-34) I have argued that this passage is based on an allusion to the Eleusinian hro-meiot, the second grade of the Mysteries. My purpose now is to explain more clearly the significance of that conception.

Plato likened the soul of man to a charioteer, who drove two horses, one good, the other bad, one docile, the other recalcitrant (Phaedr. 246—7) : ἔνθα δὴ πόνος τε καὶ ἀγὼν ἔσχατος ψυχῇ πρόκειται. And he saw human life as a struggle in which many of the chariots clashed and fell (248b): θόρυβος οῦν καί ἅμιλλα λαί ἱδρὼς ἔσχατος γίγνεται … πᾶσαι δὲ πολὺν ἔχουσαι πόδρον ἀτελεῖς τῆς τοῦ ὄντος θέας ἀπέρχονται.

In the literature of the Elgin Collection there is not infrequent reference to the ‘Tomb of Aspasia’ and its contents, which are of interest. The name, however, as I show below, has not even such measure of authority as may be supposed to attach to a local tradition.

During Philip Hunt's stay at Athens, his attention was called to a large tumulus in the Attic plain, and he made arrangements for its excavation. ‘The Calmuck,’ he wrote to Lord Elgin, November 28, 1802, ‘is to begin his excavation of a Tumulus near the Piraeus tomorrow.’ When Lord Elgin visited Athens in January, 1803, on his homeward journey from Constantinople, he sent men from the Diana frigate to continue the excavation, the Diana being the man-of-war in which, as a returning Ambassador, he made his passage.

Nothing apparently was found at this attempt. Indeed the tumulus was much too large an undertaking for such cursory treatment. Fifteen months later the work was taken up again by Lusieri, who reported to Lord Elgin (May 18, 1804) that while he was for the time being excluded from the Acropolis, he was employing the workmen ‘in excavations in various places, not without success.’ This is followed by the account of the excavation ‘du grand tombeau dans les vignes pour aller au Pirée,’ which has been already printed in this Journal.

Two extreme views obtain as to the numbers of this fleet. Many modern writers have unaffectedly accepted, sometimes with conviction, the 1,207 (or 1,327) triremes of Herodotus. In sharpest contrast, we have Prof. Hans Delbrück's estimate of not over 300 triremes for Xerxes' fleet at the outset, or anyhow at Artemisium. Delbrück discards all Herodotus' numbers as equally worthless, and sets out to deduce the true figure from criticism of the naval battles and of probabilities; it leads to the result that at Salamis the Persians were actually outnumbered, which is the point that really matters. Several intermediate views have also been put forward; Dr. H. Welzhofer and Prof. J. Beloch have taken the figure as 1,207 ships, not warships, Welzhofer putting the warships at something over 400; Prof. J. B. Bury and Dr. J. A. R. Munro have suggested 800 triremes at the outset; while Dr. E. Meyer gives 600–800 to start with, not all triremes, and 400–500 at Salamis, the fleet being brought up by transports, etc. to the popular figure of 1,000. Naturally, most of these figures are guesses from the probabilities of the case; but Dr. Munro has recognised the crucial fact of the four divisions of the fleet.

Once only—seven years after the battle of Leuctra—there was actual fighting within the sacred precinct, the Altis, of Olympia,—in the 104th Olympiad (364 B.C.). From time immmoreial, before and since that year, the inhabitants of Elis, as Polybius (iv. 73) phrased it 200 years later, ‘enjoyed on account of the Olympian games’ so unique and privileged a dispensation that Olympia and the whole of Elis was a Holy Land, and feared no ravages of war. The Eleans, by the same token, were ideally conceived of as living consecrated lives (ίερὸν βίον) and enjoyed immunity from battle and sudden death. In his account of the one and only battle of Olympia, Xenophon—writing after he had lived for twenty-three years within an afternoon's stroll of the Olympian Altis—alludes in passing to the θέατρον by way of explaining just where the fighting took place.

‘Since the discovery of the ῾Αθηναίων Πολιτεία in 1890’ the learned editors of the Oxyrhynchus papyri tell us, ‘Egypt has not produced any historical papyrus at all comparable in importance to these portions of a lost Greek historian, obviously of the first rank, dealing in minute detail with the events of the Greek world in the years 396 and 395 B.C.’ Drs. Grenfell and Hunt are indeed to be congratulated first on having made so great a discovery—a piece of luck which their long and arduous labours, systematically and scientifically conducted, have so richly deserved—and secondly they are still more to be congratulated on the success with which they have pieced together and deciphered the text and illumined their interpretation with clearly written and closely argued introduction and notes. They have not contented themselves, as they well might have done, merely with arranging and deciphering the text—a work demanding the greatest patience and the most exact scholarship—but they have boldly tackled, and with great acumen, the difficult question of the authorship of the work and many historical problems raised both by the fragmentary nature of the text itself and by comparison of its statements with those of other extant authorities.