There is no denying that Theophrastus ranks among the most prolific Peripatetic philosophers. Diogenes Laertius lists 225 items in his bibliography, some of them perhaps twice—first as an independent treatise, then as part of a larger work. As time went on, this vast oeuvre suffered the usual vicissitudes: the overwhelming majority of it has been partly or entirely lost. In sharp contrast to the Frankish West, where, despite great losses, more texts were in circulation under Theophrastus' name than was justified, in the ever shrinking Byzantine world we find comparatively few references to him. But this surely does not mean that the small number of references are unreliable.

A bas-relief of Pentelic marble found about twelve years ago in Argolis portrays with much beauty the family of the God of Medicine awaiting, in the presence of their father, the approach of male and female suppliants. In the two youths who form part of the group immediately behind Asklepios, it is easy to recognise his sons Machaon and Podaleirios; while the three maidens near them must be his daughters Hygieia, laso and Panakeia. One other female figure, who wears a veil and Stephane, and is of more stately aspect, would seem to be Epione, the wife of Asklepios. Aegle and Akeso, who are also sometimes named as daughters of the god, are here omitted. Epione, in spite of her intimate relations with Asklepios, appears to have been chiefly honoured locally—at Epidaurus, and it is her eldest daughter Hygieia who is really the most important member of the Aesculapian family. The almost constant association of Hygieia with her father brought her into the fullest prominence as a medical divinity, though at the same time it, to a great extent, prevented her from attaining to an independent exercise of power. Most modern writers on Greek mythology and religion have generally suffered her to be absorbed in the greater and more interesting personality of her associate, and have often had but little to tell of Hygieia, except that she was represented ‘as a virgin dressed in a long robe, feeding a serpent from a cup.’

The question when, and by whom, our constellations were invented, will probably never lose its fascination, because it is never likely to find its solution. For those who have allowed themselves to be brought under its spell the name of Cleostratus has a special interest. If we could by any means learn more about the man who is said to have been in some sort the deviser of our zodiac, we might obtain a light upon the history of the celestial globe which at present seems likely to be for ever withheld, unless some Egyptian papyrus should reveal some part of the lost History of Astronomy by Eudemus.

By his careful collection—in the December number of this Journal, 1919—of all the notices that we have of Cleostratus, Dr. W. K. Fotheringham therefore deserves a gratitude which I am the more anxious to express because I cannot at all agree with the theory of Babylonian influence which he deduces from them, nor with the interpretation of Greek and Latin passages which he puts forward in support of that theory. The latter point I could willingly leave to the criticism of scholars abler than myself, whom I cannot think likely to be convinced by Dr. Fotheringham that the passages bear the sense which he has endeavoured to extract from them.

In past numbers of the Annual of the British School at Athens and elsewhere I have tried to deal with some of the questions connected with Byzantine Music, and, having brought to a close my studies of the Round or Later Mediaeval System, I am unwilling to leave the subject without giving my views on the abstruse and difficult problem of the older notation.

The later forms of the Linear or Neume System have a visible likeness to the earlier forms of the Round System already familiar, and hence all investigators seem to have started with the idea that the general principles of decipherment could be transferred from the later to the earlier stage, or, in other words, that the task simply consisted in the interpretation of certain interval-signs possessing fixed value. But of the two scholars who have published their researches in this field, Gastoué and Riemann, neither has been able to carry this principle through, and their proposed solutions fail to give us such a chain of interval-signs as we are tempted to expect.

A very interesting symbolic picture of the battle of Lepanto executed in a miniature style has recently reached this country from Athens, and the owner, Sir Arthur Evans, has kindly allowed me to publish a reproduction and description of it.

The picture measures ·373 m. in height by ·275 m. in width, and is executed with a full range of colours on a sheet of vellum which has been at some time sharply folded across about half-way up the picture. Above and below and on the back there are inscriptions in Greek, but before we come to them it will be convenient to give some description of the picture itself. This is divided horizontally into two parts: above we see the saints and angels looking down upon the battle; below is the battle itself, and immediately above the centre of the fray, where the two fleets, Christian and Turkish, are in conflict, is a small medallion containing a throned figure of Christ.

It is as yet too soon to state what corrections or additions should be made to the various figures I gave in my Population of Athens as a result of new evidence since that book was published (1933), although some individual discoveries have been made and Sterling Dow has published his invaluable Prytaneis (Hesperia, Suppl. I, 1937); for the excavations in the Athenian agora are not finished–though it looks as though the hopes I expressed for the discovery of a large number of inscriptions that would throw new light on the problem will be disappointed. But two objections have been made to my treatment of the number of slaves in Athens, by Mr. Hammond in Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc, 1935, p. 1, and by Prof. George Thomson in his edition of The Oresteia, I 70, n. 1 and II 357-9, both of whom maintain that Ktesikles' figure of 400,000 must be accepted; and though the question has again been discussed, convincingly enough to my mind, by Prof. Westerraann in Athenian Studies (Harv. Stud, Suppl. Vol. I, 1940, 451-70), it is worth dealing with certain aspects afresh, especially in answer to Thomson, for some important principles are involved. Not that anything I can say will convince him; for he hopes that ‘the whole subject will be re-examined by someone who is prepared to take the ancient evidence seriously and is free from the suspicion of seeking to minimise the extent of an evil which casts a sinister shadow over the glory that was Greece.’ But I will do my best.

The British excavations at Mycenae in 1953 had the following main objectives: the further exploration of the Prehistoric Cemetery outside the Cyclopean walls to the west of the Lion Gate, the area south of the Perseia Krene where a fine wall of ashlar poros was discovered in 1952, the houses to the north and south of the House of the Oil Merchant, and further investigation of the Cyclopean Terrace Building. At the same time work was begun on the excavation of the area within the Acropolis between the South House and Tsountas' House. The excavations were supported by a research grant from the American Philosophical Society, with contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, the Bollingen Foundation, and the British School at Athens, under whose aegis the work was conducted.

In the Prehistoric Cemetery several tombs of the Middle Helladic period were discovered. On the northern edge of the cemetery an interesting group of graves was found, one of the latest Mycenaean period, L.H. IIIC, and two of the developed Geometric period. With the larger of the latter, a cist grave, nineteen vases were found which included undecorated vases of excellent fabric and a shallow bowl of ‘Pie Ware’ which demonstrate the contemporaneity of these styles. These vases, together with two others from a Proto-Geometrie grave dug into the ruins of the House of Shields, form a series illustrating the gradual evolution of culture at Mycenae from the end of the Bronze Age into the Iron Age. They show that there was no sudden break in its development, but only a slow evolution as in Attica. The ‘Dorian Invasion’ was not a cultural revolution.

Scenes from the history of Pandora are rare in works of Greek art. There have at present been published, so far as I am aware, only five representations of her, in two reliefs and three vases. These all represent her birth or her coming into being. All the vases are in the British Museum. To these I have to add a fourth vase (Pl. I.), recently presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Mr. Edmund Oldfield, and bringing before us a fresh scene from the interesting history of the strange being made by the gods for the delusion and betrayal of men.

The tale of Pandora, as it appears in Hesiod, is so well known that I need only glance at its main features. When Prometheus had stolen for men fire from the gods, Zeus, determining to punish him, caused Hephaestus to make of earth a beauteous woman, whom, the goddesses adorned with ornaments, but in whom Hermes implanted a deceitful heart and a treacherous tongue.

Of all the renderings of the goddess Hera, the gold and ivory statue by Polycleitus in the Heraeum near Argos was the most famous, and was considered by the ancients one of the most beautiful works of Greek art. It certainly held its place beside the masterpieces of Phidias, and is even called by Strabo the most beautiful of all.

As in the case of the Zeus and Athene of Phidias, and the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles, it is most natural that numerous attempts were made in the past to identify this Polycleitan Hera with some extant monument. And, as the most beautiful Aphrodite extant, the Melian Aphrodite in the Louvre, was at once singled out as representing the most famous statue of which there is record in ancient authors, so the famous colossal mask of Hera, known as the Juno Ludovisi, was the first to be identified with the great Polycleitan statue. This identification has been abandoned. Then followed the so-called Farnese Hera, the claims of which were powerfully upheld by Brunn.

In view of the great interest which has been expressed in the Theatre at Megalopolis, now in course of excavation by members of the British School at Athens, and of its real importance in connection with the question of the Greek Stage, it has been determined to publish, provisionally, a plan and section of it, without waiting for the completion of the work. The excavation will, it is hoped, be finished in the spring: and a full account of our results, with the necessary plans and illustrations, will be published in a future number of this Journal. For the present, therefore, a very few words of explanation must suffice.

The following is an explanation of the woodcuts, made from Mr. Loring's drawings:—

The collection of Greek inscriptions in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, has been much increased during the last four decades. It will therefore be useful to give a complete list, and, where it seems to be advisable, a full description of these sixty-four texts in stone, bronze and wood, twenty-four of which are unpublished, as far as I am able to ascertain, or have been published without full transcription.