The writers who discuss in detail the history of Macedonia during the years of ‘The Kings,’ Philip Arrhidaeus and Alexander IV (323–317 B.C.), state or assume that Roxane, the widow of Alexander the Great, fled to Queen Olympias in Epirus with her little son, after the death of Antipater, or else that she was sent or taken there by Polyperchon at the time when Queen Eurydice was putting Cassander in Polyperchon's place as her husband's prime minister. The stay of the mother and son in Epirus and their return with Olympias when she entered Macedonia to fight at Evia with Eurydice and Philip Arrhidaeus for the kingdom are mentioned by such authorities as Grote, Niese, Beloch, Kaerst, Staehelin (Berve, also, refers to Kaerst and Staehelin for this part of Roxane's history), Klotzsch, and Tarn.

An unsolved problem has a peculiar fascination in archaeology as elsewhere. It compels our interest, and we come back to it again and again to try and find a solution. The Ludovisi and Boston Reliefs have presented us with many such puzzles and have consequently been the subject of much discussion. The two most important publications of these monuments—Studniczka's in the Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, 1911, pp. 50–192, and Caskey's in the American Journal of Archaeology, 1918, pp. 101 ff.—have dealt at length with the numerous points involved and many of these have now been satisfactorily solved. The identification of the subjects represented on the reliefs, however, especially of those in Boston, is still only tentative. As Mr. Caskey says, ‘none of the numerous attempts to interpret the reliefs has met with unqualified acceptance.’ To the many explanations which have been advanced I am going to add still another, which to me at least seems the simplest, the most natural, and for that reason the most probable.

Of all the interpretations of the Ludovisi throne it is generally agreed that none is entirely convincing. For that reason any new suggestions that I have to bring forward here should only be interpreted as an attempt to indicate a fresh line of investigation that may perhaps lead to a more complete understanding of this most difficult of archaeological problems.

At the outset we are faced with the almost universally accepted view that the subject of the Ludovisi throne is the Birth of Aphrodite, with representatives of the cult or devotees shown on the side panels. Once this is admitted the explanation of the details of scene becomes a matter of purest academical or technical dispute. Similarly, the important corollary follows that the Boston counterpart, whatever we may think of its date or style, represents but other aspects, clearly more complicated, of the Aphrodite cult.

In the following Bibliography, which continues that of J.H.S. xli. 50 ff., I attempt to deal with the publications of 1921 and 1922, though a few books and articles are noticed which, though they appeared in previous years, only came under my notice in the period in question. It must be borne in mind that periodicals sometimes fall into arrears, and thus the actual year of publication may be later than the nominal year as indicated in the title. I have seriously modified the geographical order hitherto followed in my Bibliographies so as to bring it into strict accord, so far as the inscriptions of Europe are concerned, with that of the Inscriptiones Graecae; for those of Asia and Africa I follow the order adopted in the C.I.G.

The mass of the relevant material has rendered necessary the utmost compression, and, while I have aimed at introducing some reference to every contribution to Greek epigraphical studies, I have found it impossible to summarise or to indicate the value of each. No mention is normally made of reviews, but I have occasionally added references to them for special reasons, e. g. because of the value of their positive contribution to the study, or because they afford a ready means of surveying the contents of the books to which they relate.

In 426/425 BC the Athenians purified the island of Delos: they removed all the graves, and for the future forbade either dying or giving birth there; those involved were to be removed to Rheneia. They also instituted the penteteric Delia after the purification. Whatever the Athenians' initial motivation, the interdiction on burial seems to have been taken seriously, for there were few if any licit burials on the island for the rest of antiquity. It must have been very difficult for the people of Delos to conform to this law, as it affected both the burial of the dead, and the performance of the regular, customary, rites of tendance of family tombs. This paper suggests how they may have found a way to adapt normal Greek practice to fit the circumstances peculiar to Delos.

In his article on the Colossus of Rhodes in JHS lxxvi, Mr. Herbert Maryon argues that the statue was not cast as is usually assumed, but formed of hammered bronze plates. He bases his argument on the figure of 500 talents given by Philo Byz. (iv. 6) for the weight of bronze used in the statue. A statue 120 feet high using this quantity of metal would, he calculates, have walls rather less than one-fifteenth of an inch thick, which would be impossibly thin for a large casting.

Scholars remain far from reaching agreement about the structure of Middle Platonist commentaries on Plato's dialogues: some take them to have been running line-by-line commentaries, while others believe that Middle Platonist commentaries were mainly specialist works. In this paper I propose a fresh and comprehensive analysis of extant sources in order to show that both views, while shedding light on important features of this literary genre in Middle Platonism, should be supplemented in order to draw a more complex picture. Extant sources suggest that the Middle Platonist commentaries were characterized by a set of features which shaped a specific conception of the literary genre: they were lemmatic and followed the development of a dialogue in its progression, yet at the same time they applied a thematic focus and hence admitted a substantial degree of selectivity.

Scrutiny of Herodotus’ ethnographic accounts of northern Syria and the region he calls ‘Palestinian Syria’ reveals oddities and inconsistencies. Here it is argued that such problems may be resolved if a fundamental fact is recognized: the enormous early literary prestige of the Phoenicians has obscured the historical roles of these other peoples in the Histories. The character and extent of this process, specifically as it bears on Syria-Palestine during Iron Age II, is analysed here. It is hoped that a new appreciation of the Syrians as an ethnicity may be gained as a result. It is suggested as well that for important historical problems researchers should ascertain whether Herodotus is not actually talking about Syrians when he discusses Phoenicians.

Modern studies have emphasized the contradictory nature of the ancient traditions concerning the aftermath of the Battle of Sepeia (494 BC), in which the Argive army was destroyed by the Spartans. This article tackles the most significant point of agreement in these traditions: the theme of Argive ‘oligandry’, the demographic crisis caused by the battle. An analysis conducted on the basis of Ansley J. Coale and Paul Demeny’s Model Life Tables shows that the real impact of the demographic crisis was felt in the age structure of Argos’ population rather than in the sheer size of its citizen body. Consequently, this article argues that the political ramifications of the battle originated not from the demographic crisis alleged by the tradition, but from the state of powerlessness and regional isolation into which Argos was plunged by the defeat of 494. This argument, which supports a reappraisal of Plutarch’s (De mul. vir. 4) version of Argos’ response to Sepeia, also helps explain why Argos embraced a markedly aggressive foreign policy towards the towns of the plain in the following decades.

As early as Plato and as recently as current scholarship, readers of Parmenides have diagnosed tensions of one sort or another between his ontological views and the language through which he expresses those views. In the first instance, this article examines earlier claims for such tensions and argues that they are predicated on problematic assumptions concerning Parmenides’ ontological commitments or his strictures regarding the use of language. In the second instance, however, it argues that Parmenides’ Way of Reality does indeed confront us with tensions between language and doctrine, that these tensions are more pointed and sustained than scholars generally recognize and that they can be identified independently of specific or determinate elaboration of Parmenides’ precise ontological views. This analysis discloses a reflective preoccupation with, and a consistent attitude towards, the scope and limitations of human language. Parmenides persistently evinces his awareness that his description of what-is proceeds through expressive measures that are imported with difficulty from a different domain and, consequently, are limited, indirect and often figurative. The article closes by pointing to a meaningful (but partial) affinity between Parmenides and those Platonists who placed their own ultimate philosophical and ontological principle beyond the expressive reach of words.

This article offers the first comprehensive presentation of a monumental funerary lion found approximately 60 years ago in Thebes. Remarkably, the stone lion’s breast is inscribed with the name of the deceased, Ϝαστίας. On numismatic, epigraphic and historical grounds, I identify this Wastias as the homonymous magistrate appearing on staters of the Boiotian koinon in ca. 400 BC, but also as Astias, one of the leading Laconizing Theban politicians on the eve of the Corinthian War (Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 20.1–2). Wastias’ death can be very plausibly placed in 395 BC, the year of the battle of Haliartos. The proposed association is supported by a stylistic analysis of the monument, which thus becomes one of the best-dated sculpted lions of the Classical period. My contextual analysis of the monument reaffirms the notoriously oligarchic orientation of Theban politics. It also prompts a re-examination of other funerary lions, most notably its regional successor in the lion of Chaironeia. It concludes with a reflection on the nature of individual versus collective commemorative practices.