I continue the catalogue of the vases recently acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, the first part of which catalogue appeared in this Journal, vol. xxiv. pp. 293–316. As before, the numbers given to the vases are those which they bear in the slip catalogue of the Museum.

527. R.-f. Krater: the handles joining the body to the mouth. H. 14¼ in.

Decoration on neck, leaves (black) with stalks interlaced.

Obverse. Hermes to r. bearded, wearing chlamys and hat (behind neck), with drawn sword rushing on Argos, also bearded, naked, whose arms and legs are covered with eyes, and who kneels to r. Wreaths of both figures in red.

It is not generally realized that to speak of Antiochus III—the Antiochus who makes a figure in Roman History—as Antiochus the Great is strictly speaking incorrect, although, as a popular form of speech, it goes back to the time of Polybius, and is even found on some monuments. Other monuments give us the form which is obviously the more correct, the official, form. The Seleucid kings had, it is well known, official surnames. We find them on their coins or in inscriptions along with their title Βασιλεύς The three elements of their designation have their regular order—title, personal name, surname, e.g.Βασιλεύς Σέλευκος Φιλοπάτωρ But in the case of Antiochus III the inscriptions of most authority, which give his designation in full, have notΒασιλεὺς ᾿Αντίοχς Μέγας That is to say, Μέγας is not really a surname at all: but Antiochus III is distinguished by a modification of his title: he is not simply ‘King’ but ‘Great-King.’ The popular form is especially misleading to us who have the way of calling kings the Great to imply vaguely some sort of personal preeminence, as when we speak of Alfred the Great, Frederick the Great, &c. The title ‘Great-King’ has quite a definite significance.

In the present article I attempt briefly to survey the books and articles relating wholly or largely to Greek inscriptions which appeared in 1933 and 1934. I do not refer to all reviews, but only to those (including some published in 1935) which are of special value to the student, either as offering a useful conspectus of the works concerned or as making original contributions to the subjects under discussion. I mark with an asterisk those works which I have been unable to consult directly. Once again I tender my heartfelt thanks to all scholars who, by sending me copies of their contributions to epigraphical studies, have helped me in my pleasant but onerous task.

Death has not taken from us during these years any whose main interests and achievements lay in the field of Greek epigraphy, though E. Cuq, E. Pottier and F. Vulič had done work of real value in it.

Well known though the grylli are, we have still very little to say about their meaning and about their origin.Our knowledge of them, which has hardly increased since the days of Furtwangler, amounts to the following facts. Grylli were one of the most popular motives for the decoration of gems in Roman times; they remained in favour during more than three centuries. Several indications lead us to believe that some pro-phylactic value was ascribed to them; this may also account for their long popularity. In appearance they can as a rule be divided into two classes. Either they are a composition of various human and animal heads, sometimes with birds added to them, or else they consist of the body of a bird, generally a cock, to which heads and masks are attached in different ways. As the cock often is provided with a horse's head, we are reminded of the Attic hippalectryon; it is, however, impossible to trace their descent from Greek art, for we do not know of any more complicated Greek design that may have inspired Roman gem-cutters; the hippalectryon itself even does not seem to have lived down to the Hellenistic period. On the other hand, it is equally impossible to regard them as an original Roman fantasy. In the first place, their connexion with the hippalectryon, though distant, is unmistakable; secondly and chiefly, we know there were grylli before the days of Roman glyptic art. In the necropolis of Tharros in Sardinia have been found several scarabs decorated with motives closely resembling the Roman grylli. Now the necropolis seems to have been in use for a very long time, but Furtwangler believed, no doubt rightly, that the bulk of the objects found in it, and especially the grylli, must be dated rather early as they still show some of the traditions of archaic art. Our Fig. 3a is a good example.

All Greek religion is haunted by an anxiety, or a hope, which is generally summed up, since the great work of Mannhardt and Frazer, as the yearly worship of vegetation gods. The name is, admittedly, a little too narrow. No doubt in a simple agricultural community the chief anxiety is about next year's harvest. I am told that in Jerusalem the High Priest went out to see how the barley was getting on, and lengthened or shortened the official year accordingly. Of course there is also anxiety about the young of the flocks and herds, about the weather for sailing and the like; but I think we shall find that it extended much further. The phrase ‘Year Spirit’ is perhaps better than ‘Vegetation God’. Jane Harrison was much criticised for preferring the phrase Ἐνιαυτὸς δαίμων; but I think she was right, and perhaps more profoundly right than any of us saw at the time.

Ἐνιαυός is a curious word. The new Liddell and Scott gives its root meaning as ‘anniversary’. It seems to be formed like ἓνιοι, ἐνί-οτε, ‘there are who …’ ‘there are times when …’, and to mean ‘There is (or ‘there is present,’ the same’, ἔνι-αὐτός; or, more analytically still, ‘there is present-again-this’, ἔνι-αὖ-τός. From meaning ‘anniversary’ it comes to mean a recurrent vital day, or the period, however long, between the recurrent vital days. All kinds of events were due to occur περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν, as in Od. A 16, which seems to mean ‘as the anniversaries recur’, but easily becomes ‘with the passing years’. Children are born (Theog. 493, Asp. 87) meaning, I think, ‘when the regular vital time comes on’, not ‘as the months pass’.

The past year has not been one of startling discoveries. The effect of the disastrous war has been a paralysing one and the difficulties in the way of archaeological work have been great. While the political situation was so complicated, new undertakings were almost out of the question: it is to be hoped, however, that the report on 1898–9 will be able to speak of Crete as having been thrown open to the scientific world. The most interesting archaeological event has been the foundation of a new Austrian Institute, under the guidance of Prof. Benndorf in Vienna. Dr. A. Wilhelm, the wellknown epigraphist, and Dr. W. Reichel, whose brilliant essay on Homeric Armour has won for him a prominent place among archaeologists, are permanently stationed at Athens, and a building is contemplated in the near future. Dr. R. Heberdey will be stationed at Smyrna and Dr. Kalinka at Constantinople, so that the new Austrian Institute will be a powerful agency for the discovery and preservation of Hellenic antiquities. The old publication ‘Archäologisch-epigraphische Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich’ is now brought to a conclusion, and is replaced by the ‘Jahreshefte des österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes,’ of which vol. i. has appeared. The contemplated international congress of archaeologists at Athens, which the war of 1897 rendered out of the question, was announced for Easter 1898 to synchronize with the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the French School, but this year as before practical difficulties caused its postponement. The adjourned festivities at the French School took place as arranged. If the congress is to assemble at a future date, it will be necessary that arrangements should be made for it long enough beforehand to ensure its success.

In Volume LVI of this Journal I published a series of. Attic stemless kylikes with red-figure painting outside and stamped or incised patterns inside. These run from about the middle to the end of the fifth century. Characteristic of the early part of the fourth century, though the earliest examples are to be dated before the end of the fifth, is a series of cup-kotylai with similar decoration which forms the subject of this paper.

The cups range in size from a height of 0·09 m. with a diameter of 0·165 m. to a height of 0·06 m. with a diameter of 0·12 m. Their deep and comparatively narrow bowls presented more difficulties to the stamper than the shallow kylikes and restricted his designs to smaller and simpler patterns.

The earliest group consists of a pair of cups from the same hand. The stamped pattern shows five or six separate palmettes set closely round a small incised central circle and surrounded by a pair of incised circles.

There are few places in Greece which possess the combined charms of natural beauty and of historic association to the same extent as Monemvasia, The great rock which rises out of the sea near the ancient Epidauros Limera is not only one of the most picturesque sites of the Peloponnese, but has a splendid record of heroic independence, which entitles it to a high place in the list of the world's fortresses (Figs. 1, 2). Monemvasia's importance is, however, wholly mediaeval; and its history has hitherto never been written; for the painstaking brochure of the patriotic Monemvasiote deputy and ex-Minister K. Papamichalópoulos, was composed before modern research rendered it possible to draw upon the original authorities at Venice and elsewhere. In the present paper I have endeavoured to state briefly what, in the present state of Greek mediaeval studies, is known about this interesting city during the Frankish period.

The enemies of classics sometimes say that it is a dead subject. They depict the classical scholar as spending his time in re-reading, re-editing, or re-annotating texts which have been read, edited, and annotated for generations or centuries; and they contrast him with the student of science, before whom the inexhaustible riches of nature are displayed as his quarry. It were strange, if this were true, that classical study should possess—as by the common experience of public schools it does possess—a capacity unsurpassed by any other subject for turning out men of practical ability and aptitude for the affairs of the world. But it is not true. The enemies of classics, in this as in other instances, have erected a dummy in order to knock it over. They may be reproducing traditions of their fathers, or of their own boyhood; but they are showing that they have not kept abreast of their own times, and that they are not competent to criticise a study of which they know so little. Even natural science, with all its wonderful discoveries, has not been a more living subject during the last half century than the study of classical antiquity. Literature and archaeology—which mean the record of the thoughts of man as expressed in words and in art, during a period when that expression was at its highest pitch of perfection—have gone from discovery to discovery, from development to development, at a rate unequalled even at the Renaissance. These years have given fresh life to the study of the heroic age of human intellectual progress; they have shown that the treasures of antiquity are not only to be enjoyed but are to be increased.