The dialogue begins with Meno's peremptory request: ‘Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue can be taught, or is it acquired by practice, not teaching …?’ (70a). Socrates protests that he does not know what virtue is, and hence cannot know whether it is teachable or not, explaining that in general if one does not know what a thing is, τί ἐστι, one cannot know what it is like, ὁποῖον (71b). He insists that the prior question of what virtue is must be settled before consideration of the subsequent question of whether it is teachable or not.

In accordance with this principle, Socrates gets Meno to make attempts to offer a general definition of virtue. As in earlier dialogues, Socrates quickly reduces his interlocutor to aporia, and Meno refuses to make further attempts at defining virtue on the ground that no criterion of truth exists. Socrates sums up his argument thus: ‘It is impossible for a man to enquire into what he knows or into what he does not know. For he cannot enquire into what he knows, because he knows it, and there is no need for enquiry; nor again can he enquire into what he does not know, since he does not know about what he is to enquire into’ (80e). Socrates describes this paradox as a piece of eristic, but he does not dismiss it. To resolve it, he introduces the theory of recollection, ἀνάμησιρ (81a–e).

In 1954 a small red-figured cup was found in the Athenian Agora. Its style of drawing resembles that of one of the greatest Athenian vase-painters—the Berlin Painter, active shortly before 500 BC to around 460 BC. Any of his vases, newly discovered, excites scholarly interest; if the vase is possibly his earliest, and a shape which he is not known previously to have decorated, interest is very great. Martin Robertson, to whom this article is affectionately dedicated, argued persuasively for an attribution of the cup to the Berlin Painter. Sir John Beazley agreed, although with reservations. The cup has continued to attract attention and provoke controversy: no one denies a close connection with the Berlin Painter but some feel that the stylistic similarities are not sufficiently compelling to attribute the cup firmly to his hand. The cup is, therefore, an excellent example of the difficulties inherent in connoisseurship.

My interest in the Berlin Painter was deepened by preparing for publication drawing (PLATES Vld, Vllc–d) which Beazley ‘traced’ off more than fifty of the artist's vases. The Berlin Painter (Oxford 1983) presents Beazley's Berlin Painter. It attempts to show how Beazley looked at the painter's vases and what criteria he valued most highly in their attribution; it does not enter into the controversy over Gorgos' cup or other vases of the artist's earliest years whose attributions have been questioned. Elsewhere I discuss connoisseurship in Greek vase-painting; here my purpose is an explanation of method. My ‘conclusion’—that the Berlin Painter probably did not decorate Gorgos' cup—is relatively unimportant.

The expenses of this investigation were to a great extent defrayed by grants of money which the University of Oxford and the Principal and Fellows of Brazenose College were kind enough to vote me for the purpose.

I am greatly indebted to the advocacy of my friends Professor Pelham and Mr. Macan in obtaining these grants.

In the winter of 1892–3 I did some topographical work in Southern Boeotia. The results of that work were, to myself at any rate, satisfactory in the sense that I felt when the work was finished that I had done something towards clearing up my own ideas with regard to important parts of the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, and that I might possibly, if I stated my views with sufficient clearness, help to free the minds of others from difficulties to which the study of those portions of the histories must inevitably give rise.

J. Pouilloux recently published a funerary epigram from Lyon, which he dates on palaeographical grounds to the late second or early third century A.D.; the inscription refers to one Ioulianos Euteknios of Laodicea (hereafter Julianus):

This year, like the last, has been an exceptional one. The Archaeological Society and the Foreign Schools have been engaged in widespread excavation. Among the spectacular discoveries of the season are richly furnished Late Minoan tombs at and near. Knossos, and a new shaft grave—somewhat earlier than those inside the Lion Gate—alongside the Tomb of Clytaemnestra at Mycenae; attention will be focused on Pylos in the coming spring now that the arrangements for the resumption of work there are completed. The German Institute has been re-established with Dr. Kunze as its new director. The reconstitution of the museums is proceeding at a measured pace: but the most manifest achievement this year has been the restoration of monuments in the field, which has been carried out on an unprecedented scale under the direction of Prof. Orlandos with the help of an exceptionally large allocation—unfortunately not to be repeated—from Marshall Aid. The Tomb of Clytaemnestra has been restored, and great improvements have been made at the Temple of Aphaia in Aegina and among the houses of Delos. At Knossos and Phaistos, despite the delay in the transmission to Crete of the sums made available, Mr. de Jong and Dr. Levi, in conjunction with the Ephor, Dr. Platon, have made great progress with the conservation of the two great palaces.

The identification of two Mycenaean terracotta centaurs from the excavations at Ras Shamra-Ugarit suggests a Bronze Age origin for the centaurs known from the historic periods of Greece. The Mycenaean centaurs from Ras Shamra-Ugarit are compared to the later examples from the Greek mainland. No continuous artistic tradition can be identified among the preserved examples. Since writing ceased to be used in Greece in the Iron Age and no artistic trend connecting the different representations of centaurs can be seen, it is suggested here that the concept of centaurs was transmitted by way of the oral tradition.

The incessant labours of British industrialists have sent up a pall of smoke over our larger cities. Sometimes the pall descends and causes fog. So it is also with scholarship; the incessant labours of modern scholars often cause a fog to descend upon our understanding of ancient philosophers. A case in point is Zeno of Elea. The paradoxes of Zeno have aroused much discussion ever since they were first propounded; the long history has been recorded by Florian Cajori (The History of Zeno's Arguments on Motion, reprinted from American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 22, 1915). But it was not until quite recent times that men began to doubt the correctness of Aristotle's account of the paradoxes. Towards the end of the nineteenth century a number of French writers built up elaborate reconstructions of Zeno's four arguments on Motion. Refusing to accept the explicit testimony of Aristotle on a number of points, they argued, first, that Zeno must have been more intelligent than Aristotle made him out to be; and secondly, that the arguments, when rightly interpreted and reconstructed, follow a certain pattern. Thus in their praise of Zeno they could not help including an element of denigration of Aristotle.

The following paper, with the accompanying plates, embodies the results of several months' travelling and surveying in the Peloponnese. I had set myself to study some of the ancient routes in that peninsula, with a view to identifying them with more precision than had yet been attained, and to clearing up some of the topographical difficulties connected with them. The labour was much greater, and much less fruitful, than I had anticipated; for the work of previous topographers has, on the whole, been extremely well done; and, if there are numerous problems which they have failed to solve, the explanation generally lies in the absence of the data necessary for their solution. Often, however, there have been conflicting views to choose between; and not infrequently I have ventured to differ from all my predecessors, to make (though tentatively) fresh identifications, and to correct views which, though generally received, appeared to me erroneous. In order to record these results I shall be obliged to give a consecutive account of the principal routes investigated; but I shall pass lightly over those parts of them about which no difference of opinion exists, dwelling fully only on those which are matter of controversy or in connexion with which I have some new theory to put forward. The region dealt with coincides roughly with the triangle Megalopolis—Tegea—Sparta; and I shall discuss in order the routes which connected these three towns; reserving for appendices a few notes on some outlying routes, and on the topography of the Mantineian plain.

The name ‘Minyan’ has recently been given to a kind of pottery which was first noticed at Orchomenos by Schliemann in 1881. In the report of his excavation which Schliemann contributed to the second volume of the Hellenic Journal, he carefully described the nature and position of this ware. ‘It is very remarkable that at Orchomenos painted pottery, with spirals and other Mycenean ornamentation, also cows with two long horns and the same variegated colours as at Mycenae, as well as goblets of the very same form and colour as at Mycenae, are generally only found down to a depth of about six feet below the surface of the ground, and that at a greater depth, monochrome, black, red, or yellow, hand-made or wheelmade pottery is found almost exclusively, analogous to some of that collected by me in the royal sepulchres at Mycenae. Very frequent here are the large hand-made black goblets or bowls, with a hollow foot and horizontal flutings in the middle, which I also found at Mycenae. . .

‘There is surely more than geography involved in the extraordinary stress laid in the play on the importance of the branching road.’ So writes the latest editor of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, R. D. Dawe, who proceeds to mention the ‘sexual significance … (the junction of the human trunk and legs)’ which ‘people tell us’ is to be discerned behind the references to the cross-roads where Oedipus met and killed his father. Dawe finds it difficult to make up his mind whether quasi-Freudian symbolism is properly to be attributed to Sophocles, and in adopting an equivocal position he cites only one further factor, that ‘the imagery of crossroads is common enough representing a point where a crucial decision has to be made’.

Aktaion's own hounds devoured him, convinced by Artemis that he was a deer. This grim reversal, the great hunter who dies like a hunted beast, was the strongest element of the mythic tradition associated with the Boiotian hero and inspired numerous scenes in Greek art. Aktaion's Offense, on the other hand, received little iconographic attention before the imperial era, and Greek literature accounted for Artemis' hostility in a variety of ways. The chronology of the extant sources suggests a neat sequence of misdeeds, and the resulting succession of versions is the object of a well-established scholarly consensus. The information which survives is actually too scant and too fragmentary to bear so straightforward a reading, but a critical approach can suggest the outlines of more plausible, if less neat, picture.

οἱ δ᾿ ὲφ᾿ άρπαγῆισιν ἧλθον ὲλπίδ᾿ εἶχον ἀφνεήν, κάδόκ[ε]ον ἕκαστος αύτῶν ὅλβον εύρήσειν πολύν, καί με κωτίλλοντα λείως τραχὺν ὲκφανεῖν νόον. χαῦνα μὲν τότ᾿ ὲφράσαντο, νῦν δέ μοι χολούμενοι λοξὸν ὀφθαλμοῖς όρῶσιν πάντες ὥστε δήϊον. οὺ χρεών ἃ μὲν γὰρ εἶπα, σὺν θεοῖσιν ἤνυσα, ἄ‹λλ›α δ᾿ οὺ μάτην ἔερδον, οὺδέ μοι τυραννίδος άνδάνει βίηι τι[..].ε[ι]ν, οὺδὲ πιεί[ρ]ης χθονὸς πατρίδος κακοῖσιν ὲσθλοὺς ἰσομοιρίην ἔχειν

For the future any discussion of the problems connected with the Battle of Plataiai must take into account Mr. Grundy's careful survey of the field. In the map that accompanies his monograph we have at last reached finality. The satisfaction of this supreme requirement is his best contribution to the subject. His application of strategical principles to the narrative of Herodotos is only partial; and his result is not clear, because he has tried to realize the apocryphal portions of the ancient account. It is only after stripping off the husk of romantic accretion that we can proceed to examine the details by the light of military principles. It is such preliminary work and such subsequent recasting of the narrative that is here attempted.

Because our knowledge of ancient cartography is extremely limited, owing to the lack of surviving examples, the discovery of an accurate and competent map as the reverse type of a rare series of coins dating from the fourth century B.C. is of enormous significance. For this is the earliest Greek map to come down to us in any form and the first physical relief map known. Hitherto we have had to rely on the descriptions of maps in the ancient authors as our sole source of information about early Ionian cartography, whereas now we have an actual example. One would not normally expect to find a map as a coin type; most ancient maps were presumably drawn on vellum or papyrus. Even today, with much more sophisticated techniques of engraving, maps are very rarely found on coins, although they are common on postage stamps. Babelon, Head and Imhoof-Blumer were consequently not likely to consider this solution in trying to decipher the reverse type in their discussion of this series around the turn of the century; the map has so far remained unrecognised.

Appropriately the coins are from Ionia, the home of Thales and Anaximander, the early geographers. Only 35 examples of this series of Rhodian-weight tetradrachms and 6 of the bronze of the same type have been traced (plates X–XI). The obverse type is the figure of the Persian king, running or kneeling right, wearing the kidaris and candys, and holding a bow in his left hand and a spear in his right. The reverse is a rectangular incuse with irregular raised areas and is usually heavily stippled. The style of the reverse changes considerably, but the type is recognisable throughout as a map depicting the physical relief of the hinterland of Ephesus, an area of approximately 90 square miles (plate IX). It is unique both as a coin type and as a map.

This article investigates how flight in battle is presented in the newly discovered Archilochus fragment (P.Oxy LXIX 4708) and compares it to the Homeric treatment of the issue. It argues that the traditional dichotomy between scholars who see Archilochus as ‘subverting’ epic values and those who see him as continuous with them is too simplistic, and that the new poem provides clear evidence of a more nuanced approach to epic material. The fragment's approach reflects many of the subtleties found in Homeric attitudes to flight, and in this respect we see Archilochus using the cultural authority of epic to add weight to his argument. Nevertheless, the choice of the Telephus myth, which tells the story of a mistaken conflict, is an ironic one, and the narrative foregrounds the ways in which the Achaeans at Mysia fall short of heroic norms and perhaps casts aspersions on the contemporary scenario to which the mythological conflict appears to be compared. Hence the poem contains competing strands of consolation, celebration of an aristeia and mockery in a way which demonstrates Archilochus' varied and subtle relationship to epic.

This article challenges the conclusion of Kovacs (2009) that Oedipus Tyrannus 1468–1523 is an interpolation, arguing that the evidence he brings is insufficient (except possibly in regard to 1500–02), that his proposal regarding Sophocles' original conclusion to the play is unsatisfactory and that in 1468–1523 several significant features of the play's opening scenes are repeated or reversed.

This paper takes the Thirteenth Oration as a test case of many of the questions raised by the career and works of Dio Chrysostom. The speech's generic creativity and philosophical expertise are demonstrated. Historical problems are clarified. Analysis shows how Dio weaves seemingly diverse themes into a complex unity. New answers are given to two crucial interpretative problems. Exploration of Dio's self-representation and of his handling of internal and external audiences and of temporal and spatial relationships leads to the conclusion that he has a serious philosophical purpose: the advocacy of Antisthenic/Cynic paideia in place of the current paideia both of Romans and Athenians. Paradoxically, this clever, ironic and sophisticated speech deconstructs its own apparent values in the interests of simple, practical moralizing.

One of the more persistent and widespread minor traditions in ancient literature represents the Carians as the great military innovators and practitioners of early times. It is one of several ‘Carian’ traditions, in which this people is given a greater importance than it seems historically possible to allow, and which at one time led certain scholars to believe that the Aegean Bronze Age civilisation as a whole was Carian in origin. This particular example can be checked, up to a point, from the evidence of archaeological discoveries; and the experiment may prove worth making, both as a supplement to the archaeological record, and as a test case for the value and quality of such traditions. In its more extreme version, the Carians are credited with the actual invention of various military devices: this, as I hope to show, is unlikely to be true. But there is a milder form of the tradition, which states that the Carians habitually used these devices. This version may in part arise from the vaguer wording of certain ancient authorities, but as it stands it is quite acceptable.

When the Messenger in the Oedipus Coloneus looked back, he saw that Oedipus had disappeared and that Theseus was screening his eyes with his hand. Then Theseus made adoration to earth and to the Olympus of the gods, both at once: ὁρῶμεν αὐτὸν γῆν τε προσκυνοῦνθ̓ ἅμα καὶ τὸν θεῶν Ὄλυμπονἐνἐν ταὐτῷλόλῳ (1654 f.). There was nothing strange about such a salutation. The Sausageseller in the Knights was bidden to ‘adore earth and the gods’ (ἔπειτα τὴν πρόσκυσον καὶ τοὺς θεούς, 156), and did so, presumably with the same familiar ritual gestures which Theseus used. But the phrasing in the Coloneus is emphatic (ἅμα … ἐν ταὐτῷ λόγῳ), and Jebb has one of his percipient notes: ‘The vision which [Theseus] had just seen moved him to adore both the χθόνιοι and the ὕπατοι. This touch is finely conceived so as to leave the mystery unbroken.’ The mystery, that is, of the passing of Oedipus. οὐ γάρ τις αὐτὸν οὔτε πυρφόρος θεοῦ | κεραυνὸς ἐξέπαξεν οὔτε ποντία | θύελλα κινηθεῖσα τῷ τότ̕ ἐν χρόνῳ, | ἀλλ̕ ἤ τις ἐκ θεῶν πομπός, ἤ τὸ νερτέρων | εὔνουν διαστὰν γῆς ἀλάμπετον βάθρον.

The purpose of the following remarks is to suggest a close relationship of thought between the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles and the Oresteia of Aeschylus; to suggest, further, that both dramas performed, in terms of the same conceptions, a religious function which tragedy was peculiarly fitted to perform.

The identification of the Early Helladic civilisation has been the most notable advance made in Greek prehistory since the war. Our knowledge of this earliest Aegean culture on the Mainland is still very fragmentary. But the Louvre has possessed for nearly fifty years a precious document which can now be assigned its true place and sheds an unexpected light on the epoch. It is a gold ‘sauce-boat’ of the form already so familiar in clay at Korakou and Tiryns. Thanks to the courtesy of M. Etienne Michon, Conservator of the Greek and Roman Antiquities, I am permitted to publish this remarkable object (Fig. 1).

Save for the handle, our vase has been beaten out of a single piece of metal. The walls are exceedingly thin, not more than ·3 mm. thick, but, as with the gold beakers from Troy, measuring more at the rim, the edge being ·9 mm. across. The base is cupped to form a ring foot, a procedure also adopted by Trojan and Sumerian metal-workers. The handle is formed by a strip of gold with rectangular cross section, flattened at either end to receive the rivets which attach it to the vase. Its three outer sides are engraved with a herringbone pattern. The complete vessel weighs 125·2 grammes.