In 1957 Mr Lobel published, in the twenty-fourth volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a large fragment of a commentary on the Spartan poet Alcman. It is the second column of this papyrus which I propose to discuss; lines 13 to 22 give us some information about the Spartan royal family, and lines 22 to 25 seem to be saying something about the Spartan tribal organisation. Unfortunately, however, much of the left-hand side of the column is missing at this point; and when, from line 22, we do at last have a few letters from the left-hand side, we are faced with a gap running up the right-hand side as well. Because of this, it will be necessary to spend some time in an attempt to discover what the papyrus said, what it might have said, and what it could not possibly have said. Until this is done, no historical conclusions can safely be drawn.

Before starting on an examination of the text, however, it would be as well to state what can be known about the author of the commentary. We can be certain that he had the work of previous scholars before him. In line 4 he refers to Theon, the Augustan grammarian, and in line 5 to Tyrannion; there were two grammarians of that name, and we cannot tell which he means (Lobel 54). Furthermore, in line 28, τῶν λοιπῶν is best taken as meaning ‘the other commentators’ (see p. 70). Whether or not he was an intelligent man is a question on which it is better not to dogmatise. He is capable of interpretative remarks of dubious value (lines 9–13, with Lobel ad loc.). There is certainly a muddle in the third column, which may indicate stupidity on the part of the commentator, or carelessness on the part of the scribe. We should not assume too readily that what he says is the gospel truth about early Sparta. On the other hand, we should remember that he might be working from a reliable source.

The Onchestos passage in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (229-38) has been discussed extensively, most usefully by A. Schachter (BICS 23 (1976) 102-14) and G. Roux (REG 77 (1964) 1-22). Further consideration of the disputed verbal forms in lines 235 and 236 and the plurals of 233-6 suggests that the plurals do indeed indicate a two-horse chariot team but that the presence of a team is not incompatible with the test of a single colt, and that if a chariot is wrecked by the unguided horses, it is righted and left in situ (with the horses removed) while prayers of supplication are made to Poseidon. The events referred to are interpreted as elements of a religious ritual with explicit military implications, dating from the Mycenaean period. It is, however, noted that a Babylonian ritual parallel might suggest a Near Eastern (and possibly non-military) origin.

Some of our extant authorities, as Justin and Appian, state or assume that Alexander had two sons, Roxane's and Barsine's. Others, as Diodorus in the events prior to 309, and Curtius in parts, state or assume that he had only one, Roxane's. Now it makes a considerable difference in our view of the events of 309 whether the lad called Heracles, who appeared in that year as a reputed son of Alexander and Barsine, were really Alexander's son or an ordinary pretender. No modern historian has even noticed that there is a conflict of authority; for though Beloch saw that Heracles' age was wrong he did not follow it up, but altered the age. Before coming to the events of 309, the source of the evidence for Alexander having one son only must be considered.

I lately enriched a village library with some volumes of Dickens; but, to my disappointment, the country-folk did not care for them. And the reason was not only that all those amusing vulgarities seem neither vulgar nor amusing to rustic readers; but far more because their way of life is so entirely removed from that life of the office, the back-parlour, and the street, with which the great humourist has to do, that they cannot imagine it. My failure made me reflect how imperfect is our acquaintance with the scenery and associations of classical life, and how much of the wit and fun of ancient humourists may be lost upon us, who live in such a different world from theirs. This misgiving must strike the reader of the Characters: he feels that they are sketched from life, but he craves for a completer familiarity with the Athens of the 4th century, without which many of the minuter touches may be missed. The very quality in Theophrastus which some have called ‘superficial,’ makes a fresh demand upon the reader. The author indicates only the external symptoms of character, not concerning himself with a deeper analysis.

In his Handbook of Greek Mythology Professor H. J. Rose several times draws attention to the legendary theme of the floating chest, which occurs so frequently as to suggest that ‘some kind of ritual lies behind all these tales’. The theme is recognised by Dr. A. B. Cook (Zeus II, 671 sqq.) as one of the perennials of folk-lore, and parallels are cited from modern Europe, Siberia, and India. A study by M. E. Cosquin (‘Le Lait de la Mère et le Coffre Flottant’ in Revue des Questions Historiques, 1908), based on material drawn from North Africa, India, and Java as well as the Classical world, links the floating chest to the miraculous suckling of children.

The preservation of a child or a mother and child in a floating chest was obviously a good story, and Euripides, by choosing this version of the Telephus legend in preference to that which left the child exposed on land, no doubt contributed to its popularity. Moreover, in legends of the introduction of a new cult the story teller often required a miraculous means of transport. The chest may have served a similar purpose to the floating rock of Celtic saints. But these explanations are not sufficient to account for the recurrence of the chest in a large number of stories which have important common elements.

While excavating on the temenos wall of the great temple of Sety I at Abydos in Upper Egypt, Mr. A. St. G. Caulfeild found the foundations of a stone pylon, a fragment of a great lintel, inscribed by Ptolemy IV, Philopator, and a small limestone block here figured.

This block was probably a foundation-deposit; the inscription is incised; the surface has been gilded. It seems probable that it refers to the building by Philopator.

The present paper is a continuation of my article in vol. xxxi, of this Journal (1911), pp. 161–215, and it contains the inscriptions promised on the final page of that article. The sixth inscription (No. LXXII.) was recopied by Sir W. M. Ramsay and myself in 1912, but we added little to Professor Callander's copy. Several further texts discovered in 1912, and careful revisions of many of the known inscriptions, are reserved for treatment in another place. The inscriptions in my former paper are referred to as Nos. I., II., etc.

The following inscriptions were discovered in Thasos in the winter of 1886, by Mr. J. Theodore Bent. Owing to the opposition of the Turkish authorities he was prevented from conveying to England the original marbles and monuments, and had to be content, for the present, with his memoranda of the sites explored and impressions of the inscriptions. One of these paper impressions has supplied the text of the Thasian Decree discussed in the preceding pages. The other Thasian impressions were placed by Mr. Bent in the hands of Mr. A. H. Smith of the British Museum, to be prepared for publication in this Journal. Mr. A. H. Smith however found the task he had undertaken in preparing an Index to the Hellenic Journal was making such demands upon his time, that he invited me to relieve him by editing the whole of Mr. Bent's Thasian impressions. Mr. Smith had already made transcriptions of a number of the texts, which he kindly placed at my disposal. I am however myself responsible for the arrangement and restoration of the texts as here given. Their interest and value will be considerably enhanced by the memoranda which Mr. Bent himself has furnished respecting the sites and buildings wherein the various inscriptions were discovered. None of them, so far as I know, have been published before.

At the start of the section entitled ‘structure’ in his commentary on Callimachus' Hymn to Artemis, Fritz Bornmann notes that the third Hymn has enjoyed less success among critics than any other. ‘They lament’, he says, ‘the lack of unity'. And indeed, beginning with Wilamowitz, this has been not only the dominant, but the only view of the hymn. The latter part of the poem, said Wilamowitz, ‘macht trotz allen Künsten den Eindruck eines gelehrten Nachtrages' und es ist das auch’, he adds. Some forty years later K.J. McKay put it this way: ‘If there is a stronger unifying principle in this straggling composition than the idea of weaving together a number of disparate strands into a ‘historic day’ in the life of Artemis (with vv. 183–268 as a possibly unfortunate addition), it still eludes us'. And recently, Michael Hasiam has remarked on the poem's ‘disjointed tail section’. The hymn, to his mind, ‘progressively disintegrates, as the clear structural framework with which it started fades totally from view’. Even Herter, in his famous and influential essay on the hymn, ‘Kallimachos und Homer‘, echoes this opinion of the final third of the poem. The commentator Bornmann concludes: ‘this estimation is essentially correct’.

Two years ago Hauser published a remarkable bell-krater then in private possession and now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. (FRH. Pl. 115). On the one side we see a picture of Artemis shooting Actaeon, on the other a young shepherd is hotly pursued by a goat-headed Pan, while a small god-stick, or phallic herm, views the scene from a neighbouring eminence. The drawing is a marvel of elaborate elegance, the subjects uncommon, the forms and attitudes strangely and finely stylized. Who is the author of this fascinating work? In the text which accompanies the plate Hauser mentioned and reproduced a small pelike in Vienna, which he saw was closely related to the Boston krater, though he did not feel certain it was by the same artist: on the front of this vase, a man squats on a rock fishing with a rod and a youth with a basket stands beside him; on the reverse, a second youth carrying two baskets on a pole across his shoulder is speeding past a phallic herm (ibid. 2 pp. 293 and 295). In the opinion of the present writer, krater and pelike are undoubtedly by one master; and forty other vases are to be attributed to the same ingenious hand. A list of these vases will first be given, arranged according to shape; and a description of the master's style will follow. Cunning composition; rapid motion; quick deft draughtsmanship; strong and peculiar stylization; a deliberate archaism, retaining old forms, but refining, refreshing, and galvanizing them; nothing noble or majestic, but grace, humour, vivacity, originality, and dramatic force: these are the qualities which mark the Boston krater, and which characterize the anonymous artist who, for the sake of convenience, may be called ‘the master of the Boston Pan-vase,’ or, more briefly,‘the Pan-master.’

The little vase of which a coloured illustration is given on Plates I. and II. has already been laid before the Society with a brief notice in the last number of the Journal, p. 253: before that publication appeared, it had already been the subject of articles in the Classical Review and the Times, so that most people are already aware of the melancholy interest which attaches itself to it. It was presented to the British Museum by Mr. Malcolm Macmillan in the spring of 1889, shortly before he started on the expedition which had so mysterious a termination. It was felt that the surpassing charm of this little Greek masterpiece was well worthy of any pains that could be bestowed on its reproduction; and it is to the generosity of Mr. Macmillan's family that the Society owes the excellent facsimile which accompanies this paper.

In spite of its diminutive proportions—it is only .068 mètre in height— this little lekythos will certainly henceforth rank among the mirabilia of our national collection. Its claims to distinction are based, not only upon its intrinsic merit as a chef d'oeuvre of art, but also on the fact that, belonging to a highly interesting class of Greek painted pottery, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful and important specimen of that class which has yet come down to us.

The chief authority for the life of this saint is the biography by Symeon Metaphrastes, written about 900–50 A.D. It quotes the epitaph on the saint's tomb, and the question whether this epitaph is an original document of the second century A.D., or a later forgery, is one of the utmost importance for the early history of the Christian church, and of many literary points connected with it. The document is not very easily accessible, so that it may be well to quote it as it is given in the Life by Metaphrastes; the criticism of the text has been to a certain extent advanced by the metrical restorations proposed by Pitra and others.

In the course of investigating the Pontic region under Byzantium, Anthony Bryer and David Winfield have rescued from oblivion a monument from Sinope of much earlier date. 'Excavations for a gas pump not far west of the walls. . . brought to light an altar made of a stumpy fluted Doric column. A clean-cut inscription carved on two successive flutings reads:

ΔΕΛΦΙΝΙοΣ

ΟΡΓΙΑΛΕΟΣ

Hearing of extensive and unidentified ruins on the banks of the river Jeihan (the ancient Pyramus) at a spot now called Bodroum to the east of the Cilician plain, just as the river enters the plain from the gorges of the Anti-Taurus, we determined to visit the site. The result of our explorations, made in the early months of this year, are as follows.

Our route took us past the rock of Anazarba and Kars Bazaar, at which places we decided to spend a few days, and though the spots have both been previously described we were able to add a few points to the information concerning them, both epigraphical and topographical.

Anazarba.—Caesarea penes Anazarbum, as Ptolemy calls it, was second only in importance to Tarsus of the cities of Cilicia during the days of imperial Rome, and was the metropolis of the eastern portion of the great plain. The town was built at the foot of a long rocky mountain, rising like an island out of the plain for the extent of three miles and attaining an altitude of 2,000 feet. The walls as they at present stand are of Armenian and Saracenic construction, enclosing a parallelogram, one side of which is protected by the mountain; but they contain many portions of Roman work, notably the great southern gate formed by a triumphal arch erected in the time of Justinian, when that emperor restored the town after it had been ruined by an earthquake.

The story of the sources of the Nile which Herodotus says the Scribe of the Sacred Treasures of Athene told him at Sais has been discussed many times, and nearly everything which can be said about it has been said. But the following points do not seem to have been made as yet.

The story that the sources or springs of the Nile are at Elephantine is absurd as it stands, as indeed Herodotus himself realised. Many suggestions have been put forward in explanation, primarily that the story is something theological or that it represents a very ancient tradition dating from the earliest times when the First Cataract was the Ultima Thule of Egypt. The flaw in such an explanation is that ‘from the earliest times’ the Nile's course south of the Cataract had been well known to the Egyptians. Cemeteries have been found in Nubia of the Egyptian predynastic and early dynastic times, and certainly from the Old Kingdom onwards armies and trading expeditions were commonly accustomed to go far up to the south. It was, therefore, well known to the Egyptians throughout history that the Nile did not rise at the First Cataract, but came from much farther south.

Such remarkable additions were made by last season's excavations at Knossos and in the Dictaean Cave to the small number of known specimens of pre-Mycenaean painted pottery of Cretan fabric, that it is worth while to deal with this ware anew.

It was first made known by Mr. J. L. Myres, after he had seen and drawn, in the Syllogos Museum at Candia, certain fragments said to have been found in a cave on the southern slope of Ida, two and a half hours above the village of Kamares. In his communication to the Society of Antiquaries (March 14th, 1895, Proc. XV., iii., pp. 351–356, Plates i–iv.) Mr. Myres rightly apprehended the period, character and affinities of this new and singular variety of early Aegean pottery. The colouring of his drawings, however, not having been applied with the models in sight, was not quite correct, and many of the fragments were republished by Dr. L. Mariani, (Monumenti Antichi, Vol. VI., riates 9–11, pp. 334–342), but in some cases were not improved upon. From the reported place of first finding this fabric is commonly called “Kamares“ ware.

No more of it was found for some years. While excavating the lower prehistoric town of Knossos in March last, however, we lighted on many Kamares vases and fragments, and were able to establish the fact that, so far from that ware being a rarity, it is to be looked for in Crete wherever any strata of remains underlie the Mycenaean. It occurred in our digging at Knossos at all points at which the early town was probed to the rock. On the Kephala hill, where the lowest stratum of deposit is a dusty yellow clay full of Neolithic weapons and sherds, Kamares sherds occur, where stratified, immediately above that stratum.

When discussing the Tabulae Iliacae in JHS xcix (1979) 26–48 (hereafter ‘Horsfall’), I followed the usual and unchallenged view in stating that the group includes twenty reliefs and that five bear the signature of the artist Theodorus (26). Both statements prove wrong. Prof. F. Jouan (Paris-Nanterre) most kindly informed me in the summer of 1979 that an unpublished Thèse de Maîtrise by one of his students, Mlle F. Legrand, (Les Tables Iliaques [1976] [hereafter ‘Legrand’]), contained new material on the Tabulae and made a copy of her work available to me. It was immediately apparent (Legrand 160 ff.) that the Tabula which I shall call 21 Froehner was unpublished and when it became clear that no publication in France was intended, I sought and was freely granted access. Examination of Tabula 20Par., also in the Froehner collection, revealed that its verso carried an hitherto neglected signature by Theodorus. Permission to publish Tabulae 20Par. (verso) and 21Fro. was unhesitatingly granted. It is a great pleasure to place on record the enthusiasm and generosity displayed by Prof. Jouan and by the staff at the Cabinet des Médailles.

During the war organised archaeological excavations in Cyprus were suspended. The Pennsylvania University Expedition to Curium continued at work during the early years of the war and then closed down. The Department of Antiquities staff was reduced and therefore could not undertake systematic excavations. Accidental discoveries, however, which were multiplied by digging operations by the Army, were attended to, and any excavation necessary for the safeguarding of the remains uncovered, carried out.

1. At Robert College, Bebek, Constantinople, small stele 0·36 × 0·69 (letters 0·15) with relief of sacrifice to Apollo Citharoedus by a number of worshippers arranged in rows above each other: the inscription is much worn:

The epithet may be connected with the river name Macestus, Mecistus, with which again we may compare the Lesbian mountain Macistum, and the name Macestis in Le Bas 1127. The Macestus valley is possibly the provenance of both the Bebek stelai. A long series of votives dedicated to Apollo Crateanus (Arch. Zeit. 1875, 162), is said to come from a spot three hours from Manyas and nine from Balukiser. I was told also by Mr. Bunning of Susurlu that many of the Van Branteghem antiquities were found at a spot near Omarkeui.

‘Es ist das schoene Vorrecht der historischen Forschung, die Verstorbenen in der Erinnerung der Nachwelt wieder aufleben zu lassen. Erscheint es billig, dass die Namen derer, welche sich hohe Verdienste um ihr Volk erworben, der Vergessenheit nicht anheimfallen, so ist es menschlich, denen überhaupt nachzuforschen, welche einst in weiten Kreisen von der Mit- und Nachwelt genannt und gefeiert worden sind.’

With these words, used by Dr. Koehler in regard to the once famous ‘condottiere,’ Diogenes, in the third century B.C., I beg to introduce to the reader a personage who, although perhaps of limited interest, was once celebrated and powerful and had the honour of calling himself the friend of Julius Caesar. His son moreover did his best to prevent a deed, the failure of which would probably have changed the direction of the history of the world,—the murder of Caesar.

The passages in ancient writers which relate to the man of whom I speak are well known, but they have not hitherto been rightly connected with one another, or thoroughly understood.