1. At Lydae, on the western edge of the horizontal slabs of a tomb, on the side of which is Mr. Hicks' No. 12.

This may be compared with the inscription No. 16 of Mr. Hicks, which it very closely resembles. The builder would seem to be the same Heliodoros who is numbered 6 in the genealogical tree. Letters ·04m.

Below the three lower heroa and further south we found two inscribed fragments. One had the letters ΑΥΤΟ (·06m.) and obviously had an imperial connection: the other showed ΩΡΟΥΤΟΥ ΝΙΑΗΛΙΟ and must have referred to the Diophantus family.

‘You will be unable to comprehend strophe, antistrophe or epode; it will read like a piece of continuous prose:’ the question has been long debated, whether Dionysius' claim is justified.

Experiment has proved that brute force will be required to hammer the following quotation from Simonides into the shape of a complete strophe and complete antistrophe, with or without all or part of an epode. Specimens may be seen and judged elsewhere. They need never again be repeated; they demonstrate that either the text is corrupt beyond the possibility of a scientific restoration, or there is no complete strophe and antistrophe present.

It is at least natural to suppose that when Dionysius says, ‘You will not recognise strophe, antistrophe and epode,’ he must, in this context, imply that all three of these elements are represented; not necessarily that all three are complete, but that parts at least of all three are included. It appears therefore prima facie reasonable to look for metrical correspondences between strophe and antistrophe; but of all such investigations one only has led to a result which is widely approved.

Through the kindness of Professor K. T. Erim of New York University I have the opportunity to offer the following note on a fragment of a Lydian inscription found recently during his excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria. The description and details of the archaeological context I owe to Professor Erim and to Miss Joyce Reynolds.

The fragment (inv. no. 68.357) came to light in July 1968, re-used in one of the ruined modern houses on the northern slope of the so-called acropolis when they were being demolished in preparation for the full-scale excavation of the Theatre there. It is of medium- to coarse-grained marble, greyish in colour, probably from the Aphrodisias quarries themselves, and measures 0·11 × 0·75 × 0·165 m.; no original edges survive, but it is likely that the original left edge was very close to the surviving left edge.

What remains of the inscribed surface is approximately trapezoidal in shape and carries traces of three lines of text; in the first only the lower tips of the letters survive and these cannot be securely interpreted, but in the second five complete letters (ave. 0·025 m. high) can be read, although they have suffered from slight surface chipping, and in the third the upper two-thirds of five letters survives and these also can be read perfectly well. The inscription was firmly and deftly, if lightly, cut, with trenches c. 0·001 deep, very slightly triangular in profile and showing some tendency to broaden a little on the base line. Judging from the position of the last letters in Il. 2, 3, it seems probable that each line ended with a completed word.

Shortly before Darius abandoned his futile pursuit of the elusive Scythians, there came to the Persians a messenger from the Scythian chiefs (iv 131, 132):

When the mummy-portraits from Rubayyat and Hawara were first brought to Europe, amid the general interest which they aroused there was a wide diversity of opinion as to their age. Georg Ebers, who had an enthusiastic admiration for them, tried hard to prove that the series began in the second century B.C. and that the best specimens belonged to the Ptolemaic period. Th. Schreiber may be mentioned as another distinguished authority who took the same view. On the other hand many archaeologists maintained that the portraits were all Roman work, dating for the most part from the second century A.D. Mr. Petrie in particular brought forward definite evidence to show that they range from about 130 A.D. to about 250 A.D., and he also divided them into successive groups. There is still much uncertainty on the subject, as I have had occasion to notice of late. To those who are in doubt about it the following brief paper, which is based on a study of the Cairo collection, may be of some little help. I regret that I do not know much of the material in Europe at first hand.

The term Proto-Attic, which is our equivalent to the German Frühattisch, and is formed on the analogy of Proto-Corinthian, is of course only a loose definition, intended to apply exclusively to a small class of Attic vases which fall between the periods represented on the one hand by the Dipylon, and on the other by the vases of the stereotyped Attic black-figure style.

For this later limit the François vase would naturally be the typical representative, were it not that, as we now know, the white on that vase is laid direct upon the clay instead of in the true Attic manner upon a prepared black surface. Within these two limits we should strictly speaking place the Vourva, Marathon, and the Menidi vases, as well as the large series of ‘Tyrrhenian amphorae’; and possibly yet other classes of the same kind may be found among the Acropolis fragments; but for our purpose these may be regarded rather as tributaries of the main stream, and not as proto-Attic in the limited sense.

This article uses recent findings about the diversity of political organization in Archaic and Classical Greece beyond Athens, and methodological considerations about the role of civic Hestia in oligarchic communities, to add sharpness to current work on the political contextualization of Classical enkomiastic poetry. The two works considered here remind us of the epichoric political significance of such poetry, because of their attunement to two divergent oligarchic contexts. They thus help to get us back to specific fifth-century political as well as cultural Realien.

In a ‘Note on Sea-birds’ [JHS xcii (1972) 172–3] Miss Sylvia Benton comments on Mr J. K. Anderson's preceding Note, Θρᾷξ, Δυτῖνος, Καταρράκτης. But if we are to identify the species to which ancient names refer we must limit ourselves to those species which are now, or can be shown to have once been, present in Greece, and for this both accuracy of observation and a knowledge of the literature on the ornithology of Greece seem desirable. Miss Benton says: ‘A ship on which I was sailing was dive-bombed by Gannets just east of the harbour of Tinos: no doubt they were defending their nests on the cliffs’. But the Gannet (Sula bassana) is a bird of the North Atlantic which does not now nest, if it ever did, in the Mediterranean nor indeed south of 51° N. on the eastern coasts of the Atlantic, so that these dive-bombers, whatever they were, could hardly have been Gannets. There are only two authentic records of Gannets in Greece at all, in May 1853 and in April 1965 (A. Kanellis: Catalogus Faunae Graeciae; pars II Aves ed. W. Bauer, O. v. Helversen, M. Hodge, J. Martens. Thessaloniki, 1969).

In the paper on ‘Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Worship,’ (above, pp. 99 foll.) and in the various discussions of the Cretan discoveries, several theories and interpretations are put forth which have been too hastily accepted. I do not propose to deal with the whole question here, but to call attention to the fact that a great part of the evidence has been overlooked. It is not unnatural that, in the enthusiasm of a great discovery, the happy discoverer should be taken by an interpretation which is ingenious and in many respects alluring, since it offers a key to mysteries long unexplained. Nevertheless there are other facts to be reckoned with.

The theories I refer to are these: (1) that the double axes carved in the Cnossian palace have a religious significance; (2) that they are the symbol of Zeus; (3) that the pillar upon which several of these signs are carved was worshipped; (4) that the Labyrinth derives its name from the word the Carian name for an axe of this kind, and (5) that the palace of Cnossos was the Labyrinth, which means the House of the Double Axe. These theories are supported by the following evidence: (1) that the statue of Zeus at Labranda in Caria was described as holding in his hand a double axe, the local name for which was (Plutarch, Quaest. Gr. 45); (2) that double axes of bronze were found in the Dictaean Cave, where Zeus was worshipped; (3) Mr. Evans also collects a large number of facts to illustrate the worship of pillars, and apparently of axes also.

The vase which is the subject of the present memoir is a pyxis or small round box of a light yellow clay with a smooth surface, decorated with designs in a blackish brown, which is here and there varied with a patch of purple laid upon the black, or with a detail occasionally incised. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1865, and forms one of a set of eighteen which were ‘guaranteed’ as having been found at Phaleron near Athens.

The lid is decorated with a circular frieze of animals, representing five lions or panthers; the most important representation, however, is that upon the body of the vase, which is encircled with a single frieze of figures, consisting of four lions, a bull (recognisable by the shape of its hoof and its horn), and a group which is obviously a rendering of the well-known myth of Herakles and Geryon—beside Geryon is a further group of three bulls.

Aristotle relates that during his second exile Pisistratus joined with others in the colonization of Rhaccelus on the Thermaic Gulf: πρῶτον μὲν συνῷκισε περὶ τὸν Θερμαῖον κόλπον χωρίον ὅ καλεῖται Ῥαίκηλος. The context of this foundation is very obscure. J. W. Cole nevertheless proposed to consider this enterprise as ‘a combined Peisistratus-Eretria settlement’: this is a very attractive hypothesis which I should like to explore, adding some further considerations.

In Historia Animalium iv 531a3–5, Aristotle draws some sort of analogy between sea-urchins and lanterns–an analogy which, thanks to Jacob Klein, has found its way into the vocabulary of modern invertebrate zoology. At the close of the discussion in his Loeb edition, A. L. Peck observed: ‘The Text of the Greek manuscripts therefore still awaits satisfactory interpretation’. Peck's note, his footnote to the translation, and his apparatus criticus went some way toward establishing an understandable text for the passage. What the passage still lacks is a scientifically sensible interpretation.

The subject, or subects, of the scenes on the Portland Vase is an old problem which has teased art historians for long enough. There have been fairly long periods when the interpretation seemed to be generally agreed, or when scholars' ingenuity waned, and the last suggestion reigned unchallenged for some time. There have also been short periods when the vase evoked avid scholarly activity, as for instance 1957–68.

For a recent debate one should consult the article by B. Ashmole, and the reply to it made by D. Haynes (JHS 1967 and 1968). In both editions of his British Museum booklet, The Portland Vase (1964 and 1975) Haynes gives an amusing appendix, listing ‘other interpretations’, which from 1642 to 1967 amounted to twenty-three more or less different theories. If one adds to these the articles by Brown and Clairmont published subsequently in AJA (1968, 1970, 1972) and a recent paper by Evelyn Harrison in a German Festschrift (1976), then the vase has knocked up more than its quarter century of rival interpretations. It is no wonder that many modern general works state simply that the scenes have not been satisfactorily interpreted, but that one of the sides may represent a sea goddess.

In summary it may be said that previous theories have taken one of two main paths. They have either linked the scene with a Greek legend, or have sought in the vase a reference to contemporary Roman history, albeit a history dressed up in a Hellenic and classicising style.

The following inscriptions, one from the realm of the Attalid kings, the other from that of the Ptolemies, came to light last year. Both are city decrees issued in the second century B.C., and affinity in date, if not in matter, seems to justify their being here published together.

I. Decree from Apamea-ad-Maeandrum

Dinar. Two fragments of a marble stele excavated in 1934 near the ‘Therma’ spring (Ramsay, C.B. p. 401), soon afterwards copied, photographed and measured by W. M. Calder. At the top a plain moulding; broken at base and on both sides, no part of edges preserved; h. 0·39 m., w. 0·37 m., th. 0·08–0·10 m.; letters 0·007 to 0·0125 m.

Although the coinage of Alexander the Great has of late years been intensively studied, and an immense advance made, almost entirely by the efforts of Mr. E. T. Newell, in its classification and dating, little attention has been paid to one detail which seems to me worthy of more careful consideration. This is the decoration of the bowl of the helmet of Athena on the gold coinage (Fig. 1). Müller (Alex, le Grand, p. 3) says merely that the bowl is most usually adorned with a serpent, sometimes with a running gryphon, rarely with a sphinx, and sometimes with nothing at all. He makes no attempt to explain these emblems, regarding them doubtless as purely decorative. There is no doubt that from quite early times such creatures had been used for purely ornamental purposes to support the crests of helmets. Between using them actually to bear the crest and as decoration in relief on the bowl there is no significant difference. If, therefore, no plausible explanation of the meaning of these emblems on the coinage of Alexander is forthcoming it is not unreasonable to suppose that they are purely decorative; but that position should not be assumed until the possibility of their having a meaning has been thoroughly explored.

I.G. xii (2). 1. 13–15.

These lines come from the well-known unique inscription, in Aeolic dialect, recording the terms of a monetary union between Mytilene and Phokaia, whereby each agreed to issue, in alternate years, an electrum coinage for circulation in both cities. The inscription is, on the evidence of letter forms, accepted as belonging to the early years of the fourth or possibly to the end of the fifth century B.C. The story of the poet Persinos, attributed to Kallisthenes, implies that the treaty was still in operation within the period c. 373–55 B.C.

The present note re-examines the meaning of τὸ χρυσίον κέρναν here, and in 11. 4–6 convincingly restored by G. N. Papageorgiu (Unedierte Inschriften von Mytilene, 16, no. 53) as:

In the history of Greek literature, as regarded by the general reader, there are two remarkable intermissions. The first occurs when ancient Greek literature comes to an end with Lucian in the second century after Christ; or perhaps when the hexameter itself begins to dissolve in the hands of Nonnus in the fourth. The second break naturally follows when Byzantine literature is cut short by the fall of Constantinople in 1453—after which it is commonly and wrongly supposed that hardly a Greek put pen to paper, save in the way of commerce or grammar, until the revolutionary songs of Eegas heralded the revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is, however, one of the fascinations of Greek studies that they introduce us to a language that can be traced in an unbroken descent from Homer to the present day: and wherever the Greek language has been spoken the art of literature has never quite perished, though its traces are sometimes rather faint and its beauties rare. But for the complete study of a language second-rate authors must not be neglected where masterpieces are few and far between. Unfortunately it is only in the last fifty years that scholars have turned their attention to publication of the obscure works that carry on the literary tradition from Byzantium to modern Greece. Of these authors ‘of the Turkish period’ the learned Sophocles, in the introduction to his Lexicon, remarks (1860) : ‘It is unnecessary to inform the reader here that, with very few exceptions, they are beneath criticism.’

Aristophanes' Acharnians, performed at the Lenaea in 425 BC, is the story of Dicaeopolis' unilateral withdrawal from Athens' political system and her seemingly endless war against Sparta. What seems never to have been appreciated is the extent to which the hero's motivations are specifically economic in character. Dicaeopolis resents both his unhappy new status as an urban cash-consumer of staple goods, and the fact that he is excluded from all the pleasures the war-time city still has to offer, while others continue to enjoy themselves. It is a combination of these resentments which drives the hero to break ranks with his fellow citizens and make his separate peace with the Peloponnesians, and both problems are accordingly resolved in the ‘ideal’ new world of the second half of the play.