It has always been usual to approach the question of Thucydides' narrative of Pylos and Sphacteria with all its difficulties on the assumption that the main object of Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet was originally the affairs of Corcyra and Sicily, and afterwards the rescue of Demosthenes and the garrison of Pylos. Yet this view involves a manifest contradiction. Eurymedon was in a hurry; he left Demosthenes with an insignificant force, with the absolute certainty that he would be attacked and that he himself would have to come back and help him; all this must have been thought of beforehand ; why then did he leave him? or having left him, why did he come back to help him, stultifying thereby his own plan of operations?

The answer may perhaps be found in strategical considerations. The expedition was first fitted out with a view to interference in the affairs of Sicily; but there intervened a more immediate object, for a chance presented itself of catching the Peloponnesian fleet. Let us assume therefore that Eurymedon's main purpose was the destruction of the Peloponnesian fleet wherever found, and then let us see what this involves (i) in regard to the strategy at Pylos, (ii) in regard to the local difficulties in Thucydides. It will be found to have the greatest influence upon both.

There are in the literary sources few examples of curial life extending over three generations with such a continuity of detail as is provided by Libanius in his references to the family of Argyrius. Yet in the more accessible works of reference, the student of the social life of the later Roman Empire will discover merely a shortened version by Ensslin (PW. Suppl. VII, 680) of Seeck's note on Obodianus (Briefe, 222). In addition, the index of the Teubner edition of Libanius presents much confusion between grandfather and grandson.

Towards the end of his life, Libanius addressed to the Emperor Theodosius an open letter upon the parlous state of the curiae at the time, contrasting their present hard lot with the state of things which had prevailed earlier in the century. In dealing with the recruitment of fresh blood into the curia, he cites as an example of previous practice the conduct of his own grandfather (Or. xlix. 18). He, some years before his death in 324, had been instrumental in securing for a young foreigner named Argyrius an introduction into the curia of Antioch. This he had succeeded in doing, despite Argyrius' alien birth, his youth, and lack of property, even against the opposition of the then governor and the then sophist of the city, Zenobius. Oddly enough, there was a family relationship between Zenobius and Argyrius, which Libanius mentions at a later time (Ep. 101).

A remarkable Mykênæan gold-find brought to light some years since in the island of Ægina after finding its way into the London market has secured a permanent resting-place in the British Museum. In the interests of archæological science it must be a matter for rejoicing that our national collection should have received so important an accession in a department of ancient metal-work hitherto almost wholly unrepresented in any museum outside Athens. Opinions may well differ as to the propriety of removing from the soil on which they are found and to which they naturally belong the greater monuments of Classical Antiquity. But in the case of small objects, made themselves for commerce, and free from the same local ties, the considerations, which weigh under other circumstances, lose their validity, while on the other hand the benefits to be derived by students from their partial dispersion are not to be gainsaid. This, it is true, is not the standpoint of the Greek, or, for that matter, of the Turkish Government. But the theory that the present occupants of Greece or the Ottoman possessors of the Eastern Empire are the sole legitimate heirs even of such minor monuments of ancient culture is not likely to commend itself to the outside world.

I must ask the readers of the Hellenic Journal to take the somewhat disjointed notes that follow strictly for what they are, namely, addenda to my paper in last year's Journal (vol. xxiii. 1903) on the ‘Mystica Vannus Iacchi.’

My object in writing that paper was to elucidate the mysticism of the ‘fan’ and thereby, I hoped, to throw some light on an obscure chapter in the history of Greek religion, namely the shift from the worship of Demeter to that of Dionysos. Incidentally it became necessary to examine the various forms of winnowing ‘fans.’ My personal interest in this necessary step in my argument was slight and my statement of evidence, I fear, inadequate and superficial. Since the appearance of the article many friendly critics have supplied me with material to fill the gaps left by my ignorance, and the examination of this material has not been without its use to me in clearing up some obscurities as to the mysticism of the fan.

The material here discussed is far from being exhaustive, since it seems to me that a careful study would yield further groups of vases of this class. I use the word ‘groups’ for safety; I am not sure that some of the pieces which I put together were not produced by a single painter.

Some of the vases are attributed according to the style of only a part of their decoration. Thus London F285 is attributed to the Stoke-on-Trent group because of the reverse, which has no stylistic connexion with the obverse and the head of Nike on the neck.

When I mention proveniences I rely on second-hand information, but I notice that vases which I put under the same heading because of their common style are often cited as having been found in the same area. In my classification of the vases according to shapes, when possible I follow Beazley in ARV.

I do not find it easy to decide on the date of these groups in the absence of external evidence or any information on the conditions in which they were found. Stylistically none of them could be earlier than 350 B.C., and as the extensive use of white-gold colour and the clumsiness of the drawing could hardly have appeared earlier than the Darius painter, I should be inclined to place them late in the fourth century.

For a few general remarks on the representation of human heads by themselves in the last phase of Attic, Campanian, Apulian, and Etruscan red-figured vases see Beazley, EVP, p. 10.

Provenance unknown. Now in the Cyprus Museum, but with no record of acquisition. A rectangular sandstone block, both stone and inscription virtually complete. H. from 0·175 m. to 0·18 m.; w., 0·464 m.; th., 0·115 m. The surface, save for three long but shallow scratches, good. The alphabet is debased classical, notable forms being Ε and Η with the central stroke disconnected, Ρ with its top approximately rectangular. Letters, from 0·01 m. to 0·017 m. Squeeze. (Fig. 1.)

From its lettering this inscription is in all probability earlier than the reign of Hadrian and should belong to the second half of the first century. Tryphon and Philon are both names common along the south coast of Cyprus; but as an indication of provenance this fact must be used with great reserve.

The worship of Nemesis in Cyprus is not otherwise known to me, though Tyche with whom she is here identified occurs both at Chytri and at Paphos. An inscription tells of a dedication to the Fortune of Chytri under Philometor; another of how a certain Apollonia and her husband Patrocles were honoured, perhaps under Hadrian, as the founders of a Τυχαῖον and as the priests of the Fortune of the Metropolis Paphos. Here we do not find this limited conception of Tyche: the present inscription is an excellent and it seems an early illustration of the worship of Nemesis as a universal goddess, identified on the one hand with Justice, on the other with Fortune. In the theological and philosophic speculation of the second and third centuries these ideas are commonplaces. I am not aware that they have as yet occurred in the first.

Among the problems furnished us by that curious and interesting episode of ancient history—the collision of Hellenism and Israel under the fourth Antiochos—is the apparently flat contradiction between the conduct of Antiochos, as it appears in the Book of Daniel, and his conduct, as presented to us by classical authorities. It is not that opposite judgments are passed upon a personality or a policy from the standpoint of a worshipper of Jehovah and of a Greek observer—there would be nothing to surprise us in that. If the Book of Daniel did no more than denounce Antiochos for impiety towards the God of Israel, its statements would create no difficulty. But, as a matter of fact, it does not stop short there. It is an additional touch of horror in the portrait of the heathen king, that he not only ‘speaks marvellous things against the God of gods’ (ch. xi. 36)—this we were prepared to find—but that he ‘magnifies himself above every god.’ ‘Neither shall he regard the gods of his fathers, nor the Desire of women’ (probably Tanimuz), ‘nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all’ (v. 37). Now one of the things about Antiochos IV., which most impressed the Greek world, was his profuse devotion to the Hellenic gods.

We know of several Greek translators of works originally written in Latin. Of non-Christian, purely literary material, we know of six. First, there is Claudius' powerful freedman, Polybius, who turned Homer into Latin prose and Vergil into Greek prose (Seneca Consol. ad Polyb. 8.2, 11.5). Then, under Hadrian we have Zenobius ‘the sophist’, who translates Sallust's Histories and “so-called Wars’ (Suda Z 73). The translation into Greek of Hyginus' Fabulae can be dated precisely, for its unknown author tells us that he copied it up on 11th September 207 (CGIL iii 56.3off.). Similarly, the extant translation of Eutropius' Breviarium by Paianios, probably a pupil of Libanius, can be dated securely to about 380. The translation of the same by Capito (Suda K 342), which survives in excerpts, is placed with some confidence at the beginning of the sixth century. The date and identity of the last of our translators, ‘Arrian the epic poet’, who rendered the Georgics of Vergil (Suda A 3867), is unclear.

The ‘Helena’ remains a strangely misunderstood play. Although it has attracted rather less than its fair share of editorial attention in recent years, it has come in for some incidental judgements of marked asperity; otherwise it generally escapes with nothing better than qualified praise, and indeed one may suspect that it is remembered by many more for the exegetical extravaganza which Verrall built round it than for its own content. In antiquity, however, the play does not seem to have given such offence; though in later times overshadowed by the notoriety of the Andromeda, produced in the same year, we know that the Helena made a sufficiently striking impression on its first appearance in 412 B.C., for in the following year Aristophanes drew freely on both these plays in his Thesmophoriazusae for material for as sustained and lively a passage of parody as any to be found in his extant works.

There may be little hope at this interval of time of discovering what the ancients may have seen in the piece that apparently escapes us, but a sympathetic attempt to see what Euripides was trying to do may lead to some modification of the prevalent opinion, and a juster estimate of the play.

The discovery two years ago of the small terra-cotta here figured, found in a grave in the outer Kerameikos of Athens, seems to me of some interest, especially because of its bearing upon one of the figures from the central slab of the frieze of the Parthenon. This possible relation to the scene there depicted appears to me so manifest that it requires but a few words of comment. The figure is here given in its actual dimensions (Fig., p. 144) and is a terra-cotta which, judging from its style, probably belongs to the first half of the fifth century B.C. There are traces of archaic conventionality, and yet, in the head as well as in the folding of the drapery, there is a freedom which points towards the greater art of the fifth century. It is very likely that the subject represented is the same as in one of the figures carrying what was supposed to be a chair (though it has been doubted) in the slab containing the priestess of Athene with her two female attendants. This terra-cotta is thus of some value in fixing the action of one of these attendants. The object carried on her head may be a small table, but it certainly seems more probable that it is a chair with a cushion.

Miss Jane Harrison in a recent note in the Classical Review quotes from my essay on the Art of Pheidias a passage referring to the discussion as to the interpretation of the scene depicted on the central slab of the Eastern frieze, in which I adduce ‘a vase-painting of Exekias as evidence that the scenes depicted on this slab are not typical of any sacred religious function, but belong to the sphere of every-day life.’ Though in the passage referred to by her I must have laid myself open to misunderstanding, her interpretation of my meaning, as I shall be able to show, does certainly not convey the drift of the essay in question. But I do not regret this misunderstanding, inasmuch as it has enabled Miss Harrison to point out a connection that may exist between Harpocration's explanation of the word τραπεζοφόρος and the possible interpretation of one of these female attendants on the priestess in the Parthenon frieze. Miss Harrison thus proposes to call the two attendants Τραπεζώ and Κοσμώ. For, according to Istros (and his authority is confirmed by a third century inscription in which there is undoubted mention of ἱέρεια and τράπεζα) there were functionaries in the sacred ritual to whom these names were given.

Riding down the valley of the Scamander on Sept. 24th of this year, I turned aside to see the ruins on Kurshunlu Tepe, the identity of which with the ancient Scepsis has lately been proved beyond all reasonable doubt by the inscription discovered there by Dr. W. Judeich (Festschrift für Heinrich Kiepert, p. 231). At the village of Kurshunlu I was so fortunate as to light upon the pair of inscriptions printed above. They are engraved on two marble slabs, which were unearthed on the top of the hill, apparently not many days before my visit. The neighbouring town of Bairamitch has recently suffered from a destructive fire, and much building is going on there. The villagers of Kurshunlu find a good market for stones from the ancient site, which they are quarrying in all directions.

The group of Nikè βουθυτοῦσα is one which is already so well known among works of ancient art, that in adducing further instances of this type we cannot hope to bring forward much that adds to our previous knowledge of the subject. It is, however, just one of those cases which, from the very frequency of its recurrence in ancient art, has a special claim upon our attention; a motive which, starting as it doubtless does, from a great Greek original, continues favourite down to late Roman times, is worthy of study in the phases of development which different material and different periods bring about, and therefore I think no apology is needed for introducing the fresh examples of it now before us.

The starting point, the Haupttypus so far as we know, of this motive, is of course the small fragment which remains to prove that it existed in the reliefs on the balustrade of the temple of Athena Nikè at Athens. In his admirable monograph on these sculptures, published in 1869, Kekulé contented himself with a brief description of this fragment, without being able to identify the original motive of the group from which it came, or its position on the frieze.

Military history proper must begin with the battle of Marathon; it is the first battle of which history preserves for us even a moderately detailed account in respect of the relative numbers and equipments of the contending armies, the precise situation and local peculiarities of the conflict, the positions of the armies before the battle, the circumstances of the actual collision, and the decisiveness of the result. There are uncertainties as to the maps which should illustrate the far later battles of Pharsalus and Philippi, that determined the fate of the empire of the world, but we have a perfectly satisfactory ground-plan, from the country as it still exists, of the first great collision of Hellenic and Asiatic power on the western coast of the Aegean. Herodotus, to whom we are chiefly indebted for an account of it, was not a contemporary, having been born about six years later, 484 B.C. His account, no doubt, is meagre where information would be most valuable, and he is anything but a skilful military critic, and, like many others of the most successful historians, he neglects details that might be dry to make room for others not rigidly authenticated that are pointed and picturesque. Still, even so he supplies us with many circumstances which he might value simply for the sake of sparkle, but that enable us by comparison with other stray notices to divine some very critical facts about the battle, which he himself either did not fully know, or, not duly appreciating, failed to set down. If after study of all subsidiary information duly compared and combined it seems possible to recover a very fairly authentic account of the battle, it will be no doubt at the cost of some reduction of what is most marvellous in the account of Herodotus; but the story will still be sufficiently romantic, no moderate remainder of marvel will be left, and there is full compensation for the sacrifice in certified credibility and historical instruction.

While most of the dispositions of the ancient Greek theatre have been submitted in recent years to a searching examination, the question as to the scenery used as a background to plays has been somewhat neglected. It seems to me that a fresh enquiry on this particular point may be of service.

I must preface this enquiry by a statement of the view which I adopt as to the presence or absence of a raised stage in the Greek theatre, since it is obvious that any theory as to scenery must depend in a great degree upon the solution of the stage question which is adopted. It is quite impossible on this occasion to discuss fully the question whether the place of the actors in Greece was the orchestra or the λογεῖον I can only say that I assume the latter view to be correct. I think that from the time of Aeschylus onwards the stage, which had at first been a low platform of varying size, grew steadily in height as the part of the actors in the performance grew more important, and their independence of the chorus more complete. And as the stage grew higher it also grew narrower by an obvious necessity, until we have the long narrow stone stage of the Hellenistic age, which exactly corresponds with the assertions of Vitruvius and other ancient authorities.