Messer Giannozzo Manetti—if we may give credit to his enthusiastic biographer—was accustomed to say that there were three books which he had got by heart from long handling—Saint Paul's Epistles, Augustine's De civitate Dei, and (among the heathen) Aristotle's Ethics. There may be some exaggeration here; but there is no doubt that Manetti, from the beginning to the end of his long literary career, was deeply interested in the moral writings of Aristotle. Vespasiano tells a story of him in the early period of his studies. He used to give a Latin Ethics to somebody, and taking the original himself, would reel it off so fast in Latin that his hearer was unable to follow him.

I have been called upon to take the chair at this first meeting of the Society which professes to have for its object the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Now by Hellenic Studies we do not mean merely the study of Greek texts, grammars, and lexicons. It is generally acknowledged that, besides the printed texts of the ancient Greek authors, and the commentaries of the scholiasts on these texts, many other sources of Hellenic Study are opening up every day. The monuments of the Greeks, their architecture, sculpture, and other material remains, deserve our study not less than the texts of the classics, and we must bear in mind that the history of the Hellenic language itself may be traced for at least twenty-five centuries, and that between the Greek speech of the present day, and the first utterances of the early Greek poets, there is a connection which, though not obvious to the common observer, may be as clearly demonstrated by science as the connection between the flora of the geologist and the living flora of the botanist of to-day. In order to trace out this connection, we must not regard the language of the ancient Greeks alone; we must study the Byzantine literature, as well as the Greek language still current in the mouths of the peasants, and we must also study their existing manners and customs. The space of time, therefore, over which our Hellenic Studies may range, may be computed as about twenty-five centuries, or perhaps something more. The province of this Society has next to be limited geographically. After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that our proper geographical limitation is that which has been followed in the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum of Böckh. In that great work he includes Greek inscriptions, wherever they may be found, not only in Hellas itself, but outside the Mediterranean, and beyond the Pillars of Hercules. And therefore I think that as we study Greek inscriptions wherever they are found, whether in Greece, Italy, Sicily, or elsewhere, so we may study the Greek monuments and language wherever these are to be met with. Now as to the chronological range of our subject, I have already said that it extends over at least twenty-five centuries. It will be convenient to consider this space of time as divided into three periods. There will be first the Ancient period, terminating with the downfall of paganism; then the Byzantine period down to the taking of Constantinople in 1453; and then what I will call the Neo-Hellenic period.

The showcases of the antique-dealers in Odos Pandrosou are full of little lekythoi which were painted for the tombs of humble men of the people, and which to-day are destined for modest purchasers or for the Inspectors of the Archaeological Section of the Ministry of Education, while for more important purchasers there are hidden away somewhere else works of much greater value. It is seldom that we are stopped by the art or the subject of one of these lekythoi.

In 1943 when I was making an inventory of the stock of one antique-dealer—that which was on show—I picked out one lekythos which the owner gladly presented to the National Museum (Plate IVa, Figs, 1 and 2). From the funeral pyre the surface of the vase has taken a brown-grey colour, and the many joins show that it had been thrown to be broken and burnt with the dead body.

A curious male figure wrapped in a himation up to the top of the head, so that only the -eye and the upper part of the head remain free, walks rapidly to the left, raising one leg vigorously. He lifts his himation with his hand to help him move. High boots cover his legs to a point just below the knee. The hanging wreath does not appear to be related to the interpretation of the picture, but is taken from the commonplaces of funeral lekythoi, especially white ones.

In two papers published within the last year, one in the Classical Quarterly of October, 1911, and the other in the last number of this Journal, Mr. Dickins has put forward certain views with regard to the main lines of the policy of Sparta in the latter half of the sixth and in the fifth century B.C.

Inasmuch as his two articles aim at refuting certain views put forward by myself and others in this Journal and elsewhere, I should like to reply to his arguments.

In the first place Mr. Dickins, who has had and has used special opportunities for acquiring information with regard to the antiquities of Sparta, adduces a large number of new facts. For this part of his work every student of Greek History must be grateful to him. It is in the conclusions which he draws from the new evidence, and the scant courtesy with which he treats some of the old, that the main defects of his arguments lie. He uses some of the evidence of Herodotus, and ignores the rest. That of Thucydides he treats in the same way. As for that of Aristotle, he appears to regard it as wholly misleading, with regard to both Sparta in early times and Sparta in the fifth century. It seems to me that it is not unreasonable to assume that Aristotle in the fourth century before Christ had access to better evidence in support of his statements with regard to the Spartan state of the fifth century than we in the twentieth century after Christ either possess or are ever likely to possess.

H. van Thiel demonstrated only 16 years ago that the text of Longus's novel rests on two manuscripts, Laur. conv. sopp. 627 (s. xiii2) and Vat. gr. 1348 (s. xvi1). The descripti nevertheless yield historical information, and so it is as well to establish their relationships. Three scholars who knew them at first hand have tried: A. Kairis in his edition (Athens 1932), H. Dörrie in De Longi Achillis Tatii Heliodori memoria (Göttingen 1935), and E. Vilborg in his edition of Achilles Tatius (Gothenburg 1955). None of them arrived at the truth. Perhaps the same applies to me, because I have contented myself with collating at most book i and checking a few passages elsewhere; but I can give reasons for my disagreement.

I will first set out my stemma. As everyone's symbols conflict, I will use none except F for the Laurentianus and V for the Vaticanus, but in my discussion I will abbreviate the shelfmarks. Relationships that I do not discuss are adequately treated by Kairis, Dörrie, or Vilborg.

At the start of the play Prometheus is brought on stage by two agents of Zeus, Kratos and Bia. He is to be fastened up against the side of a rock and exposed to the elements. Hephaestus, who enters with the others, is to provide the tackle and the skills to do the job. Hephaestus shows extreme reluctance to perform his duties, both in his initial utterances (17-21, 39-54) and during the actual process of fastening, particularly when dealing with the chest (66) and legs (78); Kratos, however, browbeats him brutally, at which Hephaestus acknowledges that he has no choice and obeys.

In one of the most stimulating chapters of his recent contribution to Homeric studies, Professor D. L. Page adduces considerable evidence to suggest that the traditions of the Iliad and the Odyssey diverged at a fairly early date and, like isolated dialects, came to differ appreciably in their diction. Attractive and probable as this suggestion is as a whole, it will always be possible to wonder about the details of the evidence. In this paper it is intended to wonder whether the absence of φλόξ and its cognates from that part of the Odyssey that is certainly ‘Homer's’ is rightly adduced as evidence for this divergence of the traditions.

Page's argument runs as follows. The absence of φλόξ must be due either to ignorance or to chance. But it cannot be due to chance, since there are more than fifty opportunities for its use. Therefore the root, so common in the Iliad, must have been ‘wholly unknown to the Odyssean poet’.

It appears that in order to show that φλόξ was not part of the Odyssey's traditional vocabulary, since it is this that diverges from the Iliad, Page must claim that the root was not part of the poet's vocabulary at all. Can this be regarded as a probable claim? Our available evidence is scarcely sufficient to differentiate the sub-dialects of Ionic (it is admitted that both poets are Ionians), so that it is impossible to confirm that differences of nontechnical vocabulary were a feature of the differentiation. Our view of the matter has therefore to depend on a subjective estimate of the probabilities. Two points are not unworthy of notice: first, the banishing of φλόξ from the Odyssey is only achieved by the attribution to a rhapsodic hack of the ‘Continuation’, where in ω 71, φλόξ appears in just the circumstances where, as I hope to show, it is to be expected; and second, derivatives of the root are used by prose and verse writers both Ionian and Attic, and also in the κοινή, in circumstances that make it impossible to suppose that every instance is a reminiscence of a long defunct epic word.

In JHS lxviii (1948), p. 148, Mr. R. M. Cook drew attention to a problem concerning the name of the potter or painter Amasis and the chronology of Attic black-figure vase painting. So far as I know it has remained unanswered and discreetly ignored. Mme. Karouzou's fine study of the Amasis Painter prompts a further discussion of the problem which seems a very real one. It may be briefly restated as follows. Amasis, potter or painter, was named after the philhellene Egyptian king Amasis (A-ahmes) whose reign began in 569–568 B.C. As a citizen of Athens he would have received his name at his birth, which cannot therefore be earlier than 569–568. Cook thought it could hardly be before 565, and certainly the nationalist A-ahmes would not have made much of a mark as a philhellene early in his reign, as he had to seize the throne from Apries who was supported by Greek mercenaries. Yet by the current chronology of Attic black-figure the Amasis Painter had begun to work by about 555. If the signature Αμασιςμεποιεσεν means that Amasis was the potter, not the painter, we have to face the fact that his work too may go back at least as early because he made vases for the painter Lydos. If it means that he was the pottery-owner, the terminus is given by the earliest vase bearing his signature, and this is still around 550. The last explanation is the least satisfactory both for the interpretation of the signature and for the fact that it is easier to believe in a child artist than in a child industrialist. Unless Amasis was a prodigy, something is wrong somewhere in the argument. The fault must lie either in the accepted chronology for Attic black-figure or in the arguments about the name Amasis.

Athenaeus (474e) quotes the description of the karchesion cup by Kallixeinos of Rhodes, a third-century B.C. author: ‘a tall cup, slightly contracted at the middle with handles which extend down to the base’. Scholars have easily recognised in this a variety of kantharos, a cup with two vertical handles and either with a low foot or the footless sessile, both types current in Kallixeinos' day. The ordinary kantharos in its Classical form, with a stem and high-swung handles, may have derived its name, shared with the scarab beetle, from the wing-like appearance of the handles rather than from its overall similarity to a boat, which is one of the other meanings of the word (Ath. 473d–474c). It is doubtful whether Greek usage was ever very precise in these matters but ‘karchesion’ was probably reserved for the footless variety regardless of handle shape.

This paper does not profess to give anything more than a brief account of the important results obtained by the German and Austrian excavators up to the time of my visit to these sites in June. I should like in particular to direct the attention of English archaeologists to Western Asia Minor as a field of research that is practically untouched, especially as regards remains of the Hellenistic period. Brilliant results await the scientific explorer of important sites such as Sardis, Tralies, Laodicea, and Apamea, and all these are extremely easy of access. The English traveller cannot help feeling ashamed of English archaeology when he sees the unintelligible mass of ruins and brushwood that covers the site of the Artemisium at Ephesus.

Eleven years ago I contributed to the Journal an account of exploration in Galatia, and in summarizing the evidence which it supplied as to the civilization of Galatia, I pointed out that the Celtic conquerors assimilated the culture of the conquered Phrygians without seriously modifying its character. And more particularly in the religious sphere I observed that the evidence indicated that the religion prevailing in the Imperial period was ‘purely Phrygian: there is no trace of any Celtic cult…The new settlers perforce adopted the native cultus: for it was always necessary to “know the manner of the god of the land” (2 Kings, xvii. 26). Doubtless they identified their gods with the Phrygian, and did not keep up any separate cult: otherwise it would be incredible that no trace of it should have remained.’

A similar view was expressed in the following year by Sir W. M. Ramsay. ‘Few traces,’ he says, ‘of the old Gaulish religion can be detected in Galatia. It would be difficult to mention any except the sacrifice of captives, which was practised as late as B.C. 160, and presumably the rites at Drynemeton. It is hardly probable that the Gaulish religion was wholly disused or forgotten in the last century B.C. But certainly almost all the references—unfortunately very few—to Galatic religion point to the rapid adoption of the ancient and impressive cult of Cybele… The Galatians may perhaps have modified to some degree the character of the Phrygian ritual by their own nature and customs, as both the Phryges and the Greeks did. But we have no evidence on this point.’ His survey ends with the observation that in the inscriptions of the Roman period no allusion is made to any religion except that of the old Phrygian gods and that of the Emperors.

The route by which the army of Xerxes marched across the plateau of Anatolia has never been determined with certainty. On general considerations it may be stated with perfect confidence that the army crossed the Taurus by the pass of the Cilician Gates. The reasons are conclusive; there was, in fact, no other way, and the matter is so generally admitted as to need no discussion. Thereafter the great army gathered on the north side of Taurus at a place called Kritala in Cappadocia (Herodotus, vii. 26). Whether Kritala was a town or a locality (such as a plain with a river) is not stated; but, taking into consideration all the conditions, one can say with certainty that it was situated either in the fertile plain of Tyana or in the equally fertile and well-watered plain that lies between Kybistra and the lake called in modern times Ak-Gyol. The next point stated exactly by Herodotus in the route of the army is Kelainai at the source of the Maeander. The question is how the journey was performed between those points, the Cilician Pass on the east and Kelainai on the west.

Certain passages in Overbeck are generally supposed to refer to a statue by Scopas of Apollo Smintheus, an aspect of the god to which classical students were probably introduced in Strabo's time as they are to-day by the old priest's prayer in the first book of the Iliad. It seems at first a not very serious suggestion that one at least of these passages reads as though the mouse alone, not the statue, were the work of Scopas. But further investigation indicates that the ambiguity is a little more than apparent, indeed real enough to have sheltered a few scholars in their endeavour to escape the difficulties and confusion of reconciling the usual interpretation of the Strabo passage with coin types of Alexandria Troas, and with what can be surmised of Scopas's style.

This paper proposes a new interpretation of the dimensions of the sun and moon wheels in Anaximander's cosmology. While the traditional reconstruction proposed by Tannery and Diels posits six measures for three different wheels (sun, moon and stars), it will be argued here that Anaximander gave only two basic measurements, one for the moon's wheel (19 times bigger than the earth) and one for the sun's (28 times bigger). These two values can be accounted for by their connection to the lunar month – a graphic representation of the wheels which includes motion accurately reproduces the relative positions of the sun and moon; in fact they are the smallest pair of figures from which a twowheel model can be made that represents the month correctly. Anaximander derived his two parameters by attempting to incorporate basic observational data into a cosmic model.

Discussion of Aphrodite’s epithet philommeidês/philommêdês in Hesiod Theogony 200. Hesiod’s aetiological account of this name suggests the meaning ‘wiles-loving’ as well as ‘genitals-loving’. This interpretation is supported by a number of episodes from Archaic poetry in which literary or mythical figures make use of a ruse to permit the fulfilment of their erotic longing, or conversely exploit someone else’s desire as a means to achieve supremacy in a power struggle.