The following pages contain the meagre results of a hasty journey from the borders of Galatia to the Cilician coast, undertaken in July, 1887, by Mr. H. A. Brown and myself, after parting at Bey-keui with Prof. W. M. Ramsay, who wished to return direct to Smyrna. Our object was to reach Cilicia Tracheia by way of Phrygia Paroreus, and the Melas valley, pursuing in the former district a new route and especially selecting the unmapped and undescribed hill-path from Ilghin to Konia. From Konia we were to have turned westward to Beysheher, and thence struck over Taurus. But only the first part of this programme was carried out at all, owing to the indisposition of my companion, which became so serious by the time that we reached Konia that all idea of further exploration had to be abandoned, and we made direct for the sea. In another respect also the journey was not entirely satisfactory. I now know better than I knew then that an archæologist, who would discover much in Anatolia, must travel with a certain train of pack-animals and attendants: the Englishman who, proud of his power of endurance, discards all superfluities and travels with what he can carry on his own horse excites no admiration but much contempt in the minds of the villagers. “This is a poor man,” say they, and he is shown only just as much of what he wishes to see as will silence his importunity. We had made the initial mistake of travelling too “light,” taking neither tents nor beds, nor cooking utensils, nor indeed anything but the contents of our own saddle-bags, and depending entirely on the favour of the villagers both for lodging and food; and in consequence, while we suffered a good deal of unnecessary hardship, we saw less than might have been discovered by explorers more magnificently equipped.

John Boardman has recently published a Sam Wide Group cup, on the interior of which is painted a caricature of Oedipus and the Sphinx. His accompanying illustration (Plate II 1) fully confirms the interpretation offered, that the Theban Sphinx— for once, in its physiognomy as well as in its anatomy, obtrusively male—is committing the nuisance of public masturbation. Although such offensive conduct seems, as Boardman observed, inexplicable within the Sphinx's mythic context, the artist's motive for this innovation becomes clearer if one can detect here an instance of the easy ‘glide from the contemporary into the mythical world’.

First, however, it should be recalled that, at least as early as Aeschylus' satyr play Sphinx, the Theban pest could be called Σφίγγα δυσαμϵριᾱν πρύτανιν κύνα (182 Mette, 236 Nauck).

Nacoleia is situated at the western border of the wide treeless plain which extends over the greater part of northern Phrygia and Galatia. In front of it north and east lies the great valley, which is drained by the river Sangarius or Sagaris: behind it are the Phrygian mountains, in which are the most important remains of the old Phrygian kingdom about six hours' journey away. The ancient city was placed on an isolated hill at the mouth of a glen bordered by higher hills: the modern town of Seid-el-Ghazi lies below this hill in the glen. A very fine old mosque, which would well reward careful examination, is placed far up on one of the higher hills: in it are buried Seid-el-Ghazi, the Arab general of Haroun al Raschid, and his wife the Greek princess. Much interesting information about these personages, and about the later history of Nacoleia, may be found in Mordtmann's paper, Münch. Gel. Anz. 1860. It is unnecessary to repeat anything that has been already said by him about the city, which plays a considerable part in later Roman history and was the scene of several important battles.

Neither literature nor coins bear any witness to the cult of Aphrodite at Olbia, but we have an inscription which is of the highest interest.

[᾿Αφρο]δίτηι Εὐπλοίαι

[Ποσ]ιδεος Ποσιδείου

χαριστήριον

This inscription is of the first century after Christ; Posideos the son of Posideos is no doubt the same individual who dedicated offerings at Neapolis to Zeus Atabyrios, Athene Lindia, and ᾿ Αχιλλεῖ νήσου [μεδέοντι] Boeckh conjectures him to have been a Rhodian, no doubt because of the dedications to Athene Lindia and Zeus Atabyrios, and also because Aphrodite Euploia was worshipped at Cnidus.

Reading University has recently acquired two fresh examples of the group of small vases with outline drawing first discussed by Wide, who tentatively connected them with Mykalessos. One is a kylix, formerly in the possession of Mr. John Fothergill and most generously presented by him to the University, showing Herakles with his club (Figs, 1 and 2b). The second is a pyxis, damaged somewhat in an air raid of 1945, with a subject on the lid that is less easy to recognise (Figs. 2a and 3). Reading has also a third vase, belonging to this series but standing rather apart from the rest. It is a kylix of the same kind as the first, but decorated inside with a rosebud between sprays (Fig. 4). These three vases with Wide's original five and one other kylix published in the Russian Compte Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique 1901 (1903) p. 131 Fig. 229 (reproduced here in Fig. 5) bring the total of vases of this class up to nine. Nothing is known of the provenance of any of the three vases in Reading and the kylix in Russia is published in a list of chance finds and acquisitions in the government of Cherson with no information as to how it was acquired.

Wide associated his group with the cult of Demeter of Mykalessos whose temple, according to Pausanias, was shut every night and opened again by Herakles.

The Troad has been so thoroughly explored of late years that my only excuse for saying anything about my own travels in it during the autumn of 1879 is partly that they were undertaken in the cause of archaeology, partly that I enjoyed the advantage of having Mr. Frank Calvert as a guide. Mr. Calvert has lived so long in the country, and is so well acquainted with its archaeology, in the interest of which he has excavated on various historic and prehistoric sites, that I could not fail to obtain a better knowledge of the whole district than has hitherto fallen to the lot of most visitors. Dr. Schliemann, moreover, had kindly placed his foreman and servant, Nikóla, at the disposal of myself and my friend, Mr. F. W. Percival, and as Nikóla is a native of Ren Keui, I had additional opportunities of making myself acquainted with Trojan topography.

Since Dr. Schliemann, however, has entered fully into this subject in his work on ‘Ilios,’ I shall content myself with a few selections from the notes I made during my journey, and draw attention to one or two matters which have not been observed before. But I must first of all confess myself a convert to the theory which identifies the Ilium of Homer with Hissarlik. If Troy ever existed, it could have only been on the site of Hissarlik.

Two related passages in the discussion of mimesis in this part of The Republic are in question here:

Commentators and translators generally agree that Socrates is referring to the effect of imitations of such sounds in performances of drama or dithyramb, and that the mimesis in question is the result of ‘identification’ on the part of spectators. As Adam puts it: ‘In good acting the spectator identifies himself with the actor through sympathy; and as the actor “imitates” so does he.’ Since several of the sounds mentioned would be difficult to imitate effectively by the human voice, Adam and others suggest that the imitative sounds were produced by musical effects and stage-machines (such as the βροντϵȋον). They note that the later ‘degenerate’ dithyrambic performances aimed at mimetic effects of this kind; and so too, of course, did Old Comedy. The three main points in this generally accepted interpretation are:

(a) the mimesis mentioned here is largely a matter of musical reproduction of the sounds listed;

(b) the mimesis consists of direct mimicry of these sounds;

(c) Socrates is referring to dramatic and dithyrambic performances.

There are objections to all of these points. First, against the notion that musical mimesis is primarily or mainly intended: up to this point in the discussion Socrates has confined his remarks to literature. He concludes his literary discussion quite specifically in 398b: ‘Now it looks as if we have completed our survey of the words and myths of μουσική.’ Then he explicitly goes on to consider ‘after this’ the remaining matter, namely, the right kind of ᾠδή and μέλος for the education of the Guardians.

The construction of Pythagorean musical theory rests philosophically on the foundation provided by Sectio Canonis. Indeed, the treatise may have performed this role historically too. Andrew Barker has recently contributed to this journal a discussion of the methods and aims of the Sectio—JHS ci (1981) 1—16. In so doing he has pinpointed lapses in the theoretical reckoning of the treatise, especially in the case of proposition 11 (P11). I should like to reply to Barker's article. My remarks concern the authorship and date of the treatise, the introduction, a few propositions, and ultimately the historical and philosophical settings for the Sectio.

The British excavations at Mycenae in 1952 were conducted with a research grant from the American Philosophical Society assisted by contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trustees, and the British School at Athens, under whose aegis the work was carried out. The principal objectives were the ruins by side of the modern carriage road once tentatively called a Hellenistic Gymnasium, further investigation of the Prehistoric Cemetery outside the Lion Gate to the west, the clearing of the House of the Oil Merchant (found in 1950 and formerly called the House of Stirrup Jars) and of the House ofthe Wine Merchant (found in 1951 and part of the Cyclopean Terrace Building).

The so-called Hellenistic Gymnasium, now completely cleared, proved to be a Fountain House to be identified with the Perseia Krene seen by Pausanias among the ruins of Mycenae. Here presumably Tsountas found the inscribed poros base which mentions Perseus and clearly belonged to a fountain. There are two basins, one wide and one narrow, built against a terrace wall of ashlar poros of late classical date. The existing ruins are Hellenistic, but overlie an earlier water channel. The water was probably led down from the well-known spring (now called neromána) which lies about twenty minutes above the acropolis to the east. Built into one of the basins is an inscription dating from the second quarter of the fifth century B.C., a boundary stone from a shrine of Hera. The identification of this Fountain House as the Perseia Krene confirms yet further the accuracy of Pausanias' account of Mycenae.

In electing me to the Presidency of the Hellenic Society you have paid me the highest compliment to which any British Hellenist can aspire. It is an honour which I accept with all gratitude and, I can assure you, with all humility. It is impossible for me to look back at the names of the distinguished men who have already held the post, without reflecting that I am not of their rank—I am by profession neither a great academic teacher nor, like my old schoolfellow and friend Sir Arthur Evans, whose position I am prematurely called upon to fill, a man who has devoted his whole life to the advancement of archæology. It would be an impertinence in me to praise the work done by Sir Arthur; it is on the lips of all the learned world.

When I think of Evans as we knew him at Harrow, I remember him in a double capacity. First as a scientific observer, by inheritance, as I need not remind you, from his distinguished and many-sided father. Whether it was a question of coins, of flint implements, or of natural history, Evans was always the leader of our school Scientific Society—matched only in some points by another friend, too soon lost to science, Frank Balfour. I remember one small matter, which always strikes me as characteristic—that Evans exhibited at one of our meetings specimens of leaves of plants from the carboniferous epoch which he had picked out of the coal-scuttle in his room.

Note.—The illustrations which I have given are not to be regarded as finished drawings, but rather as the best results that could be obtained from the records of my working note-books, and of measurings made in the midst of the statues. The whole purpose is to submit a practicable method.

It is strange that it should be believed by many artists and critics of art that no doctrine of human proportions was known in the schools of the great masters. For the contrary would seem to be the true case, if we are to judge by the practice and the comments of the artists and their friends. Egyptian and early Greek, and indeed all symbolic art is obviously based on measured proportions. The remark of Diodorus (I. 98) about the twentyone parts by which the body was measured in Egyptian sculpture may not be enough for a theory of an Egyptian canon, but it agrees well enough with the plainly systematic treatment of the sitting and the standing figures. It is more difficult to believe that the Egyptian sculptor had not a set of ratios which he used in his work.

Since the first publication by Robert of the magnificent krater from Orvieto, which is one of the proudest possessions of the Louvre, its style has been brought in connexion with Mikon, more on account of the figures half disappearing behind the rocks, than on the rather problematic assumption that Mikon's Argonauts might have inspired the artist in the more extensive picture on the side of the vase opposite to the death of the Niobids. This last scene (Fig. 1) is perfectly clear, and would not be in need of any new commentary if Robert had not committed the error of taking the arrow, near the handle, as fallen (freccia caduta per terra), holding this to be a piece of thoughtlessness, rather uncommon with Attic ceramists, and if Hauser had not gone even further, blaming the painter for so absurdly making an unerring god shoot an arrow and lose it. Both of course are wrong, and it is the more surprising that he who understands what escaped Robert— namely that Apollo shooting and Artemis taking a new arrow suggest to our mind the presence, though unseen, behind the hills of the missing sons and daughters of Niobe—fails to understand that the painting is not a poor extract from a larger composition, but that it was precisely the perhaps somewhat extravagant intention of the artist to suggest more than he shows.

The recent enthusiasm of English explorers for the prehistoric antiquities of Greece, if involving some neglect of things ‘merely Hellenic,’ has at least resulted happily in the enrichment of our museums. The Minoan civilisation can at present be studied only in Crete, England, and America; and while the journey to Crete is always necessary for an adequate understanding of the subject, the introductory idea can be better acquired at home, where the material is limited by selection and less bewildering in bulk and variety. Crete and Minoan art are naturally associated with the Ashmolean Museum; and it is perhaps overlooked that the British Museum has at the same time acquired, by gift of excavators and of the Committee of the British School at Athens, a collection of originals and reproductions not indeed comparing with the splendour of Oxford, but valuable in representing most of the important sites, and especially useful to students in possessing an arranged series of sherds of every period.

Four years ago, in dealing with the Myths of the Odyssey, I raised afresh the time-honoured difficulty of the art-form of the Sirens: Why are the sweet singers of Homer pictured as hybrid monsters—birds with the faces of women ? Much that I then said about the Sirens may, I hope, still hold good; but the final solution or part solution of the difficulty which I arrived at, I now believe to be mistaken, and, with more complete material at hand, I hope in the present paper to offer a new, and possibly a more satisfactory, solution. I fell then into the not uncommon error of projecting into the mind of the Greek vase-painter a great deal of allegorizing tendency and somewhat mystical moral purpose which was really conspicuous by its absence; my familiarity with the literary forms and the literary growth of mythology was much wider than my acquaintance with the manner and the influence of artistic tradition. The power of tradition in an art and still more in a handicraft is not easily overestimated. The thought and expression of the handicraftsman is governed by the art forms that lie ready to his hand, just as the thought of a writer is moulded and fashioned by the language he employs. Each must use current phraseology, only elevating or debasing it a little according to his proper faculty.

An Article of 1935 in Retrospect.—Since certain views on the above subject, put forward in JHS LV, have received the honour of detailed discussion in Mr. R. M. Cook's important contribution to Vol. LXVI and also in a notable recent book (Dunbabin, The Western Greeks, 446 ff.), some comment from the author of the original article would appear to be in order.

The island of Delos is rather less than four miles long from north to south, with a greatest breadth of about a mile and a half. In its midst the granite platform of Cynthus rises to a height of some 350 feet above the sea-level. From the summit of Cynthus, looking westward, there is a view of rare beauty and surpassing interest. The narrow plain which extends along the western shore of the island was once covered by the ancient town of Delos. Near its middle point, a little to our right, and not far from the principal harbour, stood the temple of Apollo, with a cluster of sacred buildings surrounding it, in the brightness of Parian marble. The larger island of Rheneia, separated from Delos by a channel with an average breadth of half a mile, lies parallel with it on the west, but projects beyond it on the north,—veiling it from those who approach in a straight course from Syra. The two islets in this strait between Delos and Rheneia are now called Rheumatiari (ῥευματιάρια), ‘the channel isles’; the largest and southernmost once bore the name of Hecate, being the place where the women of Delos made their offerings of cakes to that goddess.