IONE Mylonas Shear claims in her article in JHS 2002 that two Mycenaean animal figurines from Ugarit, only one of which has been previously published, represent Mycenaean centaurs and are thus predecessors of centaurs of the historical period. It is quite clear, however, that both belong to the so-called ‘abbreviated group’ figurines, which consist of driven oxen – ‘plough’ (PLATE 8a) – or single chariots, as identified by E.B. French and further defined by me in my work on the terracottas from the Sanctuary of Aphaia on Aigina. In an abbreviated group there is only one animal instead of two, with one human, sometimes two, standing at the rear of the animal, in or behind a small or almost non-existent box or balustrade. According to what animal head is at the front of the figurine, either horse or bovine, it is an abbreviated chariot or, much more commonly, a driven ox. In the fully preserved pieces the head of the driver always faces towards the animal head.

In this article a new interpretation of the problematic form (Alcman PMGF 28 (85 Calame)) is proposed on the basis of a both a fresh examination of the history and prehistory of the ϕι-case and an overview of the syntax of coordinated pairs in various Indo-European languages.

This article addresses the asymmetry between the two main aspectual paradigms in the Classical Greek verbal system: the imperfective and the aorist (perfective). Whereas the imperfective has separate indicative forms for present and past time reference, i.e. the ‘primary’ and the ‘secondary’ indicative, the aorist only has a secondary (‘past’) indicative. I argue that this asymmetry is not only morphological but also semantic. That is, while the secondary imperfective indicative (the ‘imperfect’) is confined to past time reference, the secondary aorist indicative is used not only to refer to the past but also to the present. It then enters into aspectual competition with the primary imperfective indicative (the ‘present’). Based on R.W. Langacker's (2011) Cognitive Grammar account of aspect, I distinguish five types of context in which a present tense form with perfective aspect is a desideratum, and argue that here the secondary aorist indicative is used to fulfil this function. Moreover, I present a diachronic account of the origin of this remarkable asymmetry, arguing that the aorist indicative was never a past tense to begin with.

Dr. Forrer's discovery of the Achaeans in the Hittite cuneiform tablets of Boghaz Keui is now well known to classical scholars. His identification of them with the Hittite Akhkhiyawas is beyond question, and I am inclined to think that Dr. Cowley has made a happy suggestion in further identifying them with the Hivites (Ha-Khiwwî) of the Old Testament. On the other hand, the identification of the Akhkhiyan chieftain Attarassiyas (also written Attarsiyas) with the Homeric Atreus is phonetically impossible; nor would the date of Attarsiyas agree with that usually assigned by tradition to Atreus.

About 1250 B.C. Attarsiyas the kuirwanas or κοίρανος of the Akhkhiyawa came from the western side of Asia Minor with a fleet of 100 ships to the Pamphylian coast (hardly the Karian, as Forrer proposes). He had previously driven a tributary of the Hittite king, by name Madduwattas, from his dominions in the south-western part of Asia Minor; Dudkhaliyas III, however, the Hittite monarch, had restored the latter, but on the death of Dudkhaliyas, and in the first year of the reign of his successor, Arnuwandas, Attarsiyas made another attack, this time by sea, and again compelled Madduwattas to solicit help from his suzerain.

In the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology I have just published a quantity of new evidence with regard to Keftiu, which should be read as an introduction to the present article. The geographical conclusions in that article were drawn from a variety of sources, and were emphatic that this name was applied by the Egyptians to the country comprised within the boundaries of the later Pisidia, Isauria, Lycaonia and Cilicia. Of this tract Cilicia Tracheia seemed to be the centre. We also found ourselves brought into contact on several occasions with the Philistines. This new evidence, therefore, provides a remarkable confirmation of the results drawn from my original archaeological study of the Keftiuans and their civilisation as exhibited to us on the Egyptian frescoes of the XVIIIth Dynasty.

This article analyses monodic reperformance of epinicians in the fifth century BC and argues that the musical and ethical dimensions of such performances were mutually reinforcing. Reperformances by solo singers would have strongly foregrounded the agency of the individual performer, while also enacting his understanding of musical conventions. This relationship forms a structural parallel with the function of ethical statements in epinicians, which are usually conventional in terms of their conceptual content and yet also emphasize the agency of individuals in responding to them. I argue that the parallelism between ethics and monodic reperformance is an important thematic strand in Nemean 4 and Isthmian 2, and prefigures the responses that the poems elicit from audiences.

We offer a reassessment of two letters from the state correspondence of Tiglath-pileser III of Assyria (r. 744–727 BC) with the earliest references to a town called Yauna and a people called the Yauneans, as encountered on the eastern Mediterranean coast by the newly established imperial administration. Past scholarship connected these Assyrian terms with the ethnonym ‘Ionians’ and/or the toponym ‘Ionia’. The study narrows down the location of Yauna, drawing also on a review of the coastal sites that have produced Greek ceramic imports: although identification remains elusive, Yauna was certainly situated in the territory of the kingdom of Hamath, and later the Assyrian province of Ṣimirra. Discussion of the historical and cultural background of Yauna’s foundation highlights its significance for the ‘transfer debate’ and the phenomenon of the ‘Greeks overseas’. We argue that the Assyrians first encountered the Yauneans in this locality and that, to them, they were originally simply the inhabitants of Yauna. Due to the similarities perceived between them and (other?) Greeks appearing in the eastern Mediterranean, the Assyrians came to apply the ethnonym universally to all these people, who eventually adopted it for themselves. Thus, we support the argument that the term ‘Ionian’ originated in external nomenclature.

The Byzantine passion play Christus Patiens (Christ Suffering) is a cento: composed of quotations and borrowings from other sources, it takes Euripides’ tragedies as its main source for reworking the passion narrative. The genre, popular with Christian authors who usually transformed classical epics, enacts cultural exchange between canonical pagan literature and biblical narrative. Traditionally transmitted as the work of Gregory of Nazianzus, this drama showcases the tensions inherent in this reuse of Greek tragedy which threaten to collapse the original texts under the weight of their new meaning – or vice versa. While the afterlives of Classical texts, especially Greek tragedy, have been increasingly well explored, the scant attention afforded Christus Patiens has largely consisted of debating the disputed date and authorship. At the same time, scrutiny lavished on Virgilian centonic technique provides a helpful spring-board. This article focuses on the four tragedies most plundered in Christus Patiens: Rhesus, Medea, Hippolytus and Bacchae. It concentrates on interpreting the protagonist, Mary the Mother of God, through key passages which borrow most heavily from these plays. These stretch centonic conventions by almost exclusively reworking contiguous lines featuring the tragic mothers Medea, Agave and Musa; yet Mary is otherwise created from multiple conflicting voices. Analysis of these passages as frames for the cento author's own compositions and in the context of the prologue's invitation to identify specific Euripidean reworkings suggests that the author playfully flirts with creating a narrative of fragmentation through clashes between centonic form, tragic sources and Christian subject.

The inscriptions here published are for the most part in the Ghizeh Museum, where I copied them last year when assisting in the preparation of the catalogue of the Graeco-Roman rooms. They do not appear to have been edited previously, and offer some points of interest. The numbers given are those of the new catalogue.

The inscription is on a columnar statue-base of limestone ·88 metres high and ·53 in diameter, one side having been cut flat to receive it; the remainder of the surface is decorated with acanthus leaves. The letters are, in the first seven lines, ·026–·031 high: in the rest, ·015–·02. Date: 181, June 25th.

The stone was seen by Dr. Petrie about 1886 lying at Sakha (Xois), where he copied it, and appears to have been removed to the Museum three or four years ago. It is quoted by S. de Ricci in Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. 1900, vol. xxii. p. 381.

The name of Commodus has been deliberately erased in 1. 5, every vestige of the letters being cut away. A similar erasure has taken place of the name of the prefect in l. 15, but the work has been much less thoroughly done there, by merely digging a line through the letters. The traces which remain are, however, insufficient to make the restoration of the name possible. The nearest in date of the known prefects is Flavius Pris[cus], mentioned in a Berlin papyrus of the year 181/2: but his name will not suit.

A study of the Greek numeral systems as illustrated by extant inscriptions has convinced me that there are many misconceptions still current which require correction, and that there is an urgent need for the collection and tabulation of the evidence for the acrophonic systems of Greece, those, that is, of which the numerals employed in Attica down to Roman times form the best known example. This task I hope to essay in the forthcoming volume of the British School Annual, but meantime I may briefly discuss three instances which have not hitherto met with the attention they deserve. If the results attained are not in all cases certain, I hope that I shall at least succeed in calling attention to the problems and in stimulating someone else to seek and to discover their true solution.

This article is a discussion and analysis of Aeschylus Agamemnon 104–05, with special reference to the epic models operating behind the typically Homeric enjambement ἀνδρῶν / ἐκτελέων. The ἄνδρες should be understood as the Argive heroes of the expedition against Troy, and not as the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus. This interpretation is supported by a number of examples taken from Archaic and Hellenistic epic poems.

This article offers a new, ironic reading of the false narrative of Orestes’ chariot accident in Sophocles’ Electra (680–763). It argues that the speech exploits an established connection between the ancestral evils of the Atreids and the thematic nexus of horses, chariot racing and disaster to evoke Orestes’ flight from the Erinyes following the matricide. Focusing on the language and structure of the narrative as well as drawing on other versions of the story (notably the surviving plays by Aeschylus and Euripides), the article demonstrates, in contrast to previous readings, that the speech is much more than an over-elaborate means to an end. Instead, in an ominous and profoundly ironic twist, the Paedagogus’ fictional narrative of the chariot race offers a possible vision of the trials awaiting the real Orestes. The matricide and murder, far from ending the ancestral woes of the Atreids, may well bring about Orestes’ pursuit by the Erinyes.

Mr. Mahaffy in his preface to The Empire of the Ptolemies states among other problems raised by Ptolemaic history the following: ‘How far does the observation, that we only know of one crown-prince with a wife (Soter II.) account for the divorce of that wife after his accession, and for the other apparent heartlessnesses in Ptolemaic history? Is the hereditary title recognised in the princesses, which no doubt led to their marriages with their reigning brothers, a relic of Pharaonic ideas, or a mere imitation of the successful experiment of Philadelphus?’ This article is an attempt to show that the former hypothesis is the true one, and that the marriages of the Ptolemies were dictated by their policy of conciliation, and were based on deeply rooted native prejudices.

Of the five Phrygian monuments now published from the drawings of Mr. A. C. Blunt, No. 4 on Pl. XXVIII, may be assigned to an early period of Phrygian history. It has been already published by Steuart, Anc. Monum.; but like all his drawings, this is very incorrect and gives an inaccurate idea of the original. The monument is at Yapuldak (see the map in last number of this Journal). There was at this place a town or fortification of some kind on the top of a hill, which rises about 200 feet above the plain. The western side of the hill is a precipice of rock, and on all other sides it is very steep. On the western side an underground staircase cut in the rock leads down to the plain: a similar one at Pishmish Kalessi has already been mentioned above, p. 6. Near this staircase there is a doorway leading into a small rock-chamber, from which another door in the opposite wall leads into a second chamber, larger than the first. At the back of the second chamber a door admits into a third chamber, and in the back of this third chamber there is a door or window which looks out over the precipice to the west. One can step out through this window and stand on a ledge about eighteen inches wide; and this is the only way to get a near view of the carved front which is now given according to Mr. Blunt's drawing and measurements. The architectural work round the door shows the love of ornament characteristic of both Phrygian and Mycenaean art. It does not consist of curved mouldings: the section shows only straight lines. There is a high pediment over the window, the centre of which is occupied by a peculiarly shaped obelisk. This pediment is very like one over the door of a tomb in the side of Pishmish Kalessi, engraved by Perrot, Voy. Archéol. p. 146; but is much more elaborate. On the two sides of the obelisk, arranged in the usual symmetrical fashion, are two animals, on the right side certainly a bull, on the left side probably a horse. The horse is frequently represented on the outside of Phrygian tombs, but I do not know any other case where the bull appears on them.

Our knowledge of the early life of Alexander the Great is based upon very slender literary evidence. Arrian devotes only a few sentences to the years prior to Alexander's campaigns. Plutarch's coverage of Alexander's youth is also very condensed, and both he and Arrian rely almost exclusively upon pro-Alexander sources such as Ptolemy and Aristoboulos. The books of Curtius which deal with the early years of Alexander have been lost, and Diodorus' coverage is as usual very scanty. Justin's epitome of Trogus is among our longest and most comprehensive accounts, but it is often rhetorically unreliable and careless with details. Yet apart from occasional flashbacks and allusions in these sources and a few fragments of other historians, this evidence—heavily biased, meager, and unreliable as it is—comprises all we know concerning the first twenty years of Alexander's life.

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.

In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.