The Attic red-figure kylix (Figs. 1–2) which is the subject ο this note was acquired by the Reading Museum prior to 1896. It is mentioned in Stevens, Descriptive Catalogue of Reading Museum, 1896, p. 41, as having been dredged from the Thames. Closer provenance is not recorded, but the vessel was most probably found near Reading.

The kylix, which measures 5·95 in. across the rim, bears a fairly heavy deposit of lime, a feature characteristic of many river finds. The lime has been removed in order to expose the painting, which is a figure in the coarsest style of the ‘Pithos’ painter (Beazley, ARV, pp. 116–17, 952), representing a reclining, naked youth wearing a tiara, seen from behind. Typical of kylikes with decoration of this type is the large drinking-horn splashed across the lower part of the figure. Close parallels to the painting occurred at Al Mina (Beazley, JHS LIX, 1939, pp. 2–3, nos. 6–14) and are ascribed to the late sixth century B.C.

When I first saw this head, I was at once struck by its marked individuality: if any portrait could be recognized from a coin, it seemed to be this, for features so personal the poorest engraver could scarcely conceal. My hopes were realized, as a comparison of the accompanying photographs with the coin reproduced beneath will I hope prove.

In both we see the same treatment of the hair in front, the same fashion of wearing it behind: the long upper lip, the nose with its curiously distended nostrils—the marble preserving just enough to make the agreement certain—the long ears, the deep lines on the cheek, the shape of jaw and forehead, the prominent Adam's apple; these too are common to both.

Poésie d'apparat et de célébration, la lyrique de Pindare s'identifie à la préciosité d'un métal ou d'une pierre, et à l'art somptueux de l'orfèvrerie ou de l'architecture. Rivalisant avec elle, l'éloquence d'apparat reprend et développe ces images à l'époque impériale, pour se représenter et exposer son esthétique, l'esthétique de la seconde sophistique, qui, inspirée de celle de Pindare et de Platon, unit la fable et la vérité de l'ailleurs, l'illusion et la sagesse divine.

Headlam wrote: ‘ἔτι ἄγχϵι in conjunction with 1.18 n. suggests amatory capabilities[1] … [Battaros'] powers of “wrestling” being compared with Mennes' old victories at boxing. Either this or Blass' supposition that he is a street rowdy will suit τοῦ ἡλίου δύντος: the former hypothesis suits better the character of Battaros…’ I have no doubt that the word ἄγχϵι, like the πύξ which it matches in 1. 11, is a double-meaning one, and contains the sense: ἔτι οἴός τε ἐστὶ γυναικὶ συγγίγνεσθαι. That, as a buffoon's method of raising a laugh, the punning use of ἅγχω and a congener in their agonistic and erotic senses would not be alien to the proceedings of even a real court, let alone the fictional court of a literary genre having affinities with Old Comedy, is shown by Dem. liv 20 (Contra. Con. 1263.5), where it is assumed that defendants on a charge of assault will try τὸ πρᾶγμα ‥ εἰς γέλωτα καὶ σκώμματ᾽ ἐμβαλεῖν (liv 13 = 1261.13).

The important inscription from Epidaurus, published in Aug. 1921 by M. Cavvadias, raises many questions beside those dealt with in the very full commentary. Cavvadias attributes the document to 223 and the Achaean League. It is, I think, certain that it cannot belong to the Achaean League, and almost certain, as I hope to show, that it belongs to 303 and the revived League of Corinth of Demetrius I. The last few lines of the inscription have long been known (I.G. iv. 924), and have been exhaustively studied by A. Wilhelm, who placed the fragment which in I.G. is marked β; Cavvadias does not refer to Wilhelm's study, and unfortunately omits any mention of β from his restoration. The document contains no proper names.

In proffering this attempt at providing a new principle for the interpretation of the Eastern Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, founded upon the recognition of the general principles of pedimental compositions as they manifest themselves after a careful study of the extant monuments of this class, and, more especially, upon a comparison between this Olympian pediment and the western pediment of the Parthenon, the writer fears that he may meet with prejudice on the part of those who have already fixed in their minds an essentially different mode of approaching the subject. He fears this the more as it is entirely beyond his power on this occasion to give a full account of these general principles, or rather of the traditional forms of rendering mythological scenes in compositions of this class, as they have manifested themselves to him in studying a considerable number of ancient representations of mythological scenes for the purpose of elucidating the composition of the pediments of the Parthenon.

In an article published in the last volume of this Journal I endeavoured to show (1) that the extant fragments of the ‘chrestomathy’ of Proclus represent the Trojan part of the ‘Epic Cycle’ more completely than has been maintained by eminent scholars; and (2) that, on the other hand, they are less trustworthy than they appear to be as a source of knowledge of the so-called ‘Cyclic’ poems. That is to say, the notion of a considerable lacuna in Proclus' abstract is not borne out by a more thorough examination of the only extant manuscript. But that abstract does not always give a full or accurate account of the several poems from which the Epic Cycle was made up. And this incompleteness is found (1) when two of the poems dealt with the same part of the story—in which case the abstract leaves out one of the two versions altogether;—and also (2) when the incidents of a poem are not in harmony with the accepted mythological narrative. In the latter case the abstract gives the version which was recognised as historically true. We have, in short, an account, not of the original poems, but of so much of their contents as served for a continuous and complete history of the world.

The head reproduced upon Pl. XI. has recently been acquired by Philip Nelson, Esq., M.B., and we are indebted to him both for his courteous permission to publish the head and for the photographs, taken by himself, from which our illustration is derived. The head is of Parian marble, and is clearly of Greek workmanship; it is also evidently derived from an original of the very highest artistic merit. It is in excellent preservation, except that the end of the nose and a part of the lips on the right side have been restored.

Dr. Nelson has kindly supplied me with the following information as to the history of the head and as to its dimensions and present condition. It was acquired by him in Bath at the sale of the collection of the late Captain Maignac, who inherited it from his father-in-law, an artist named Walton, a contemporary of the painter Barker of Bath, 1769–1847. This Walton in all probability brought the head from Italy, where he is known to have travelled and collected pictures, &c.; but there seems to be no more exact record as to its origin. The head seems to have remained practically unknown to archaeologists until its acquisition by Dr. Nelson, who, appreciating its importance, sent photographs to the British Museum in July, 1897.

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.

In a review (JHS lxxxvi [1966] 205 f.) of P. A. Stadter's Plutarch's historical methods: an analysis of the Mulierum virtutes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), Mr T. F. Carney, who was at that time Fulbright Visiting Scholar in the Department of Political Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claimed that the book ‘analyses somewhat dated problems with only partially up-dated tools’ and that the ‘actual findings of the book replicate what is already known’. Although Mr Carney takes it for granted that his readers know what the ‘up-dated tools’ are, at the end of his review he drops the key words ‘content analysis’, in which, according to him, Stadter had engaged unwittingly, but obviously without success.

Inasmuch as the book in question grew out of a dissertation suggested and directed by this writer, it may perhaps be allowed to reply to the rather serious charges raised in this review, charges which are unprecedented in the history of this Journal and which, if they were justified, could have far-reaching implications. This writer must confess that he was first baffled both by the degree of hostility displayed and by the criticisms, which, though specific, are often murky; but he was baffled even more by the general accusation of ‘only partially up-dated tools’ and inappropriate use of ‘content analysis’, a term he had never previously encountered. But this writer soon found out that content analysis is ‘a research tool in mass communication’ (R. W. Butt and R. K. Thorp, An Introduction to Content Analysis [A Publication of the University of Iowa School of Journalism, Iowa City, Iowa, 1963] 1), ‘a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication’ (Bernard Berelson, Content Analysis in Communication Research [The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1952] 18 [still the chief book in the field]); and it became clear that Mr Carney wore the social scientist's hat when he wrote his review.

The purpose of this note is to bring to light a piece of evidence on the ‘Lelantine War’ which has hitherto been neglected, and briefly to review the Thucydidean and some of the other evidence in the light of it.