During the last ten years no less than 4,361 coins of various parts of the Greek world have been added to the national collection. A certain number of these have been published year by year by Mr. Warwick Wroth in the Numismatic Chronicle, under the title ‘Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum.’ A still larger number are described by Mr. Barclay Head, the Keeper of Coins, in the annual Parliamentary Return of the Accounts &c. of the British Museum. As the former publication is not seen by all who are generally interested in classical studies, while the latter suffers the fate of most Blue Books, it has been suggested that a short paper on the subject of these additions might be interesting to readers of this journal. I need hardly say that the selection here given is not meant to be representative. Had I attempted to give a full report of the acquisitions during the last ten years, these notes would have reduced themselves to a mere catalogue. It has been necessary therefore to choose out a very few coins from among the more important acquisitions.

The Lydian-Aramaic bilingual comprises a type of text, of which, as it fortunately happens, several purely Lydían examples were found. It seems clear from a comparison of the Aramaic and the Lydian that there is a sufficiently close agreement between the two to allow the conclusion that several of the other Lydian inscriptions are not merely funerary, but also are in certain respects of the same general trend as the bilingual. If so, the bilingual is of the first importance for the preliminary information it furnishes touching the general character and contents of these inscriptions; and, in fact, it is easy to observe the recurrence of certain Lydian words and phrases which distinguish the inscriptions published in the present fascicule, and to contrast other inscriptions not included in it, where we often miss these features. But it is necessary at the outset to feel tolerably sure of the translation of the Aramaic text and of the preliminary conclusions which can be based upon a comparison of the two portions of the bilingual; and since here and there the Aramaic is extremely obscure, and there is room for more uncertainty than Littmann allows, the attempt may now be made to reconsider the Lydian in the light of the Aramaic, and at the same time, to take account of criticisms and suggestions which have reached me since the appearance of the first part of this article.

There are in Scotland two ancient Athenian marble thrones which I had an opportunity of studying and photographing some years ago. Both have already been published, but not so fully as to make a fresh study of them superfluous. The more important is in the Earl of Elgin's collection at Broomhall, the other is at Biel, in East Lothian, and belongs to Colonel J. P. Nisbet Hamilton Grant.

An incomplete description of this marble was published in 1837 by von Stackelberg, he having seen it in Athens about 1810 on what he called ‘the site of the ancient Prytaneion’. His description was accompanied by neat engravings of two views of the throne and a view of each relief. After a lapse of time Michaelis produced further notes about it in his ‘Ancient Marbles in Great Britain’, Supplement I, in JHS V (1884) 146 ff. (with Plate XLVIII) under the title Marble throne with reliefs. He had little to say of the chair itself, much about the relief of the Tyrannicides together with a brief comment on the second relief and the inscription.

It will therefore be best to give a fresh description of the throne which can now be illustrated by new photographs taken while it was in the Edinburgh exhibition (Pl. VI, a; VII; VIII, c).

About forty-five miles in an air-line west-south-west of Samsun (Amisos) lies the town of Vezir Keupru, situated at the eastern edge of a rolling plain bounded towards the west by the Halys, on the south by the long ridge of Tavshan Dagh, and on the north by the mountain-rim of the plateau through which the Halys forces its way to the sea. This undulating tract is the extreme westerly part of the ancient Phazemonitis, over which passed the one great ‘through route’ from Constantinople across Paphlagonia to the Euphrates, following throughout its course a line curiously parallel to the coast. Though this road is not described in any ancient document, its importance for the Roman period is amply proved by a remarkably complete series of milestones, erected or re-erected by successive emperors between Nerva and Constantine, which we discovered last summer between the Halys and Neocaesareia. In modern times it cannot claim any such importance.

In a paper read at the R. Accademia dei Lincei in Rome I communicated the result of my studies upon three of the bronze inscriptions (Nos. 362, 56, 363) found at Olympia, and published in the Archäologische Zeitung. Amongst other inscriptions from the same place recently published in the last number of the same periodical there are two (Nos. 382, 383) deserving the same attention, and demanding it all the more since Professor Kirchhoff in giving them to the public has declared himself unable to divine their meaning. Here I submit to the judgment of the readers of this journal my contribution to the question. My studies are only founded on the facsimile taken from a rubbing and published in the Archäologische Zeitung, together with Dr. Purgold's account of the material condition of the two monuments. I have thought it necessary to give my readers a phototypic copy of the facsimile itself, reduced to smaller proportions. Further particulars will be found in the Archäologische Zeitung, 1881, pp. 78 seq.

In the following pages I present a brief survey of those works in the field of Greek epigraphy which have come to my notice, directly or through reviews or bibliographies, between September 1945 and the close of 1947, marking by an asterisk those which I have been unable personally to consult. Among them are some books and articles published previously, but omitted from my last bibliography because still unknown to me when that was compiled. Even now I fear that many inevitable gaps remain, for the libraries to which I have access are still far from possessing all the relevant books and periodicals issued during and since the War. To all authors who, by sending me offprints of their works, have greatly lightened my task I express my cordial gratitude.

Greek epigraphical studies have suffered severe losses in the period under review. The death, on 10th December 1944, of the eminent Director of the Inscriptiones Graecae, U. Wilcken, was followed, on 25th October 1947, by that of the veteran epigraphist and indefatigable worker F. Hiller von Gaertringen, who had celebrated his eightieth birthday on 3rd August 1944. Other serious losses are those of A. S. Arvanitopoulos, L. Bizard, P. Collart, F. Cumont, E. Groag, J. Hatzfeld, A. E. Kondoleon, G. Lafaye, N. Pappadakis, and P. Roussel. The report of the deaths of M. Feyel and M. Segre has unhappily been confirmed. Appreciations of the characters and achievements of J. Kirchner, P. Foucart, M. Holleaux, W. Otto, and T. Wiegand have appeared from the pens of F. Hiller von Gaertringen, P. Mazon, M. Roques, H. Bengtson, and C. Watzinger respectively. The astonishing volume and quality of the work recently published, despite almost insuperable obstacles, by A. Wilhelm, now in his eighty-fourth year, evokes the admiration and delight of his many pupils and friends.

It is satisfactory to be able to begin this report by announcing important additions to the equipment of three of the Athenian Schools. The German Institute was able to inaugurate its spacious new library at a special meeting held on March 12 to celebrate the completion of its twenty-fifth year. The British School has received from Mr. W. H. Cooke, nephew and joint-heir of the late George Finlay, the library of some 5,000 volumes, together with the bookshelves and antiquities, which had remained untouched in the historian's house in the ῾Οδὸς ῾Αδριανοῦ since his death in 1875. And M. Homolle is drawing up the plans for an annexe which will enable the French School to extend its hospitality to students from Belgium, Russia and other countries which have no archaeological headquarters in Athens.

The excavations on the north side of the Acropolis have been suspended. The Archaeological Society is spending large sums each year upon the repairs to the Parthenon, and is also buying up houses, when opportunities occur, with a view to continuing the excavations on the site of the ancient Agora. One great undertaking, upon which the Society has been engaged at intervals for upwards of forty years, has been brought to a successful conclusion. The Stoa of Attalos is now completely cleared and from being one of the most bewildering it has become one of the most intelligible of Athenian monuments. Great credit is due to Mr. Mylonas, who has been in charge of the work for the last two years. The Archaeological Society has recently published a first instalment of the late Dr. Lolling's Catalogue of Inscriptions, and a volume on Epidaurus by Dr. Kavvadias. These are to be followed at intervals by other archaeological books. The third, which is in the press, is a history of the doings of the Society from its foundation to the year 1900. Its income and practical usefulness have increased immensely during the past five years. The Society has recently lost one of its best-known members in Stephanos Kumauudes, who was for thirty-six years its secretary and for many years keeper of its antiquities, now merged in the national museum. He was an honorary member of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, and author of a well-known volume of sepulchral inscriptions.

The present bibliography, relating to the years 1950 and 1951, follows the same lines as those of former years. Books and articles which I know only at second hand are marked by an asterisk. My cordial thanks are due to those scholars who have lightened my burden by sending me copies of their works.

Death has inflicted severe losses on epigraphical studies. Adolf Wilhelm, who for more than half a century stood in the foremost rank of Greek epigraphists and maintained his tireless activity, despite increasing infirmity, until nearing his eighty-seventh year, died in Vienna on August 10, 1950. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis? J. J. E. Hondius, founder and editor of SEG and Secretary of the Epigraphical Congress which met at Amsterdam in 1938, died suddenly at the Hague on November 5, 1950, in his fifty-fourth year; in him ‘epigraphy has lost one of its most devoted and tireless servants, and all scholars in his field will mourn his passing’. Among others who have recently died are G. M. Bersanetti, E. Capps, E. Hermann, M. Launey, G. P. Oikonomos, A. Olivieri, A. Passerini, A. Stein, and N. Vulič. Further tributes have been paid to the work of P. Jouguet, A. Rehm, and P. Roussel.

On the basis of Labarbe's new arguments in favour of July 21st rather than August 19th as the date of the full moon occurring about the time of the Thermopylae campaign, which involves our acceptance of a gap of something like five weeks between the Persian arrival in Attica and the battle of Salamis, R. Sealey has recently revived (Hermes xci (1963) 376–7) Munro's view that the Greeks had placed a regular garrison on the Acropolis in 480, so enabling it to hold out against the Persian assault for a considerable period and delaying any further military or naval operations. The validity of Labarbe's arguments has now been challenged by C. Hignett, Xerxes' Invasion of Greece, 449–51 (cf. A. R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks, 403–5), who also meets, 212 f., most of the arguments originally put forward in support of the same thesis by Bury (CR × 1896). Hignett himself explains the delay before Salamis, on his view a delay of some three weeks, in terms of the unwillingness of the Persians to enter the Salamis strait, coupled with their recognition that it was impossible to by-pass it. The Acropolis is held to have resisted, rightly I believe, for only a few days, a resistance to be explained by its natural strength rather than because of any garrison placed upon it. The dismay attributed to the Greeks by Herodotus (viii 56) upon the news of the fall of the Acropolis, however, still appears to Hignett a difficulty needing explanation and he suggests that Herodotus' emphasis upon it may be no more than a transitional device leading up to the next act of the drama (203).

A small Attic red-figure cup of considerable charm was recently acquired by a private collector in Hamburg. It is decorated outside as well as inside and has been mended from several fragments. The tondo and foot are undamaged, but a few minor rim fragments are missing, the largest robbing us of part of the central horseman: gone are the back of his neck, his right shoulder, the upper part of his right arm, most of the pelta and a section of the spear shafts, as well as three letters from the inscription. The surface is in superb condition, despite one or two chips and the slight flaking under the right hand of the woman on the interior. The measurements of the cup are as follows: height 7.2 cm, diameter without handles 19.5 cm and diameter of the foot 8.0 cm. The shape is of type ‘C’, with the fillet at the lower end of the stem. The handles are long and rather flat, scarcely rising above the rim. The lip has a reserved line inside and out. The fairly flat bowl meets the rim at a sharp angle. The stem is short, as is normal with type ‘C’ cups, and is strongly flaring at top and bottom. The fillet is marked by a reserved groove above and below. The foot has a flat upper contour. The profile of the edge of the foot is richly formed: the upper third being concave and the lower two thirds convex, while in the middle of the former there is a very slight ridge. Under the foot is a wide black band, as is usual among cups of type ‘C’.

While excavating in the ruins of the palace of Sennacherib at Koujounjik in 1880 Mr. Rassam found a small figure of Herakles sculptured in calcareous stone, and inscribed on the front of the plinth with a dedication by a certain Sarapiodoros (Σαραπιόδωρος Ἀρτεμιδώρου—κατ᾿ εὐχήν), and on one side of the plinth with the name of the artist Diogenes (Διογένης ἐποίει). The letters are painted red. The figure is now in the British Museum. Its height is 1 ft. 9 in.

A Greek sculptor of the name of Diogenes is known only, so far as I am aware, in the one instance cited by Pliny, in speaking of the sculptural decorations of the Pantheon of Agrippa in Rome, among which he mentions Caryatides ‘in columnis,’ whatever that may mean. These Caryatides by Diogenes the Athenian were much admired. But if Brunn is right, as he appears to be in identifying the statue of this kind in the Vatican Museum as a survivor from the Pantheon, he is evidently right also in concluding that Diogenes had merely made very careful copies from the Caryatides of the Erechtheum. Even a careful copyist was perhaps rare to find in the time of Agrippa. Our Diogenes was no doubt also a copyist, but apparently not a very careful one. For this among other reasons he cannot well be identified with his Athenian namesake. If our Diogenes had been an Athenian he would have said so on the plinth unless he had sculptured his Herakles in Athens where there would have been no occasion to say it.

What was the number of the ξυγγραφεῖς who were appointedat Athens in 411 B.C. to introduce modifications into the democratic constitution? Thucydides says ten, and Aristotle thirty (Thuc. VIII. 67. 1; Ἀθηνάιων πολιτεία 29 § 2). It is now generally assumed that the only way to resolve this discrepancy is to reject one of the two conflicting numbers as a mere mistake, and that the error is on the part of Thucydides.

Another solution has recently been put forward by Miss Mabel Lang, who concludes that Thucydides' ten ξυγγραφεῖς and Aristotle's thirty ξυγγραφεῖς were two distinct bodies, and that both authors after all were in the right. She points out that the Ten and the Thirty differed not only in their numbers, but in their attributes and achievements, and that they probably functioned on different occasions. Whereas the Ten were αὐτοκράτορες (i.e. had authority to by-pass the Council and present their report direct to the Popular Assembly), the Thirty lacked ‘autocratic’ power. Whereas the Thirty in due course submitted a scheme of reforms which was duly ratified by the Assembly (Ἀθ. Πολ. 29 § 5–30 § 1), the Ten never produced their programme (Thuc. VIII. 67. 2).