The three marble statue bases found in February 1922, incorporated as integral parts of the wall of Athens, are unique records of Attic art. While their supreme importance was recognised from the moment of their discovery, their exact contribution to our knowledge of Attic art is a matter upon which a variety of opinions has been expressed.

M. Philadelpheus, who as Ephor of antiquities of Attica was responsible for their custody at the time of discovery, was the first to publish them. He describes each briefly. No. I. he dates to the end of the sixth century B.C. No. II. he leaves undated, and No. III. he assigns either to the Peisistratid period or to the period of the Republic before 480. He makes no attempt to deal with the works in detail or to analyse their artistic significance.

M. Oikonomos has published a brief account of II. b, in which he suggests an interpretation of the so-called ‘hockey’ game. He disregards the problems of style and date.

Dr. della Seta of the Italian School at Athens is the only authority at present to discuss the artistic value and significance of Bases I. and II. and to attempt to place them chronologically in the Attic series. His exhaustive and attractive articles deserve the closest attention.

The sculptures recently discovered by the Italian excavators at Cyrene were described and discussed by Signor Bagnani at a general meeting of the Hellenic Society on 9th November, 1920. It is hoped that Signor Bagnani's paper, together with full illustrations of all the sculptures referred to, will appear in the next number of this Journal. Meanwhile our readers will probably be glad to have a reproduction of the Aphrodite, which is the finest of them, but is not yet so well-known or so accessible as it should be on its merits.

Most of the statues found at Cyrene decorated a kind of hall, which served as a gallery of sculpture. They are by no means homogeneous, though most of them clearly belong to the Hellenistic age. There is, therefore, little external evidence to guide us to the period or school to which any of them belongs; and we are left mainly to internal evidence, derived from a study of the statue itself.

By the kindness of the owner, Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook, an inscribed electrum coin of the well-known ‘lion’ type is depicted in Fig. 1; its inscription, which exists only in part on the examples in other cabinets, appears to be complete. In the list below, the Keeper of the Department of Coins in the British Museum describes the specimens known in various sizes—Mr. Cook's being No. 5—and shows that the series has been attributed either to Lydia or to an Ionian city. The inscription seems to have been originally the same on all these specimens; it was, however, omitted from the collection of texts in Lydian script (Sardis, VI. ii. p. vii, note 1), because the uncertainty of the reading on the coins then available made its Lydian character doubtful and precluded the transcription of a trustworthy copy. Had Mr. Cook's coin been known to me in 1924, I should have included it in that small corpus as ‘No. 52.’

To students of Frankish Greece the church at Karditza in Boeotia is one of the most interesting in the country, because it contains an inscription referring to an important Frankish personage, Antoine le Flamenc, and dating from the fatal year 1311, which witnessed the overthrow of the Frankish Duchy of Athens in the swamps of the Boeotian Kephissós. Buchon had twice published this inscription; but, as I was anxious to know in what condition it was and to have an exact facsimile of it, I asked Mr. D. Steel, the manager of the Lake Copaïs Company, to have a fresh copy taken.

Xenophon (Hellenica, III, v, 5) records some reasons why the Spartans in 395 B.C. were particularly hostile to Thebes. First among these causes (apparently mentioned in chronological order) stands the Theban claim to the tithe of Apollo at Decelea: πάλαι ὀργιʒόμενοι αὐτοĩς (the Thebans) τῆς τε ἀντιλήψεως τῆς τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος δεκάτης ἐν Δεκελείᾳ, κτλ. This allusion to Decelea does not seem to have been understood by the editors. For instance, Breitenbach wished to get rid of it by the emendation ἐκ τῆς λείας. Underhill in support of the MSS. quoted Justin, V, x, 12: Thebani Corinthiique legatos ad Lacedaemonios mittunt qui ex manubiis portionem praedae communis belli periculique peterent, etc.: and Plutarch, Lysander, XXVII: τῆς τε ἀντιλήψεως τῆς τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος δεκάτης ἐν Δεκελείᾳ, κτλ. for references to the claims made by Thebes to a share of the booty of the Peloponnesian war. Now, both these passages are apposite, and probably refer to the same occasion which Xenophon means; but they do not mention Decelea. So Underhill preferred to abandon the reference to it as inexplicable.

Cyprus has in many ages been famed for artistic achievement of many kinds, but the excellence of its mural painting from the twelfth to the sixteenth century is only now being recognised. The Asinou frescoes, probably the most remarkable of all, have recently been described, and elsewhere in the island are many others deserving attention not merely as documents but as monuments of art. Among them are the paintings here reproduced, about seven-eighths of the collection in the Theotokos church near Galata. When visiting it in October 1932 I was unable fully to note all its decoration and other features, but the present incomplete account may perhaps encourage experts to study these well-preserved examples of work in the Byzantine tradition executed by Greek artists during the period of Venetian rule (1489–1570). The church (Fig. 1) stands isolated in a grove of trees beside a mountain brook on the left of the main road leading to Galata about half a mile below that village. No houses or farm buildings are near it, but about eighty yards away is a similar and larger church (Hagia Paraskeue) erected in 1502.

Asia Minor, interposed like a bridge between Europe and Asia, has been from time immemorial a battlefield between the Eastern and Western races. Across this bridge the arts, civilisation, and religion of the East had passed into Greece; and back over the same bridge they strove to pass beautified and elevated from Greece into Asia. The progress of the world has had its centre and motive power in the never-ceasing collision of Eastern and Western thought, which was thus produced in Asia Minor. One episode in the long conflict has been chosen by Herodotus as the subject of his prose epic: but the struggle did not stop at the point he thought. It has not yet ended, though it has long ceased to be of central importance in the world's history. For centuries after he wrote Greek influence continued to spread, unhindered, further and further into Asia: but as the Roman empire decayed, the East again became the stronger, and Asia Minor has continued under its undisputed influence almost up to the present day. Now the tide has again turned, and one can trace along the western coast the gradual extinction of the Oriental element. It does not retreat, it is not driven back by war: it simply dies out by a slow yet sure decay. It is the aim of this set of papers to throw some light on one stage in this contest, a stage probably the least known of all, the first attempts of the Greek element to establish itself in the country round the Hermus. Tradition has preserved to us little information about the first Greek settlements. The customary division into Aeolic, Ionic, and Doric colonists is not a sufficient one. Strabo clearly implies that there was a double Aeolic immigration when he says (p. 622) that Cyme founded thirty cities, and that it was not the first Aeolic settlement; in another passage (p. 582) he makes the northern colonists proceed by land through Thrace, the southern direct by sea to Cyme. I hope by an examination of the country and the situations, never as yet determined, of the minor towns, to add a little to the history of this Southern Aeolic immigration, in its first burst of prosperity, through the time when it was almost overwhelmed in the Lydian and Persian empires and was barely maintained by the strength of the Athenian confederacy, till it was finally merged in the stronger tide of Greek influence that set in with the victory of Alexander. More is known of Myrina, and still more of Cyme, than of any of the other towns: but both are omitted here, because it may be expected that considerable light will be thrown on the history of both by the excavations conducted on their sites by the French School of Athens. Till their results are published, it would be a waste of time to write of either city.

Pausanias began the ninth book of his Periegesis with a brief topographical observation on the contiguity of Boeotia and Attica and specifically of the Plataiis and Eleutherai, followed by two digressions, the first legendary and toponymic, the second historical; together they occupy the remainder of the first chapter. The only topographical facts to be gathered from these digressions are: (1) that there was a direct road from Thebes to Plataia, and (2) that there was a road from Thebes leading to Hysiai in the direction of Eleutherai and Attica (cf. Thuc. iii 24; Arrian, Anab. i 7), which gave indirect access to Plataia (ix 1.6). The topographical thread is resumed at ix 2.1: Hysiai with its unfinished temple of Apollo and oracular well, Erythrai, and—closer to Plataia—the so-called Tomb of Mardonios were all located to the right of the road from Eleutherai to Plataia.

The third Byzantine Congress, held at Athens in October, was attended by some 350 persons, of whom only two were British. While several other Governments were represented and the French, German, Italian and other continental Universities and learned societies sent large delegations—36 delegates came from Jugoslavia alone—only one British learned society, the British Archaeological School of Athens, was represented, and—as was remarked at the Congress—Great Britain was conspicuous by her absence. Yet the Congress was admittedly an important and successful meeting. In all the four sections of history, archaeology, philology and law, medicine and other sciences, notable papers were read by eminent Byzantinologists. In the two sittings of all the four sections united together, Professor Jorga spoke about ‘The great Byzantine families in Roumania and the rebirth of the idea of the Empire among the Roumanians’: Professor Charles Diehl delivered a graceful address on ‘The Legend of the Emperor Theophilos’; Professor Heisenberg, the editor of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, spoke with great tact about ‘Byzantine studies since the World War, their development and their aims’; Professor Darko of Debreczen commemorated J. B. Bury; the great Greek poet, Palamas, told of ‘The Byzantine heritage in modern Greek poetry’; and Professor Grégoire of Brussels examined the sources of Digenis Akritas. There was a visit to the monastery of Daphni, where, after a brief lecture by MM. Koukoules and Soteriou, an al fresco luncheon was offered to the Congressists by the Mayor of Athens, and excursions were made to Monemvasia and Mistra and to Salonika.