While the painter Sodoma was lying ill at Florence, in 1529, his pupil, Girolamo Magagni, nefariously removed from his master's studio a number of objects, a list of which is set forth in a document formerly in the Archivio Notarile at Siena, but now lost. The document, which is an acknowledgment of the return of these objects, was printed by Milanesi, and is repeated by Mr. R. H. H. Cust in his exhaustive work on Sodoma. But as it is nevertheless likely to escape the notice of the classical archaeologist, it seems worth while to extract from the list the descriptions of those objects which were certainly, or may possibly have been antiques. It is perhaps incorrect to speak of the objects as a collection; they were rather a few odd pieces picked up as useful models by a painter who owed more of the qualities of his style than is generally recognized to his appreciation of antique sculpture.

In JGS xxxii (1990), a volume devoted to the Portland vase, the sections on the discovery of the vase (85-102) and on the interpretation of its frieze (130-6) are jointly contributed by Kenneth Painter and David Whitehouse (hereafter P. and W.), who refer at some length to my own published views on these problems, but only to dismiss them as untenable. The purpose of this note is to show why they have not persuaded me to change my mind on either.

The objects which form the subject of the present paper, and which may be easily identified by the accompanying cuts, Nos. 5—8, have for some time been a puzzle to students of Mycenaean archaeology. Certain specimens exhibited in the cases of the Mycenae Room in the Polytechnic Museum at Athens are described as ‘objects of unknown use’; and although some suggestions have been thrown out in various publications of isolated examples, I do not think any satisfactory explanation of them has yet been offered. The cause of this failure seems to be the impossibility of understanding properly any such specimen, apart from the whole class to which it belongs. I will therefore begin this paper with a list of instances which, while not pretending to be exhaustive, is at least representative, and so will give some notion of the character, size, shape, and material of the objects now before us.

A Short journey round the north side of Mt. Latmos, undertaken in the autumn of 1896, has enabled W.R.P. to complete his investigation of the ancient sites of this neighbourhood. The purely geographical results are appended to our paper in Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc. ix. (January, 1897), and are incorporated in the map which, by the courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society, we are able to append to this account of the archaeological results. The latter are arranged in geographical order along the actual route.

At Sirgin Kishla on the Deniz Liman (Latmic Gulf) the fortified site or ‘kastron’ turns out to be a late mediaeval settlement.

When Pandaros treacherously shoots at Menelaos (Δ 132 sq.), the arrow lights—

ὅθι ζωστῆρος ὀχῆες
χρύσειοι σύνεχον καὶ διπλόος ἤντετο θώρνξ·
ἐν δ᾿ ἔπεσε ζωστῆρι ἀρηρότι πικρὸς ὀιστός·
διὰ μὲν ἂρ ζωστῆρος ἐλήλατο δαιδαλέοιο,
καὶ διὰ θώρηκος πολυδαιδάλου ἠρήρειστο
μίτρης θ᾿ ἣν ἐφόρει ἔρυμα χροός, ἕρκος ἀκόντων,
ἥ οἱ πλεῖστον ἕρυτο· διαπρὸ δὲ εἴσατο καὶ τῆς.

A little later, Menelaos says of the same wound (Δ 185-187):

οὐκ ἐν καιρίῳ ὀξὺ πάγη βέλος, ἀλλὰ πάροιθεν
εἰρύσατο ζωστήρ τε παναίολος, ἠδ᾿ ὑπένερθεν
ζῶμά τε καὶ μίτρη τὴν χαλκῆες κάμον ἄνδρες

And Machaon, after drawing the arrow out (Δ 215-6),

λῦσε δέ οἱ ζωστῆρα παναίολον, ἠδ᾿ ὑπένερθεν
ζῶμά τε καὶ μίτρην τὴν χαλκῆες κάμον ἄνδρες.

The word ζῶμα occurs again only in ξ 482, a passage which we will postpone for the moment, and in Ψ 683 of the boxer's girdle, which does not require further consideration.

Comparing the second and third of the passages quoted with the first, it seems perfectly clear that the ζῶμα was a part of the θώρηξ, and not an appendage to it. The word, in fact, stands as a passive to the active correlative ζωστήρ, and means the part of the θώρηξ which was fastened down by the girdle. It is quite clear from the oldest vase paintings that the lower part of the θώρηξ was bent outwards into a sort of ridge all round, in order to make a hollow which should be capable of holding the ζωστηρ in its place. This is very well shown in the woodcut, which is taken from Conze's Melische Thongefässe, Leipzig, 1877. The is expressed by the parallel lines at the bottom of the thorax; this is clear from the Kameiros pinax, where the lines are diagonal, and therefore do not indicate anything in the nature of such a πτερύγιον as we shall presently have to discuss.

When Achilles asks Thetis to plead his cause before Zeus, he urges her to remind the god of her past favours towards him (II. i 396-406):

πολλάκι γάρ σεο πατρὸς ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἄκουσα
εὐχομένης , ὅτ᾿ ἔφησθα κελαινεφέϊ Κρονίωνι
οἴη ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι,
ὁππότε μιν ξυνδῆσαι ᾿Ολύμπιοι ἤθελον ἄλλοι,
῾῾ ´ Ηρη τ᾿ἠδὲ Ποσειδάων καὶ Παλλὰς ᾿ Αθήνη
ἀλλὰ σὺ τόν γ᾿ ἐλθοῦσα,
θεά, ὑπελύασο δεσμῶν,
ὦχ᾿ ἐκατόγχειρον καλέσασ᾿ ἐς
μακρὸν ᾿ ´ Ολυμπον, ὅν Βριάρεων καλέουσι θεοί, ἄνδρες δέ τε πάντες Αἰγαίων᾿—ὁ γὰρ αὖτε βίην οὖ πατρὸς ἀμείνων—
ὅς ῥα παρὰ Κρονίωνι καθέζετο κύδεϊ γαίων
τὸν καὶ ὑπέδεισαν μάκαρες θεοὶ οὐδ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔδησαν

A major problem attends the phrase ὁ γὰρ αὗτε βιην οὗπατρὸς ἀμείνων(11. i 404). It has been suggested that the name Αἰγαίων represents a patronymic in -ῖων based on Αἰγαῖος. The suggestion is unexceptionable in itself, in view of the close connexions between Poseidon and Aegae; but it does nothing to resolve the difficulty of supposing that Poseidon was Aegaeon’s father and, above all, it does not tell us how the name Αἰγαίων is explained by the phrase ὁ γὰρ αὖτε. . . In a note on these words, M. M. Willcock accepted the common view that they give an ‘etymological’ explanation of the name Αἰγαίων, but suggested that they would be more easily intelligible as anexplanation of the giant’s other name, Βριάρεως (after βριαρός etc.). Willcock was right to raise this objection. There is no reason to suppose that the father of Aegaeon/ Briareos was different from the father of the other giants, and Hesiod specifically says that his father was Uranus (Th. 147-9). The paternity of this giant might therefore be a scholarly invention; and not a happy invention, for however strong Aegaeon may have been he could hardly be said to be mightier than Poseidon.

The appended inscriptions are the outcome of a short visit to Salonica in April of this year: the object that I had in view in going there was rather to hear and see on the spot the situation of ancient remains, the possibility and prospects of research, the attitude of the authorities and the general ‘lie’ and state of the country, than to investigate the actual antiquities of Salonica itself: however I copied or impressed as many Greek inscriptions as came to my notice in my short stay, the great majority being sepulchral of a commonplace order found in the foundations of houses in the Jewish quarter, and too frequently relegated to the stonemasons' yards to be cut up for modern gravestones. I have ranged first the three non-sepulchral inscriptions, the first being a mere fragment containing apparently part of an Imperial letter to the Thessalonians; the second a dedication by the city to the Emperor Claudius, and containing the titles and names of the chief magistrates; and the third, again a fragment, being a public document of the time of Antoninus Pius relative to certain κυνηγία, apparently left by will to the city or some religious foundation therein. If any of these have been previously published, I must apologise for my ignorance: but I cannot discover among the various records accessible here in Athens any trace of them; and indeed Salonica has been spared the archaeologist to a surprising degree. Where the stelae were sculptured I have briefly indicated the nature of the reliefs: there are a few others without inscriptions, but, as none of the sculptures are early or of merit, I have not thought it necessary to detail them.

The rhyton here published was found in a tomb at Capua in 1872, as described briefly in the Bullettino of that year (p. 42); it was acquired in the following year by the British Museum, and was soon thereafter included, but only in one view, among the ‘Photographs of the Castellani Collection,’ pl. 12. Always much admired for its beauty, both in the modelling of the Sphinx and in the drawing of the figures which encircle the cup above her head or occupy the spaces under her body, this vase has been seen at a certain disadvantage, as I believe, from a defective interpretation of the subject painted round the cup. In the Bullettino this subject was called ‘Triton, Nike and other figures,’ and this description has remained unchallenged. But obviously the figure here named Triton does not end in the tail of a fish, as a Triton should end. It is the tail of a serpent, and therefore he must be identified with some legendary person possessed of this combination—a human body ending in the coils and tail of a serpent. There can be no doubt that he is Kekrops, Κέκροπα σπείραισιν εἱλίσσοντα as he is described by Euripides, or as he appears in a Berlin terra-cotta, representing the birth of Erichthonios. On the terra-cotta Athene receives the infant Erichthonios from Gaia, who rises from the earth holding him up.

A feature of the new Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World by M. Rostovtzeff should not escape attention for its implications in a matter of historical method. This work—a κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί —contains, in fact, not one story, but two stories. What is called Summary and Epilogue (pp. 1026-1312) is in method and problems something completely different from the bulk of the study (ch. III-VII). Rostovtzeff, who is a historian of splendid intuition rather than of close reasoning, has obviously not perceived this fact. He has not clearly delimited the two subjects, thereby adding a difficulty to his critic, who runs the risk of being Over-schematic.

The ten Minoan and two Island seals, which are here published for the first time (plate X), form part of the Bosanquet Collection of the City of Liverpool Museum. Although there exists a card-index for the collection, the entries for these twelve seals give no indication of their provenience: apart from No. 9 below which is described as having been ‘bought in Athens’ there is no record of whether they were found in the course of excavation or were purchased by Professor R. C. Bosanquet. Bosanquet was himself, with R. M. Dawkins, one of the original excavators of the site of Palaikastro, but there is no evidence to show that the Minoan seals were discovered on or near the site; and in the absence of any indication, their origin must remain unknown.

The seals themselves are in varying states of preservation. No. 7 is perhaps the least satisfactory, showing signs of extreme wear, although several of the others are by no means negligible additions to the Corpus. Nos. 1, 3 and 5 in particular are excellent representatives of their type. Indeed these ten Minoan stones offer a surprisingly wide sample of the total range of Minoan Glyptic, from the three-sided prism seal of MM IA (No. 1) to two LM III lentoids (Nos. 9–10), and including on the way examples of hieroglyphic, architectural and talismanic designs. Of the remaining two, No. 11 is a good and characteristic example of the Melian winged creature type, while No. 12 is a curious and enigmatic seal, probably also to be regarded as an Island gem.

From August, 1894, till the middle of last year, the explorers of Pompeii were employed in excavating the house of A. Vettius, a house distinguished among its fellows by its sumptuous marble fittings and lavish decoration, and still more so by the splendid series of brilliant frescoes with which its walls are still adorned.

According to the official plan, the position of the house should be defined thus:—Regio VI., insula 12.

It lies opposite the Casa del Labirinto, close to the north-east of the Casa del Fauno, to the south of the third tower of the North Wall, counting from the Gate of Herculaneum eastwards. It possesses no tablinum, but a very fine peristyle, the Corinthian columns of which have not (as is usually the case) flutings filled for one-third of their height with stucco painted red or yellow.