This article is intended not only to record additions and corrections to Island Gems (published by the Hellenic Society in 1963 as its tenth Supplementary Volume; here abbreviated IGems), but also to discuss a class of engraved stones which was not properly distinguished in that book. The main series of Island Gems belongs to the seventh and early sixth centuries B.C. Most of the stones and a few of their devices copy Bronze Age forms, and the material is generally a distinctive, often translucent, green serpentine (‘steatite’). This series ends in the first half of the sixth century, but it was possible to identify, by their material and technique, some later gems from Island workshops which correspond in style and shape with the contemporary Greek scarabs in harder materials. The comparatively soft material had meant that the intaglio devices on Island gems could be cut without recourse to the drill or cutting wheel, and this technique was retained for the later scarabs. It is evident, however, that for a while already in the sixth century Island artists had experimented with the harder materials then being employed for engraved seals in Greece; and with some shapes which seem to compromise between the old and the new. These stones seem to belong to the middle and second half of the sixth century. A list follows:

(i) Oxford 1925.129. plate I. Green steatite tapered scaraboid with convex face. L. 20 (mm.). A lion. IGems no. 349, fig. 6, pl. 13.

(ii) Athens, from Sunium. plate I. Green steatite. Shape as the last. L. 20. Contorted bull-headed man. IGems no. 350, pl. 13.

(iii) Paris, Bibl. Nat., ex Louvre C 8514. Rock crystal plump lentoid. W. 18. Summary representation of a winged horse.

(iv) Boston 27.678 (once Bruschi, Warren), plate I. Chalcedony lentoid with domed back and shallow convex face. W. 21. Facing head of a satyr with fillet ends behind the ears and an arrow marking at the centre of the forehead.

In a recent number of the Journal I had occasion to indicate some of the difficulties surrounding the identification of the royal portraits that occur on silver coins accompanied by the simple inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙοχοΥ The object of the article in question was to advocate a change of tactics in dealing with the problem,—to urge the desirability of concentrating attention on well-defined groups which should be subjected to a close and comprehensive scrutiny. As an illustration of the line of treatment proposed, there was selected for detailed examination the set of coins composed of tetradrachms on which the diadem worn by the king is furnished with wings. While certain of the inferences tentatively suggested on the strength of this examination have not been universally accepted, the more positive and important of the conclusions reached remain uncontroverted.

In his Vita Plotini, Porphyry recounts a colourful episode which, for a brief moment, brings to life the dynamics within the lecture room of Plotinus in Rome. The author explains how he was in the habit of posing questions to Plotinus frequently and persistently while his teacher was conducting his philosophical discourse before a mixed body of listeners. On one occasion, such an exchange between the two over the issue of the connexion between the soul and the body continued intermittently over a period of some three days, with the following outcome (Porph. V. Plot. xiii 12-15):

In the last number of the Hellenic Journal Professor Burrows has once more attacked Pylos and Sphakteria, this time with the aid of certain allies from the Peloponnese and a whole battery of photographs. I am, I confess, loth to dye this ink-stained field a deeper hue, and I have certainly no intention of sending friends of mine to Pylos with a view to reviving a controversy which has gone far enough. At the same time I do not wish to appear to undervalue the evidence of Messrs. Carr Bosanquet, Crowfoot, and Lindsay, though it is not of a very decisive character. I should therefore like to point out, as briefly as possible, its true bearing, and in doing so I have the satisfaction of not having to treat it as hostile, though brought into court by the other side.

I should like to call attention to an attitude in some of the Attic stelai which has attraced little, if any, notice, while its meaning, so far as I know, has met with no consideration.

The best example of the attitude is to be found in the beautiful Plate XXIV. of Mr. Percy Gardner's ‘Sculptured Tombs of Hellas’ (Conze, Pl. LXXVIII). Mr. Gardner describes the sitting figure as ‘a lady stretching out both hands towards a matron who stands before her,’ certainly an inadequate description of a peculiar attitude. Conze, in his great work ‘Die Attischen Grabreliefs,’ says that the standing figure with the left hand takes hold of the right arm of the sitter on the under side (unterfasst). But this seems to me to miss the point. It is not the right arm but the right wrist of the sitter that is laid hold of. The forefingers of the standing figure are extended along the forearm and the thumb is raised at the wrist, so that the sitter's right hand lies softly in a sort of couch. From an artistic point of view the attitude is a remarkable one, being unlike that of any of the other best known stelai.

In their accounts of the return of Orestes, the three great tragedians show respect for the ancient tradition and the greatness of it by their several interpretations. Each preserves the general tenor of the legend. Electra awaits the return of her brother to avenge her father's death. The secrecy of his return delays recognition, but once Orestes is made known to his sister the punishment of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus becomes inevitable. Of the differences in action and character in each play, the most significant is the means whereby the recognition of Orestes takes place. This affects not only the mood of each tragedy, but its construction.

The recognition scene placed early in the Choephori (224) presents an almost rustic simplicity (lines 228, 231, 232). This matches the lament and slow movement of the invocation by Orestes, Electra and the chorus that follow. The audience are spectators of a simple action from which the drama as simply proceeds. Such simplicity rightly receives an archaic treatment derived from a great religious tradition. The Euripidean version, psychologically more complicated, shows the interplay of personal relationships largely dependent upon memory. This complexity, expressed in the intricate nature of prologue, delays the recognition of Orestes by Electra. Yet in Euripides (Electra 577) the scene still occurs comparatively early—perhaps in deference to tradition, or perhaps that the movement of vengeance can be more fully displayed. In Sophocles (Electra 1224), however, the recognition scene is placed towards the end of the play.

On Pll. II–III and figs. 1–4, p. 8, I reproduce photographs of three Attic vases in the Museum of Valletta already published by Albert Mayr in Sitzgsb. d. philos.-philol. u. d. hist. Kl. der Kgl. Bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften 1905, Heft III, pl. II, 1, 4 and 5.

The first vase (Pl. II) is a late black-figured skyphos, height 165 mm.; diameter 222 mm. The obverse represents a chariot with two Amazons; the subject on the reverse is similar, but the second Amazon is here omitted. On both sides the scene is flanked by two sphinxes looking towards the handles. The vase belongs to the group of the CHC skyphoi, on which see Ure, Sixth and Fifth, p. 61, 26. 98–100 and Beazley, Some Attic Vases In the Cyprus Museum, pp. 22–3. For a list of vases of this group see Ure, CVI, Reading, p. 18.

The marble statue of a youthful male figure holding in his left hand a snake-encircled staff, which is reproduced in the accompanying plate, was found by Smith and Porcher at Cyrene, and is now in the collection of the British Museum. By its original discoverers this figure was named Aristaeus: an attribution which has been adopted, though with some hesitation, in the Museum Guide to the Graeco-Roman Sculptures. As, however, this attribution seems more than doubtful, it may be well to lay before the readers of the Hellenic Journal some additional remarks upon the subject, and to direct special attention to a statue which is not among those photographed in the History of Discoveries at Cyrene, and which has not, hitherto, been figured elsewhere.

The statue now to be described is four feet five and a half inches in height, and represents a young and beardless male figure standing facing. His right hand rests upon his hip, and under his left arm is a staff round which is coiled a serpent. The lower half of the body is wrapt in a himation, the end of which falls over the left shoulder, leaving the chest and the right arm uncovered. The hair is wavy and carefully composed, but does not fall lower than the neck: around the head is a plain band, above which has been some kind of crown or upright headdress: the top of the head has been worked flat. On the feet are sandals, and at the side of the left foot is a conical object which has been called a rude representation of the omphalos, but which is, in all probability, a mere support.

There is among the fourth century works in the Central Museum at Athens a head found at Laurium. It is made of Parian marble but it has been completely discoloured by slag or refuse from the lead mines, and is now quite black. In its present condition it is quite impossible to obtain a satisfactory photograph of it, and the reproduction given of it in the figure is from a cast.

It has been published, as far as I am aware, only in M. Kavvadias' catalogue. There it is described as a head of the Lykeian Apollo. This identification rests solely on a passage of Lucian, who mentions a statue of the Lykeian Apollo in the gymnasium at Athens.

He says of it ( 7)—

It will be seen from a glance at the photograph that the grounds for this identification are very slender. The left hand with the bow does not exist, and the only reason for supposing therefore that this is a head of the Lykeian Apollo consists in the fact that the right hand of the statue rests on the head. This in itself seems insufficient and, among other reasons, it is I think rendered impossible by the phrase For the hand is not idly resting, it is not a tired hand; the posture of the fingers is firm and energetic.

Miss Sylvia Benton, in a recent note, identifies the bird which appears on some of the coins of Stymphalos ‘rising above the leaves of a Water Plantain … with a Fritillary on either side… The bird wears ear-flaps, and for me a marsh bird with earflaps must be meant for the Great Crested Grebe’.

This identification seems to me convincing, though the bill as represented on the coins is perhaps rather short and thick. On April 29th and May 23rd 1974 I visited Stymphalos, in company with my family, in the hope of confirming that the Lake is still within the Grebe's range. This we were unable to do, and I am delighted to learn from Mr Buxton's note that ‘the bird breeds now on the Stymphalian lake’.

The Lake certainly offers in its extensive reed-beds a most suitable breeding-ground for Grebes, which build partly floating platforms of marsh vegetation to serve as nests. Adult birds sleep on the water and are fish-eaters. Grebes cannot therefore have suggested the different literary variants of this Labour of Herakles.

‘It is a tempting suggestion that it was the engravers of such texts—that is, either the sculptors themselves or the engravers employed by them—who were the pioneers of the new style’ (see below, Notes I, II and IV). This passage in Austin's book encourages me to say that every study of the early stoichedon documents of Attica must begin with the dedication of Nearchos signed by Antenor (see Note III). When considered in connexion with all known examples of the period, this inscription assumes a significance which is not apparent when it is studied in connexion with the list which Austin has recorded (p. 7), intentionally incomplete as that list is (see Note IV). The ‘lamentably fragmentary state’ of the greater part of these private dedicatory inscriptions (Austin, p. 64) cannot deter us from a careful examination which leads, as a rule, to the reconstruction of the monuments as well as to reasonable restorations of the inscriptions.

The clear distinction between dedicatory inscription and artist's signature is no peculiarity of the monument signed by Antenor, though the fact that both inscriptions are stoichedon, with the stoichoi independent of one another, shows the fully developed stoichedon style, as does the disregard of the syllabic division (see Note V).