In the Museum of Alexandria is to be seen a colossal head of fine workmanship which has its face curiously surrounded by rough planes where curly hair would be expected, and where this must have been added originally in coloured plaster (Pl. I. a). It has been taken for a head of Sarapis or Zeus, and I must confess I have accepted the former name unsuspiciously, so great is the similitude in style to the various copies of the Sarapis of Bryaxis, of which the Egpytian museums possess several by far exceeding in artistic merits the more generally known head of the Vatican. On the other hand, it reminded me so much of the famous Blacas Asklepios from Melos in the British Museum (PL I.b) that I did not doubt the likeness went so far as to prove the latter to be another work of Bryaxis.

From The Roman to the Turkish conquest of Greece, a period of sixteen centuries, Athens produced only three historians: Dexippos, Praxagoras and Laonikos Chalkokondyles. Of the two first only meagre fragments have come down to us; indeed, of the three treatises of Praxagoras, The Kings of Athens, composed when he was only nineteen, his History of Constantine the Great, written at the age of twenty-two, and his maturer study of Alexander, King of Macedon, only a summary of the second, amounting to two pages, has been preserved by that omnivorous reader, Photios, in his Library. Such juvenile histories cannot, however, have had much greater value than prize essays, conspicuous rather for their correctness of style than for any seasoned judgment. But we may regret that only thirty-five pages of the three works of Dexippos, The Events after the Death of Alexander, The Historical Epitome, which went as far as the time of Claudius II. in 268, and The Scythian Affairs, have survived. For Dexippos was an author of a very different type, a man of affairs as well as of letters, the type of historian of which we have familiar examples in England in Grote and Macaulay, in Clarendon and Bryce. A worse writer, but a better general, than his model, Thucydides, he defeated the Goths when they invaded Athens, on which occasion a Gothic leader urged the sparing of the Athenian libraries, in order that the Athenians might unfit themselves for the arts of war by much study of books! After these two historians, who flourished, Dexippos in the third, and Praxagoras in the fourth centuries, no Athenian took their place till, in the second half of the fifteenth, Laonikos Chalkokondyles composed the extant ten books of his history, one of the most interesting and valuable productions of the mediaeval Greek intellect.

Few Greek statues are so famous as the draped marble figure, somewhat larger than life, known under the name of ‘Sophocles,’ which has been for many years the chief attraction of the Lateran Museum (Figs. 1, 2). Indeed it was on account of this statue, and on the occasion of its discovery, that Pope Gregory XVI ordered a part of the Lateran Palace to be converted into a Museum, wishing to provide the gem with a worthy shrine of its own.

Nor is such fame undeserved.

The calm and dignified attitude, the high-spirited head, the clever and harmonious arrangement of the drapery, the careful, broad and supple workmanship—everything combines to make our statue not only a masterpiece of Greek art, but the classical type of an Athenian gentleman shown in the bloom of full manhood, as he may have been met with sauntering about the theatre or agora in the fifth century B.C.

Though all do not agree that we have here, as has been often said, the finest lifesize portrait which has come down to us from Hellenic sculpture, at any rate, since the first day of its appearance, artists and archaeologists have been unanimous in its praise.

The vase reproduced on Pl. II. and in Figs. 1 and 2 was sold by Messrs. Sotheby in the summer of 1919, and is now in the collection of Mr. William Randolph Hearst of New York. It is unbroken and well preserved. The height is sixteen inches and a half, say forty-two centimetres. Photographs of both sides were published in the sale catalogue; but the drawings from which Pl. II. has been made have not been published before.

The shape of the vase is not a common one. It is a kind of amphora; and I use the word amphora, unqualified, to cover all those types in which the neck passes into the body with a gradual curve; instead of being set sharply off, as it is in the neck-amphorae, in the amphora of Panathenaic shape, and in the amphora with pointed foot.

Three types of amphora were used by the makers of red-figured vases. Type A, which has flanged handles and a foot in two degrees, is used by black-figure painters as early as the middle of the sixth century, is a favourite with the painters of the archaic red-figured period, and disappears about 460. Type B, which has cylindrical handles and a foot in the form of an inverted echinus, is older than type A; for it is used by Attic painters at the very beginning of the sixth century.

The circumstances attending the death of the Caliph Mamoun (A.D. 833) are thus related by Masoudi (+ c. 956), who wrote about a century after the event. On his return from a victorious raid against the Greeks the Caliph encamped in the beautiful valley of Bedidoun. Like all Orientals, he was susceptible to the charm of clear, running water, and at his orders a rustic pavilion was constructed over the spring called Kochaïrah, from which the river Bedidoun flowed. In this the Caliph sat. A silver coin was thrown into the spring, and so clear was the water that the legend of the coin beneath its surface could be read. Mamoun then noticed in the spring a fish ‘a cubit long and shining like an ingot of silver,’ which he desired should be caught for him. This was done, but the fish, when brought to the Caliph, escaped by a sudden movement into the spring, sprinkling the Caliph's breast, neck and shoulders with cold water as it did so. It was again caught, and the Caliph gave orders that it should be cooked. As he did so he was seized by a shivering fit, and when the fish was cooked he was in a high fever and unable to eat it. This was the beginning of the illness which caused his death. Before this took place he had the guides and prisoners called and asked them the significance of the name of the spring Kochaïrah. He was told that it meant ‘stretch out thy feet,’ which he took for an omen of his death. He then asked the Arab name of the country he was in: the reply was ‘Rakkah.’ As it had been foretold him that he should die at a place thus named, he knew that his hour was come. And he died then and was carried to Tarsus and buried on the left side of the mosque.

On January 20th, and again on February 10th of this year, while digging was taking place on the property of M. Poulopoulos between Erysicthon Street and Thessalonica Street, near the ancient Ceramicus, for the construction of a shop, sections of the Themistoclean circuit wall were brought to light. Built into them were found three quadrangular bases of Pentelic marble, two of which have sculptured reliefs on three of their four sides, while the third has on its principal face alone a painted design, and inscriptions, both of which, however, have been almost completely defaced with some sharp tool.

On the upper and lower surfaces of all three bases are large ellipsoid or rectangular depressions, in the centre of each of which is a socket with lead filling, the upper one being for fixing the statue, the lower for fixing another quadrangular block to complete the basis.

These bases are now in Room A of the National Museum.