Dr Long's interest in my work (JHS xc [1970] 121–39; hereafter referred to as ‘Long’) is naturally very welcome; but it seems to me to require further comment in its turn. In order to advance the discussion, I shall be compelled to refer on a number of occasions to what I have written elsewhere in articles, and indeed on other pages of Merit and Responsibility. I shall begin with some very general points, some concerned with philosophy, some with interpretation.

First, can ‘an historical reference for Homeric society’ be found ‘in the individual oikos, such that Homeric values can be seen to derive consistently from its needs’? The ‘facts of Homeric life’ to which I endeavour to relate my analysis of Homeric values are those contained in Professor M. I. Finley's admirable The World of Odysseus. My very occasional disagreements are concerned with interpretations within an agreed framework: Professor Finley's framework. I shall turn to the historicity of the society in a moment; but there seems in any case to be no prima facie absurdity in employing the tools of the social anthropologist on an overtly fictional society, say More's Utopia, with the intention, perhaps, of displaying incongruities and discrepancies: however fictional it might be, there would still be a society and values to discuss.

The purpose of this article is twofold: primarily to draw attention to the evidence for a hitherto unrecognised plot against the throne of Alexander the Great; and incidentally to re-examine the evidence for the regency of Philip II on behalf of his nephew Amyntas son of Perdikkas—a subject which has important repercussions on the main theme.

Until the end of the nineteenth century students of the reign of Philip II of Macedon, on confronting the question of Philip's regency, had simply to make a choice between the circumstantial (but at least partly incorrect) notice of Justin—who says he was regent—and the contrary indication or implication of Diodorus and all other sources, contemporary or later, including of course Demosthenes.

On the death of Perdikkas III in battle against the Illyrians Philip ‘became king of Macedonia, in the archonship of Kallimedes, the first year of Olympiad 105’ (359 B.C.). So says a scholiast on Aischines iii 51. Philip ‘was king over (ἐβασίλєυσєν) the Macedonians for 24 years’, says Diodorus—that is, from 359 to 336. On the other hand, Justin claims that on Perdikkas' death Philip became regent; he remained for a long time—diu—non regem sed tutorem pupilli. His pupillus, his ‘ward’, was Amyntas, son of the late king and nephew of Philip. As Macedonia was threatened, continues this author, with serious wars and required the leadership of more than a mere boy, Philip compulsus a populo regnum suscepit.

In this paper I contest the usually accepted terminus for the date of the publication of Herodotus' Histories, namely, just prior to the production of the Acharnians in February 425. I argue instead that Herodotus survived the Archidamian War—basically a return, this, to the position taken until the middle of the last century, especially in Germany, before the work of Schoell, Kirchoff and then Meyer and Jacoby. Further, I suggest that he published at a date close to 414 B.C. or, at least, that his Histories reached the Athenian public at around that time. Since even the orthodox date for his publication (426 or so) figures in the constructions of modern scholars merely as a literary curiosity devoid of significance—such are the preconceptions dominating our notion of Herodotus' ‘era’—a reconsideration of this question needs no apology if it serves the purpose of directing attention to a matter vitally affecting our interpretation of this author.

First, a general observation. In seeking for external evidence to establish the date of the publication of Herodotus' Histories, we need to distinguish between possible and certain echoes of Herodotus in the works of others. The question must constantly be asked whether any allusion we have isolated presupposes and requires the knowledge of Herodotus' work on the part of the contemporary audience. For otherwise we could be misled by a coincidence or we could reach a false conclusion because some point of specific knowledge eludes us. Of the latter the famous parallel in the Antigone of Sophocles (909 ff. with Herodotus iii 119) provides a notable example. If Herodotus had been just a little more strict with himself in avoiding allusions to his own time, who would not suppose that his work had been published prior to 441? What we require, therefore, is material which is calculated to evoke Herodotus himself—the special characteristics of the man and his Histories—so as to leave in no doubt a general familiarity with his work on the part of others.

The centuries before the Greeks began to write history are of the greatest interest and significance, but they are also for the historian full of uncertainty, obscurity and dispute. The reason is mainly the simple inadequacy of the information with which the historian has to work, and it is partly because of that inadequacy that the colonising movement is uniquely valuable. Part of this value lies in the revealing nature of colonial activity in itself. Think what it tells us about geographical knowledge, seafaring, if not seapower, military achievements, state organisation, economic conditions—to mention only a few broad and obvious categories. But in a period so inadequately known the colonising movement is also extremely important to the historian as a source of a relatively large amount of clear and unequivocal facts. In the context of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. the fact that such and such a city sent a colony to such and such a place constitutes a rare piece of definite and valuable knowledge. Since it is also possible to assign dates to large numbers of colonial expeditions, we can say that the colonising movement provides a large amount of extremely significant historical information, which is in general terms clear and definite and relatively well dated.

Greek theology and its canonical iconography have not been studied nearly as much as the Byzantine, although the religious character of pagan art is no less pronounced. When it is studied it is mostly in the representations on the vases. Sculpture, however, in particular terra-cotta and ivory figurines and plaques, and votive offerings in sanctuaries, offers a wide scope for such a study. Greek piety created some standard forms of votive offerings such as the crouching child, the protome, male or female, the seated or standing woman, sometimes exactly identifiable from the attributes.

A standard type of votive offering, perhaps not as common as the single figure, is that of reliefs, statuettes and statues representing two, or sometimes more, female figures, identical or slightly differentiated, traditionally explained as Demeter and Kore or the Nymphs.

The topic has been treated variously since the early nineteenth century, in isolated examples, or regional and other groups. There is no treatment of it in its entirety in the Greek world, and not much progress has been made in the subject since the basic nineteenth-century treatises. Moreover, in the above publications, never cited in more recent works, one finds some very sound approaches and knowledge of the textual evidence. However, in these early publications the material is mostly Classical, or Hellenistic and Roman. In some of the cases of double figures discussed in them, the duplication, rather than ‘doubleness’, is more apparent than real because the attributes are repeated and are those of the unique war goddess Athena, or the equally unique Tyche or Fortuna. However, the case is not always so, especially in archaic or earlier times, and it gets even more complicated when the figures are not two but three and sometimes more, even up to nine. The repeating of figures, often under one mantle, as diad, triad, etc., could be explained as multiplication of a figure by the folk-mind (mythology), followed by the Greek artists, thus creating the Eileithyiai, Horai, Charites, Muses, etc. Modern scholars have insisted on trying to identify in all of them Demeter and Kore, the female diad par excellence.

G. E. R. Lloyd has argued that Parmenides ‘probably held that the sex of the child is determined by its place on the right or left of the mother's womb (right for males, left for females)’. It is the purpose of this paper to challenge this assertion by re-examining the primary evidence of fragments 17 and 18 of Parmenides as well as the tangled mass of testimony of the doxographers, Censorinus, Aëtius and Lactantius. In so doing I shall consciously observe a sharp distinction between theories of sex differentiation and theories of heredity since I shall argue that the confusion of the two subjects has led to distortion of Parmenides' doctrines.

On my first journey in Turkey, in 1955, I copied and photographed the following inscription, which to my knowledge has never been published. The letters are very roughly cut on the upper surface (102 cm. by 51 cm.) of a stone which now forms part of a stairway in a house of Kizilca Mahalle (ward), Yalvaç, not far from the site of Pisidian Antioch. The irregularity of the lettering is clearly shown in the photograph (Plate XIa).

This is not the only epigraphic document that connects a man named Protion with Mên. There is also an altar built into a house wall in Abecilar Mahalle and published by W. M. Calder (Plate Xlb):

The very term ‘third magistrate’ is really a misnomer, as Margaret Thompson has well argued. The men whose names appear as subsidiary signatures on New Style issues were probably contributors to the cost of this annual liturgy—often relatives, friends or political associates of the two men principally concerned. I would like to examine a few of them closely here.

The chronology of the coinage is now fortunately very tight from c. 140 B.C., mainly thanks to Margaret Thompson's magnificent publication. It is true that she herself wanted to move back the isssue of King Mithradates/Aristion from 87/6 B.C. to c. 120 B.C.—and with it the whole coinage—but the case against this is virtually overwhelming. The arguments surely need not be laboured here. One modification, however, should be made in the ‘low chronology’. I earlier followed Lewis in regarding the Apellikon/Gorgias issue as a fixed point in 88/7 B.C. It is certainly the last of the long series of ‘three magistrates’ issues, after which the mint continued with the King Mithradates gold and silver. But I had overlooked a grave historical difficulty.

The Peripatetic philosopher Athenion returned to Athens some time during the summer of 88 B.C., when Mithradates was already master of Asia Minor and threatening Thrace and Macedonia. He promptly had himself elected hoplite general, secured similar commands for his friends and within a few days established a tyranny. One of his friends—Apellikon of Teos—was put in charge of the fleet. With this he was despatched against Delos, in order to secure the island and its treasures for an Athens dedicated to Mithradates' cause. The surprise raid was a fiasco owing to the commander's incompetence and the resolution of the Italian community on Delos. Almost all Apellikon's force of 1000 men were killed or captured, his equipment destroyed. He was lucky to slip away to safety himself.

In the National Museum of Athens there is a cup—formerly part of the Empedocles collection—which Beazley has attributed to an artist near the Pithos Painter, an early red figure cup-painter of the coarser wing; its approximate date would be the last decade of the sixth century. In the interior (plate XIIa) it bears the representation of a youth removing a big circular rock from an altar-shaped supporting feature. The scene has been interpreted by Beazley as the punishment of Sisyphus. Zancani-Montuoro, although with some reservations, includes the cup in her catalogue of the representations of Sisyphus before the end of the archaic period. Her hesitation concerns the age of the stone-lifter: ‘La figura della kylix Empedocles e molto simile per atteggiamento’ (i.e. to the Louvre cup G 16 with Sisyphus painted by Epiktetos—to which, incidentally, she gives the wrong number G 20) ‘ma la mancanza di barba e le proporzioni efebiche (l'esilità degli arti in ispecie) possono far sospettare che il personaggio mitico sia stato franteso o il suo schema adattato ad una rappresentazione del genere.’

Some years ago M. Miller began an article in this Journal with the statement, ‘Classical Greek kinship terminology, as it is used for example by Isaios, offers few difficulties of meaning in its terms.’ She then constructed a chart to show the ‘principal usages’. A review of the evidence indicates that this chart was probably based on Pollux’ discussion of kinship terms; at any rate it simply does not reflect the actual usage of Attic prose writers (the ten orators, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato). For example the chart shows that the terms for uncle are μήτρως (maternal uncle) and πάτρως (paternal uncle). Neither of these terms is used in Attic prose at all, and there is only one occurrence in Attic poetry: μήτρωσιν (dative plural) in Euripides, referring to a maternal grandfather (plural for the singular) or maternal ancestors in general. The Attic term for uncle (either paternal or maternal) is simply θϵῖος. By way of comparison we may note that Herodotus always uses μήτρως and πάτρως, never θϵῖος. Again in the case of terms for one's male affines Miss Miller lists words which do not occur in Attic prose, πϵνθϵρός, πϵνθϵριδοῦς, and δαήρ, as well as γαμβρός, which occurs but once.

During the early years of this century University College, Dublin, acquired a sizeable collection of classical antiquities, largely through the efforts of the professor of Greek, the Rev. Henry Browne, SJ. Among the acquisitions he made for the College were a group of sherds from the excavations at Naucratis conducted by Sir Flinders Petrie and D. G. Hogarth which he obtained from the British Museum and the Ashmolean (but mostly the latter). As a result of their isolation in Dublin these sherds have not figured in the various publications dealing with material from Naucratis that have appeared over the years, but it is still perhaps not too late to draw attention to them, especially as they include some interesting pieces.

There is no record of exactly when the Naucratis sherds went to Dublin or of what was given in exchange for them, but they must have arrived before 1913 for they are mentioned in a Report on the University College Museum published in that year. The following account is arranged according to styles.

The Second Stasimon holds a central position in the play. It follows the elaborate preparatory scenes and immediately precedes the rapid march of the action towards its catastrophe. The ode is difficult to understand and has been variously interpreted.

We expect a Sophoclean Chorus to react to the preceding episode; and the themes of this ode are indeed related to the long scene that has just been played. Interpreters are not agreed, however, on the precise character of this relationship, except in one particular. It is abundantly clear that the fourth stanza (898–910) relates to the scepticism on the subject of oracles and prophecy which was expressed by Jocasta at the end of the preceding scene. The concern of the Chorus arises, however, not so much from the fact that she expresses a sceptical view which might be thought shocking as from the grounds on which her view was based. On the face of it, and on the facts as stated, an oracle given by Loxias at Delphi has failed, once and for all, to be fulfilled. They feel that, unless facts and prophecy are shown to be in full agreement, this will be the end of oracular authority and the end of religion (if that is how we should translate τὰ θεȋα); and they pray to Zeus the supreme king to give the matter his attention. It is the facts—the apparent facts—that cause their concern. But, when in the first stanza they sing about reverent purity of word as well as of deed, it is commonly—and I think rightly—held that they have in mind, among other things, the impious words of Jocasta. It may be a useful preliminary to the examination of the stasimon as a whole, if we first examine the ‘impiety’ (if that is the right term) of Jocasta, endorsed, as it appears to be, by Oedipus.

At least fifty small iron sickles were found in the pit on Rheneia to which the Athenians removed the contents of the Delos graves during the purification of 425 B.C. Various scholars have attempted to associate these with Thucydides' (i 8.1) report of the identification of Carian graves by the armour found in them on the occasion of the purification, and Herodotus' remark (vii 93) that Carian soldiers carried daggers and sickles (drepana). Similar sickles were also found in fifth-century graves on Rheneia, so the practice was clearly not a particularly ancient one in Herodotus' and Thucydides' day, but it was equally not a normal practice in any other part of Greece. The pit yielded the usual assemblage of Classical grave furniture with one notable exception — strigils — and it is worth considering whether, on Delos and Rheneia, these simpler small iron blades, like sickles, were employed as strigils. The usual Classical strigil is an elaborate affair of bronze with a curved hollow blade and shaped handle. It was used to scrape oil and dirt from an athlete's skin, a regular piece of palaestra equipment, and regarded as a peculiarly personal possession, like a man's favourite pipe or razor. On several Archaic and a few Classical gravestones the dead is characterised as an athlete with strigil and oil bottle, and strigils are very common offerings in Classical graves all over Greece. We would expect them on Delos: we have the ‘sickles’ instead. Clearly, for the purpose of removing oil from the body they would have served just as well. They are small for agricultural use (blades 10 to 17 cm. long) and with only one hole for fastening they could hardly be considered very sturdy implements.

A relatively very small but by absolute reckoning considerable number of painted Greek pots have signatures on them. These signatures are almost always painted and indicate either the maker (έποίησϵν) or the painter (ἔγραψϵν). The relevant statistics are these. Most of the signatures are on Attic products of the century from 570 to 470. Makers' signatures are about twice as common as painters'. Sometimes both kinds of signature occur on the same pot, but (so far as I know) only three times are the maker and the painter the same man. In two instances the signature gives the names of two makers.

In four of the last five numbers of the JHS, Doctors D. R. Dicks and D. O'Brien have disputed about Simplicius De caelo 471.1 ff. (DK 12A19), which runs (in part, 471.2–6): καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῑ [i.e. ἐκ τῶν περὶ ἀστρολογίαν] περὶ τῆς τάξεως τῶν πλανωμένων καὶ περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων ἀποδέδεικται Ἀναξιμάνδρου πρώτου τὸν περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων λόγον εὑρηκότος, ὡς Εὔδημος ἱστορεῖ τὴν τῆς θέσεως τάξιν εἰς τοὺς Πυθαγορείους πρώτους ἀναψέρων. In his History of Greek philosophy (i 93), Professor Guthrie translates the latter part of this as follows: ‘(…speaking of the planets) “Anaximander was the first to discuss their sizes and distances, according to Eudemus, who attributes the first determination of their order to the Pythagoreans.”’ Guthrie, Dicks and O'Brien all agree that πλανωμένων is accurately translated as ‘planets’; they also evidently agree that Anaximander would not have distinguished the planets from the fixed stars, at least in this matter; and consequently Guthrie (op. cit. i 95) finds Simplicius' statement about Anaximander ‘confusing’; Dicks finds it ‘nonsensical’; and O'Brien speaks of Simplicius' ‘rather ragged context’, and supposes that Eudemus was actually speaking, not of planets, but of sun, moon and stars, i.e. that Simplicius has quite misrepresented his source.

Headlam wrote: ‘ἔτι ἄγχϵι in conjunction with 1.18 n. suggests amatory capabilities[1] … [Battaros'] powers of “wrestling” being compared with Mennes' old victories at boxing. Either this or Blass' supposition that he is a street rowdy will suit τοῦ ἡλίου δύντος: the former hypothesis suits better the character of Battaros…’ I have no doubt that the word ἄγχϵι, like the πύξ which it matches in 1. 11, is a double-meaning one, and contains the sense: ἔτι οἴός τε ἐστὶ γυναικὶ συγγίγνεσθαι. That, as a buffoon's method of raising a laugh, the punning use of ἅγχω and a congener in their agonistic and erotic senses would not be alien to the proceedings of even a real court, let alone the fictional court of a literary genre having affinities with Old Comedy, is shown by Dem. liv 20 (Contra. Con. 1263.5), where it is assumed that defendants on a charge of assault will try τὸ πρᾶγμα ‥ εἰς γέλωτα καὶ σκώμματ᾽ ἐμβαλεῖν (liv 13 = 1261.13).

In a recent article, J. K. Davies suggested that there were no choral events at the festivals of the Hephaestia and Promethia. He rested his case on the fact that ‘the basic document concerning the festival [sc. the Hephaestia], IG i2 84 of 421/0 refers (probably) to gymnasiarchs (lines 20–21) and nowhere to choregoi or choruses’, and he went on to say that ‘the general heortological tradition [sc. about the Hephaestia]…knew nothing of musical contests’. On this basis, he rejected the contrary evidence of [Xenophon] Ath.Pol. iii 4 which specifically mentions the Hephaestia and Promethia in a list of five festivals to which choregoi were allotted. He suggested that either the author of Ath. Pol. was mistaken, or an emendation of the text proposed by Kirchhoff should be accepted; the emendation inserts seven words into the text, and so switches the reference from choregoi to gymnasiarchs.

Thucydides reports the capture of Skyros ‘next’ (ἔπϵιτα) after that of Eion under the generalship of Cimon, as the first events in his digression (έκβολή) on the Pentekontaëtia. Further details are added by Diodorus (presumably following Ephorus) and Plutarch. It is of some importance to try to determine the date of this event, of even greater importance to see it in correct perspective for Cimon's rising star and Themistocles' falling one.

The only specific indication of time we have is Plutarch's reference to an oracle ‘given to the Athenians when they made an inquiry after the Persian Wars in the archonship of Phaidon’ (i.e., 476/5 B.C.). This has generally been taken to provide a date for the capture of Skyros, and the transference of the bones of Theseus to Athens, which Plutarch says followed it. But it is worth pointing out again, with Busolt, that Plutarch's words give a ‘date’ only for the oracle. Diodorus dates the Skyros campaign (along with Eion before and the Eurymedon victory after) to the archonship of Demotion, 470/69, but his evidence is worth very little on a point of chronology such as this.

In JHS xc (1970) 196 f., Professor G. L. Huxley writes a column criticising what he takes to be a belief of mine, that seven-stringed lyres came in later than the seventh century B.C.; he says ‘I hope that I do not misunderstand Dr West's contention’. I am sorry to say that I meant the opposite of what he supposes.