The illustration which heads this paper shows a gold ornament in the form of a bee purchased in 1875 by the British Museum. It is a neat specimen of early granulated work; but, beyond the fact that it came from Crete, nothing is known as to the circumstances of its discovery. Similar finds have, however, been made elsewhere. Furtwängler in the Arch. Zeit. vol, 41, col. 274, notices among the acquisitions of the Berlin Museum for the year 1882 ‘sundry small plates of gold from the Crimea representing a head of Dionysus, Bees, and a Gorgoneiou.’ Our own national collection possesses fourteen bodies of bees in gold of late Etruscan workmanship, and also a bee stamped in gold leaf of the same date. With these may be compared the three hundred golden bees found along with an ox-head of gold in the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks. Doubtless other examples could be cited; and it seems worth while to attempt some investigation of their significance.

The following paper, with the accompanying plates, embodies the results of several months' travelling and surveying in the Peloponnese. I had set myself to study some of the ancient routes in that peninsula, with a view to identifying them with more precision than had yet been attained, and to clearing up some of the topographical difficulties connected with them. The labour was much greater, and much less fruitful, than I had anticipated; for the work of previous topographers has, on the whole, been extremely well done; and, if there are numerous problems which they have failed to solve, the explanation generally lies in the absence of the data necessary for their solution. Often, however, there have been conflicting views to choose between; and not infrequently I have ventured to differ from all my predecessors, to make (though tentatively) fresh identifications, and to correct views which, though generally received, appeared to me erroneous. In order to record these results I shall be obliged to give a consecutive account of the principal routes investigated; but I shall pass lightly over those parts of them about which no difference of opinion exists, dwelling fully only on those which are matter of controversy or in connexion with which I have some new theory to put forward. The region dealt with coincides roughly with the triangle Megalopolis—Tegea—Sparta; and I shall discuss in order the routes which connected these three towns; reserving for appendices a few notes on some outlying routes, and on the topography of the Mantineian plain.

The first three of the inscriptions which follow were copied by me in 1893 at Braïm-Efféndi, one of the villages on the site of Tegea, whence, by an arrangement with the owners, I transferred them to the neighbouring museum at Palaea-Episkopé. The fourth, which is too fragmentary for restoration, was found by Mr. Nákos, of Livadhiá in Boeotia, when preparing to lay the foundations of a house in that town in 1891, and I copied it at the time with his permission.

I. Braïm-Efféndi (Tegea). Found by in his field. The inscription is on the face of a curved moulding (cyma recta), about 10 in. in height, which must have formed part of a sepulchral monument of considerable size, perhaps in the form of a small heroön. The letters are from ½ in. to ⅝ in. in height, and are cut with some care.

The traveller riding westward from Macri soon reaches the Gargy Chai, which is the only perennial stream running into the Telmessian Gulf, and is rightly identified by Kiepert with the overflowing Glaucus. It rises in a ridge connecting the uplands of Kyzyl Kaya with the Aigür Dagh, a partly detached lower buttress standing out to the north-west of the long mountain commonly called Eljik Dagh in the maps, of which the eastern peak is named Chal Dagh, and the less lofty western peak Shimshir Dagh.

Hence the stream runs to the S.S.E. down a deep glen, and after receiving the Nif Chai from the N.E., turns S.W. round the Kyzyl Dagh to the sea. Pliny, the only geographer who mentions the Glaucus, says that it had a tributary, the Telmedius. If, as the inhabitants positively assured me, the Nif Chai is merely a tributary of the other, it must be the Telmedius. If so, the name of Telandrus, which was on the Glaucus, must be given to the only ruins in the main valley, those at It-hissar, a site discovered by MM. Collignon and Duchesne, but not exactly described.

1. At Lydae, on the western edge of the horizontal slabs of a tomb, on the side of which is Mr. Hicks' No. 12.

This may be compared with the inscription No. 16 of Mr. Hicks, which it very closely resembles. The builder would seem to be the same Heliodoros who is numbered 6 in the genealogical tree. Letters ·04m.

Below the three lower heroa and further south we found two inscribed fragments. One had the letters ΑΥΤΟ (·06m.) and obviously had an imperial connection: the other showed ΩΡΟΥΤΟΥ ΝΙΑΗΛΙΟ and must have referred to the Diophantus family.

The Library of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum possesses a manuscript volume containing a large collection of notes on the antiquities of Lycia made at different times by Samuel Birch. A considerable part of the volume appears to be a transcript from the papers of E. T. Daniell, the scholar who accompanied Spratt and Forbes on their travels in Lycia in 1842. Daniell copied a large number of inscriptions in Lycia, the Cibyratis, Pisidia and Pamphylia, some of which were published by his fellow-travellers in the second volume of their journal. It is particularly unfortunate that Daniell did not live to publish the results of his labours, as they have clearly suffered very seriously at the hands of others. What became of his original MS. is not known, only one page apparently in his hand remaining incorporated in Birch's volume. Birch's copies must be received with a considerable amount of caution, particularly as regards the forms of the letters. At the same time there is much that is worth publishing, and I have to thank the Keeper of the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities for his permission to publish what follows.

Among the recent additions to the collection of terracotta figurines in the British Museum are two which I am permitted to publish by the kindness of Mr. A. S. Murray.

The first (Fig. 1, Plate IV.) was found at Myrina in Asia Minor and represents a youthful winged male figure, leaning on a pillar and burning a butterfly over the flame of a small altar at its base. This statuette is of very good workmanship, every line has been carefully retouched, and drapery, wings and hair are so disposed as to form a background for the figure, which is entirely nude with the exception of a chlamys fastened on the right shoulder and thrown back over the left. The full soft face is framed by long curls; the wings, each feather carefully indicated, are as usual placed high on the shoulder and serve to throw the head into high relief, while the curves and pose of the body are further emphasized by folds of drapery added, for greater effect, behind the right side and thigh, after the figure was taken out of the mould, as is shown by a similar figure of very rough workmanship which has no drapery on that side and has not been retouched.

This article is a sequel to the text of the Homeric Hymns published by the Clarendon Press in the year 1893. For that edition it was my duty to write a preface, which under the circumstances did no more than enumerate the manuscripts and summarize the views as to their relations held by the principal writers. Since that time I have studied the subject of the tradition of these Hymns at greater leisure, and I now present such conclusions as I have been able to attain.

The reviewers of Mr. Goodwin's edition, while indulgent to the book as a whole, took exception to our neglect of modern criticism, the few conjectures that had been inserted in the text, and the scanty record of others, usually accepted, in the notes. As this circumstance, so far as it depended on myself, was the fruit of conviction, and since I have followed out the principle upon which I then acted more at length in this article, I may be allowed to spend a few words in explanation of the position which in these matters I take.

In the latter part of 1893 the British Museum acquired the Attic vase which is represented in Plate V. (E 716 of the new Catalogue). The photographic reduction barely serves to convey a summary impression of this finely conceived work, but can give no idea of the subtler refinement of modelling and surface, nor of the delicate colouring which is still fairly preserved, and which would defy reproduction in any process. It belongs to the class of vases which in the latter part of the fifth century came greatly in vogue in Attic pottery, and in which the front part is usually pressed in a mould, in the technique of terracotta statuettes, the back part is varnished and coloured like a red-figure vase of the period: the whole form is usually based on that of the aryballos or acorn-alabastron.

The present instance is an aryballos in the form of a bust of Athene: it is nearly intact, the only part broken away being the calix-form lip of the vase. The height as it stands is 20 cm., and perhaps 2 more should be added for the missing lip. The bust, cut off immediately below the lower base of the breasts, rests on a plinth about 1 cm. high, which is varnished black in front, and at back is painted with a band of egg moulding. It is modelled entirely in the round, but the plain surface of the drapery falling from the crown of the head down the back, and the back of the helmet, are treated as the back of an ordinary red-figure vase, and are decorated with the patterns usual in this class of aryballos: the neck of the vase rises vertically out of the crown of the helmet, at the point where the support for the crest would naturally be attached, and the ribbed handle, springing from the upper part of it, broadly suggests the lines which the back part of such a crest would follow. The true crest has been treated in the conventional manner which is not unfrequently found in fifth century art adapted to helmets intended to be seen from the front; that is, it is bisected longitudinally, and the two sides are turned outwards to the front in such a way that they form a continuous crest extending from ear to ear; in this case they serve the double purpose of a screen to mark the neck and handle of the vase, and a division between the polychrome and varnished portions of this part of the vase.

The charming little head which is represented on Pl. VI. was bought six or more years ago at Lamia by the Rev. R. F. Acland-Hood from a Greek who professed to have dug it up himself in the neighbourhood of the temple of Athena at Sunium. Mr. Acland-Hood had intended to give it to the Museum at Zanzibar: but he kindly consented to make it over to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford in exchange for other antiquities provided by Mr. Arthur Evans and myself.

The height of the head from the chin to the top is 4½ inches (cm. 11·5). At the back is a fracture which indicates that it was there joined on to the ground of a relief. I have tried to mount it in exactly the attitude and position in which, to judge from the fracture, it originally stood.

That the head belonged to a figure in high relief is clear from the fracture. But even apart from that, it would be certain. For the back of the head is very roughly worked, and is certainly not intended to be seen. The marble is according to Mr. J. L. Myres, a competent geologist, Parian. The preservation is excellent, only the tip of the nose being somewhat injured.

The Athenian lekythos here published has been recently acquired by the British Museum. It is interesting in two aspects. First, the design upon it illustrates the use to which such lekythi were put. We see a woman, apparently an ordinary mourner, carrying offerings for the dead. In her right hand is a funeral lekythos of just the same shape as the one on which the design itself occurs. In her left is a basket of fruits and a coloured sash to bind round the stelè on the tomb when she reaches it. Secondly, but more important, is the inscription beside her, Πάτροκλ(༵) χαῖρ༵. On first thought one would suppose that the vase-painter must have intended to represent one of the women who, according to the Iliad (xix. 301), mourned ostensibly for Patroclos but each having her own sorrows in her bosom,

with which may be compared the parallel passage later on in the same book (338)

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.

The excavations between the Pnyx and the Areopagus, made by the German School under the direction of Professor Dörpfeld, have been continued once more during the present season. In consequence of the great interest of the topographical problems involved, it was decided last year that the site should be expropriated by the Greek government, and thus the excavators are no longer hampered by the necessity of piling up the earth near at hand, so that it could be put back again if required. The liberal subvention made by the German government to its School was supplemented this year by private subscriptions, for the purpose of these excavations, and consequently it was possible to continue them for a considerable time, and to clear a large area. Unfortunately it has hitherto proved impossible to divert the modern road, which runs right through the site, and conceals the place where Professor Dörpfeld supposes that the fountain Enneacrunus once stood. Until this also can be removed, we can hardly expect to arrive at certainty on the point.

Under these circumstances, the confirmation or refutation of Dr. Dörpfeld's theories of Athenian topography in this region has still to depend on the evidence offered by the surrounding buildings. Here too nothing decisive has yet been found, though many very interesting discoveries have been made, which are cited with great ingenuity by Professor Dörpfeld as tending to corroborate his theory.

The terracotta reproduced on Plate VIII. with the kind permission of Mr. A. S. Murray was acquired by the British Museum in the course of this year from Eretria, where it was found in a tomb. It measures together with the wings 1 ft. 9⅝ in. in height, and is composed of a greyish, fine-grained, well baked clay, which, as may be seen on the broken fingers of the left hand, shows a purplish tint when fractured.

It is in perfect preservation, and the wings form an organic whole with the body. The delicacy of the modelling is especially conspicuous on the head and wings; at the same time it has suffered from a yellowish incrustation of some thickness. The whole statuette was covered in the first place with a lustrous white engobe; in addition the hair was painted red-brown, the wings green on the front side, the chlamys rose-colour, and the sandals purple; further, the tongue (lunula) of the sandals is yellow, or rather gilt.

It has sometimes occurred that a specious explanation of a fact, or a specious amendment of an error, has established itself so firmly in the court of history, that no one dreamed of disputing its claim to be unquestionably correct. At last, by accident, a doubt arises in some one's mind; and, after enjoying a long protracted success, the universally received solution, when its antecedents are investigated and its implications realized, turns out to be wholly ‘impossible.’ It may be easily shown, I think, that such is the case with the traditional explanation of the extension of the names Hellas and Hellen to the wide signification which they bore since the seventh century B.C. This explanation has had the inestimable advantage of resting on the authority of Thucydides; and it belongs to that class of explanations which merely require to be stated in order to recommend themselves, and which the human mind is accordingly inclined to accept unreflectingly. It has come to be regarded as a commonplace historical fact; yet it is noteworthy that in some recent histories of Greece it is simply stated that the Greeks adopted Hellenes as a common name, without any suggestion of an answer to the obvious question why that name was chosen rather than another. The authors apparently felt some difficulty in accepting the exposition of Thucydides. E. Meyer seems to have realized the difficulty more fully, and some remarks which he offers on the point will call for notice. In this paper I propose to exhibit the difficulties which render the received view untenable, and to put forward another explanation in its stead.