Scenes from the history of Pandora are rare in works of Greek art. There have at present been published, so far as I am aware, only five representations of her, in two reliefs and three vases. These all represent her birth or her coming into being. All the vases are in the British Museum. To these I have to add a fourth vase (Pl. I.), recently presented to the Ashmolean Museum by Mr. Edmund Oldfield, and bringing before us a fresh scene from the interesting history of the strange being made by the gods for the delusion and betrayal of men.

The tale of Pandora, as it appears in Hesiod, is so well known that I need only glance at its main features. When Prometheus had stolen for men fire from the gods, Zeus, determining to punish him, caused Hephaestus to make of earth a beauteous woman, whom, the goddesses adorned with ornaments, but in whom Hermes implanted a deceitful heart and a treacherous tongue.

The statement is usually made, that Greek geographers between Herodotus and Ptolemy believed the Caspian to be an inlet of the Northern ocean; that the Greeks, from the time that they first knew of the Oxus, believed it to flow into the Caspian; and that raw silk and other articles of commerce were carried down the Oxus into the Caspian and thence in due course to the Black Sea.

Even before Alexander, perhaps as early as Herodotus, there was a vague notion that the Caspian was, or ought to be, connected with a circumfluent ocean, as the other large sheets of salt water then known were; but this notion did not take definite shape till after the only recorded navigation of that sea by Greeks; and it perhaps requires explanation, why a genuine voyage should have given definite shape to a false notion.

Of all the renderings of the goddess Hera, the gold and ivory statue by Polycleitus in the Heraeum near Argos was the most famous, and was considered by the ancients one of the most beautiful works of Greek art. It certainly held its place beside the masterpieces of Phidias, and is even called by Strabo the most beautiful of all.

As in the case of the Zeus and Athene of Phidias, and the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles, it is most natural that numerous attempts were made in the past to identify this Polycleitan Hera with some extant monument. And, as the most beautiful Aphrodite extant, the Melian Aphrodite in the Louvre, was at once singled out as representing the most famous statue of which there is record in ancient authors, so the famous colossal mask of Hera, known as the Juno Ludovisi, was the first to be identified with the great Polycleitan statue. This identification has been abandoned. Then followed the so-called Farnese Hera, the claims of which were powerfully upheld by Brunn.

I HAVE lately spent some time in the locality in endeavouring to ascertain the true meaning of the passages concerned, which are as follows :

Three commentators, a Scholiast, Col. Leake, and Sir R. C Jebb, have devoted some attention to this matter, the two latter following the first, in part or altogether, in conclusions, with which I find myself at variance. The wrong view was blindly followed by myself in my translation.

I doubt if sufficient attention has been paid to the dramatic conditions of the problem to be solved. What had Sophocles in view, in planning this incident, and in writing these passages? He was proposing (1) to add interest to the action of the play by the conduct, behind the scenes, of a flight and capture along roads well known to his audience; and (2) to utilise this incident so as to bring out in Theseus the characteristic of thorough practical efficiency as a putter down of violence. Interpretations which make Theseus appear incompetent, or which militate against obvious facts of topography, should not be lightly hazarded; neither must we conclude, however we may be unable to explain the allusions, that they were not clear to an Athenian audience, or that Sophocles and his audience did not care that they should be clear.

The territory once occupied by the Mithridatic kingdom of Pontus lies between the Euxine and the northern edge of the high Anatolian plateau. It consists of a long strip of seaboard and a broader central tract of alternate river valleys and mountain ranges. The mountains and valleys run more or less parallel to the coast, and rise one behind another up the slope, like lines of gigantic entrenchments scored along a hillside. The channels whereby the Iris and the Halys pierce their way northwards are mere rifts cleft across through the ridges. The main trend of hill and dale is from east to west.

The northernmost chain of mountains steeply overhangs the Euxine and cuts off the seaboard from the country behind. Roads across this barrier are few and difficult. In the whole stretch of coast, from Amastris on the west to Trapezus on the east, Amisus is the only open door into the interior. Here, between the Paphlagonian mountains and the Paryadres range, the Halys and the Iris find an exit to the sea, and there is a slight dip—it cannot be called a gap—over which a great road penetrates to Amasia and Cappadocia. The road is not really difficult, but it is toilsome, for although this central section of the country is relatively low, yet the ridges and valleys pursue their course without interruption across the hollow, and if the former are not quite so high as in the east and west the latter are deeper.

Of the themes of the Byzantine Empire there exists in Greek only one systematic account, the confused and discursive work of Constantine Porphyrogennetos, from which little trustworthy information as to the history of the themes before the accession of the Macedonian dynasty can be gathered. The same author has also preserved a table of precedence drawn up by Philotheos the protospatharios in the year 899, which includes the generals of the various themes existing at that time; and he has himself given us a record of the salaries paid to the generals in the time of Leo VI. This lack of information may, however, be in part supplied from the Arab geographers, who provide us with five catalogues of the themes, the earliest of which, that of Ibn Khurdadhbah, is fifty years earlier than the list of Philotheos and about one hundred years earlier than Constantine's work. With this catalogue that of Al Idrisi (1154) is practically identical. The other three are that of Ibn Al Fakih Al Hamadhani (circ. 902), preserved in the Geographical Dictionary of Yakut (1224), that of Kudama (circ. 930), and that contained in the Khitab Al Tanbih wal Ishraf (Book of celebration and observation) of Al Mas‘udi (956). Of these descriptions those of Ibn Khurdadhbah and Kudama have been translated into French by Prof. De Goeje, and that of Al Mas‘udi by M. Carra de Vaux; of that of Ibn Al Fakih I give a translation below.

Such remarkable additions were made by last season's excavations at Knossos and in the Dictaean Cave to the small number of known specimens of pre-Mycenaean painted pottery of Cretan fabric, that it is worth while to deal with this ware anew.

It was first made known by Mr. J. L. Myres, after he had seen and drawn, in the Syllogos Museum at Candia, certain fragments said to have been found in a cave on the southern slope of Ida, two and a half hours above the village of Kamares. In his communication to the Society of Antiquaries (March 14th, 1895, Proc. XV., iii., pp. 351–356, Plates i–iv.) Mr. Myres rightly apprehended the period, character and affinities of this new and singular variety of early Aegean pottery. The colouring of his drawings, however, not having been applied with the models in sight, was not quite correct, and many of the fragments were republished by Dr. L. Mariani, (Monumenti Antichi, Vol. VI., riates 9–11, pp. 334–342), but in some cases were not improved upon. From the reported place of first finding this fabric is commonly called “Kamares“ ware.

No more of it was found for some years. While excavating the lower prehistoric town of Knossos in March last, however, we lighted on many Kamares vases and fragments, and were able to establish the fact that, so far from that ware being a rarity, it is to be looked for in Crete wherever any strata of remains underlie the Mycenaean. It occurred in our digging at Knossos at all points at which the early town was probed to the rock. On the Kephala hill, where the lowest stratum of deposit is a dusty yellow clay full of Neolithic weapons and sherds, Kamares sherds occur, where stratified, immediately above that stratum.

Among the greater monuments or actual structural remains of the Mycenaean world hitherto made known, it is remarkable how little there is to be found having a clear and obvious relation to religious belief. The great wealth of many of the tombs, the rich contents of the pit-graves of Mycenae itself, the rock-cut chambers, the massive vaults of the bee-hive tombs, are all indeed so many evidences of a highly developed cult of departed Spirits. The pit-altar over grave IV. of the Akropolis area at Mycenae, and the somewhat similar erection found in the Court-yard of the Palace at Tiryns, take us a step further in this direction; but it. still remains possible that the second, like the first, may have been dedicated to the cult of the ancestors of the household, and it supplies in itself no conclusive evidences of a connexion with any higher form of worship.

Believing that some account of the statues recently discovered in the sea near Cythera may be of interest to the readers of the Journal of Hellenic Studies, I have the honour to send the following particulars.

The discovery was made by sponge-divers, who informed the Greek Government that a number of bronze and marble statues, which had evidently formed the cargo of a shipwrecked vessel, were lying at the bottom of the sea near the island of Cythera (Cerigo) and not far from Cape Malea.

The Government sent two ships of the Greek Navy to the spot; with their aid the divers have brought to the surface a number of statues, some intact, some much injured by the action of the sea-water, and some in fragments. They have been brought to Athens and will in due course take their place among the treasures of the National Museum. Some of them, it is not too much to say, may claim a prominent position in the history of Greek sculpture.

The treasures of modern art preserved in Chatsworth House are well known to writers on the history of art. But of the small and choice collection of works of ancient sculpture contained in this fine mansion, the property of the Duke of Devonshire, information has up to now been almost entirely lacking to archaeologists. I myself have to thank the Duke's librarian, Professor Arthur Strong, for calling my attention to it, and for the opportunity of inspecting the collection in the autumn of 1895.

A description of the most important work, the bronze head of Apollo, an original of about B.C. 460, appeared in my book, Intermezzi, kunstgeschichtliche Studien (Leipzig, 1896), Plates 1–4, pp. 3 f. An interesting Roman relief has been published by E. Petersen in the Römische Mittheilungen (1899), Plate 8, pp. 222 f. I have also written a short notice of the whole collection in the treatise Ueber Statuenkopieen im Alterthum, I. (1896), p. 26. That I am now in a position in this paper to enter into more minute details with the help of photographs I owe to the kindness of Prof. Arthur Strong, (who was good enough to supervise the taking of the photographs), as well as of the editors of this Journal, to all of whom I must express my warmest thanks.

The following notes were collected on a journey from Kutaya to Alexandria Troas in September 1899. My main objects were roads and sites, but I copied any inscriptions that came in my way, and believe that those here given have not yet been published.

1. Aezanitis.—At Gyunuk Euren, three hours east of Chavdyr Hissar on the road to Kutaya, I noticed two tombstones of the door type which is characteristic of the country east of the Rhyndacus, and a pillar very like a milestone. One of the tombstones, which has a double gable, bears a half effaced inscription:

Left Arch.

Right Arch.

The history of tachygraphic writing in classical and post-classical antiquity remains still, to a certain degree, involved in obscurity, so that many problems still present themselves for final solution. What is the significance of the fact that while we have complete and certain knowledge of the Roman system, the notae Tironianae, the very existence of a corresponding Greek system is with difficulty proved? Were there three distinct systems of Greek shorthand, or only one in successive phases? How were they related to the ‘Tironian’? Are there any elements of method or of form which are common to all the ‘systems’ of antiqtiity known to us? In what degree was the Greek a genuine tachygraphy, i.e. a means of writing at a much greater speed than in the common hand? Or was it only a method of secret writing, or to economise space and labour?

In the paper on ‘Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Worship,’ (above, pp. 99 foll.) and in the various discussions of the Cretan discoveries, several theories and interpretations are put forth which have been too hastily accepted. I do not propose to deal with the whole question here, but to call attention to the fact that a great part of the evidence has been overlooked. It is not unnatural that, in the enthusiasm of a great discovery, the happy discoverer should be taken by an interpretation which is ingenious and in many respects alluring, since it offers a key to mysteries long unexplained. Nevertheless there are other facts to be reckoned with.

The theories I refer to are these: (1) that the double axes carved in the Cnossian palace have a religious significance; (2) that they are the symbol of Zeus; (3) that the pillar upon which several of these signs are carved was worshipped; (4) that the Labyrinth derives its name from the word the Carian name for an axe of this kind, and (5) that the palace of Cnossos was the Labyrinth, which means the House of the Double Axe. These theories are supported by the following evidence: (1) that the statue of Zeus at Labranda in Caria was described as holding in his hand a double axe, the local name for which was (Plutarch, Quaest. Gr. 45); (2) that double axes of bronze were found in the Dictaean Cave, where Zeus was worshipped; (3) Mr. Evans also collects a large number of facts to illustrate the worship of pillars, and apparently of axes also.

The inscriptions here published are for the most part in the Ghizeh Museum, where I copied them last year when assisting in the preparation of the catalogue of the Graeco-Roman rooms. They do not appear to have been edited previously, and offer some points of interest. The numbers given are those of the new catalogue.

The inscription is on a columnar statue-base of limestone ·88 metres high and ·53 in diameter, one side having been cut flat to receive it; the remainder of the surface is decorated with acanthus leaves. The letters are, in the first seven lines, ·026–·031 high: in the rest, ·015–·02. Date: 181, June 25th.

The stone was seen by Dr. Petrie about 1886 lying at Sakha (Xois), where he copied it, and appears to have been removed to the Museum three or four years ago. It is quoted by S. de Ricci in Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. 1900, vol. xxii. p. 381.

The name of Commodus has been deliberately erased in 1. 5, every vestige of the letters being cut away. A similar erasure has taken place of the name of the prefect in l. 15, but the work has been much less thoroughly done there, by merely digging a line through the letters. The traces which remain are, however, insufficient to make the restoration of the name possible. The nearest in date of the known prefects is Flavius Pris[cus], mentioned in a Berlin papyrus of the year 181/2: but his name will not suit.