In writing on Plutarch as a literary artist there is a tendency to confuse Plutarch's personality, which appears from his writings as ingenuous and somewhat naïve, with his style, which has all the sophistication of the classical renaissance of which his writings form a part. Actually, extensive acquaintance with many aspects of literary craftsmanship is visible in his work. His careful avoidance of hiatus was noticed as long ago as 1841 by Benseler. More recently it has been discovered that Plutarch writes rhythmical prose, with a great preference for certain definite forms. He is thoroughly versed in the various schemata for the presentation of material. Boissonade termed his style a mosaic because it is so well adapted for dealing with the various themes occurring in the Lives; Plutarch has in fact perfect command over matter and form as a result of a thorough acquaintance with a rich literary tradition.

The metaphors and similes which appear in this Life seem on a first reading in ill accord with the sophistication of its general craftsmanship. They are stereotyped into the thought-content, and even the diction, traditional for the symbolism they express. Their infrequency and the elaboration of the metaphors in particular makes them stand out starkly. This conspicuousness and careful articulation is significant. The metaphors and similes are in fact strikingly put so that they emphasise the passages in which they occur, and recall one another vividly to mind. Analysis reveals that they are used in two ways: as points of reference and emphasis (they occur only at important junctures) and to indicate the unity of lengthy passages. Long and elaborate metaphors occur at 11.1, 35.1, and 46.4, marking respectively the Germanic war, the civil war, and Marius' fate and death. A metaphor and simile grouped together, at 23.1 and at 32.1, 3 respectively, tell of Catulus' reverse and the Social War; two similes commence the developments which are to lead to Marius' death at 45.1–2. Less striking metaphors anticipate the civil war (10.5) and the Marian massacre (43.4).

The drawings we shall be looking at are those engraved on the backs of bronze hand-mirrors. The shape of the mirror is circular. The handle is sometimes made in one piece with the disc; but sometimes, especially in the earlier period, it was made separately of wood and bone, and joined to the disc by means of a tang. At a guess there may be fifteen hundred such mirrors. The quality of the drawing varies from good to bad. The range of subject is wide. There are, first, scenes from everyday life, especially, as is natural, toilet-scenes and courting-scenes; and secondly, scenes in which the lovers are not ordinary mortals, but divinities or heroes and heroines. Among these it is not surprising that two couples are especially popular: Aphrodite, and Adonis; Helen, and Paris or Menelaos. But there are also a very great number of heroic scenes that have no connection with toilet or courting. Sometimes one can see why a particular subject is chosen to decorate a mirror: the interest in Helen extends to the egg from which she was born. If Tyro is a favourite, one might perhaps guess that it is for the sake of the perfect complexion which gave her her name: but nearly always the subject chosen testifies only to the boundless love of the Etruscans for Greek heroic legend and Greek heroic characters, a love which women shared with men. Some legends are represented with more circumstance on Etruscan mirrors than in any extant Greek monument; of others there is no Greek representation, only an echo in a late writer; to others an Etruscan mirror is the only witness. Etruscan ladies could read: the personages are very often named; and these hundreds of inscriptions not only enable us to identify the persons and increase our knowledge of the myths, but are an invaluable aid to the study of the Etruscan language. The names of Greek heroes, heroines, and minor deities appear in Etruscanized versions, from which much may be learned about the character of the Etruscan tongue.

In this paper I advance an interpretation of Prodicus' conception of the correctness of names or terms. I advance this interpretation through examining a distinction between pleasures and pleasure terms that several ancient authors, most importantly the fifth-century Neoplatonist Hermias, attribute to Prodicus. Since Hermias lived many centuries after Prodicus, it is questionable whether Hermias' testimony is accurate. Consequently, I first present evidence to support the view that Hermias' testimony is accurate. Subsequently, I examine the grounds and context of Prodicus' distinction. I reject the view that Prodicus was interested in drawing distinctions between near synonyms according to standard usage. Instead, I argue that Prodicus' linguistic distinctions follow substantive distinctions between natural kinds.

The speeches of Critias and Theramenes form the central tableau of Xenophon's account of the reign of terror of the Thirty at Athens in 404–3 B.C. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the style and content of these speeches, in order to discover to what extent they may have been based on the texts of the original speeches. The vividness and pathos of the narrative of the siege of Athens, her surrender, the establishment of the Thirty and their expulsion have seemed to some commentators to have the quality of personal reminiscence. Recently the case for Xenophon's having been a witness of some of the events of this period has been argued anew, and in the present writer's view convincingly, by E. Delebecque, who refers to several passages which seem to convey personal impressions of events. Delebecque also argues, to the satisfaction of Sir Frank Adcock, that Xenophon composed this part of the Hellenica before setting out on the Cyreian Expedition. The acceptance of both these theses would add some weight to the present argument; but the possibilities here envisaged do not depend upon their support.

According to Xenophon's account, both speeches were delivered before the βουλή. The members of this body had been chosen by the Thirty, so that it seems certain that they were men who were known to favour the oligarchy. But whatever were Xenophon's political views at the time, it is unlikely that he was old enough to be a member in 404 B.C. Hence it is improbable that he heard either speech. Four possibilities may therefore be considered:

(1) That the substance of the speeches was reported to him from memory by a member, who perhaps took special pains to remember some of the purple passages.

(2) That his informant took the speeches down in shorthand.

(3) That Xenophon obtained complete copies of the speeches, and condensed them. (Both speeches as they stand are too short to be historical.)

(4) That the speeches in the Hellenica are entirely the product of his imagination.

This paper focuses on two problems connected with our sources for Athenian politics between 510/09 and 488/7 B.C.:

(i) In the Athenaion Politeia attributed to Aristotle (henceforth Ath.), ostracism is included in the laws of Cleisthenes (22.1). But later (22.3) the author of the Ath. dates the first ostracism (that of Hipparchus, son of Charmus) to the year 488/7. Depending on the date of Cleisthenes' laws, this leaves a gap of thirteen to twenty years between the institution of ostracism and its first use. Yet the very nature of the law suggests that it was passed for immediate use.

(ii) Cleisthenes' rival, Isagoras, is described in Ath. 20.1 as φίλος τῶν τυράννων. This label conflicts with two details in the political struggle. It involves Cleomenes, who had recently expelled the tyrants from Athens, in an astounding volte-face in supporting one who is known as φίλος τῶν τνράννων. Secondly, Isagoras had had the opportunity of imposing by force the kind of government he wanted—but it was an oligarchy (Hdt. v 72.1, Ath. 20.3: a council of three hundred), not a tyranny. How did the inappropriate label originate?

The reaction of most scholars to the first problem has been to reject the ascription of ostracism to Cleisthenes in Ath. 22.1 and 22.4 and date the institution of ostracism to shortly before the first recorded ostracism.

I have long suspected the 500 elephants of Ipsus, as the number is too remote from anything else known. Omitting these, the largest force of elephants which Greeks ever saw in action was the 200 of Porus; the largest force which any Greek ever commanded was the 120 or there-abouts which Eudamus brought to Eumenes; the largest force which any king is recorded on good authority to have possessed is the 150 of Antiochus III. The number which Alexander (who never used them in battle) collected in India cannot be ascertained; but the uniformly modest numbers which, Eudamus' force apart, figure in the history of the Successors before Ipsus show that he cannot have brought away from India anything approaching 200. The vast figures attributed by various writers to Indian kings and peoples may be neglected, though doubtless Chandragupta, reckoning in the forces of his vassal kings, did control a large number. I have now by accident stumbled on something which certainly will explain the number 500 attributed to Seleucus; it remains to be seen whether the explanation be the correct one. I am not claiming to give an exact proof that it is, but there is a very high degree of probability. I had better indicate the proposed explanation first before coming to the Greek evidence about Seleucus.

The vase illustrated in pll. Vl–IX(a) and figs, 1 and 2 is a red-figure volute-krater belonging to the Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology at Cambridge, and now deposited on loan at the Fitzwilliam Museum. It came to the Museum of Ethnology and Archaeology in 1886 with the Barrett Collection, but nothing further is known of its history. It was attributed to the Berlin Painter by Professor J. D. Beazley in Attische Vasenmaler, and in his Berliner Maler he classed it among the half-dozen earliest works of the master. Until recently it was severely repainted, but has now been cleaned. Much is missing; the surface is rubbed, and the restorer had not hesitated to plane away the edges of fragments where he could not arrange a clean fit; but it remains a fine and interesting piece.

Modern are: foot, with much of the lower part, including most of the rayed area and lower part of reverse figure; volute of one handle; rim, upper register and most of lower register of neck on obverse; patches on body and reverse neck (evident in photographs). The foot has been restored on the model of a complete volute-krater decorated by the same artist some years later. In the body pictures relief-contour is used rather sparingly, as usual in this artist's work; the small figures on the neck, like those on the London volute-krater, show a much fuller use of it. Thinned glaze is used for the usual inner body-markings; on the youth on B, however, they have all been obliterated, except for the end of one line on the back and of one on the upper arm. On this figure it is also used for drapery folds running from the righthand contour, both in the area about the waist and across the leg.

The stele from the harbour (‘la stèle du port’) of Thasos, SEG xlii.785, has been so named because it was dredged up from the small fishing harbour on 13 June, 1984. The inscription is of the greatest importance for Thasian epigraphy and dialect as well as for its contents, and has been amply published by H. Duchêne. While the stele of Thasian marble is preserved complete, the inscribed surface has suffered much from the effects of its immersion in the sea. The lower part is well preserved, and from line 42 to the end (49) there is no problem in reading the letters on the stone. Above that, it is a very different matter; some parts seem irretrievably lost, and much of the preserved lettering consists of faint traces only. My own examination of the stone confirmed that we can have complete confidence in Duchêne's facsimile. He and those who helped him have achieved wonders of skilful decipherment on this difficult text. Unless fancy new technology may one day offer better ways of recovering the letters on the stone, it seems unlikely that the readings published by Duchêne could be improved.

The vase which is the subject of the present memoir is a pyxis or small round box of a light yellow clay with a smooth surface, decorated with designs in a blackish brown, which is here and there varied with a patch of purple laid upon the black, or with a detail occasionally incised. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1865, and forms one of a set of eighteen which were ‘guaranteed’ as having been found at Phaleron near Athens.

The lid is decorated with a circular frieze of animals, representing five lions or panthers; the most important representation, however, is that upon the body of the vase, which is encircled with a single frieze of figures, consisting of four lions, a bull (recognisable by the shape of its hoof and its horn), and a group which is obviously a rendering of the well-known myth of Herakles and Geryon—beside Geryon is a further group of three bulls.

The definitive history of incipient vanishing point perspective in the antique world has yet to be written. It may be that the fixation on the fully developed centralized ‘Renaissance perspective’ has led scholars to neglect signs of early, still tentative explorations of the principle in Late Classical/Early Hellenistic art. It is my thesis that the evidence is there but has been overlooked in the search for more accomplished manifestations than the nature of the sources would indicate.

In 1898 there were discovered in the ruins of an ancient building (maybe a temple) near Novorossijsk several objects made of bronze (a candelabrum, the remnants of a tripod, the handle of a vessel, probably some consecrated plate), and together with them was found a woman's bust in bronze.

The style of the candelabrum reminds one closely of the candelabrum discovered in the vault of Mme. Zaitzeva in Kertch, and it dates consequently from the age of Augustus (see Rostovtzeff, Ancient Decorative Painting in the South of Russia, St. Petersburg, 1914, p. 207 f., Pl. LX.). The handle of a vessel, in all its details, is similar to handles of vessels found at Bori. The whole treasure found at Bori was published by E. M. Pridik (Materials for the Archaeology of Russia, No. 34), and it dates from about the beginning of the Christian era.

ἀναψηφίƷειν is to put to the vote for the second time an issue on which a decision has already been taken. Until recently known only from Thuc. vi 14 in pre-Aristotelian prose, the word is now shown by SEG X 38B 11–14 (v. infra) to have been not a literary coinage but a recognised procedural term. The noun *ἀναψήφισις is not yet recorded; but since a convenient way of referring to this rather complex conception is needed, I suggest that ‘anapsephisis’ should be used. I include in this conception the putting of the issue either in exactly the same terms as on the first occasion or in the form λῦσαι τὸ ψήφισμα ὃ εἶπε … περὶ …

Pindar, perhaps more than any other ancient poet, seems to demand from his interpreters declarations of their critical premises. In recent years scholars customarily have made initial acknowledgment to the work of E. R. Bundy, as psychoanalysts must to Freud, before they begin to offer their own modifications to and expansions of his fundamental work. Much contemporary scholarship has concentrated on the identification and classification in the odes of the elements whose function Bundy labelled and explained. But useful as this type of analysis has been for exorcising the demon of biographical interpretation, it has, like all orthodoxies, prevented perception of other equally important truths. It constitutes no radical heterodoxy to try to account for the fact that each individual ode, for all its dependence on common conventions of structure and of content, makes a different impression. Nor is it unreasonable to try to explain what makes Pindar's style and approach distinctive.

In my own work I have argued, though perhaps not always convincingly, that language as well as structure contributes to an ode's coherence. Scholars trained in America are more willing to assume that repetition of phrase or theme within a poem has significance, and that metaphors can simultaneously bear more than one connotation. The issues at stake have most recently been delineated by Michael Silk, in his discussion of the effect of metaphor in archaic poetry: ‘By “patent”, I mean effects whose existence is not in doubt, though their character may be disputed; by “latent”, those whose effective significance is so tenuous or marginal that one resents the impression of solidity that even mentioning them produces. Such insensitivity is more common than it should be among American classicists, many of whom have also been influenced by the “New Criticism”…’ As illustration of the erroneous American approach Silk cites Cedric Whitman's description of the thematic relation of fires in the Iliad. Silk himself avoids the trap Whitman falls into by considering only ‘patent’ metaphors, and these consistently out of context, so that there is no necessity to comment on the existence or non-existence of thematic connections among them. But it is possible—at least logically—to frame the question differently, and to ask whether a metaphor cannot have patent and latent associations at the same time.

In the course of a careful examination of the coins of Corcyra, I have come upon a variety of types which seem to me to allude to races of galleys. That the Greeks had such races is in itself probable, and is clearly proved by the testimony of ancient writers. But on consulting the ordinary works on the games and races of the Greeks, as well as those which deal with naval archæology, I have found that the matter has hitherto almost entirely escaped observation. I therefore feel called on to add a new chapter, which will indeed be but a short one, to the history of Greek athletic sports. And I imagine that Englishmen, who take so much interest in the races of yachts and rowing-boats, will not be ungrateful to me if I am able to show that such races are of greater antiquity than is commonly imagined.

That galley-races are as old as Homer may seem a rash assertion; yet this does seem to be implied in a passage of the Odyssey, though it is not directly asserted. This passage occurs in the 8th book of the Odyssey, at the place where Alcinoüs is speaking of the aptness in athletic sports of his subjects the Phaeacians.

Mentior at si quid, merdis caput inquiner albis corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum Iulius et fragilis Pediatia furque Voranus.

Horace, Satires I, viii, 37–9.

The years following the liberation of Greece from Turkish rule in 1833 witnessed what was perhaps the greatest display of industry on the Athenian Acropolis since the Periclean building programme. In 1837 the Greek Archaeological Society was founded for the purpose of carrying out a systematic if unscientific excavation of the Acropolis down to the classical level. The excavators sought first to clear the area of the Turkish buildings and accumulated débris which cluttered the surface, and then to work on the partial restoration of the ancient buildings: the Parthenon, the Propylaea and the Erechtheum.

References to the apobates have been collected by Reisch, Gardiner, Patrucco, Kyle and others, but the exact nature of this specialized event remains obscure. Patrucco in particular laments the scarcity of literary sources which he suggests provide little information. Yet the fullest account of the apobates appears in a lengthy passage in the corpus of Demosthenes (lxi 23-29, the Erotikos or Erotic essay) which strangely is not mentioned by any of the above scholars. I propose to update our knowledge of this contest, particularly as it relates to the fourth century B.C., in the light of this ‘new’ evidence. Because of the romantic nature of the essay, the reader should perhaps observe caution and allow for exaggeration on the part of Demosthenes, but even so several important observations can be made.

Seneca devoted two of his letters to Lucilius to a problem which had been treated quite differently in previous philosophical doctrine. Letter 94 is written against philosophers who believe that there is no need for praecepta, for single precepts and moral sentences or proverbs concerning individual and specific situations in human life. Moral progress rests solely and entirely upon the knowledge of some basic decreta which belong in the context of a scientific theory and provide sufficient help for every occasion in human life. The second letter, 95, deals polemically with those who admit nothing but praecepta in their educational programme and who reject every kind of dogmatic knowledge. The first group is represented by Aristo the Stoic, whose contempt of praecepta is also attested by Sextus Empiricus. For the other group, Seneca does not quote an authority. He does not mention Cynics and Sceptics who rejected moral and general dogmatism alike, and it seems to be very likely that he was thinking of his own teacher Sotion and the Sextian school who had no interest in ethical theory, but were very famous for their use of moral and psychagogic sentences.

Seneca's own opinion is far from being original. He says that both—praecepta and decreta—are useful and even necessary, and this position was already held by Cleanthes, Panaetius and the majority of Stoics, by Aristotle and other philosophers.

The question as to whether Seleucus was included in the Peace of 311 B.C., when the allied coalition came to terms with Antigonus the One-Eyed, has been frequently discussed. Droysen's opinion that he was not seemed to be confirmed in a conclusive manner by Munro's discovery at the end of the century of the Scepsis inscription, in which Antigonus, in an official letter to the city of Scepsis in the Troad, sets out the terms of the peace treaty and the names of the participants; for, as in the brief passage of Diodorus dealing with the same event, there is no mention of Seleucus. Nevertheless, Beloch and others were unconvinced, and supported their dissenting view by pointing to the fact that the historical record showed no clear trace of fighting between Antigonus and Seleucus immediately after 311. Subsequently, however, it was established that such fighting did take place at that time by the discovery of fragments of a Babylonian chronicle relating to the Successors. This new evidence also made it clearer than ever that Seleucus had not been included in the Peace, by showing that the chief motive of Antigonus in making peace then was the wish to be left free to combat Seleucus, who had just re-established himself as an independent power in the eastern satrapies of the empire. The correct interpretation of the evidence would seem to be that given, for example, by Rostovtzeff: that Seleucus was excluded from the Peace, because Antigonus insisted upon this condition; that Cassander, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus acquiesced; and that war was at once waged against him by Antigonus.

When a Persian came into the presence of the great king he greeted his lord by a form of salutation which the Greeks denoted by the verb προσκυνεῖν and the noun προσκύνησις. The verb, a compound of κυνεῖν, to kiss, means ‘to send a kiss toward.’ It is the word used to describe the commonest Greek act of devotion to a god—the custom of bringing the hand to the mouth and wafting a kiss toward the image of a god. This act, represented on a number of Attic vase paintings, was commonly performed by the Greeks and Romans when they passed the numerous images and shrines of the gods along their streets. Under the guise of performing the proskynesis to Poseidon, Demosthenes is said to have deceived the emissaries of Antipater and to have brought the poison to his lips. The idea of the kiss as a concrete sign of worship is originally strong in the word and usually persists in it, though sometimes the meaning seems to be little more than to worship. The use of the word to describe the Persian greeting indicates that the Greek saw in the salutation of the king a kind of cult kiss. By a custom familiar in the East from very ancient times until to-day, the subject threw himself on the ground to perform the salutation.

In a former article on the Tekmoreian Guest-Friends many difficult problems were stated relating to (1) the organization of the Imperial estates which originally were the property of the God Mê at Antioch-towards-Pisidia, and (2) the constitution and character of the Association of Tekmoreioi; and a partial solution of them was proposed. That Saghir was likely to be the best point for excavation and discovery of additional documents was pointed out on p. 350. In 1911 we camped at Kökuler for three nights, as this was the nearest point to Saghir to which waggons could reach. We spent the two intervening days in visits to Saghir; but, as nearly three hours were needed in going and two hours in returning on each day, the actual time in Saghir was very inadequate. On the third day we visited Gondane, and went on towards Oinan-Ova across the mountains. In Saghir we found a score of inscriptions, mostly small fragments, and revised one or two of those already published: this was certainly the chief centre of the Tekmoreian Association. In Gondane we found one new inscription. The need for longer study is as great as ever. That Gondane should be a sort of secondary centre for the Association is probably due to the fact that it lay on the great road from Apollonia and the west to Antioch and the east, whereas Saghir was remote and high on the slopes of Sultan-Dagh.