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.

Mr. A. M. Daniel's article on the above subject (pp. 41 seq.) is so thorough and convincing that it hardly requires further support. But in view of the widespread acceptance of the attribution of the Lycosura statues to a late Roman date, I think a few words in further confirmation of his contention are not out of place.

In spite of the almost unanimous volte-face in the opinion of archaeologists since Dr. Doerpfeld expressed his doubts as to the Greek character of the buildings at Lycosura, my own view (expressed in the Athenaeum, March 22nd, 1890, and at a public meeting of the American School at Athens, January 6th, 1891) that Damophon's work belongs to the first half of the fourth century B.C. has not been shaken. Of course we must all remember that we have here to deal with the question of probability and not of certainty. Yet within these limits it appears to me that the balance of evidence strongly inclines towards the fourth century B.C.

No apology should be needed for treating afresh these much-discussed battles, if only because the last two years have produced new and important evidence from Delos; though in fact the literary allusions, scanty as they are, have hardly even yet been sufficiently elucidated. I hope in this paper to fix the dates of Andros and Cos by the Delian archon-list, and to consider what that means in terms of B.C. In a subsequent paper, to be published in the next number of this Journal, I hope, by working out the history of the ship which Antigonus Gonatas dedicated to Apollo, to confirm the date assigned to Cos in this paper. If these two dates could really be fixed, they would be invaluable for our understanding of Aegean history in the middle of the third century.

THE office of Federal Archon was apparently created in the League which was revived and reconstituted by Thebes after her liberation from Sparta in 379. Like the archons of the individual cities, the federal archons seem to have had little power; as Swoboda points out, the fact that their seat was not in Thebes but in Onchestus 4 shows that their functions were chiefly ceremonial. This explains why the Boeotarchs but not the archons of Boeotia are frequently mentioned in literature. The archons are, however, important as being the eponymous magistrates of the Boeotian League. From the revival of the League soon after 379 on into Roman times federal documents are generally, and documents of individual cities often, headed with the names of archons of the League.

There are few things in history more illusive and at the same time more persistent than the tradition that the Hellenistic language and culture did not cease to be part of the life of Southern Italy when Magna Graecia ceased to be anything but the shadow of a great name. It is a fact that the Hellenism of South Italy has a habit of being lost sight of. It hides itself, as it were, from the end of the Punic wars till the time of Justinian. After the end of the Byzantine domination it again burrows into the earth, and it is only now when it is indeed disappearing that we begin to realise that it has been there all the time. There have always been signs of its presence for those who will look for them.

It might seem waste of labour to examine minutely an account of the battle of Marathon and the Parian expedition so late as that contained in the brief life of Miltiades ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, more especially as I must confess that the results of my enquiry are in the main negative, and that such positive conclusions as I reach have not the charm of novelty, but serve merely to strengthen theories already well known, and in England at least widely accepted. But this late epitome is almost the only consecutive narrative of these events outside the pages of Herodotus. Marathon was sung by poets, and bespattered with rhetoric by patriotic orators, but such historical accounts as there once were of the battle have perished, save for the still later epitome of Trogus Pompeius made by Justin. Again there is good reason to think that Cornelius Nepos is here following the fourth-century historian Ephorus. This is manifestly the case in his account of the Parian expedition, the kernel of which is little more than a translation of the fragment of Ephorus preserved in Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Paros. That Nepos drew his story of Marathon from the same source is the general, and as I shall hope to show, the right opinion, though it has been denied by Dr. E. Meyer. Further, the view of the campaign and the conception of the battle to be found in Nepos have been accepted as historical by many of the highest authorities in Germany, e.g., by Drs. H. Delbrück, G. Busolt, and in the main by Dr. E. Meyer.

“Und jenen Sängern zu Smyrna, Phokäa, Kyme, Neonteichos, Larissa lag immer der majestätische Sipylos vor Augen mit seinen Felsenhöhen und Abgründen, mit seinen Quellen und kleinen Seen, mit der Erinnerung und Mahnung grosser Erdrevolutionen und Zerstörung reichen irdischen Segens und menschlichen Glückes. So ist denn hier das Bild eines Himmels auf Erden, eines zum Himmel strebenden Menschenglückes, aber auch das Bild eines überkühnen Hochmuthes und göttlichen Strafgerichtes vor allen lokal befestigt worden.” These words of Stark (Niobe, p. 409) well describe the peculiar fascination that the splendid mountain still exercises on one that lives under its shadow, and the ever-growing interest with which one returns to its past history. The least satisfactory part of Stark's excellent work is precisely that which treats of Niobe in Sipylos (98–109 and 403–46). It suffersfrom the lack of trustworthy information about the district. Even after he had himself had the opportunity of seeing for a few hours the socalled “Niobe,” and had recognised in it ein Gebilde alter heimischer, in den phrygischen Bildwerken der Göttermutter vielfach sich später aussprechenden Kunst und eines tiefen Naturgefühls, his rationalising treatment of the myth (Nach d. Gr. Orient, pp. 231–54) is very unsatisfactory. We are to believe that a powerful empire under a king Tantalus existed here, that his capital was destroyed by an earthquake, and his empire ruined by an Assyrian invasion (Stark's account seems to waver between the two and finally to adopt both explanations), that his son went down to the seaport of the empire and sailed away to find an empire and a bride ready for him in Greece. Though a poetic and fervid imagination, stimulated by the charm of the wonderful Sipylos, has made Stark's account a seductive picture, yet it requires only a statement of the theory in its bare outlines to show how uncritical it is.

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.

Among the books of the Apocrypha two portions stand out in strong relief as bearing the marks of genius. One is the Book of Wisdom, with its sustained moral fervour and luxuriant yet devout fancy; the other, the noble tragedy of the Book of Judith. The latter work has the further interest of presenting a curious literary problem. Is ‘Judith’ in any sense history, or even based on history, or is it mere romance ? Certainly the writer takes great liberties with facts. Time and place have to yield to the requirements of the narrative. Famous names are mingled together in extraordinary combinations. Nebuchadnezzar reigns over the Assyrians at Nineveh; and he reigns soon after the Jewish return from Captivity. An Arphaxad rules at Ecbatane as king of the Medes. An unknown high priest Joachim is supreme at Jerusalem. The book opens moreover with a catalogue of nations brought under this Nebuchadnezzar's sway; and the list teems with contradictions of history and even of probability.

Learned opinion since the time of Grotius has been almost unanimous in pronouncing the book to be an historical romance, of the time of the Maccabees or later, wherein the writer sets forth in parable the hopes and fears of his nation, and stirs up his countrymen to heroic resistance to the oppressor.

The six graves catalogued below were excavated in 1907 and 1908, at the same time as those already published by Professor Burrows and myself in B.S.A. xiv. and J.H.S. xxix. Their position in the cemetery is indicated on the Plan, B.S.A. xiv. p. 230, Fig. 1. Their contents consist almost entirely of Proto-Corinthian and Corinthian vases. None contained any vases of what we have called Boeotian Kylix ware, and only Graves 4 and 14, the latest of the six, show any direct connexion with graves that did contain it.

This connexion is worth noting in detail for its bearings on the view, put forward B.S.A. xiv., that the Boeotian Kylix style was, in part at least, the result of Corinthian influence. Indeed the chief importance of the graves here published lies perhaps in the confirmation they afford this view.

The scene in Iliad 11 where Nestor's slave Hekamede prepares a restorative κυκεών for his guests in his great cup, which only he can lift when it is full, has often been cited in connection with the skyphos from Ischia, dated to c.735–720 BC, with its verse inscription that alludes to Nestor's εὔποτον ποτήριον. Now that scholarly opinion is increasingly swinging towards a seventh-century dating for the Iliad, it seems more prudent than ever to see the Ischia inscription as a reflex not of our Iliad but of a similar Nestorian drinking episode in earlier epic tradition. His cup, as described, has features of a Bronze Age vessel; and the motif of the mighty goblet is paralleled in the Ugaritic Baal epic, current not later than the fourteenth century.

Here I want to consider another element in the scene, namely the grated cheese which Hekamede adds to her posset. I hope to show, by a combination of metrics and archaeology, that this too, even though it cannot be traced back to the Bronze Age, belongs to a traditional account that is many generations older than our Iliad.

The krater which is the subject of this paper is preserved in the Louvre. It has been well engraved in the Monumenti of the Institute, and discussed by Helbig in the Bulletino (1881, p. 276), by Robert in the Annali (1882, p. 273), and by Winter in his Jüngere Attische Vasen (p. 45). My object in resuming the study of it is twofold. Firstly, the vase is so remarkable for beauty and distinction of style as to have scarcely an equal, and it will be a good thing to bring it in any way to the notice of English artists and archaeologists. And secondly, in spite of Professor Robert's able paper, it appears to me that it is susceptible of a more complete explanation than it has yet received.

It was discovered at Orvieto in 1880, in a large tomb consisting of two chambers. In the same tomb were found several other vases, ranging in date from the early part of the fifth to the middle of the fourth century. Our vase was in that of the two chambers in which were for the most part later vases; but Professor Helbig states that the contents of the two chambers were broken, and so much intermingled that it was difficult to say that the vases lay in distinct groups. It seems therefore that the circumstances of the finding do not compel us to assign a particular date to our vase. Professor Robert would give it to the first quarter of the fourth century.

In 1886 the excavations conducted by the Greek Archaeological Society on the Acropolis at Athens laid bare the foundations of a large ancient temple immediately to the south of the Erechtheum. It was at once recognized that this temple must have been the one burnt by the Persians when they sacked Athens in 480 B.C. This conclusion has been generally accepted and there is no ground for questioning it. But Dr. Dörpfeld, who superintended the excavations and to whom we are indebted for a detailed plan and description of the existing remains, has propounded a theory that the temple was rebuilt by the Athenians shortly after the Persian war, and that it continued to exist as late certainly as the second century of our era and probably much later. If Dr. Dörpfeld had based this theory on the nature of the existing architectural remains, his judgment might well have been regarded as final, since no man living is better qualified than he to pronounce an opinion on all questions relating to Greek architecture. Certainly I for one would not have presumed to differ from him. But although Dr. Dörpfeld believes that the temple was twice burnt and twice rebuilt by the Athenians, he does not maintain that a single stone of the existing remains is of later date than the Persian sack. His theory of the restoration of the temple rests almost wholly on considerations of historical probability and on literary and epigraphical evidence. It is therefore one which every scholar is free to examine and estimate for himself.

Lunar mansions are twenty-eight constellations or single stars on the route of the Moon during the twenty-eight nights of its visibility. As a mere astronomical curiosity they could neither attract nor reward much attention. Accordingly learned discussions have been limited to descriptions, to controversies where and when they were first established, in Babylonia, India, or China, or to catalogues of the medieval evidence. But if it is realised that they were not observed for their own sake but because the revolution of the Moon was the basis of early time-reckoning which led to the creation of the first calendar, conclusions of more than limited interest can be produced by relating astronomical to religious problems. And this interest will be further increased by the realisation that our zodiac is nothing but the successor of the mansions as it served first the lunisolar, and then the solar, year, of which the former was a device to bring the monthly revolutions of the Moon into harmony with the annual revolution of the Sun, and the latter was based on the revolution of the Sun alone.

But how can we find material to reconstruct a system which was superseded in the remote past, seeing that even the victorious system remains in important respects mysterious, e.g. the reasons for the strange selection of the signs and the presence among them of animal and human figures? We are helped by two circumstances. One is the natural conservatism of our calendars, astrological prognostics, and magical texts: these often preserve traces of earlier stages of human thought. The second circumstance is less natural.

It must sometimes have occurred to readers of Byzantine literature, after they have perused a number of the occasionally valuable, but almost always dreary, works of which it is composed —lifeless chronicles, polemical and other theology, inflated panegyrics, and grammatical treatises—to ask the question, whether this was really all; whether a quick-witted and intelligent people, such as we know the inhabitants of Constantinople at certain periods to have been, were contented to subsist entirely on such dry mental food. No doubt, religious controversy often ran high, and this, when it fills men's thoughts, is apt to supply the place of intellectual interests; but such discussions did not last for ever, and could not have occupied the minds of the whole of the educated population. A certain source of relief was provided in the numerous poems, songs, and romances in the popular language—some of native growth and dealing with subjects of local or traditional interest, some imitated from the romances of Western Europe—which have been brought to light by the industry of such men as MM. Sathas and Legrand at Paris, Prof. Lambros of Athens, and the late Dr. W. Wagner of Hamburg. But even these do not furnish that element of liveliness, which we should expect to manifest itself in some shape or other in a great centre of activity.

Europe in the last two thousand years has three times passed through an experience which may fairly be called a Thirty Years War; in Greece from 432 to 404 B.C., in Central Europe from A.D. 1618 to 1648; and over the whole continent from 1914 to 1945; in all of them there were intervals in which the fighting ceased, but the interval hardly amounted to true peace; it was more like what a certain scholiast calls it, ἐχεχειρία ὕπουλος, ώδίνουσα, πόλεμον. In all three cases one notices a certain rhythm; an increase of brutality and demoralisation persisting to the end of the war and after, and later on a sort of revulsion of thought, an attempt to make sure that such evils shall not happen again. In our time it is the League of Nations movement; after the Thirty Years War it is the effort to distinguish between just and unjust wars, and establish international law, which centres in Grotius' De Jure Pacis et Belli. After the Peloponnesian War it is the magnificent conception of World Citizenship made specially articulate in Zeno's ideal Republic.

In the present paper I have tried to analyse a little more closely the actual reactions of Greek thought and practice to the first of these long strains of embittered war.