In the past the inaccessability of the Lasithi district of Crete has made a thorough botanical survey difficult. Its flora is still imperfectly known, but as far as can be ascertained at present, it is definitely not as rich in rare plants as several other Cretan districts. Even so, it contains well over a dozen of the island's most spectacular endemics.

The Lasithi plain itself is too well cultivated to allow many plants to grow, but the annual Crepis rubra, with flowers like clear pink Dandelions, is a weed on many of the banks. During late summer the grey spiny hummocks of Cichorium spinosum are none too lavishly dotted with their soft sky-blue flowers of typical Chicory shape, and in the walls at the western end of the plain Aristolochia sempervirens is firmly established. The leaves are shaped like arrow-heads, of a dark and glossy green, and among the long twining stems hang down the flowers. Their bent tubular shape is weirdly fantastic and their colour equally so, being dark brownish maroon with a startling golden blotch on the lip.

Returning to Smyrna from a journey up the Aeolic coast in July 1960, I stopped at the village of Buruncuk, which lies at the foot of an ancient site on the north edge of the Hermus Plain. The site is the excavated one commonly identified as Larisa Phrikonis or Larisa Aegyptia.

It is not, however, certain that the identification is correct. In view of its position on the Hermus Plain and the sudden access of prosperity that the excavations show to have occurred there after the middle of the sixth century, we can confidently recognize the site as one of the two towns of the Hermus Plain that were given by Cyrus the Great to the soldiers of the Egyptian guard after the defeat of Croesus in front of Sardis; and we know that Larisa was one of the two towns. But the possibility remains that the Buruncuk site is the other of the two towns (i.e. Cyllene) and that Larisa itself was the more impressive site on the hill above Yanik Köy four miles further east. We shall return to this problem; but for the present purpose we may note that Larisa and Neon Teichos, which is commonly identified with the Yanik Köy site, lay close together in the vicinity of the Hermus Plain.

In the spring of 1896, a small excavation conducted by Mr. Cecil Smith, then Director of the British School, resulted in the discovery of the site of the Kynosarges gymnasium on the left bank of the Ilissus below Callirrhoe.

The excavation also brought to light a considerable number of ‘Dipylon’ tombs. It is unfortunate that, according to the law as it then stood, the larger part of the vases found in these tombs passed into the hands of the owner of the site and are now beyond reach, but a certain number are preserved in the Museum of the British School, and these, to judge from a photograph of some of the lost vases, I believe to be good representatives of the whole group. I have to thank Mr. Cecil Smith for permission to publish them.

There are in all forty-four vases, many unfortunately very fragmentary. Besides these there are three pieces which show traces of later oriental influence. The numbers are those of the Museum Catalogue.

The occurrence of formulae in Attic inscriptions is, of course, universally recognized, although it has perhaps become clear that an over-rigid approach towards them, particularly in fifth- and early fourth-century examples, is unwise. The usefulness of such formulae for restoration also depends to a certain extent on the volume and the spread of dated, or approximately dated, material available. In the case of citizenship grants the situation is particularly good since there not only exists a reasonably large and widespread set of more or less closely dated documents but the decrees themselves contain a peculiar feature which renders them especially susceptible to restoration. Indeed, there are some grounds for regarding decrees that record grants of citizenship as forming a special category among honorific decrees. The reason is that the full formula for recording the grant always consists of more than one distinct clause or element. There are always at least two clauses involved, each of which (apart from the simple statement of the grant) refers to a specific and necessary point of procedure; and each of these elements of the full formula has its own individual formula in the sense of having a distinct method of expression. Thus, in citizenship decrees, even when the form of expression within the individual elements is open to variation, the general, or over-all, formula for the grant remains the same in a given period, in that the individual elements themselves remain. For instance, in the earliest grants the total granting formula embraced two separate elements, namely the statement of the grant, and the enrolment of the recipient into a deme and tribe and phratry. Both of these elements could be (and were) expressed in slightly different ways, but the two points themselves are always present in the record. So the over-all granting formula is the same.

This inscription consists of two decrees, one of which gives a certain Sthorys the Athenian citizenship, the other of which provides for a simple amendment. Despite fairly numerous editions, a number of difficulties of detail remain which seem sufficient to warrant a further discussion. In the first place, the most recent editors, Wilhelm and Meritt, while agreeing on the general substance of the text, have a number of discrepancies in their readings, though neither has provided a detailed commentary on the readings adopted. In addition, the full implications of fragment (b) have not been taken into account hitherto. Secondly, Sthorys, the recipient, is a very shadowy figure, and the precise circumstances in which he received Athenian citizenship are not altogether clear. Thirdly, the formula employed for the grant of citizenship in this decree is somewhat unusual compared with that found in other such decrees of the fifth and early fourth centuries. The purpose of this article therefore is, firstly, to provide a new text with a full critical commentary, and also to consider the physical details of the stele; secondly, to consider fully the contents of the two decrees, and in particular the status of Sthorys and the possible reasons for his honours; and finally, to discuss the formula for the grant of citizenship in this decree and in the other preserved examples of the fifth and early fourth centuries.

This paper investigates the transformative effects on technology of state collapse and related major cultural transitions in the period 1200–1000 BC (Late Bronze to Iron Age). It documents and assesses a notably large, preserved metal artefact assemblage (mainly bronze) from one of the best-known Mediterranean sites of the period. This is the large mountaintop town of Karphi, recently confirmed through excavation as occupied solely at the Bronze–Iron transition. Few other contemporary Aegean settlements sharing these characteristics of size, complexity and single-period occupation have been excavated, producing a lack of comparably informative metals assemblages. This contextual interpretative study considers in-depth knowledge of the archaeology of the site and its landscape alongside the results (published and discussed in Archaeometry in 2021) of surface HH-XRF testing on the whole assemblage. The latter is preserved in similar condition throughout, offering opportunities for broad internal alloy composition profiling by the latter method, as well as limited general compositional comparison with other assemblages from the contemporary Mediterranean. Comparisons of an interregional nature are attempted through typological, technological and contextual study of the Karphi material. In considering using this range of evidence, and considering how procurement, manufacturing technology and consumption processes around bulk metals and metal artefacts changed following state collapse, the analysis dwells on and highlights signs of locally centred, agent-driven shifts in contact, cultural and economic networks. On the basis of the full range of evidence addressed, it argues that Lasithian groups made specific, informed choices about manufacture and consumption without relying on specialised manufacture and supply from other points within Crete.

The Corinthian Helmet Catalogue No. B2, of a popular seventh-century design, is described and classified. It is dated to the first half of the seventh century, and placed in Snodgrass's second group.

While the development of the Mycenaean goblet and kylix has been studied in some detail, comparatively little work has been done on their Cretan equivalents. We are still, in the main, dependent on the remarks of Evans in Palace of Minos, who was mainly concerned with the L.M. II examples; on brief comparisons made by Furumark, who was basically considering Mycenaean pottery; and on some general observations by Mackeprang. Though in part this is due to neglect of L.M. III pottery as a whole, a main reason is no doubt the scarcity of intact decorated kylikes in Crete. Leaving aside the L.M. III goblet, only thirteen have been illustrated in publications and a similar number of other unpublished decorated kylikes are on display in the various museums of Crete. A list of the published vases and of others is given at the end of this article. Even allowing for unpublished kylikes not on display, this small number is unlikely to be an accident of excavation; it is evident that the decorated kylix was rare in Crete in L.M. III, though plain examples are much more common, particularly in central Crete. In the east of the Island, however, both kinds appear on present evidence to be exceptional.

To some additional notes on this series I have appended the accounts of Chios given in the three unpublished Isolarii, as samples of their style and scope. Chios is chosen as being the native island of Lupaz-zolo, the most important of the three authors.

The sequence of construction of the Propylaia to the Acropolis of Athens is reassessed in the light of Pontus Hellstrom's suggestion that the two unbuilt east halls, and the original plan for the S.W. hall were intended to be dining halls like the Pinakotheke. It is argued that the objections of the various priests are unlikely to account for changes in plan; that the east halls were abandoned before work started on the S.W. wing; and that the cause of the change was financial, the need to economize in the face of the growing certainty of war with Sparta.

I Propose here to discuss briefly the topography of the triangular district which is bounded on the west by the range of Taygetus, on the east by the sea from the mouth of the Eurotas to the Bay of Skutari, and on the north by an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the Eurotas due west to Taygetus.

Approach.: The subject of this talk is in one sense a rather personal one. I am venturing to say something about my own approach to History. I had the good fortune to be born just not too late to come in for the old-fashioned ‘Early Modern Western’ education in the Greek and Latin languages and literatures; the first grown-up job that I did was to teach Greek and Roman history for the School of Literae Humaniores at Oxford; and, in afterwards exploring other provinces of history, I have always found my way into them through a Greek gate. Greek history has been, for me, the key to world history.

The inscribed fragments here published were discovered in the third season of the excavations at Palaikastro. We knew already that a Hellenic temple had stood on the site of the Minoan town. The building itself had been destroyed, but architectural terracottas, bronze shields, and other votive offerings were found near the surface in sufficient numbers to indicate its position, while a bed of ashes fixed that of the altar. The finding among its scattered débris of a Hymn addressed to Zeus of Dikte furnished a welcome identification. It left no doubt that our temple was the temple of Diktaean Zeus which is several times mentioned in the famous award of the Magnesian Arbitrators in the frontier dispute between Itanos and Hierapytna, and that the plain of Palaikastro was the Heleia which both cities claimed.

Professor Wace's brilliant services to archaeology have been diffused over so wide a field that it is not difficult to cite some notable work of his in connexion with almost anything that one may oneself offer to his Festschrift. As I wish to write of a famous fifth-century bronze statue, I may gratefully remember his illuminating article on the Chatsworth head, printed in JHS LVIII (1938), 90–95.

It is more than twenty years since John Boardman with his ‘Pottery from Eretria’, published in Volume xlvii of this Annual, aroused a fresh interest in the study of Euboean pottery. A certain amount of work has been done on the subject since then, but there has been no controlled digging of cemeteries from which the main lines of the development of Euboean vase-painting in the sixth and fifth centuries can be established. So owing to the lack of external evidence, research on the subject continues to advance in a haphazard fashion and consists to a great extent in guesswork based on scanty material, as has recently been pointed out by Dietrich von Bothmer in his ‘Euboean Black-figure in New York’, the latest contribution to the subject. I wish here to add some more to the small corpus of vases already attributed, observing their relationship to the three great Eretrian amphorae in Athens and to one another.

In my study on the chronology of Middle-Byzantine churches after considering the contrary evidence I accepted the dated inscription in the west front of H. Theodoroi at Athens as a record of the erection of the present building. In an additional note reference was made to an article by Xyngopoulos, published after my own had gone to press. To support his dating of the church in the twelfth century he introduces new arguments which I suggested demanded a re-examination of the evidence. More recently Laurent has dealt conclusively with some of the points in connection with the inscriptions raised by the Greek scholar. But, while his verdict on their content may be accepted with confidence, for the archaeologist the question is not yet closed. Laurent's main theses are that in the first place the date on the smaller stone should be reckoned by the Byzantine era and interpreted as 1049, and, secondly, that the metrical inscription should be attributed to the eleventh century, if not earlier, in preference to the twelfth. However, of the relation of the two stones to one another and to the church into which they are built he speaks with less conviction. He favours the prima facie view that the present building was erected by Kalomalos in 1049, but, if the church is shewn on stylistic grounds to be of later date, he is prepared to dissociate both the dated and the metrical inscription from the foundation and to place the latter in the tenth century or even earlier (p. 82).

The strict Lenten fast of the Greek Church is preceded by a carnival of a fortnight's duration. The week from Septuagesima Sunday to Sexagesima is celebrated with feasting and merriment subject to no religious restrictions; in the second week, although similar festivities continue, heightened rather than abated, no meat may be eaten; and on the morrow of Quinquagesima (for Monday is the first day of the Greek Lent), the full regulations as to fasting come into operation, not only meat, but fish, eggs, milk, cheese and oil being almost universally prohibited. None the less a free use of wine makes the Monday the climax of the carnival.

This paper discusses four Hellenistic inscriptions in the Sparta and Larissa Museums recording decrees for foreign courts. New proveniences, from Krannon and Peparethos, are suggested for two of the decrees. A full restoration, based on a parallel document, is provided for the Peparethian decree. New readings and restorations are also offered for the two other decrees. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the significance of these texts for the history of the late Hellenistic period.