¹ My attention was first drawn to this letter by Mr John Sparrow, but I owe the opportunity to study it, and ready agreement to publishing the relevant passage from it, to Dr H. C. Harley, who is preparing a full-scale study of Sir Henry Acland, based on the Acland papers in the Bodleian Library. I must also thank the Keeper of Western MSS of the Library for permission to publish the passage (MS Acland d. 23, fol. 39).

² Later Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford (1857–94), and Fellow of All Souls College from 1840 to 1847. For a summary of Acland's life (1815–1900) see DNB Suppl. (1901) s.v.

³ Acland heads the alphabetic list of discarded sources in Cook's, J. M. authoritative survey of the Troad, The Troad (Oxford 1973) 15Google Scholar. I am not here concerned with Acland's opinions on Trojan topography, and may refer readers not familiar with the ‘Problem of Troy’, as it was before Schliemann's excavations, to Cook 14 ff., and, for Troy itself (Asarlik) to Cook 91 ff. Both in the letter quoted and in The Plains of Troy 36 ff., Acland accepted the current identification (Lechevalier's) of the Homeric Troy with Bunarbashi (mod. Pinarbasi), S. of the Menderes river (for which see Cook 123 ff.) and rejected that with Tchiblak (mod. Çiplak) (for which, as the wrong nomenclature for the actual site at Truva/Asarlik, see Cook 93). Acland's sketch gives a good panoramic view of the plain down to the foothills of Mt Ida to the south, and including the offshore islands. The best detailed map of the plain is behind vol. ii of Dörpfeld's Troja und Ilion (Athens 1902) Taf. I (after Spratt); Cook's maps suffer a little from lack of contrast.

⁴ Then no doubt preparing, with Robert Scott, the first edition (1843) of ‘Liddell and Scott’ (in which the Χρυσάνθινα did not at that stage appear). For Liddell (1811-98) see DNB Suppl. (1901) s.v.

⁵ The text of the letter is reproduced as written, except that (i) the main group of Greek letters (that with which we are concerned) has been standardised to a normal capital fount (which is fairly close to Acland's majuscules); (ii) in the word πανκράτιον, Acland omitted the AN, and inserted them above the line with the comment ‘(this omission is my mistake)’; for typographical reasons these letters have been inserted into the line; (iii) Acland copied the kappa of πανκράτιον as an angular beta, closed at the top, and with a long stroke nearly, but not quite, closing the lower loop; I have printed this as a beta, which is clearly how Acland regarded it (hence, perhaps, his comment’ ‘wh. I cannot understand’); (iv) I have omitted four fragmentary letters, given as ΛΡ below the alpha and theta of Χρυσάνθινα, and ∧⌉ below the last alpha of Χρυσάνθινα and the first alpha of ἀγεν.

⁶ I read this name as ‘Wire's’, or (less probably) as ‘Wise's’, but I cannot find a bookseller of either name in contemporary trade- and street-directories of either Oxford or London. Others may have more luck.

⁷ This inscription was originally published by Lechevalier, , Voyage dans la Troade ³ (Paris 1802:Google Scholar for further details about the publication of Lechevalier's work see Cook 22) iii 301, no. II (a good transcription), whence CIG 3616, and now, after intermediate editions, Die Inschriften von Ilion = IGSK 3 (Bonn 1975)Google Scholar no. 121. It is one of a group of three (or four) inscriptions in honour of Sex.Iul.Philon, passed by different tribes: ibid. nos 121–4.

⁸ It is impossible to identify this inscription with certainty, in the absence of a text, but it may well be Inschr. Ilion 88, first published by Bailie, Fasc. Inscr. Gr. ii (Dublin 1846) 196, no. ccvi (IGR iv 206; ILS 8787).

⁹ Acland subsequently, in his old age, published an album of nine drawings of which seven are of the sites of the Seven Churches (Oxford 1897: no text).

¹⁰ For the difficulties as to the location of this site (also wrongly regarded as the site of a city called Thymbra), see Cook 64 ff., 117 ff. Lechevalier, whom Acland followed, regarded the large Necropolis with many ancient stones in it at Halileli (Halil-Eli, Acland), north of the Dümrek Su (see Cook fig. 6, p. 110) as the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo, and it is to this that Acland is referring here. The stones were no doubt largely from Ilion (Cook 69).

¹¹ See Cook 389 ff.

¹² See the useful selection of these published by Moretti, L., Iscrizioni agonistiche greche (Rome 1953)Google Scholar, henceforth ‘Moretti’. The conventional type of inscription, with long lists of victories won by the honorand in games throughout the Greek world, begins with the Roman conquest (nos 51 ff.), and reaches its peak in the later Empire (nos 66 ff.). There is no full-scale treatment of the evolution of the games and their Imperial recognition etc. in the Roman period, but apart from the discussions of individual games a good deal can be extracted from the texts and commentaries in Moretti; see also the brief sketch in Jones, , The Greek City (Oxford 1940) 231Google Scholar ff.

¹³ See e.g. BMI 605 (Ephesos); 615 (Ephesos); IG ii² 3170 (Athens); IG xiv 1102 (Moretti 79; Rome); CIG 3208 (Smyrna); etc. It is regrettable that Moretti's publication does not note these decorative dividers; his work would have been much enriched by photographs.

¹⁴ See Apoll. Tyan. Ep. 75 (Hercher; Pedley, J. G., Anc. Literary Sources on Sardis [Camb. Mass. 1972]CrossRefGoogle Scholar no. 217), reproaching the Sardians for an outburst of violence: Ἐρινύων νομίσαι ἄν τις τὴν πόλιν εἶναι,καὶ οὐχὶ Δήμητρος. ἡ δὲ θεὰ φιλάνθρωπος· ὑμῖν δέ τις οὗτος ὁ χόλος. Mr E. L. Bowie points out to me a newly discovered and published letter of Apollonius (Penella, , HSCP lxxix [1975’ 305Google Scholar ff.), which contains a similar reference, in the same context, to the role of Demeter as poliouchos (p. 308).

¹⁵ Various deities have been claimed for the Χρυσάνθινα. Demeter was clearly an important deity of Sardis in Imperial times, as the passage quoted in n. 14 shows; and Demeter appears on the Imperial bronze coinage of Sardis in the act of searching for Kore: see BMC, Lydia 257 no. 138, and pl. xxvi, 10; cf. 265 no. 70. Kore, too, i represented on the coinage (Ibid. 249 no. 89, and pl. xxvi, I—her ravishment by Pluton), and there was a festival of the Kóρηα also: see JÖAI xxx (1937)Google Scholar Beibl. col. 214. 16, Κόρκς ἐν Σάρδεσιν; cf. L. Robert, Rev Arch 1934 59 n. 6 ( = Op. Min. Sel. ii 1023 n. 6); id.R Phil (1958) 2011. 3; Moretti 221. Head's explanation (BMC, Lydia cx) that ‘these games were named after the golden flowers which Kore was picking when Hades ravished her' has then much to commend it, whether we refer the festival to Demeter or to Kore. It is further possible, with Guarducci, , Epigr. Gr. ii (1969) 681,Google Scholar to see a reference in the festival to Χρυσανθίς, the Argive maiden who, according to Pausanias i 14. 2 informed Demeter of the rape of her daughter: λέγεται οὖ ὡς Δήμητρα ἐς Ἄργος ἐλθοῦσαν Πελασγὸς δέξαιτο οἴκῳ καὶ ὡς Χρυσανθὶς τὴν ἁρπαγὴν ἐπισταμένη τῆς Κόρης διηγήσαιτο. διηγήαιτο. The case, then, for the festival being one of Demeter and/or Kore seems strong. However, in publishing a fourth century B.C. dedication from the Latmiac Gulf, IDid. 125 (Berl. Abh. 1911, Anh. I, Siebent. Vorber. Milet 65), παρυὼ Ἀθηναίοι γυνὴ εὐχήν,/ ὑπὲρ Ἑστιαίης Χρυσάνθηι,, Wiegand said that the epikdesis Χρυσάνθινα ‘deutet oflenbar auf einen Aphroditekult der auch in Sardis existierte’, clearly referring to the Χρυσάνθη. (Rehm, in republishing the inscription, loc. cit., said that the reference to Aphrodite ‘scheint mir nicht ganz gesichert’, with which one can only agree.) Buckler and Robinson, ISardis 82–3, maintained that the festival was named ‘either after the marigold (χρυσανθές), sacred to Artemis, or more probably, after χρυσάνθη, a cult-name of the goddess (with reference to Wiegand's dedication, BMI 615 [not 614], etc.)’. But here again, as with Aphrodite, there is no specific link with Sardis, and the identification by way χρυσανθές seems very thin: the word is found only in Nic. fr. 74.69, and there the χρυσανθές appears in the company or λείρια which ‘fade upon the tombstones of the dead’, which seems more appropriate to Demeter than to Artemis. P. Herrmann, Wien. Denk. lxxx (1962) 17 no. 13, publishing a dedication from Saittai by Χρυσάνθινοι φίλοι also expresses doubts as to the link with Artemis (cf. also Bull. 1963 1691 no.234 0n no. 13). For Χρυσάνθη) as a proper name see e.g. Peek, GVI 1778 of the first half of the 4th century B.C. (Attica).

¹⁶ See Moretti nos 75.2, 7; 79.33; 81.20; (82.17); 84.16; 87.17:90.23 (all, except perhaps no. 75, of the third century: seen. 17); ISard. 77–9 (79 = Moretti no. 84); BMI 615.15; CIG 3208.16; FD iii. 1–550 line 20.

¹⁷ The Χρυσάνθινα are named on some Sardian issues from Septimius Severus onwards: see BMC, Lydia cix, and 260 no. 150; 271 no. 192; SNG Von Aulock, Lydien 3156, 3159; Inv. Wadditigton 5267; cf. L. Robert, RevArch 1934 59–61. The issues show a prize crown standing on a base inscribed Χρυσάνθινα, or a wreath so inscribed (BMC 271, no. 196). On the identification of the object as a crown, and not as a prize-urn see Robert, RPhil 1958 20 n.3 (who in this connection suggests that the festival derived its name from the prize of a crown of golden flowers: ‘c'est de leur prix particulier qui devaient tirer leur nom I᾿ ἀγὼν περιπόρφυρος de Sidon … et les chrysanthina de Sardis, en l'honneur de Koré, qui fut enlevée par Plouton alors qu'elle cueillait des fleurs.’). See also ISard. 77, in honour of an agonothetes [τ]ῶ[ν π]ρώτων ἀ[γ]ώνων Χρυσανθίνω[ν ἱερ]ῶ[ν εἰσε]λασ[τ]ικῶν [τῶν εἰς τὴ]ν οἰκο[υμένην ,κ.τ.λ.], referring to the Emperor Septimius Severus. It is, however, possible that Septimius had simply elevated an already existing festival. Moretti on no. 75 (Ephesos ii no. 72) argues that that inscription is earlier than Commodus and Septimius because there is no mention of Κομμόδεια or Σεουήρεια. If that argument is sound, then Severus must have elevated an already existing festival, since the Χρυσάνθινα appear in 75 lines 2 and 7.

¹⁸ This point was already made by Hicks in his commentary on BMI 615. For Chrysanthius's eulogy see Eunap. VS 500–5. For a Christian instance sec IG xii.i 674: Χρυσάμθιος ἀναγνώστης (Rhodes).