The excavations at al Mina, Sueidia, were undertaken as part of a programme of research covering a wide field in time and space. The object with which we set out was the tracing of connexions, if such existed, between the early civilisations of the Aegean, in particular that of Minoan Crete, and the more ancient cultural centres of hither Asia. Oriental influences working upon the art of Knossos have sometimes been suspected, but little evidence has been adduced to prove them; in some of the later periods of history, as for example in the ‘Orientalising’ phase of Rhodian pottery or in the Corinthian fabrics, the influence has always been obvious but the point of contact has remained obscure; intercourse may have been indirect, through the principalities of Asia Minor and the Ionian coastal towns, as has generally been assumed, or there may have been a more direct channel perpetuating perhaps an older tradition. I was myself strongly prejudiced in favour of direct contact, but only excavation could prove or disprove the theory; and the first step was to select a site which could give definite evidence.

Athenaeus quotes from Satyrus a passage in which is described the remarkable facility shown by Alcibiades in adapting his way of life to his environment (FHG III, 160 = Athen. XII, 534b): I. The Archaeological Report, λέγεται, φησίν, ὅτι ἐν Ἰωνίᾳ μὲν ὢν ‹Ἰώνων› ἐφαίνετο τρυφερώτερος, ἐν Θήβαις δὲ σωμασκῶν καὶ γυμναξόμενος τῶν Θηβαίων αὐτῶν μᾶλλον Βοιώτιος, ἐν Θετταλίᾳ δὲ ἱπποτροφῶν καὶ ἡνιοχῶν τῶν Ἀλευαδῶν ἱππικώτερος, ἐν Σπάρτῃ δὲ καρτερίαν καὶ ἀφέλειαν ἐπιτηδεύων ἐνίκα τοὺς Λάκωνας, ὑπερῆρεν δὲ καὶ τὴν τῶν Θρᾳκῶν ἀκρατοποσίαν. This chameleonlike quality of Alcibiades is also stressed by other writers, who, however, in cataloguing the localities in which he displayed his adaptability, differ somewhat from one another and from Satyrus. Plutarch (Alcib. 23, 5) mentions Sparta, Ionia, Thrace, the court of Tissaphernes; in another passage (Mor. 52e) Athens, Sparta, Thrace, the court of Tissaphernes; Nepos (Alcib. 11, 2) gives Athens, Thebes, Sparta, Thrace, the Persian Empire; Aelian (V.H. IV, 15) gives Sparta, Boeotia, Thessaly, the court of Pharnabazus. Now Athenaeus, in the passage where he quotes the above fragment of Satyrus, is evidently following a collection of anecdotes about Alcibiades (XII, 534–5, where he cites several other authors), and very probably Plutarch, Nepos, and Aelian derive their material from similar compilations, which were extensively used by writers of the Roman period; but, since florilegia on Alcibiades must have been numerous, it is not to be assumed that all are copying from the same florilegium.

Pl. V, 1 and 2 shows a plastic vase in the British Museum, in the form of an antelope's head, cut off flat at the base of the neck and with the orifice in the right ear. The clay is light reddish-brown with a very smooth surface, the glaze brownish-black. The horns, ears, eyelids, pupils, muzzle and outlines of jaws are black, the face is covered with fine black dots, the neck and throat and the burr of the horns with short black strokes; there are white dots on the muzzle, red in the interior of ears and nostrils, and an incised line round the pupils. Under the base is a black rosette with a white dot on each petal (Pl. V, 2). Horns and ears are broken off, but are preserved complete on a replica in Berlin (Fig. 1, a and Pl. V, 3). Mlle. Maximova pointed out the connexion of the two vases, though she wrongly stated that the London vase had no orifice. She mentioned two others with the orifice in the ear—a bull's head in Berlin and a ram's head in Florence, both also cut off flat at the neck. The bull's head has no other resemblance to the antelopes', but the ram's appears from the description to be of similar style. The main peculiarity of the painting of the antelopes' heads—the covering of some areas with fine dots and others with short dashes—recurs on a number of other vases.

The controversy about Zeus in the Prometheus Vinctus started by the late Dr. L. R. Farnell (JHS liii, 40 ff.) is not settled. Answers are wanted to three sharp-sighted questions asked by Dr. R. H. Maiden (ibid. liv, 201). The first is whether any one has considered the relation of the Prometheus Vinctus to the Semitic (Babylonian) myth of the fall of man. Later Dr. Maiden writes: ‘In Genesis the myth is used as the vehicle of a mediation on the origin and nature of sin. … But what was the original form [of the myth] before it had undergone the moralising process? … It is not impossible that … the moral character of God was not beyond criticism … the idea of a deity hostile to mankind presented no difficulty to the Semitic mind.’ Thirdly, he questions the assumption made, in his answer to Dr. Farnell, by Mr. H. D. F. Kitto (ibid. liv, 14 ff.), that the High God must be all-powerful and immortal.

Lately M. Dmitri Merezhkovsky has compared the myth of Prometheus with Babylonian myths (The Secret of the West, translated by J. Cournos, London, 1933, 57 ff., citing Bab. Tab. B.M. VI. 5, Beros. Babyl. ap. Damascen. de prim. princ. 125, Cuneiform Texts, I. c). Similar comparisons had been made before, for example by the late Professor A. H. Sayce in 1884 (The Ancient Empires of the East, 157. Cf. my forthcoming remarks in TAPA, lxvii; and now E. O. Forrer, Mélanges Cumont, 686 ff.) In the Babylonian myths a god must be slain to create man.

‘The story, which ends with the poisoning and suffocation of Demetrius, has reached us in a form which suggests, as do also certain other features of the later life of Philip and of the reign of Perseus, that some author or authors wrote tragedies or historical novels dealing with the ruin of the Macedonian royal house.’ Such is the startling, if cautiously phrased conclusion of a recent historian, discussing the last years of Philip V in a standard work; it is a conclusion which deserves careful consideration, for if it can be substantiated, it will be necessary to revise seriously our usual estimate of Polybius' merits as a historian. And since no discussion of the problem can be fruitful until Polybius' own attitude towards tragedy and its relations to history has been considered, it is from this aspect that Benecke's suggestion must be approached.

The appearance of a further instalment of these ‘Studies’ has been regrettably delayed, owing to several reasons. The present article is planned on different lines from its predecessor (JHS li (1931), 139–63), for, instead of offering a comprehensive study of one reconstructed stele, it attempts to review the post-Euclidean Hekatompedon-lists down to 390/89 as a group, and to establish their chronological sequence, in the light of fresh discoveries. It is proposed, also, to deal in subsequent articles with the corresponding lists for the Parthenon and the Opisthodomos in this period, and to continue the study of the later lists both of the Treasures of Athena and of those of the ‘Other Gods’ into the second half of the fourth century.

The opportunity of working continuously in the Epigraphical Museum for several weeks during the summer of 1931 enabled me to recognise that in many instances two or more fragments of these Traditiones which had been published separately could be assigned to one stele, and also to identify a few still unpublished pieces belonging to this series.

Mrs. Strong in her publication of this head has described it fully and has discussed its place, as a work of art, in the history of Greek scuplture, and it is not my intention to discuss the head from those aspects. It is to be dated, as she has shown, to the second quarter of the fifth century, probably between 470 and 460. It probably represents an Apollo, and chronologically belongs to the group which includes the originals of the Cassel Apollo and the Terme Apollo, both marble copies of bronze originals. As to its stylistic kinship with these or other works, any discussion would be fruitless, for it would be impossible to arrive at any degree of probability in attempting to attribute either the Chatsworth head or the two Apollos mentioned to any one of the Greek artists of that age whose names are known, for we have little or no evidence for their style.

The head was acquired by the sixth Duke of Devonshire at Smyrna from H. P. Borrell in 1838, and, according to a note from the vendor, was reported to have been found at Salamis in Cyprus. It would be a natural presumption that a head in the market at Smyrna would have been more likely to come from one of the Greek sites of Western Asia Minor. On the other hand, the mere fact that an unlikely, rather than a likely, provenance was given to the head is in its favour, for there would presumably be no reason to give it an unlikely provenance unless it was correct. So the head may really have come from Salamis in Cyprus. Further excavation at that site may throw more light on the subject. In any case, in the later years of the decade 470-460 B.C. there was a renaissance of Greek influence, especially Attic, in Cyprus after the battle of the Eurymedon.

When discussing the monetary reform of Solon, I adopted the view that he obtained his supplies of silver for his new coinage from Corinth: it was obviously necessary for the success of his scheme that he should get silver from some market other than Aegina, and Corinth appeared to be the only place that would ‘ fill the bill’: she had a coinage on a standard independent of Aegina, with the same unit of weight for the stater as that adopted by Solon, and it seemed probable that the stations established by Periander on the Illyrian coast would enable her to procure silver from the mines in the interior. But recent research by Mr. John May has shown that these mines were situated much further from the Adriatic than had been inferred from Strabo's account : the centre of the mining region was Damastium, and the site of Damastium, on the evidence of coin-finds, was clearly near Scupi (Skoplje) and the upper valley of the Axius.

The new edition of the Attic temple-inventories of the fourth and third centuries B.C. (IG ii. 1370–1552, with the addenda in IG ii., pars. 2, pp. 797–810), which we owe to Dr. J. Kirchner, is a remarkable achievement, which evokes the admiration and the gratitude of all philologists and historians who have occasion to deal with these documents. Only those who know the stones themselves, all of them broken and many of them barely legible, can realise the labour, the patience, the minute observation, the careful study of the suggestions of previous workers in this field, which the editor has brought to his task. That some gaps remain unfilled and some problems defy solution is in the circumstances inevitable, and we shall best prove our appreciation of what has been accomplished by making some contribution, however slight, to the furtherance of the task. Such must be my apology for these lines.

The Link will appear in May 1938, edited by Nicholas Bachtin. Contributors will include S. Baud-Bovy (Geneva), P. Bizilli (Sophia), T. Castanakis (Paris), P. Chantraine (Paris), R. M. Dawkins (Oxford), R.J. H.Jenkins (Cambridge) J. Humbert (Lille), L. Lacroix (Liége), F. H. Marshall (London), J . Mavrogordato (London), A. Mirambel (Paris), O. Merlier (Athens), D. Talbot Rice (Edinburgh), L. Roussel (Montpellier), G. Theotocas (Athens), P. Vlasto (Liverpool,) A. J . B. Wace (Cambridge).

The main object of The Link is to interpret the past of Greece through its present and its present through the past, and thus to reveal the basic unity of Greek civilisation in all its manifestations and throughout its whole development.

An illustrated inventory of the redfigured Oenochoae destined for the Attic Anthesteria (Beazley, Oinochoe shape 3), commenced by the late Prof. Frickenhaus and continued by Prof. Deubner (Attische Feste, p. 238: Die Darstellungen der Choenkannen), is to be completed and edited by the undersigned; information of unpublished examples will be received gratefully at this address.