Like his predecessor Herodotus, Ctesias has a great deal to report of marvellous springs, lakes and other bodies of water. Indeed, in one of the most noteworthy tales in his book on India, he describes a remarkable well which produces not water but gold. The story has never been discussed in full. A recent scholar, in fact, in one of the few allusions to it, reproduces the account, but only in part, namely the lines which concern the gold. The original narrative, however, includes much more, for it deals, in addition, with the iron found at the bottom of the well and with its remarkable properties, as well as with the two swords of this metal which Ctesias allegedly received, one from the queen-mother, the other from the king.

In the archaic room of the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome there is a fragment of a colossal foot wearing a high sandal of the type known as Tyrrhenian. (Fig. 1, from photographs for which I have to thank the authorities of the British School at Rome.) The measurements, as given by C. L. Visconti, are:—length ·26m., breadth ·37m., indicating a total length of ·86m. It is important to notice that the fragment is not broken at the back, but is made in a separate piece. From this fact we may conclude with certainty that the foot belongs to a female figure, and protruded originally from long drapery, so that it was unnecessary to carve more than the front of the foot in a separate piece; and with great probability, since there are no dowel holes or other visible signs of attachment, that the statue to which the foot belonged was acrolithic, i.e. it had the trunk and limbs made in wood, while only head, hands, and feet were carved in marble.

The epistates of the prytaneis is last attested in 403/2 and the epistates of the proedroi is first recorded in 379/8. So much for the direct epigraphic evidence. Though Rhodes believed that the proedroi might not have been in existence as late as the 390s, MacDowell and Hansen proposed that they were instituted soon after 403/2. But a little noted passage of Apollodorus suggests a low date for the introduction of proedroi.

There is no denying that Theophrastus ranks among the most prolific Peripatetic philosophers. Diogenes Laertius lists 225 items in his bibliography, some of them perhaps twice—first as an independent treatise, then as part of a larger work. As time went on, this vast oeuvre suffered the usual vicissitudes: the overwhelming majority of it has been partly or entirely lost. In sharp contrast to the Frankish West, where, despite great losses, more texts were in circulation under Theophrastus' name than was justified, in the ever shrinking Byzantine world we find comparatively few references to him. But this surely does not mean that the small number of references are unreliable.

The four antefixes from Tarentum, shown in Plate XXXII., where they are reduced in size to about half the actual diameter, are only specimens selected from the not inconsiderable number of types found in recent excavations. All that I have seen are marked by great breadth and freedom of execution. Even those which seem to have been originally cast, in the rough, in the same mould have undergone such subsequent touching up and remodelling as makes them distinct works of art. Identical types sometimes occur in slightly varying sizes which implies successive moulds imitative of some established original. The faces when found are covered with a hard and rough lime-deposit, but the removal of this often reveals traces of colour laid as usual on a white priming. The Medusa, head in the plate appears to have been coloured to the life—cheeks pink, lips red, and not only the pupil, but even the iris of the eye painted. The colour of eyebrows and lashes is dark, that of the hair now a dirty brownish-yellow—like the tint of the common yellow lichen—probably modified by time or by the action of the acid used to remove the lime accretion. The modelling of the lips shows that fleshy and life-like firmness which is peculiar to the best time of Greek art. Under the chin of this, or a similar head I notice the marks of the moulder's finger, but instruments seem to have been used also. The lines of the hair, though fine in the plate, lose considerably by the absence of the part by the cheeks, where over each ear there rises a snake curved like a flattened S. The specimens which show these do not come up in features to the one figured. The colour on the snakes is blue-green. The small button above the centre of the brow is a curious feature.

The accompanying cut represents the painting upon a hydria in the British Museum (No. E 818). The design, in red figures, covers the body of the vase, which apparently dates from early in the fourth century B.C., and stands 32 mètres high; the glaze is of that semi-iridescent character which marks the Attic vases of this time, and the red figures are smeared with ruddle and show the original sketch marks very plainly. It was found in excavations in Rhodes in 1880, outside a tomb at the site named in Mr. Biliotti's Diary Cazviri; unfortunately the circumstances of the find do not assist us in determining more accurately the date; but it may be taken as of certainly Athenian fabric, and probably of the date above stated.

Of all the renderings of the goddess Hera, the gold and ivory statue by Polycleitus in the Heraeum near Argos was the most famous, and was considered by the ancients one of the most beautiful works of Greek art. It certainly held its place beside the masterpieces of Phidias, and is even called by Strabo the most beautiful of all.

As in the case of the Zeus and Athene of Phidias, and the Cnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles, it is most natural that numerous attempts were made in the past to identify this Polycleitan Hera with some extant monument. And, as the most beautiful Aphrodite extant, the Melian Aphrodite in the Louvre, was at once singled out as representing the most famous statue of which there is record in ancient authors, so the famous colossal mask of Hera, known as the Juno Ludovisi, was the first to be identified with the great Polycleitan statue. This identification has been abandoned. Then followed the so-called Farnese Hera, the claims of which were powerfully upheld by Brunn.