Amongst the unattributed Apophthegmata Laconica of Plutarch is one (no. 67, 236D) which seems to refer to an episode in Spartan history not recorded elsewhere in the extant sources. The text is as follows:

The details of the affair are lacking, but it is clear that the apophthegm presupposes a Spartan embassy to a tyrant named Lygdamis, on a subject which made him unwilling to receive it. The identity of the tyrant in question is not immediately certain; in addition to the famous Lygdamis of Naxos, the adventurer who assisted Pisistratus in his final attempt at securing power and was in return himself installed as tyrant of his native island, there was a Halicarnassian tyrant of that name, the son or (less probably) grandson of Queen Artemisia; and her father, who was also called Lygdamis, was quite possibly himself a tyrant. However, the chance that the reference here is to a Halicarnassian tyrant is I think remote. There is no tradition of Spartan dealings with Halicarnassus either in the time of Artemisia's father or in the generations immediately following her, nor can any plausible occasion be suggested; the former period is marked by Sparta's concentration on home affairs, the latter by her complete abdication from trans-Aegean politics in favour of Athens after 478 B.C. Thus whether the apophthegm be genuine or invented it seems unlikely that a Halicarnassian tyrant is meant; for even invented Laconisms, if credited with specific circumstances, are usually made to have reference to something either historical or at least plausible.

The seal impressions here described were obtained in 1906 by Mr. C. T. Currelly for the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, from a native dealer in Egypt, who stated that they had been found in a large pot at Edfu. This account of their finding is possibly correct. The impressions are on lumps of clay, which have evidently been used for sealing rolls of papyrus: in most cases the back of the clay shows the traces of the papyrus fibres, and nearly all the lumps have longitudinal holes through them, in which calcined remains of papyrus binding can sometimes be discerned. Presumably these impressions are the remains of a collection of rolls similar to those found at Elephantine, which were bound round and secured by lumps of clay placed on the binding and sealed with signets: the rolls have been burnt, and thereby the clay was baked and the sealings preserved. As regards the find spot being Edfu, this is to some extent corroborated by the internal evidence of the types, more especially those of the Egyptian class, as will be seen below.

In a recent article in this journal (JHS cvii [1987] 51–57) Garth Fowden has argued that the obelisk from Karnak erected by Constantius II in Rome in 357 had been promised to that city by his father Constantine, as Ammianus Marcellinus states, and was not originally intended, as was claimed in the (lost) inscription on its base, for Constantine's new foundation at Constantinople. The interesting suggestion is made that Constantine might have been in touch with Athenian religious experts over the matter, and the project is seen as an earnest of ‘his desire to conciliate the pagan Establishment of Old Rome’. The point of this piece is to enlarge on the possible significance of the obelisk to contemporary Christians that is hinted at by Dr Fowden.

Constantine paid three visits to Rome as emperor, in 312, after winning the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, in 315 during the celebration of his Decennalia, and in 326 for his Vicennalia; on at least one of these occasions, he gave offence to non-Christian Romans by declining to perform the customary procession to the Capitol to offer sacrifice.

That the physical description of a biographer's subject constitutes a natural and (one should think) necessary element of the genre seems an unremarkable premise on which to entertain a reading of Plutarch. In such chronicles of wasted time as we possess, after all, descriptions of the fair and the not-so-fair are hardly unusual, regardless of literary category. And, at least since the time of Leo, the prevailing scholarly assumption has been that Plutarch's Lives ordinarily include an account of the subject's appearance as a standard structural component of the biography—an idea still to be found in P. Stadter's magisterial commentary on the Pericles. One ought perhaps to hesitate in speaking of generic requirements for Plutarchan biography, if only because we are now more than ever quite uncertain in which exact literary tradition our author is most appropriately situated, though it is fair (I think) to observe how commonly physical descriptions are to be found in the extant biographies of Cornelius Nepos and in Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars. The narrative conventions of biography, one instinctively supposes, require a personal description. Moreover, the eikonismos was by Plutarch's day a staple of rhetorical technique, useful to encomium and invective alike, and regularly discussed in handbooks. Literary and rhetorical expections, then tend to support Leo's proposition.

A year ago I had the honour of speaking to you on the need of a History of Greek Commerce, and of proposing to you a way in which this Society might make an important contribution to that history, in the shape of a commentary on the three books of Strabo which deal with Asia Minor. That proposal, I am happy to think, has been warmly taken up by the Council; a Strabo Committee has been appointed, and has settled the main outlines of the work, which will consist of a Greek text, a translation, and a commentary laid out on broad lines. Large portions of the work have been assigned to the men who are best fitted to deal with them, and even under the shadow of the great preoccupation some progress has actually been made in putting on paper materials already in hand. The war must of necessity delay the completion of the task; in some cases it will be desirable that contributors should make special journeys to their districts, and Asia Minor is at the moment a sealed land to us. But there is much which can be dealt with already, and we can make progress not merely with spade-work, but with actual construction.

My attention was called recently to an account by G. M. Vizyenos of a Carnival festival celebrated in the district about Viza (ancient Βιζύη) in Thrace so remarkable that it seemed worth while to verify the author's account by a personal visit. This I was able to do at the Carnival of 1906, and the account below has been drawn up from my notes, supplemented by this article, from which I quote everything of value.

Of the writer's good faith there is no doubt, and of almost all the points he mentions I had ocular confirmation. He was a native, not of Haghios Gheorghios, the village whose festival he describes, but of Viza itself, the chief place in the district, lying some two hours to the west. He left his native place while still a boy, and died at Athens in 1896, aged forty-two. The middle part of his life he spent in Germany, and he does not seem ever to have returned to Thrace. His account is therefore probably a description of the festival as it was in his youth some forty years ago, when modern conditions had affected the district even less than' at present. He calls it σαλό and makes as many classical comparisons as possible. All these I have omitted, and drawn upon him only for matters of fact.

Opramoas of Rhodiapolis in Eastern Lycia is one of the best known benefactors in the Greek half of the Roman Empire because the decrees and other documents inscribed on his tomb allow us to trace the extent and sequence of his benefactions and the honours he received. Two inscriptions from the Letoon near Xanthos, recently published by A. Balland, seem to extend this picture of generosity, one of them virtually doubling the previous total of Opramoas' benefactions. The first, Balland no. 66, is a statue base recording that Opramoas gave to the Lycian League land to finance a distribution to the koinobouloi of the league; the second, Balland no. 67, is a stele listing a much longer series of benefactions, to the league, to Xanthos and to other Lycian cities, but it does not, and never did, include the benefactor's name. Balland argues that the second inscription also refers to Opramoas, and this has been generally accepted; but it is argued here that its subject is not Opramoas but an anonymous contemporary, so that Opramoas loses his unique position among Lycian benefactors, and we can compare the nature, extent and distribution of his gifts with those of the Anonymous Benefactor and others.

Existing accounts of this war only know what now appears to have been its second phase; but the material now available should enable us partially to reconstruct the first phase, and recover for the history of Asia something of two lost years, 276 and 275. The starting point is Mr. Sidney Smith's new readings and translation of the fragment of the Babylonian chronicle concerning Antiochus I, with which the decree of Ilium, O.G.I. 219, works in and out; overlapping them come the letter of Ptolemy II to Miletus and the Milesian decree in reply.

The Babylonian chronicle shews that in spring 276 the army of Ptolemy II invaded Seleucid Syria, and some time later in 276 Antiochus defeated it and drove it out; while heretofore it has been supposed that it was Ptolemy who defeated Antiochus some time in 274–3. On the face of it, then, Ptolemy was the original aggressor in the long series of wars between the two kingdoms. But can the war be traced back before spring 276? There had been bond enough between Ptolemy I and Seleucus I to prevent actual war so long as either lived; but once Seleucus was dead (280), Ptolemy II immediately threw down the gauntlet by recognising Keraunos as king of Macedonia, which Antiochus I claimed; while next year he damaged Antiochus considerably, for Miletus, Seleucid in 280/79, became Egyptian some time in 279/8. It does not follow there was fighting; but Ptolemy restored to Miletus a long-lost piece of territory, which must have become King's Land; and if he took King's Land from Antiochus it was an act of war.

In the sixth book of the Iliad Glaukos relates the story of his grandfather, Bellerophon, who had been sent from Ephyre on the Greek mainland to Lycia carrying with him a folded tablet bearing on it baneful signs.

The single reference to this type of tablet in the early preserved literature suggests that such tablets were rare although they must have been recognizable to the audience at the time they were originally incorporated into the epic tradition.

I Am availing myself of the kindness of several friends and especially of Professor Ramsay's to make the following additions or corrections in Part I. In the first inscription (p. 97), line 7, the Τ should have been marked doubtful; Professor Ramsay conjectures ἀθ]λοφό[ρ]ου Line 8 should read ΝΟ⊂ and not ΜΟ⊂. Line 10 should be deleted and the remaining lines renumbered. In line 13 (formerly 14), the A may be an Ν. In the second inscription, line 6, the first letter had the shape of a ∨ rather than a Υ. Professor Ramsay tells me also that, according to his drawing, the outside walls of the three shorter arms of the chapel (p. 96) were less square than I have represented them.

With reference to No. 10, it is worth while to note that the word βικάρις occurs in a Coptic ostracon recently published by Mr. W. E. Crum (Coptic Ostraca, No. 209, cf. p. 58 of the Commentary). From what we know of the title, we should be inclined to say that this ‘Eustathius of Hermonthis’ (cf. also op. cit. No. 366) there mentioned had invoked the aid of the civil power and that ‘Paul the vicarius’ was a civil officer (cf. Crum op. cit. p. xviii.).

The contention of this paper is that the growing disbelief in the ancient casualty figures of one's own side and the tendency to regard them as ‘propagandist’ are generally mistaken. The arguments turn on the origins of the figures and on the practicalities of warfare. In the last section special attention is given to those of Alexander's citizen forces. The casualties of mercenaries are not considered.

Books xviii–xx of Diodorus' Bibliotheca Historica have long been regarded, apart from the sections on Sicily and Italy, as closely based on the work of Hieronymus of Cardia, a friend of several of the leading Macedonians, and as giving a reliable, if condensed, account of the events succeeding the death of Alexander. What is said there about the obscure naval events of the crucial year 323/2 must then provide the framework into which any other information about those events is to be fitted.

In JHS cv (1985) 162–8, J. L. Moles has given an excellent treatment of the literary influences at work in the ‘second preface– of Arrian's Anabasis (i 12.1–5). I am in agreement with the main points of his work, and the purpose of the present note is to offer some additional evidence and suggestions.

1. Literary influences. Moles sees five major influences at work in the second preface: Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and the prose encomium. Of this last he writes (164), ‘Arrian's work will be biographical in orientation and fundamentally encomiastic’. There is no doubt, of course, that Arrian's work is encomiastic; Arrian does not hesitate to express admiration for Alexander at the outset of the work or in comments throughout the work or in the επιμετρῶν λόγος at the work's conclusion. But Arrian's history is not an encomium, though it may incorporate elements from that genre.

It is well known that in his eighth year, 1162 B.C., Ramesses III repulsed onslaughts by the Peoples of the Sea or Sea Raiders as they are often called. The migrating horde was composed essentially of a group of closely related tribes, the Philistines, Tjekker and Dene. They were dressed identically alike in the Sea Raider kilt which was divided into panels and fell to a point in front, and they wore a headdress of feathers, as it is supposed to be, Fig. 1. This, it will be noted, is the very dress of the follower of the chariot on the ivory gaming box from Enkomi, Fig. 2. The panelled kilt falling to a point in front is there, as is the headdress on which even the row of circles or rings so often decorating the head band is shown, as well as the neck guard fitting to the back of the head. Another detail on the Enkomi box allies the scene to the Philistines and therefore to their relatives the Tjekker. It is that like those of the Philistines the charioteer leans forward over his horses. This is a very rare attitude to be adopted, though significantly enough it can be found occasionally among the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh. It is also to be seen on one of the Megiddo ivories of a date not later than c. 1150 B.C. It does not occur in the Mycenaean paintings. The point to which the kilt falls is not quite like that of the Sea Peoples for it is broader. On the other hand, the Egyptian paintings show it on a man coming from ‘the ends of Asia’, that is to say the extremest north of Syria. Quite other evidence proves it to be a north Syrian or perhaps Hurrian detail, for it is shown much later on the Loftus ivories from Nimrud which are under this influence. Besides this, one of these ivories shows a kilt which is just that of the Sea Raiders, but without the tassels.

In his article on The Sickness at Athens Mr. Watson Williams gives strong reasons for identifying the sickness with bubonic plague, and then goes on to say regretfully, ‘Thucydides, it is true, does not mention buboes’. But are we so sure that he does not? What are the ἕλκη which he mentions along with φλύκταιναι (ii. 49.5) as the outward manifestations of the disease? We have had no adequate explanation of these. Liddell and Scott render them as ‘plague-ulcers’, but this is obviously a conventional translation not based on any serious study of the symptoms of the sickness. Professor Page has given us a detailed discussion of Thucydides' medical vocabulary, but has shed no light on the word ἕλκος. He begins by telling us that ‘ἕλκος is a term of general reference, most commonly signifying a lesion of the soft parts of the body (the context must decide whether “sore”, “ulcer”, “wound”, or what else is intended)’; then, without any discussion of its context, we find him translating the word as ‘sores’ and finally he seeks to persuade us that the phrase ϕλυκταίναις μικραῖς καὶ ἕλκεσιν ἐξηνθηκός is equivalent to ‘crimson or dusky red spots covering the greater part of the body’. Sir William MacArthur, arguing persuasively for typhus, and Professor Shrewsbury, pressing the claims of measles, approach the problems from the medical standpoint, without any serious discussion of vocabulary, and neither offers any comment on the meaning of ‘ἕλκος. Other theorists appear to ignore it completely and concentrate on those symptoms which may be made to fit any infectious fever and particularly on those which are sufficiently vaguely described to allow of a little discreet distortion of the evidence. But surely we cannot hope to identify the sickness until we have decided what the ‘ἕλκος are, for, in the absence of laboratory tests, it is after all mainly by the skin eruptions and other external manifestations that we distinguish one infectious fever from another.

Arrian's Anabasis is distinguished by two prefaces. The first takes the form of an introduction explaining his use of previous historians. The second takes the form of a digression after Alexander has crossed the Hellespont. It asserts the need for an historian worthy of Alexander's achievements and proclaims Arrian's own worthiness for that position, dismissing previous historians (i 12.2–5). Alexander did not find his Homer as Achilles did, choral poets did not write for him as they wrote for the tyrants of old Greece, and Xenophon made even the inferior exploits of the Ten Thousand better known than his. Yet no man had achieved so much before.

For the uprising of 323 and 322 BC by the Greek states against the Macedonian domination, the name ‘The Lamian War’ has universal currency, identifying the overall conflict through reference to the siege of Lamia in the winter of 323/2. Given the relative insignificance of that particular event in determining the outcome of the war, the name does not seem to be particularly appropriate. Yet there is ample ancient evidence to indicate that the term ὁ Λαμιακὸς πόλεμος was used also in antiquity to signify this struggle.

Although the incidence of suicide in classical antiquity has been studied for over a century, a proper methodological basis for such a study has been established only recently. The scholars who have been most concerned with this issue are Hirzel, Katsouris, Aigner, Walcot, Seidensticker, and, recently, van Hooff, and they have approached the topic in various ways. Although their interpretations have contributed to our knowledge of suicide in ancient Greece, they have rarely done more than analyse and classify examples of suicide as these occur in classical literature: we have not used our knowledge of the topic to re-examine the literature. The task of investigating the ways in which poets made use of contemporary notions about—and attitudes towards—suicide for their own dramatic purposes still needs to be carried out.

So far as authority goes, Kaerst founded his theory of Alexander's worldkingdom on two passages in Diodorus and on nothing else. The first, 17, 93, 4, alludes to Ammon having conceded to Alexander the power over the whole world, τὴν ἁπάσης τῆς γῆς γῆς ἐξουσίαν the reference is to 17, 51, 2, where Alexander says to the priest of Ammon, εἶπέ μοι εἴ μοι δίδως τὴνἁπάσης <τῆς> γῆς ἄρχην and the priest replies that the god grants this. The second passage is 18, 4, 4, the story of Alexander's supposed plan to conquer Carthage, etc., and go to the Pillars, from his alleged ὑπομνήματα Every one will agree with Kaerst when he says that the political information in the Arrian tradition is imperfect, and that it is very desirable to supplement it; but the real question, which has to be faced, is, are we in a position to supplement it? It is no good using unsound material as a supplement; it is better to say we do not know, if it comes to that. My object here is to examine the Diodorus passages and see what kind of material they offer.