From The Roman to the Turkish conquest of Greece, a period of sixteen centuries, Athens produced only three historians: Dexippos, Praxagoras and Laonikos Chalkokondyles. Of the two first only meagre fragments have come down to us; indeed, of the three treatises of Praxagoras, The Kings of Athens, composed when he was only nineteen, his History of Constantine the Great, written at the age of twenty-two, and his maturer study of Alexander, King of Macedon, only a summary of the second, amounting to two pages, has been preserved by that omnivorous reader, Photios, in his Library. Such juvenile histories cannot, however, have had much greater value than prize essays, conspicuous rather for their correctness of style than for any seasoned judgment. But we may regret that only thirty-five pages of the three works of Dexippos, The Events after the Death of Alexander, The Historical Epitome, which went as far as the time of Claudius II. in 268, and The Scythian Affairs, have survived. For Dexippos was an author of a very different type, a man of affairs as well as of letters, the type of historian of which we have familiar examples in England in Grote and Macaulay, in Clarendon and Bryce. A worse writer, but a better general, than his model, Thucydides, he defeated the Goths when they invaded Athens, on which occasion a Gothic leader urged the sparing of the Athenian libraries, in order that the Athenians might unfit themselves for the arts of war by much study of books! After these two historians, who flourished, Dexippos in the third, and Praxagoras in the fourth centuries, no Athenian took their place till, in the second half of the fifteenth, Laonikos Chalkokondyles composed the extant ten books of his history, one of the most interesting and valuable productions of the mediaeval Greek intellect.

This paper focuses on two problems connected with our sources for Athenian politics between 510/09 and 488/7 B.C.:

(i) In the Athenaion Politeia attributed to Aristotle (henceforth Ath.), ostracism is included in the laws of Cleisthenes (22.1). But later (22.3) the author of the Ath. dates the first ostracism (that of Hipparchus, son of Charmus) to the year 488/7. Depending on the date of Cleisthenes' laws, this leaves a gap of thirteen to twenty years between the institution of ostracism and its first use. Yet the very nature of the law suggests that it was passed for immediate use.

(ii) Cleisthenes' rival, Isagoras, is described in Ath. 20.1 as φίλος τῶν τυράννων. This label conflicts with two details in the political struggle. It involves Cleomenes, who had recently expelled the tyrants from Athens, in an astounding volte-face in supporting one who is known as φίλος τῶν τνράννων. Secondly, Isagoras had had the opportunity of imposing by force the kind of government he wanted—but it was an oligarchy (Hdt. v 72.1, Ath. 20.3: a council of three hundred), not a tyranny. How did the inappropriate label originate?

The reaction of most scholars to the first problem has been to reject the ascription of ostracism to Cleisthenes in Ath. 22.1 and 22.4 and date the institution of ostracism to shortly before the first recorded ostracism.

The question as to the sources of metals in ancient Greece, as also in the whole of Europe, in the bronze age, has for some time exercised archaeologists. Apart from certain regions, little exploration has been carried out with regard to ancient mines, and there has especially been a tendency to take a long view in archaeology, and to connect across considerable distances regions where metal is known to have been worked in early times with regions where there is no information on the subject. But early mines are often hard to detect, as either the ore was completely exhausted, or the early workings have been obliterated by later peoples. There is, however, room for much careful investigation in this field, and metal being one of the most important objects of early commerce, the discovery of the sources used should throw a considerable light on this extremely complicated subject.

The speeches of Critias and Theramenes form the central tableau of Xenophon's account of the reign of terror of the Thirty at Athens in 404–3 B.C. The purpose of the present paper is to examine the style and content of these speeches, in order to discover to what extent they may have been based on the texts of the original speeches. The vividness and pathos of the narrative of the siege of Athens, her surrender, the establishment of the Thirty and their expulsion have seemed to some commentators to have the quality of personal reminiscence. Recently the case for Xenophon's having been a witness of some of the events of this period has been argued anew, and in the present writer's view convincingly, by E. Delebecque, who refers to several passages which seem to convey personal impressions of events. Delebecque also argues, to the satisfaction of Sir Frank Adcock, that Xenophon composed this part of the Hellenica before setting out on the Cyreian Expedition. The acceptance of both these theses would add some weight to the present argument; but the possibilities here envisaged do not depend upon their support.

According to Xenophon's account, both speeches were delivered before the βουλή. The members of this body had been chosen by the Thirty, so that it seems certain that they were men who were known to favour the oligarchy. But whatever were Xenophon's political views at the time, it is unlikely that he was old enough to be a member in 404 B.C. Hence it is improbable that he heard either speech. Four possibilities may therefore be considered:

(1) That the substance of the speeches was reported to him from memory by a member, who perhaps took special pains to remember some of the purple passages.

(2) That his informant took the speeches down in shorthand.

(3) That Xenophon obtained complete copies of the speeches, and condensed them. (Both speeches as they stand are too short to be historical.)

(4) That the speeches in the Hellenica are entirely the product of his imagination.

The orthodox date for Solon's archonship, 594/3, was undisputed until the discovery of the Athenaion Politeia; then two passages in this treatise cast doubt upon this date and introduced further problems. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider these two passages and to show that the Ath. Pol. in fact gives the date of Solon's archonship, during which the Seisachtheia was enacted, as 594/3, and gives the date of a second commission, during which the Nomothesia was passed, as 592/1; and I shall then consider how far the narratives of Plutarch and Aristotle imply that Solon held two separate commissions. My paper accordingly falls into two sections: the chronological data, and the Seisachtheia and the Nomothesia.

The era of the city begins in the autumn of 47 B.C. Hence this coin, which is struck in high relief, dates from the second year of the reign of Trajan (autumn 98–99 A.D.). The head is not a likeness. The inscription on the reverse identifies the goddess represented with the Ἐκκλησία of the Aigeaians, a personification which has not hitherto, as far as I know, occurred on coins.

2. 26. Bust of the Caesar, laureate, to right, wearing cuirass and draped.

Rev. 1. in the field. Tyche seated to left, wearing a turreted crown and veil. In her right, a small temple represented in profile, with a statue under the arch of the façade and an eagle on the pediment. At the feet of the goddess a goat lying to left, its head reverted.

The drawings we shall be looking at are those engraved on the backs of bronze hand-mirrors. The shape of the mirror is circular. The handle is sometimes made in one piece with the disc; but sometimes, especially in the earlier period, it was made separately of wood and bone, and joined to the disc by means of a tang. At a guess there may be fifteen hundred such mirrors. The quality of the drawing varies from good to bad. The range of subject is wide. There are, first, scenes from everyday life, especially, as is natural, toilet-scenes and courting-scenes; and secondly, scenes in which the lovers are not ordinary mortals, but divinities or heroes and heroines. Among these it is not surprising that two couples are especially popular: Aphrodite, and Adonis; Helen, and Paris or Menelaos. But there are also a very great number of heroic scenes that have no connection with toilet or courting. Sometimes one can see why a particular subject is chosen to decorate a mirror: the interest in Helen extends to the egg from which she was born. If Tyro is a favourite, one might perhaps guess that it is for the sake of the perfect complexion which gave her her name: but nearly always the subject chosen testifies only to the boundless love of the Etruscans for Greek heroic legend and Greek heroic characters, a love which women shared with men. Some legends are represented with more circumstance on Etruscan mirrors than in any extant Greek monument; of others there is no Greek representation, only an echo in a late writer; to others an Etruscan mirror is the only witness. Etruscan ladies could read: the personages are very often named; and these hundreds of inscriptions not only enable us to identify the persons and increase our knowledge of the myths, but are an invaluable aid to the study of the Etruscan language. The names of Greek heroes, heroines, and minor deities appear in Etruscanized versions, from which much may be learned about the character of the Etruscan tongue.

During a visit to Constantinople in July 1905 I spent some little time in studying the base of the obelisk of Theodosius in the Hippodrome (Fig. 1). An examination of the construction of the base and its sculpture led to the view that it was composed of material older than the reign of Theodosius. I subsequently read a paper on the subject at an open meeting of the British School at Rome. In the summer of 1906, Mr. Traquair, architectural student of the British School at Athens, made a detailed study of the construction of the base. His conclusions confirm the view which I had previously expressed. The present paper, which merely claims to put forward the reasons for assigning an earlier date to the base as briefly and clearly as possible, consists of two parts, Mr. Traquair's architectural report, and my own archaeological discussion of the questions raised. Both Mr. Traquair and myself owe much to the kind assistance of Dr. Van Millingen, for but for his aid this paper would never have been written.

In writing on Plutarch as a literary artist there is a tendency to confuse Plutarch's personality, which appears from his writings as ingenuous and somewhat naïve, with his style, which has all the sophistication of the classical renaissance of which his writings form a part. Actually, extensive acquaintance with many aspects of literary craftsmanship is visible in his work. His careful avoidance of hiatus was noticed as long ago as 1841 by Benseler. More recently it has been discovered that Plutarch writes rhythmical prose, with a great preference for certain definite forms. He is thoroughly versed in the various schemata for the presentation of material. Boissonade termed his style a mosaic because it is so well adapted for dealing with the various themes occurring in the Lives; Plutarch has in fact perfect command over matter and form as a result of a thorough acquaintance with a rich literary tradition.

The metaphors and similes which appear in this Life seem on a first reading in ill accord with the sophistication of its general craftsmanship. They are stereotyped into the thought-content, and even the diction, traditional for the symbolism they express. Their infrequency and the elaboration of the metaphors in particular makes them stand out starkly. This conspicuousness and careful articulation is significant. The metaphors and similes are in fact strikingly put so that they emphasise the passages in which they occur, and recall one another vividly to mind. Analysis reveals that they are used in two ways: as points of reference and emphasis (they occur only at important junctures) and to indicate the unity of lengthy passages. Long and elaborate metaphors occur at 11.1, 35.1, and 46.4, marking respectively the Germanic war, the civil war, and Marius' fate and death. A metaphor and simile grouped together, at 23.1 and at 32.1, 3 respectively, tell of Catulus' reverse and the Social War; two similes commence the developments which are to lead to Marius' death at 45.1–2. Less striking metaphors anticipate the civil war (10.5) and the Marian massacre (43.4).

Modern writers have generally assumed that the political affiliations of Aeschylus were aristocratic. That his sympathies were with the democrats has, however, been ably maintained by Sir R. W. Livingstone on the basis of a consideration of the Eumenides, a play which explicitly exalts the aristocratic court of the Areopagus, and has usually been taken as proof of Aeschylus' opposition to the democratic measures of Ephialtes and Pericles. Livingstone bases his argument upon the eloquent enthusiasm of the poet for Athens' future, and upon the fact that the functions assigned the Areopagus in the play are those which it still retained after the democratic reforms of Ephialtes, not those of which it had been despoiled.

Von Frisch has shown that hive bees communicate with one another by ‘dancing’, a discovery comparable with that of Ventris. Both the direction of food found and its distance are indicated with considerable precision. Aristotle (or perhaps pseudo-Aristotle) described this dance in Hist. Animal. IX, 624b. After noting that an individual bee visits a number of flowers of the same species in succession, which Darwin, von Frisch, and others have shown to be generally, but not universally, true, he continued:

ὅταν δ' εἰς τὸ σμῆνος ἀφίκωνται, ἀποσείονται, και παρακολουθοῦσιν ἑκάστῃ τρεῑς ἢ τέτταρες. τὸ δὲ λαμβανόμενον οὐ ῥᾴδιόν ἐστιν ἰδεῖν̇ οὐδὲ τὴν ἐργασίαν ὅντινα τρόπον ποιοῦνται, οὐκ ὦπται.

Bekker's translation, due to J. C. Sealiger, revised by J. C. Schneider, is as follows:

eo cum sunt ingressae, excutiunt et deponunt onus, semper etiam singulis ternae quaternaeque administrant, quid accipiunt non facile videre est; neque visum quo operantur modo.

From what sources did Herodotus draw the materials for his history? At what date or dates did he compose it? These inquiries have an endless fascination for the student of Herodotus, which is not lessened by the fact that they admit of no certain answer. The combinations which will be suggested in this paper have, so far as I know, not been suggested before; but if, as is extremely likely, they have already been made, there is always a certain interest in the fact that two inquirers, working independently, have come to the same conclusions.

It is not necessary to give evidence of the fact that Herodotus himself was highly satisfied with his own sources of information as to Persian history, and that he considered he could speak with authority upon it. (Cf. e.g. i. 95.) Nor is it necessary to give evidence for the view that Herodotus had on some points official or semi-official Persian information: e.g. in his account of the satrapies in Bk. III., of the Royal Road in Bk. V., and of the Persian army in Bk. VII.

These two points will be assumed, and also that Herodotus is a trustworthy witness, that he reports truly what he has heard, without exaggeration or suppression, and that he had some idea of the differing value of various witnesses.

The debate over the chronology of the history of Athens in the fifth century BC has entered a new phase recently with the publication by Mortimer Chambers and his colleagues of physical evidence that seems to confirm Harold Mattingly's view that a crucial inscription bearing three-bar sigmas and tailed rhos (IG i 11) was cut during the archonship of Antiphon in 418/7, and not during that of Habron in 458/7 as was generally thought.

The new inscription of Public Imprecations from Teos, apart from many other interesting features, represents what is surely the most important new evidence to accrue for a generation on the relations between Greek colonies and their mother cities. The inscription was admirably published by P. Herrmann in the editio princeps, and helpful contributions followed from Merkelbach and Lewis before its republication in SEG xxxi (1981; appeared 1984) 985, and, most recently, by McCabe and Plunkett.

In four of the last five numbers of the JHS, Doctors D. R. Dicks and D. O'Brien have disputed about Simplicius De caelo 471.1 ff. (DK 12A19), which runs (in part, 471.2–6): καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῑ [i.e. ἐκ τῶν περὶ ἀστρολογίαν] περὶ τῆς τάξεως τῶν πλανωμένων καὶ περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων ἀποδέδεικται Ἀναξιμάνδρου πρώτου τὸν περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων λόγον εὑρηκότος, ὡς Εὔδημος ἱστορεῖ τὴν τῆς θέσεως τάξιν εἰς τοὺς Πυθαγορείους πρώτους ἀναψέρων. In his History of Greek philosophy (i 93), Professor Guthrie translates the latter part of this as follows: ‘(…speaking of the planets) “Anaximander was the first to discuss their sizes and distances, according to Eudemus, who attributes the first determination of their order to the Pythagoreans.”’ Guthrie, Dicks and O'Brien all agree that πλανωμένων is accurately translated as ‘planets’; they also evidently agree that Anaximander would not have distinguished the planets from the fixed stars, at least in this matter; and consequently Guthrie (op. cit. i 95) finds Simplicius' statement about Anaximander ‘confusing’; Dicks finds it ‘nonsensical’; and O'Brien speaks of Simplicius' ‘rather ragged context’, and supposes that Eudemus was actually speaking, not of planets, but of sun, moon and stars, i.e. that Simplicius has quite misrepresented his source.

Alkaios refers to Pittakos as one who has ‘acquired an Atreid wife’ in fragment 70 Voigt. This paper looks at the connotations of that statement in the text of the Lesbian poet, and its significance for the history of the Greek idea of ancestral fault.

‘Thirdly we love-sick youths introduce also a cottabus to take its stand for you here in the gymnasium of Bromius, as a punch-ball. All you who are present entwine your fingers in the thongs of the cups (i.e. the cup-handles which serve as thongs); and (?) before fixing your eyes on it (the target), you should measure by pacing with your eyes the air high above the couch, and estimate the area over which the wine-drops are to extend.’

These lines are quoted by Athenaeus (668e) in his celebrated account of the Sicilian and Athenian after-dinner game of cottabus, a pastime which has long been a matter of academic controversy. In several points text and interpretation are not clear. In general, it is an elaborate jest in which a cottabus party is described in vocabulary appropriate to the gymnasium and its pursuits, the dining-room itself being called the γυμνάσιον Βρομίον.

Lines 380–7 have been much discussed, sometimes in isolation, without due regard for context in speech, scene, and play; and sometimes with regard primarily to the history of ideas, or of Greek moral values. Phaidra states that virtue may be subverted, despite knowledge, by pleasure, of which αὶδώς—dual, harmless and harmful—is an instance. A notorious problem of interpretation centres on the related questions of how αὶδώς, shame can be listed among ήδοναί, pleasures; and of what is meant by dual αὶδώς. The interpretation here advanced is bold, but in essence simple: in this context, αὶδώς is a euphemistic metonymy for ἔρως, which is harmless and pleasurable in its proper place (allied with sexual σωφροσύνη), but potentially troublesome or painful (bringing sexual αὶσχύνη).

In the course of examining Roman imperial medallions and coins in connexion with a study of Roman cult images, representations of Herakles Crowning Himself, a figure which appears on the reverses of medallions of Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus (Plate I, 2), and Commodus (Plate I, 3), merit further comment. These reverses, whether with or without legend, exhibit identical compositions. In the centre a young, beardless Herakles stands facing, his right hand raised in the act of placing a crown on his head; his left hand, close to his left hip, holds the club upwards in the crook of the elbow. Between club and elbow, the lion's skin hangs down over the forearm to a point midway along the left leg. The head, both forepaws, and tail are clearly visible dangling below. On all the medallions the die designer has made very clear the, important point that Herakles rests his weight on the left foot, with left hip thrown out and the right foot slightly back and out, giving a pronounced bow curve to the right side of the body from foot to shoulder. To Herakles' right and slightly behind him appears an apple tree on one branch of which hang the hero's quiver and bow; to his left rear is seen a square altar, festooned with garlands and with an offering burning on the top, and in her comprehensive monograph on Roman medallions J. M. C. Toynbee suggests that ‘the picture as a whole had been inspired by some bas-relief or painting now lost to us’. The question of relating the central figure to the whole composition will be taken up in Part II, in reappraising the general problem of famous statue types in medallion compositions. For the moment we may see what further progress may be made in identifying the statue type of the young Herakles Crowning Himself.

By the last quarter of the fifth century it was generally agreed that there were three basic forms of government: monarchy, democracy and oligarchy, and this basic division continued to the end of the classical period. For the Athenians, this choice was for practical purposes reduced to one between democracy and oligarchy: kings might appear on the tragic stage, but in contemporary Athens sole rule was synonymous with tyranny, a form of government which had been beyond the pale since the expulsion of the Peisistratids. Indeed, in the late fifth century it was the object of a public hysteria which affords Aristophanes much scope for satire, particularly in Bdelycleon's speech in Vesp. 488 f.