A detailed report in English and a brief mention in Latin record the rediscovery in 1883 of the ‘charter’ of Orcistus by W. M. Ramsay and J. R. S. Sterrett. Not till 1886 was a complete copy secured, but in 1883 at Alikel, besides ascertaining where the original lay hidden, they found and copied, each in his own notebook, two other documents of which only the dating has been published. In his report Ramsay thus refers to them: ‘we occupied ourselves … partly in copying a long inscription of 98 lines in length, half of which was more or less legible.’ This inscription, comprising (A) a deed of gift, (B) a decree, both dated in 237, is here edited from the copies of 1883; no others are likely to exist, for the pedestal bearing the original text ‘had been destroyed in search of treasure after we left.’

Sir William Ramsay has kindly lent me those two notebooks; three pages from his and one from Sterrett's are reproduced below; for permission to use them, as well as for invaluable information and advice, I am indeed grateful.

In the present paper we continue the commentary begun in last year's Journal, and set forth the numismatic facts which ran parallel to those books of Pausanias which deal with the remainder of Peloponnesus; Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaia, and Arcadia. Athens, Phocis, and Boeotia still remain for future treatment.

In spite of our efforts to be complete, we have already discovered a number of coins of Corinth and Argos and the neighbouring cities which had escaped us, and which present new types, or important varieties of the types which appear in our plates. This will necessitate the publication of a supplement to our first paper. While this is in preparation numismatists will be doing the greatest service if they will let us have casts of any types in their possession which are omitted in the descriptions or the plates of this paper or the last. Casts of unusual coins of imperial times of Phocis or Boeotia will also be most welcome.

It may be taken for granted that in any branch of learning it is a pleasant, and may be an instructive, task to turn one's back now and then on progress and research, and look backwards along the path which we and our predecessors have trodden, and to reflect on what we owe to those who were the pioneers in the exploration of our subject. And it seems no less true that the study of Greek history is a fit theme for such a backward glance, even if it is difficult, and at times impossible, to isolate it completely from the general background of Greek learning, particularly at the Renaissance.

I propose, therefore, to examine the background and the progress of the study of Greek history between 1350 and 1500, not continuously, for the task would be too laborious, but at intervals of fifty years, noting certain landmarks associated with each of these dates, and touching on the main developments in each of these half-centuries.

In the year 1350 there occurred a noteworthy event, fraught with immediate delight to the two participants, and with momentous and quite unforeseen consequences for the future of classical learning, namely, the meeting of Petrarch and Boccaccio in Florence. One of the things that helped to bring them together was their common enthusiasm for Greek, of which Boccaccio had already attained some knowledge; Petrarch, though a few years older, was still hoping, and eagerly striving, to acquire the rudiments of the language.

We should like to make the following additions and modifications to our article ‘The Cycle of Agathias’ in JHS lxxxvi (1966) 6–25:

p. 7: We might have added that AP xiii, xiv, xv and probably iv as well are non-Cephalan.

p. 7, n. 11: We would now retract the view that Planudes used the Palatinus direct. Cf. Gow, Sources and ascriptions 51, and F. Lenzinger, Zur griechischen Anthologie (Diss. Zürich, 1965) 31–55. But our argument at, e.g., p. 12, para. 4, is unaffected, since it is clear that Planudes used a MS closely allied to the Palatinus (more closely, indeed, than Lenzinger, op. cit. 55, supposed).

p. 8, n. 18: We should now place Eutolmius in the Cycle rather than in Palladas' Sylloge, and probably admit Diogenes as well. Possibly also, on the strength of their titles, Thomas Scholasticus (xvi 315) who may be the Thomas mentioned by Agathias in xvi 80. This latter Thomas is probably not, as Beckby (index nom. s.v.) supposed, a painter, but the man who commissioned the painting in question or wrote the epigram for it (cf. G. Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics [1963] 74). Mathew assumes that he is the Thomas Curator of xvi 41: this is certainly possible, but no more.

p. 10: i 34 was written before Agathias' fourth year of legal studies. It was in 551 or 552 that he began them (see ch. i of Averil Cameron's forthcoming monograph on Agathias), and so the poem can be dated to 554 or 555. For the question of the inclusion of this poem in the Cycle see below on p. 22.

I have long suspected the 500 elephants of Ipsus, as the number is too remote from anything else known. Omitting these, the largest force of elephants which Greeks ever saw in action was the 200 of Porus; the largest force which any Greek ever commanded was the 120 or there-abouts which Eudamus brought to Eumenes; the largest force which any king is recorded on good authority to have possessed is the 150 of Antiochus III. The number which Alexander (who never used them in battle) collected in India cannot be ascertained; but the uniformly modest numbers which, Eudamus' force apart, figure in the history of the Successors before Ipsus show that he cannot have brought away from India anything approaching 200. The vast figures attributed by various writers to Indian kings and peoples may be neglected, though doubtless Chandragupta, reckoning in the forces of his vassal kings, did control a large number. I have now by accident stumbled on something which certainly will explain the number 500 attributed to Seleucus; it remains to be seen whether the explanation be the correct one. I am not claiming to give an exact proof that it is, but there is a very high degree of probability. I had better indicate the proposed explanation first before coming to the Greek evidence about Seleucus.

In the summer of 1950 it proved possible to continue the British excavations at Mycenae which had been suspended in 1939 owing to the war. The Greek Government courteously granted the necessary permission and Dr. Papademetriou, Ephor of Antiquities for Argolis, and Mr. Petsas cooperated most cordially throughout. The work was carried out under the aegis of the British School at Athens which made a generous grant towards the funds and Mr. J. M. Cook, the Director, and Mr. Sinclair Hood, the Assistant-Director, who both took part in the excavations, afforded all possible assistance.

The excavations were especially concerned with the following points: the further exploration, within and without the Cyclopean walls, of the Prehistoric Cemetery to which belonged the royal Shaft Graves found by Schliemann; an attempt to trace the line of the Middle Bronze Age wall of the earliest citadel which preceded the Cyclopean fortress; the re-examination of Tsountas' House, an important building within the walls first excavated in 1886; the clearing of the Epano Phournos tholos tomb; the further exploration of the Cyclopean Terrace Building discovered in 1923; and the investigation of a newly discovered building, now known as the House of Stirrup Jars, near the so-called Tomb of Clytemnestra. The architect of the expedition, Mr. Charles Hobbis, R.I.B.A., also assisted the Greek authorities at their request in the conservation and repairs in progress at the Tomb of Clytemnestra and the Lion Gate.

In this paper I advance an interpretation of Prodicus' conception of the correctness of names or terms. I advance this interpretation through examining a distinction between pleasures and pleasure terms that several ancient authors, most importantly the fifth-century Neoplatonist Hermias, attribute to Prodicus. Since Hermias lived many centuries after Prodicus, it is questionable whether Hermias' testimony is accurate. Consequently, I first present evidence to support the view that Hermias' testimony is accurate. Subsequently, I examine the grounds and context of Prodicus' distinction. I reject the view that Prodicus was interested in drawing distinctions between near synonyms according to standard usage. Instead, I argue that Prodicus' linguistic distinctions follow substantive distinctions between natural kinds.

We would gladly give the mediocre textiles preserved in South Russian graves, if Fate had spared a masterpiece of Greek tapestry which we know only from description. It leads a shadowy existence in handbooks, and one can hardly say that recent papers mark any advance towards its precise interpretation.

(i) Aristotle, de miris auscult. 96, 838a.

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In his magnificent report on the American excavations at Persepolis E. F. Schmidt published a fragment of a stone plaque found in the Treasury (frag. 2 on FIG. 2). This plaque bore a sketch of a human torso, which G. M. A. Richter considered to be Greek work of about 500 B.C. : she identified the figure as ‘Heracles wearing a chiton with a lion's skin over it which is knotted on the chest’. This fragment was lost when the ship in which the finds from Persepolis were being transported to America was sunk by submarine action during the Second World War. But recently Giuseppe Tilia discovered further fragments in a storeroom at Persepolis, which he recognised as probably belonging to the same plaque; and from these Prof. Boardman has been able to determine that the original scene was of a contest between Herakles and Apollo.(FIG. 1).

One of the best Greek vases we possess is the amphora No. 2160 in the Berlin Museum (Fig. 1 and Pll. XV.–XVI). There is something specially charming about these graceful woodland people, the dreaming Silens and their instruments of music, young Hermes with winged head and feet, the gentle fawn. The question, however, who painted the piece, has been variously answered. Furtwängler, in his catalogue, thought of Brygos, but some years later he attributed the vase to the painter called Kleophrades; and Winter said it was by Euphronios. A year ago, the present writer indicated five other vases by the same hand; and he now proposes to examine the work of this anonymous painter, who may be called the Master of the Berlin amphora; for although we possess a fair number of his paintings, none is quite so elaborate as this, though some of them are rightly admired.

This paper is an amplification of that much quoted passage of Thucydides ἐπορεύθησαν δὲ πεƷῇ ἐς Ἀπολλωνίαν. Of this land route, which enabled the Corinthians to get troops up to Epidamnus in despite of Corcyra, we know something andcan guess more, and in view of the undoubted importance of this part of the Greek world to Corinth, it may be worth while to try to fit the isolated facts together and reconstruct a picture of a short phase of Epirote and Acarnanian history in the latter half of the fifth century. It is certain that the north-west ranked as one of Corinth's vital interests. There is no need to quote other evidence when there is the specific statement of the Corinthian ambassador before the Athenian demos that it was a necessity for Corinth to sail to Corcyra. It is beyond the scope of this paper to enquire why this was so; all that is here attempted is a correlation of the facts about the land route, how Corinth and Apollonia contrived to open it, how Corinth and Ambracia tried to keep it open, and how by the end of the Archidamian War Athens had succeeded in closing it. The evidence is not copious, but of good quality; Thucydides is contemporary, Pausanias quotes contemporary sources, and the mountains, rivers, and valleys of the north-west are silent witnesses.

The route falls naturally into three parts, the Acarnanian, the Epirote, and the Illyrian. It will be convenient to consider the Acarnanian section first, and the other two sections in the order mentioned.

Fire-festivals are widespread throughout the world. They occur in Europe to the present day. Bonfires are kindled at certain times of the year, especially in Lent and on St. John's Day. Sometimes the fire is kindled on a hill or a mountain-top, sometimes in the plain or in the village; often a figure with varying names is burnt, and in some countries living beasts were once burnt in the flames of the pyre.

The fire-festivals of ancient Greece have not attracted much attention among scholars. The custom is not very common, it varies considerably in details and has been appropriated by different deities in different localities, so that the identity of the rite has been obscured. The best known cases are from Central Greece. In the cult of Artemis Laphria at Patrae, formerly at Calydon, living beasts—birds, boars, stags, wolves, bears, and their young—were thrown into the flames of a great pyre. In the cult of the same goddess at Hyampolis in Phocis human images and other paraphernalia were laid on the pyre. On the top of Mount Cithaeron a pyre was built with great care, a wooden image, called Hera, was brought thither in grand procession from the town of Plataeae, and sometimes other images from other Boeotian towns were added. On the spot each town offered an ox to Zeus and a cow to Hera; these were filled with incense, and together with the images were burnt on the pyre. Private people also made their offerings. It seems that a similar festival at Tithorea in Phocis was transferred to Isis.

The standard translation of μύΩΨ in Plato’s Apology of Socrates 30e is ‘gadfly’. However, this word was generally translated as ‘spur’ until the 1800s. This article re-evaluates the scholarship that led to the ‘gadfly’ translation and argues that the ‘spur’ translation is correct based on the use elsewhere in Greek literature of μύΩΨ and other significant words in the passage.

Sillyon. Note on an inscription already published

CIG iii. 4324c = SGDI 1268. This inscription is carved in a panel on a rock to the west of the city, near the modern village. Height ·16 m., breadth ·175, letter and space down ·026, letter and space across ·019

Perhaps [Όλυμ]πιακοῦ, since ἱαρός can be used in connexion with the Games, as in Lanckoroński, Städte Pämphyliens und Pisidiens, i, p. 66; but the meaning is uncertain; ἱερά generally means ‘a dead-heat’ (LSJ ἱερός iv. 7).

Sillyon. New inscriptions

(1) A statue-base, near the Byzantine wall. Grey stone, the top and the lower part of the left side are preserved. The bottom is buried and the back is very rough, but may be original. Height over ·7, breadth c. ·65, thickness ·33+, letter height c. ·058, letter and space across ·056. Roman date.

A new approach to the ancient world is only too often a wrong approach, unless it is based on some concrete discovery. But I think it fair to talk of new perspectives, at least, in the study of Greek mythology. Certainly the old and familiar ones are no longer adequate. Indeed it is surprising, in the light of fresh intuitions about society, literacy, the pre-Homeric world, and relations with the ancient Near East, that myth—one of the most pervasive aspects of Greek culture—has been left in its old and rather cobwebby pigeon-hole. Rose's simple paraphrases are accepted as adequate for students; Nilsson's sparse pages in his history of religion are rightly respected, though some of them are too simple; the Murray-Cook-Harrison-Cornford reconstruction of religion, ritual and myth is regarded as a little excessive, but perhaps not too far out; Kerényi and Eliade are roughly tolerated, if not widely read by Classicists, and their books are ordered in profusion for the library; the psychological side is adequately taken care of, or so it is supposed, by what is left from Freud and Jung, with Cassirer as sufficient authority for the sources of mythical imagination.

Many of these critics had their moments of brilliant insight, but most were misleading in their theories taken as a whole. We can now accept that many myths have ritual counterparts, and some have ritual origins, without having to adopt Cornford's belief, developed after Harrison, Frazer and Robertson Smith, that all myths are such.

To put forward ideas on the name and nature of Helen may seem hazardous. As to her name, Chantraine's ‘il est vain de chercher une étymologic’ is fair warning, and as to her nature, the views of Wilamowitz and Martin Nilsson, diametrically opposed as they are, reveal the uncertainty of the evidence. Nevertheless an attempt to outline the problems shall be made, and if any solutions are proposed, it must be understood that they are meant to be tentative.

When a Persian came into the presence of the great king he greeted his lord by a form of salutation which the Greeks denoted by the verb προσκυνεῖν and the noun προσκύνησις. The verb, a compound of κυνεῖν, to kiss, means ‘to send a kiss toward.’ It is the word used to describe the commonest Greek act of devotion to a god—the custom of bringing the hand to the mouth and wafting a kiss toward the image of a god. This act, represented on a number of Attic vase paintings, was commonly performed by the Greeks and Romans when they passed the numerous images and shrines of the gods along their streets. Under the guise of performing the proskynesis to Poseidon, Demosthenes is said to have deceived the emissaries of Antipater and to have brought the poison to his lips. The idea of the kiss as a concrete sign of worship is originally strong in the word and usually persists in it, though sometimes the meaning seems to be little more than to worship. The use of the word to describe the Persian greeting indicates that the Greek saw in the salutation of the king a kind of cult kiss. By a custom familiar in the East from very ancient times until to-day, the subject threw himself on the ground to perform the salutation.

Palladas' attitude to Christianity has been much discussed in recent years. It is not of purely academic interest whether he was a pagan or Christian, for Christianity did not remain ‘the beggars' religion’, and it is the conversion of just such a figure as Palladas, a schoolmaster steeped in the classics but scornful alike of the traditional gods and the Platonism that had taken their place for the intellectual pagan of his day, that marks a vital stage in the christianisation of the Roman Empire. For nowhere did the traces of paganism linger longer than in the University circles of Alexandria. However the arguments adduced by P. Waltz to show that it is ‘infiniment probable que Palladas était chrétien’ carry but little conviction, and it seems much more likely that Palladas was and remained a pagan. The following poem, though overlooked or misinterpreted in most recent discussions, can perhaps be made to cast a little more light on the matter:

φιλοχρίστῳ Planudes (Marcianus 481): φιλοχρήστῳ Lascaris (editio princeps, 1494), edd. plerique. ‘Here we are, Victories, the laughing maidens, bearing victories for the city that loves Christ (?). Men painted us who loved the city, carving the symbols that are proper for Victories.’

Among the topics this paper will discuss, the leading one is that of the moral psychology of the Laws; it will not, however, attempt a general study of this, but will confine itself to the question whether that work presupposes any particular division of the soul into parts. The problem seems to have been on the whole neglected by scholars. Apelt in his Platon-Index says briefly that the soul is there treated as tripartite, which is certainly not true without qualification. Neither England's commentary nor Ritter's affords much help. The latter does, indeed, touch on the question in Volume II of his Platon; he there states that the Laws treats the soul as tripartite, and supports this by referring to I. 644C and IX. 863B, but neither passage proves his point, the second actually suggesting that it requires some modification, as will be argued below. The best treatment known to me is the discussion of the second of these passages by L. Gernet in his translation (with commentary) of Book IX, but it requires some expansion and supplementation.

It will be well to begin by recapitulating briefly the main points in the moral psychology of the Republic. The soul is there divided into three parts or (better) elements, the rational, the spirited and the appetitive, and this division has two aspects: (a) an analysis is thus provided which can be used in the interpretation and appraisal of all action whatever, the soul being in the right state and the agent's actions right in consequence when the rational element controls the appetitive through the agency of the spirited; (b) at the same time each of the three elements represents a drive towards one of three goals, the rational towards knowledge, the spirited towards honour and public distinction, and the appetitive towards pleasure (interpreted as bodily pleasure), or towards material gain as a means to the attainment of pleasure. Secondly, each of these three drives may predominate in any individual soul (though it is commonest for the last to do so, and least common for the first), and the three are therefore to be correlated with three ways of life, that of the thinker, that of the soldier or man in public life, and that of the merchant or other person engaged in a money-making enterprise, and further these ways of life are specially characteristic of different races. Thirdly, the three elements in the soul and the three types of character are correlated by Plato with the three classes in his ideal state, the rulers, the auxiliaries and the artisans. Fourthly, the distinction of three elements in the soul is made the basis for interpreting the four virtues, wisdom being the virtue of the rational element and courage of the spirited (ideally under the control of the rational), while justice consists in the maintenance of the proper relation between the three elements, the rational controlling the appetitive through the agency of the spirited, and temperance in the willing acquiescence of the appetites in the rule of reason. On the larger canvas of state organisation, the three classes will have as their specially characteristic virtues wisdom, courage and temperance respectively, while the state as a whole will be just if the correct relation between the three classes is maintained and the reason of the rulers preserves its control with the help of the auxiliaries. Fifthly, the tripartition of the soul is applied in Book IX to the discussion of pleasure, pleasures being graded as higher or lower according to the element in the soul which enjoys them; indeed, Plato argues that the pleasures of the rational element are not simply superior to those of the other two but more real as well.Finally, Book X suggests at least that the rational element is the real self, that it alone is immortal, and that the other two exist merely in virtue of our temporary attachment to a body.

The stele from the harbour (‘la stèle du port’) of Thasos, SEG xlii.785, has been so named because it was dredged up from the small fishing harbour on 13 June, 1984. The inscription is of the greatest importance for Thasian epigraphy and dialect as well as for its contents, and has been amply published by H. Duchêne. While the stele of Thasian marble is preserved complete, the inscribed surface has suffered much from the effects of its immersion in the sea. The lower part is well preserved, and from line 42 to the end (49) there is no problem in reading the letters on the stone. Above that, it is a very different matter; some parts seem irretrievably lost, and much of the preserved lettering consists of faint traces only. My own examination of the stone confirmed that we can have complete confidence in Duchêne's facsimile. He and those who helped him have achieved wonders of skilful decipherment on this difficult text. Unless fancy new technology may one day offer better ways of recovering the letters on the stone, it seems unlikely that the readings published by Duchêne could be improved.