Comparison between an original ancient composition and modern supplements shows that the ancient poetcomposer paid attention to sub-metrical parameters defining the suitability of a metrically long syllable for extended voiced performance. This criterion is explored as a potential guide to overlong syllables, developing a statistical method including thoroughly calculated weighted expectations. The method is then applied to Pindar's dactylo-epitritic Epinicia, where the rhythmical time of ‘missing link syllables’ is shown to have been incorporated within the preceding syllable. The notation and the rhythm of dactylo-epitrites are discussed in detail.

A well-known relief pithos in the Louvre (CA 795) shows Perseus confronting a Gorgon whose human torso terminates in the body of a horse. Her equine features have proven difficult to explain, and earlier discussions of the scene have appealed to lost narratives, seventh-century artistic conventions and broad symbolic associations between Gorgons and horses. Focusing on her combination of equine and maidenly characteristics, this article interprets Medusa's unusual form with reference to a series of ancient Greek metaphors connecting maidens, horses and Gorgons. It argues that recognizing the metaphorical logic of the image allows us to understand Medusa's form as a sympathetic comment upon her death, which has parallels in the sacrifices of maidens in Greek art and literature.

Modern editions read Ὀδυσεῦς, a contracted genitive singular, at Od. 24.398: an anomalous form, which fuels the case for the inauthenticity of the end of the Odyssey. We should consider rather reinstating the reading of the ‘vulgate’, Ὀδυσεῦς (nominative). This yields a different syntax: a rapid double change of subject or, equivalently, a parenthesis interrupting the flow of the sentence. This possibility, raised and dismissed by Eustathius, goes unmentioned by modern scholars, who are often in general (unlike their second-century counterpart Nicanor) ill-disposed to Homeric parentheses. A survey of Homeric parentheses shows the phenomenon in general and the specific instance postulated at Od. 24.398 to be unobjectionable. The validity of the terms ‘parenthesis’ and ‘sentence’ for Homeric discourse is also defended.

The chorus' depiction of Ares as a ‘gold-changer of bodies’ and trader in precious metals underscores the increased intersection of finances and war in fifth-century Athens. The metaphor's details point to three contemporary developments (in addition to the patrios nomos allusion noted by Fraenkel): the increased conscription of citizens, the institution of pay for military service, and the payment of financial support for war orphans. And as leader of the Delian League, Athens itself resembled the war-god, establishing equivalents between men and money, and profiting from its acceptance of tribute payments in a variety of currencies. Taken together, the metaphor's contemporary dimensions probably had an unsettling effect on the Athenian audience.

This article offers a re-edition of SEG 11:314, Argos inventory number E274, based on re-examination of the stone and of recently rediscovered squeezes preserving material now lost from the stone; these allow improved readings in numerous places. We also offer a reinterpretation of the disputed syntax of the last three lines, which we translate ‘As for the things with which a δαμιοργóς is to compel (him to make amends), the ἀμφίπολος is to give thought to these things’.

During the war organised archaeological excavations in Cyprus were suspended. The Pennsylvania University Expedition to Curium continued at work during the early years of the war and then closed down. The Department of Antiquities staff was reduced and therefore could not undertake systematic excavations. Accidental discoveries, however, which were multiplied by digging operations by the Army, were attended to, and any excavation necessary for the safeguarding of the remains uncovered, carried out.

In his Historical Commentary (ii 358) Professor Gomme rejected long-suggested emendments to the text, which, as it stands, dates the Plataean alliance with Athens to 519 B.C. Difficulties in accepting this date were long ago pointed out by Grote (iv 2 94 n.), adducing the text of Herodotos v 78. It must be admitted that, if the dating is correct, the episode is quite out of keeping with all else that we know of Peisistratan foreign policy, for during the thirty-six years of the régime Athens is not credited with any other clash with a mainland power. On the fall of the tyranny Athens is involved in war with Boeotia, Euboea, Aegina, and repeatedly with Sparta.

A possible reason for the caution of the tyrants and the belligerence of the régime which followed their expulsion may perhaps be found in the nature of the defence force of which both governments disposed. Before the tyranny the Attic army had evidently consisted of the landed gentry leading the retainers from their estates; the squires (knights and hoplites) formed, with the Pentakosiomedimnoi, the only properly armed force in the state, and Peisistratos was very careful to disarm it at the beginning of his régime; there is no suggestion that the confiscated arms were ever distributed to other sections of the citizen population, nor of any organisation employed by the tyrants to mobilise any citizen militia; indeed the organisation of the latter was one of the most urgent duties later undertaken by Kleisthenes.

When discussing the Tabulae Iliacae in JHS xcix (1979) 26–48 (hereafter ‘Horsfall’), I followed the usual and unchallenged view in stating that the group includes twenty reliefs and that five bear the signature of the artist Theodorus (26). Both statements prove wrong. Prof. F. Jouan (Paris-Nanterre) most kindly informed me in the summer of 1979 that an unpublished Thèse de Maîtrise by one of his students, Mlle F. Legrand, (Les Tables Iliaques [1976] [hereafter ‘Legrand’]), contained new material on the Tabulae and made a copy of her work available to me. It was immediately apparent (Legrand 160 ff.) that the Tabula which I shall call 21 Froehner was unpublished and when it became clear that no publication in France was intended, I sought and was freely granted access. Examination of Tabula 20Par., also in the Froehner collection, revealed that its verso carried an hitherto neglected signature by Theodorus. Permission to publish Tabulae 20Par. (verso) and 21Fro. was unhesitatingly granted. It is a great pleasure to place on record the enthusiasm and generosity displayed by Prof. Jouan and by the staff at the Cabinet des Médailles.

In the course of investigating the Pontic region under Byzantium, Anthony Bryer and David Winfield have rescued from oblivion a monument from Sinope of much earlier date. 'Excavations for a gas pump not far west of the walls. . . brought to light an altar made of a stumpy fluted Doric column. A clean-cut inscription carved on two successive flutings reads:

ΔΕΛΦΙΝΙοΣ

ΟΡΓΙΑΛΕΟΣ

A group of epigrams extending in the sixth book of the Anthology from 210 to 226 and seemingly derived from the Garland of Meleager includes four on the subject of a Gallus, or emasculated attendant of Cybele, who is preserved from the unwelcome attentions of a lion. They are ascribed as follows: 217 τοῦ αὐτοῦ (= Simonides), 218 Alcaeus of Mitylene, 219 Antipater, 220 Dioscorides. A fifth epigram at 237, by Antistius, comes from the later Garland of Philip of Thessalonica and is inspired by the earlier poems. The alleged authors of the first three need only a word. The Alcaeus of 218 is evidently the Messenian and not the Lesbian; in a group from Meleager Antipater must be the Sidonian, not the Thessalonican; and whether with Reitzenstein and Geffcken we trace the ascription of 217 to Simonides to deliberate imposture, or with Wilamowitz to a scribe's careless repetition of the heading of the four preceding epigrams (where τοῦ αὐτοῦ meant ∑ιμωνίδον), it is patently ridiculous, for the style is plainly Hellenistic and Γάλλοι do not appear in earlier Greek. Dioscorides seems to have flourished towards the end of the third century B.C., Alcaeus was writing about 200 B.C., and Antipater perhaps halfa century later. ‘Simonides’ is naturally not datable. Reitzenstein said that his epigram was obviously (jeder empfindet) based on Dioscorides, Geffcken that it was Dioscorides's model; and as the epigrams are connected only by their common subject, we are free to believe either or neither. In any case the whole group of these four epigrams cannot be widely separate in date. They belong to the period in which the Phrygian orgiastic cult of Cybele, the repens religio of Liv. xxix 10.4, was spreading abroad. It was in 204 B.C. that Attalus allowed the stone representing her to be removed from Pessinus to Rome, and thirteen years later that her temple on the Palatine was dedicated and the ludi Megalenses were established.

The institution of sunthusiâ, ‘joint sacrifice’, appears in many forms in Graeco-Roman antiquity, but takes a special shape in the period of the Roman empire. After a brief outline of the practice, I address particular problems in inscriptions of Iasus in Caria and Side in Pamphylia.

In the Hellenistic period, the verb sunthûein and its related nouns, sunthutês, sunthusiâ, are mainly used in two senses. In the private sphere, devotees of particular gods or groups of gods may form standing associations of ‘joint sacrificers’, sometimes with common ownership of property.

Hearing of extensive and unidentified ruins on the banks of the river Jeihan (the ancient Pyramus) at a spot now called Bodroum to the east of the Cilician plain, just as the river enters the plain from the gorges of the Anti-Taurus, we determined to visit the site. The result of our explorations, made in the early months of this year, are as follows.

Our route took us past the rock of Anazarba and Kars Bazaar, at which places we decided to spend a few days, and though the spots have both been previously described we were able to add a few points to the information concerning them, both epigraphical and topographical.

Anazarba.—Caesarea penes Anazarbum, as Ptolemy calls it, was second only in importance to Tarsus of the cities of Cilicia during the days of imperial Rome, and was the metropolis of the eastern portion of the great plain. The town was built at the foot of a long rocky mountain, rising like an island out of the plain for the extent of three miles and attaining an altitude of 2,000 feet. The walls as they at present stand are of Armenian and Saracenic construction, enclosing a parallelogram, one side of which is protected by the mountain; but they contain many portions of Roman work, notably the great southern gate formed by a triumphal arch erected in the time of Justinian, when that emperor restored the town after it had been ruined by an earthquake.

Such remarkable additions were made by last season's excavations at Knossos and in the Dictaean Cave to the small number of known specimens of pre-Mycenaean painted pottery of Cretan fabric, that it is worth while to deal with this ware anew.

It was first made known by Mr. J. L. Myres, after he had seen and drawn, in the Syllogos Museum at Candia, certain fragments said to have been found in a cave on the southern slope of Ida, two and a half hours above the village of Kamares. In his communication to the Society of Antiquaries (March 14th, 1895, Proc. XV., iii., pp. 351–356, Plates i–iv.) Mr. Myres rightly apprehended the period, character and affinities of this new and singular variety of early Aegean pottery. The colouring of his drawings, however, not having been applied with the models in sight, was not quite correct, and many of the fragments were republished by Dr. L. Mariani, (Monumenti Antichi, Vol. VI., riates 9–11, pp. 334–342), but in some cases were not improved upon. From the reported place of first finding this fabric is commonly called “Kamares“ ware.

No more of it was found for some years. While excavating the lower prehistoric town of Knossos in March last, however, we lighted on many Kamares vases and fragments, and were able to establish the fact that, so far from that ware being a rarity, it is to be looked for in Crete wherever any strata of remains underlie the Mycenaean. It occurred in our digging at Knossos at all points at which the early town was probed to the rock. On the Kephala hill, where the lowest stratum of deposit is a dusty yellow clay full of Neolithic weapons and sherds, Kamares sherds occur, where stratified, immediately above that stratum.

Some of our extant authorities, as Justin and Appian, state or assume that Alexander had two sons, Roxane's and Barsine's. Others, as Diodorus in the events prior to 309, and Curtius in parts, state or assume that he had only one, Roxane's. Now it makes a considerable difference in our view of the events of 309 whether the lad called Heracles, who appeared in that year as a reputed son of Alexander and Barsine, were really Alexander's son or an ordinary pretender. No modern historian has even noticed that there is a conflict of authority; for though Beloch saw that Heracles' age was wrong he did not follow it up, but altered the age. Before coming to the events of 309, the source of the evidence for Alexander having one son only must be considered.

The chief authority for the life of this saint is the biography by Symeon Metaphrastes, written about 900–50 A.D. It quotes the epitaph on the saint's tomb, and the question whether this epitaph is an original document of the second century A.D., or a later forgery, is one of the utmost importance for the early history of the Christian church, and of many literary points connected with it. The document is not very easily accessible, so that it may be well to quote it as it is given in the Life by Metaphrastes; the criticism of the text has been to a certain extent advanced by the metrical restorations proposed by Pitra and others.

The Onchestos passage in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (229-38) has been discussed extensively, most usefully by A. Schachter (BICS 23 (1976) 102-14) and G. Roux (REG 77 (1964) 1-22). Further consideration of the disputed verbal forms in lines 235 and 236 and the plurals of 233-6 suggests that the plurals do indeed indicate a two-horse chariot team but that the presence of a team is not incompatible with the test of a single colt, and that if a chariot is wrecked by the unguided horses, it is righted and left in situ (with the horses removed) while prayers of supplication are made to Poseidon. The events referred to are interpreted as elements of a religious ritual with explicit military implications, dating from the Mycenaean period. It is, however, noted that a Babylonian ritual parallel might suggest a Near Eastern (and possibly non-military) origin.

The following inscriptions were discovered in Thasos in the winter of 1886, by Mr. J. Theodore Bent. Owing to the opposition of the Turkish authorities he was prevented from conveying to England the original marbles and monuments, and had to be content, for the present, with his memoranda of the sites explored and impressions of the inscriptions. One of these paper impressions has supplied the text of the Thasian Decree discussed in the preceding pages. The other Thasian impressions were placed by Mr. Bent in the hands of Mr. A. H. Smith of the British Museum, to be prepared for publication in this Journal. Mr. A. H. Smith however found the task he had undertaken in preparing an Index to the Hellenic Journal was making such demands upon his time, that he invited me to relieve him by editing the whole of Mr. Bent's Thasian impressions. Mr. Smith had already made transcriptions of a number of the texts, which he kindly placed at my disposal. I am however myself responsible for the arrangement and restoration of the texts as here given. Their interest and value will be considerably enhanced by the memoranda which Mr. Bent himself has furnished respecting the sites and buildings wherein the various inscriptions were discovered. None of them, so far as I know, have been published before.

In 1957 Mr Lobel published, in the twenty-fourth volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a large fragment of a commentary on the Spartan poet Alcman. It is the second column of this papyrus which I propose to discuss; lines 13 to 22 give us some information about the Spartan royal family, and lines 22 to 25 seem to be saying something about the Spartan tribal organisation. Unfortunately, however, much of the left-hand side of the column is missing at this point; and when, from line 22, we do at last have a few letters from the left-hand side, we are faced with a gap running up the right-hand side as well. Because of this, it will be necessary to spend some time in an attempt to discover what the papyrus said, what it might have said, and what it could not possibly have said. Until this is done, no historical conclusions can safely be drawn.

Before starting on an examination of the text, however, it would be as well to state what can be known about the author of the commentary. We can be certain that he had the work of previous scholars before him. In line 4 he refers to Theon, the Augustan grammarian, and in line 5 to Tyrannion; there were two grammarians of that name, and we cannot tell which he means (Lobel 54). Furthermore, in line 28, τῶν λοιπῶν is best taken as meaning ‘the other commentators’ (see p. 70). Whether or not he was an intelligent man is a question on which it is better not to dogmatise. He is capable of interpretative remarks of dubious value (lines 9–13, with Lobel ad loc.). There is certainly a muddle in the third column, which may indicate stupidity on the part of the commentator, or carelessness on the part of the scribe. We should not assume too readily that what he says is the gospel truth about early Sparta. On the other hand, we should remember that he might be working from a reliable source.

At the start of the section entitled ‘structure’ in his commentary on Callimachus' Hymn to Artemis, Fritz Bornmann notes that the third Hymn has enjoyed less success among critics than any other. ‘They lament’, he says, ‘the lack of unity'. And indeed, beginning with Wilamowitz, this has been not only the dominant, but the only view of the hymn. The latter part of the poem, said Wilamowitz, ‘macht trotz allen Künsten den Eindruck eines gelehrten Nachtrages' und es ist das auch’, he adds. Some forty years later K.J. McKay put it this way: ‘If there is a stronger unifying principle in this straggling composition than the idea of weaving together a number of disparate strands into a ‘historic day’ in the life of Artemis (with vv. 183–268 as a possibly unfortunate addition), it still eludes us'. And recently, Michael Hasiam has remarked on the poem's ‘disjointed tail section’. The hymn, to his mind, ‘progressively disintegrates, as the clear structural framework with which it started fades totally from view’. Even Herter, in his famous and influential essay on the hymn, ‘Kallimachos und Homer‘, echoes this opinion of the final third of the poem. The commentator Bornmann concludes: ‘this estimation is essentially correct’.