While excavating on the temenos wall of the great temple of Sety I at Abydos in Upper Egypt, Mr. A. St. G. Caulfeild found the foundations of a stone pylon, a fragment of a great lintel, inscribed by Ptolemy IV, Philopator, and a small limestone block here figured.

This block was probably a foundation-deposit; the inscription is incised; the surface has been gilded. It seems probable that it refers to the building by Philopator.

I lately enriched a village library with some volumes of Dickens; but, to my disappointment, the country-folk did not care for them. And the reason was not only that all those amusing vulgarities seem neither vulgar nor amusing to rustic readers; but far more because their way of life is so entirely removed from that life of the office, the back-parlour, and the street, with which the great humourist has to do, that they cannot imagine it. My failure made me reflect how imperfect is our acquaintance with the scenery and associations of classical life, and how much of the wit and fun of ancient humourists may be lost upon us, who live in such a different world from theirs. This misgiving must strike the reader of the Characters: he feels that they are sketched from life, but he craves for a completer familiarity with the Athens of the 4th century, without which many of the minuter touches may be missed. The very quality in Theophrastus which some have called ‘superficial,’ makes a fresh demand upon the reader. The author indicates only the external symptoms of character, not concerning himself with a deeper analysis.

‘Es ist das schoene Vorrecht der historischen Forschung, die Verstorbenen in der Erinnerung der Nachwelt wieder aufleben zu lassen. Erscheint es billig, dass die Namen derer, welche sich hohe Verdienste um ihr Volk erworben, der Vergessenheit nicht anheimfallen, so ist es menschlich, denen überhaupt nachzuforschen, welche einst in weiten Kreisen von der Mit- und Nachwelt genannt und gefeiert worden sind.’

With these words, used by Dr. Koehler in regard to the once famous ‘condottiere,’ Diogenes, in the third century B.C., I beg to introduce to the reader a personage who, although perhaps of limited interest, was once celebrated and powerful and had the honour of calling himself the friend of Julius Caesar. His son moreover did his best to prevent a deed, the failure of which would probably have changed the direction of the history of the world,—the murder of Caesar.

The passages in ancient writers which relate to the man of whom I speak are well known, but they have not hitherto been rightly connected with one another, or thoroughly understood.

1. At Robert College, Bebek, Constantinople, small stele 0·36 × 0·69 (letters 0·15) with relief of sacrifice to Apollo Citharoedus by a number of worshippers arranged in rows above each other: the inscription is much worn:

The epithet may be connected with the river name Macestus, Mecistus, with which again we may compare the Lesbian mountain Macistum, and the name Macestis in Le Bas 1127. The Macestus valley is possibly the provenance of both the Bebek stelai. A long series of votives dedicated to Apollo Crateanus (Arch. Zeit. 1875, 162), is said to come from a spot three hours from Manyas and nine from Balukiser. I was told also by Mr. Bunning of Susurlu that many of the Van Branteghem antiquities were found at a spot near Omarkeui.

Towards the close of Book V of the Republic Plato tells us that the true philosopher has knowledge and that the objects of knowledge are the Forms. By contrast, the ‘lovers of sights and sounds’, he tells us, have no more than belief, the objects of which are physical particulars. He then goes on to present us with some very radical-sounding assertions about the nature of these physical particulars. They are bearers of opposite properties, he says, in so thorough-going a manner that we cannot say of them that they are nor that they are not: they lie somewhere between being and utter non-being.

This passage of the Republic (475–80) still awaits an agreed interpretation and I want to suggest as a reason for this that it is usually interpreted in isolation. I will argue that it becomes easier to understand when seen against the background of Plato's developing thought. To be more precise, it makes sense when taken as a rejection by Plato of one of his earlier beliefs: namely, a doctrine of essentialism to be found in the Phaedo.

The greater part of this paper then will be an attempt to show that Republic V is a rejection of the Phaedo's doctrine of essences. Its concluding part will try to explain why that doctrine was rejected.

In his Handbook of Greek Mythology Professor H. J. Rose several times draws attention to the legendary theme of the floating chest, which occurs so frequently as to suggest that ‘some kind of ritual lies behind all these tales’. The theme is recognised by Dr. A. B. Cook (Zeus II, 671 sqq.) as one of the perennials of folk-lore, and parallels are cited from modern Europe, Siberia, and India. A study by M. E. Cosquin (‘Le Lait de la Mère et le Coffre Flottant’ in Revue des Questions Historiques, 1908), based on material drawn from North Africa, India, and Java as well as the Classical world, links the floating chest to the miraculous suckling of children.

The preservation of a child or a mother and child in a floating chest was obviously a good story, and Euripides, by choosing this version of the Telephus legend in preference to that which left the child exposed on land, no doubt contributed to its popularity. Moreover, in legends of the introduction of a new cult the story teller often required a miraculous means of transport. The chest may have served a similar purpose to the floating rock of Celtic saints. But these explanations are not sufficient to account for the recurrence of the chest in a large number of stories which have important common elements.

The story of the sources of the Nile which Herodotus says the Scribe of the Sacred Treasures of Athene told him at Sais has been discussed many times, and nearly everything which can be said about it has been said. But the following points do not seem to have been made as yet.

The story that the sources or springs of the Nile are at Elephantine is absurd as it stands, as indeed Herodotus himself realised. Many suggestions have been put forward in explanation, primarily that the story is something theological or that it represents a very ancient tradition dating from the earliest times when the First Cataract was the Ultima Thule of Egypt. The flaw in such an explanation is that ‘from the earliest times’ the Nile's course south of the Cataract had been well known to the Egyptians. Cemeteries have been found in Nubia of the Egyptian predynastic and early dynastic times, and certainly from the Old Kingdom onwards armies and trading expeditions were commonly accustomed to go far up to the south. It was, therefore, well known to the Egyptians throughout history that the Nile did not rise at the First Cataract, but came from much farther south.

Two years ago Hauser published a remarkable bell-krater then in private possession and now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. (FRH. Pl. 115). On the one side we see a picture of Artemis shooting Actaeon, on the other a young shepherd is hotly pursued by a goat-headed Pan, while a small god-stick, or phallic herm, views the scene from a neighbouring eminence. The drawing is a marvel of elaborate elegance, the subjects uncommon, the forms and attitudes strangely and finely stylized. Who is the author of this fascinating work? In the text which accompanies the plate Hauser mentioned and reproduced a small pelike in Vienna, which he saw was closely related to the Boston krater, though he did not feel certain it was by the same artist: on the front of this vase, a man squats on a rock fishing with a rod and a youth with a basket stands beside him; on the reverse, a second youth carrying two baskets on a pole across his shoulder is speeding past a phallic herm (ibid. 2 pp. 293 and 295). In the opinion of the present writer, krater and pelike are undoubtedly by one master; and forty other vases are to be attributed to the same ingenious hand. A list of these vases will first be given, arranged according to shape; and a description of the master's style will follow. Cunning composition; rapid motion; quick deft draughtsmanship; strong and peculiar stylization; a deliberate archaism, retaining old forms, but refining, refreshing, and galvanizing them; nothing noble or majestic, but grace, humour, vivacity, originality, and dramatic force: these are the qualities which mark the Boston krater, and which characterize the anonymous artist who, for the sake of convenience, may be called ‘the master of the Boston Pan-vase,’ or, more briefly,‘the Pan-master.’

Ten years ago an article in these pages stressed the importance of detailed analysis of the traditions involving the Carians, and archaeological evidence was used to check the assertions of the literary record. In that instance the extremer version of the tradition in question was shown to be largely inexact, while the less extreme preserved the probable truth of the Carians' habitual use of certain military devices. That the ghost of pan-Carianism should be well and truly laid is all to the good; yet I hope to show here that the literary record, such as it is, of the presence of Carians in the Lydian capital is reasonably substantiated by the archaeological and epigraphic material.

Herodotos' Carian source pointed to an old relationship between the Lydians and Carians, symbolised by the temple of Carian Zeus at Mylasa and by the kinship of the eponymous heroes Car and Lydus. According to this source linguistic affinities existed between Lydians and Carians. In Strabo's time Lydians and Carians together inhabited the plain of the Maeander, though the Carians evidently exercised sole possession of the land to the south of the river. In the late seventh and sixth centuries, however, Lydians and Carians lived cheek by jowl in Aphrodisias, and there is good archaeological and epigraphic evidence for a Lydian community in the city. Whether this means that we must attempt to redraw the boundary between Lydian- and Carian-speakers (if such a boundary is logically acceptable) or whether the Lydians represented a trading community in a foreign (if friendly) city, remains to be seen. There is some evidence to suggest that Carians were present in archaic Smyrna, and epigraphic documentation for their presence, if not in Ephesos, at any rate at Belevi. They had a natural interest in their northern neighbours.

The present paper is a continuation of my article in vol. xxxi, of this Journal (1911), pp. 161–215, and it contains the inscriptions promised on the final page of that article. The sixth inscription (No. LXXII.) was recopied by Sir W. M. Ramsay and myself in 1912, but we added little to Professor Callander's copy. Several further texts discovered in 1912, and careful revisions of many of the known inscriptions, are reserved for treatment in another place. The inscriptions in my former paper are referred to as Nos. I., II., etc.

The little vase of which a coloured illustration is given on Plates I. and II. has already been laid before the Society with a brief notice in the last number of the Journal, p. 253: before that publication appeared, it had already been the subject of articles in the Classical Review and the Times, so that most people are already aware of the melancholy interest which attaches itself to it. It was presented to the British Museum by Mr. Malcolm Macmillan in the spring of 1889, shortly before he started on the expedition which had so mysterious a termination. It was felt that the surpassing charm of this little Greek masterpiece was well worthy of any pains that could be bestowed on its reproduction; and it is to the generosity of Mr. Macmillan's family that the Society owes the excellent facsimile which accompanies this paper.

In spite of its diminutive proportions—it is only .068 mètre in height— this little lekythos will certainly henceforth rank among the mirabilia of our national collection. Its claims to distinction are based, not only upon its intrinsic merit as a chef d'oeuvre of art, but also on the fact that, belonging to a highly interesting class of Greek painted pottery, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful and important specimen of that class which has yet come down to us.

We possess few contemporary records of the Ionian expansion, even in its later stages, and the gradual hellenization of the coast-lands of southern Asia Minor is a process that, in the absence of historical documents, has largely to be inferred from later developments and by archaeological research. At least as early as the eighth century the sea-faring Greeks were known to the Assyrians, under the generic name of Ionians, as pirates and freebooters who troubled the coasts of their maritime provinces. That they should occasionally come into armed conflict with the Assyrian power was to be expected, but it has not hitherto been realized that at the beginning of the seventh century they were sufficiently numerous and powerful within the area of Assyrian control to join other adventurous and discontented elements in conducting a land campaign of some magnitude, and in defying, for a time successfully, the Assyrian forces. That they were capable of doing so may be taken as evidence of a considerable Ionian expansion eastwards at the close of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries, and, though the Assyrians had little difficulty in checking the movement, it is probable that fresh conflicts of a like nature would have been recorded in the later Assyrian annals, were it not that a few years afterwards the centre of Ionian power in Western Asia Minor began to be held in check by Lydia, and later, in company with Lydia, was shaken to its foundation by the Cimmerian invaders. In fact those Ionians, whom Sennacherib met and defeated, achieved little political success, and that of a temporary character. It is possible that the effects of their cultural relations with their conquerors were more lasting.

By the generosity of Mr. S. Pepys Cockerell the British Museum has recently come into possession of three volumes of sketches, plans, etc., made by his father, C. R. Cockerell, R.A., during the seven years (1810–1817) in which he was travelling in S. Europe and the Levant.

The Collection contains about 500 sketches, a few in water-colour, sepia, and Indian-ink, the rest in pencil, and is of great interest both artistically and archaeologically. On its artistic interest I do not propose to dwell; Cockerell's merits as an artist have always been recognised, and these delicate water-colour and pencil notes, in which there is not an unnecessary or an unmeaning line, are quite up to the level of his finished work.

In this article it is proposed to examine the available numismatic evidence relating to the settlement of Samians at Zancle, and the change of the name of the city to Messana, and to suggest possible lines along which a reconstruction of the events might proceed.

It will be well first to review such literary evidence as we possess. The earliest such evidence is found in Herodotus. He gives at length the story of the Samian settlement. After the battle of Lade, which ruined the cause of the revolted Ionians, the Samian oligarchs (οἵ τι ἔχοντες) decided to abandon their city and sail away to found a colony elsewhere, rather than stay and endure the oppression of Aeaces, their old tyrant, restored under Persian influence (ἐς ἀποικίην ἐκπλέειν μηδὲ μένοντας Μήδοισί τε καὶ Αἰάκεῖδουλεύειν). Now the men of Zancle in Sicily had sent a general invitation to the Ionians to come to the West and settle at the Fair Shore (Καλὴν ᾿ Ακτὴν ἐᾶν χαίρειν), a Sicel possession on the north coast of Sicily. The Samians accordingly decided to accept the invitation.

The accounts of the war in Euboea (349–8) given by Beloch and Kahrstedt are contradictory, their chief points of difference being:—(i) Was there only one expedition to Euboea at this time or two? (ii) When did the incident of the kidnapping of Molossus take place? (iii) Was the result of the war a victory for Athens or for Euboea, or was it indecisive? The ancient authorities upon whom we depend for the solution of these problems are divided into two kinds:—one fairly consecutive narrative (Plut. Phocion, XII–XIV), and many allusions or disconnected anecdotes to be found in the orators Demosthenes and Aeschines, and their scholia.

This account owes much to the kind co-operation of those who at short notice supplied me with information and photographs; I would here offer my thanks to them, and also to Professor Karo, who generously placed at my disposal the typescript of his article for the Archaeologischer Anzeiger, to Mr. T. J. Dunbabin, without whose assistance it could not have been completed, and finally to Professor Myres, who has kindly read it.

Athens and Attica

A stretch of the north wall of the Acropolis was threatened with collapse by a fracture in the rock which supports it; the rock has accordingly been underpinned with solid masonry at this point, and extensive reinforcements of the same kind have been provided at other weak points. The character of the rock face has been considerably altered by this work, but a disaster has been averted; care has been taken to preserve such ancient features as the underground passage from the Aglaurion.

Broneer has followed up his investigations on the north slope of the Acropolis by an examination of the cave at the east end. In removing the top of the dump from the entrance to the cave a number of important pottery fragments were found, some of which join with the Acropolis vases. Within the cave a stele cut on the right-hand side of the entrance provides the solitary evidence of occupation in antiquity.

Aristotle relates that during his second exile Pisistratus joined with others in the colonization of Rhaccelus on the Thermaic Gulf: πρῶτον μὲν συνῷκισε περὶ τὸν Θερμαῖον κόλπον χωρίον ὅ καλεῖται Ῥαίκηλος. The context of this foundation is very obscure. J. W. Cole nevertheless proposed to consider this enterprise as ‘a combined Peisistratus-Eretria settlement’: this is a very attractive hypothesis which I should like to explore, adding some further considerations.

Through the kindness of Professor K. T. Erim of New York University I have the opportunity to offer the following note on a fragment of a Lydian inscription found recently during his excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria. The description and details of the archaeological context I owe to Professor Erim and to Miss Joyce Reynolds.

The fragment (inv. no. 68.357) came to light in July 1968, re-used in one of the ruined modern houses on the northern slope of the so-called acropolis when they were being demolished in preparation for the full-scale excavation of the Theatre there. It is of medium- to coarse-grained marble, greyish in colour, probably from the Aphrodisias quarries themselves, and measures 0·11 × 0·75 × 0·165 m.; no original edges survive, but it is likely that the original left edge was very close to the surviving left edge.

What remains of the inscribed surface is approximately trapezoidal in shape and carries traces of three lines of text; in the first only the lower tips of the letters survive and these cannot be securely interpreted, but in the second five complete letters (ave. 0·025 m. high) can be read, although they have suffered from slight surface chipping, and in the third the upper two-thirds of five letters survives and these also can be read perfectly well. The inscription was firmly and deftly, if lightly, cut, with trenches c. 0·001 deep, very slightly triangular in profile and showing some tendency to broaden a little on the base line. Judging from the position of the last letters in Il. 2, 3, it seems probable that each line ended with a completed word.

In the paper on ‘Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Worship,’ (above, pp. 99 foll.) and in the various discussions of the Cretan discoveries, several theories and interpretations are put forth which have been too hastily accepted. I do not propose to deal with the whole question here, but to call attention to the fact that a great part of the evidence has been overlooked. It is not unnatural that, in the enthusiasm of a great discovery, the happy discoverer should be taken by an interpretation which is ingenious and in many respects alluring, since it offers a key to mysteries long unexplained. Nevertheless there are other facts to be reckoned with.

The theories I refer to are these: (1) that the double axes carved in the Cnossian palace have a religious significance; (2) that they are the symbol of Zeus; (3) that the pillar upon which several of these signs are carved was worshipped; (4) that the Labyrinth derives its name from the word the Carian name for an axe of this kind, and (5) that the palace of Cnossos was the Labyrinth, which means the House of the Double Axe. These theories are supported by the following evidence: (1) that the statue of Zeus at Labranda in Caria was described as holding in his hand a double axe, the local name for which was (Plutarch, Quaest. Gr. 45); (2) that double axes of bronze were found in the Dictaean Cave, where Zeus was worshipped; (3) Mr. Evans also collects a large number of facts to illustrate the worship of pillars, and apparently of axes also.

When the mummy-portraits from Rubayyat and Hawara were first brought to Europe, amid the general interest which they aroused there was a wide diversity of opinion as to their age. Georg Ebers, who had an enthusiastic admiration for them, tried hard to prove that the series began in the second century B.C. and that the best specimens belonged to the Ptolemaic period. Th. Schreiber may be mentioned as another distinguished authority who took the same view. On the other hand many archaeologists maintained that the portraits were all Roman work, dating for the most part from the second century A.D. Mr. Petrie in particular brought forward definite evidence to show that they range from about 130 A.D. to about 250 A.D., and he also divided them into successive groups. There is still much uncertainty on the subject, as I have had occasion to notice of late. To those who are in doubt about it the following brief paper, which is based on a study of the Cairo collection, may be of some little help. I regret that I do not know much of the material in Europe at first hand.