Europe in the last two thousand years has three times passed through an experience which may fairly be called a Thirty Years War; in Greece from 432 to 404 B.C., in Central Europe from A.D. 1618 to 1648; and over the whole continent from 1914 to 1945; in all of them there were intervals in which the fighting ceased, but the interval hardly amounted to true peace; it was more like what a certain scholiast calls it, ἐχεχειρία ὕπουλος, ώδίνουσα, πόλεμον. In all three cases one notices a certain rhythm; an increase of brutality and demoralisation persisting to the end of the war and after, and later on a sort of revulsion of thought, an attempt to make sure that such evils shall not happen again. In our time it is the League of Nations movement; after the Thirty Years War it is the effort to distinguish between just and unjust wars, and establish international law, which centres in Grotius' De Jure Pacis et Belli. After the Peloponnesian War it is the magnificent conception of World Citizenship made specially articulate in Zeno's ideal Republic.

In the present paper I have tried to analyse a little more closely the actual reactions of Greek thought and practice to the first of these long strains of embittered war.

In JHS LXXIV 36-43, under the above heading, M. White argues from Hdt. Ill 47-9 that the offences cited as provoking the Sparto-Korinthian expedition against Samos ought to have been committed either by Polykrates himself or by a predecessor of similar policy ‘whose sins could justly be visited upon his head’. These offences were: (1) the interception of the Kerkyraian boys sent by Periandros to Alyattes; (2) the seizure of the corslet sent by Amasis to Sparta; and (3) the seizure of the bowl sent by the Spartans to Kroisos. Of the boys, Miss White says (p. 37) that they must have been sent ‘at latest before the death of Alyattes ca. 560-555 B.C.’. The corslet was seized a year before the bowl, which ‘was a gift on the occasion of the alliance made between Sparta and Kroisos shortly before the latter's fall’. As to the date of this event, Miss White is not prepared to adjudicate as between the various years proposed, from 547 to 541/0: ‘even at the latest it is well before the time of Polykrates’ (n. 10). Eusebios' date for the accession of Polykrates is c. 532; and, even if this tradition is set aside, a date much earlier than 540 is impossible, because Peisistratos' establishment of Lygdamis as tyrant of Naxos, some time after his own final establishment at Athens (547/6), must come first. Therefore Polykrates himself cannot have been responsible for the seizure of either the corslet or the bowl —much less the interception of the boys. Miss White suggests that these and other considerations favour the view that the tyranny began in the sixties, and that Aiakes, Polykrates' father, was the first tyrant.

It seems clear from an article by C. H. Kahn in JHS xc (1970) 99–116 that there are still prevalent numerous misconceptions concerning early Greek astronomy. To attempt to correct all these in detail would require a lengthy exposition of elementary points which would be extremely tedious for the discerning reader. There are, however, two matters a lack of understanding of which leads to such erroneous conclusions that one may perhaps be forgiven for a final attempt to clarify the issues.

It must sometimes have occurred to readers of Byzantine literature, after they have perused a number of the occasionally valuable, but almost always dreary, works of which it is composed —lifeless chronicles, polemical and other theology, inflated panegyrics, and grammatical treatises—to ask the question, whether this was really all; whether a quick-witted and intelligent people, such as we know the inhabitants of Constantinople at certain periods to have been, were contented to subsist entirely on such dry mental food. No doubt, religious controversy often ran high, and this, when it fills men's thoughts, is apt to supply the place of intellectual interests; but such discussions did not last for ever, and could not have occupied the minds of the whole of the educated population. A certain source of relief was provided in the numerous poems, songs, and romances in the popular language—some of native growth and dealing with subjects of local or traditional interest, some imitated from the romances of Western Europe—which have been brought to light by the industry of such men as MM. Sathas and Legrand at Paris, Prof. Lambros of Athens, and the late Dr. W. Wagner of Hamburg. But even these do not furnish that element of liveliness, which we should expect to manifest itself in some shape or other in a great centre of activity.

The critics and commentators who read these notes will probably object that I have not paid sufficient attention to the earlier literature on the subject. I must admit that I have not read Gerlach's paper, which is not accessible in Alexandria, but I have read at one time or another most of the recent papers on the Homeric house from Myres' paper in the Journal of Hellenic Studies to that of Palmer lately published in the Transactions of the Philological Society.* I think that practically all of what was written on the Homeric house before the excavations of Schliemann at Tiryns should now be disregarded. Further since most of that written since the excavation of Tiryns follows the erroneous or ‘traditional’ interpretation of the two megara at Tiryns as a men's and as a women's megaron, it also need not now be taken into account. Palmer's paper makes a great advance, but he did not have the opportunity of knowing the House of Columns at Mycenae. I have therefore as regards earlier literature confined myself to Homer himself and standard editions like those of Monro, Leaf, Merry, and Stanford, and have read the newer translations of the Odyssey, the Loeb version and those of T. E. Shaw and E. V. Rieu. If I have missed anything of importance I can only plead that Alexandria of to-day does not possess the same library facilities as Ptolemaic Alexandria.

The circumstances attending the death of the Caliph Mamoun (A.D. 833) are thus related by Masoudi (+ c. 956), who wrote about a century after the event. On his return from a victorious raid against the Greeks the Caliph encamped in the beautiful valley of Bedidoun. Like all Orientals, he was susceptible to the charm of clear, running water, and at his orders a rustic pavilion was constructed over the spring called Kochaïrah, from which the river Bedidoun flowed. In this the Caliph sat. A silver coin was thrown into the spring, and so clear was the water that the legend of the coin beneath its surface could be read. Mamoun then noticed in the spring a fish ‘a cubit long and shining like an ingot of silver,’ which he desired should be caught for him. This was done, but the fish, when brought to the Caliph, escaped by a sudden movement into the spring, sprinkling the Caliph's breast, neck and shoulders with cold water as it did so. It was again caught, and the Caliph gave orders that it should be cooked. As he did so he was seized by a shivering fit, and when the fish was cooked he was in a high fever and unable to eat it. This was the beginning of the illness which caused his death. Before this took place he had the guides and prisoners called and asked them the significance of the name of the spring Kochaïrah. He was told that it meant ‘stretch out thy feet,’ which he took for an omen of his death. He then asked the Arab name of the country he was in: the reply was ‘Rakkah.’ As it had been foretold him that he should die at a place thus named, he knew that his hour was come. And he died then and was carried to Tarsus and buried on the left side of the mosque.

This contribution reconsiders the question of indications of speakers in ancient Greek dialogue literature and their ‘invention’ by Theodoret of Cyrus by offering a systematic examination of the available (mostly papyrological) evidence. It discusses ancient conventions for marking changes of interlocutors in Greek literary dialogues and compares them with those present in dramatic works and in documentary and paraliterary texts such as reports of court proceedings, the Acta Alexandrinorum and Acta Martyrum, and reports of Church councils. It is hypothesized that the development of indications of speakers in Greek dialogue was influenced by documentary practices of the Imperial period and by paraliterary genres which imitated them.

This article examines Xenophon's rewriting of Herodotus’ Croesus logos (Hdt. 1.6–91) in the Cyropaedia (Cyr. 7.2), focusing on the very different role of the divine in the two narratives. Through a comparison with Xenophon's Memorabilia and several Platonic dialogues, I argue that Xenophon's retelling attempts to bring Herodotus’ Croesus logos in line with his own ‘Socratic’ theology and his pedagogical goals, and in doing so performatively rejects Herodotus’ vision of the role of the gods in historical causation. The Cyropaedia is, I argue, the first extant text in the Greek historiographical tradition which attempts to present divine justice and philanthropy as the central forces in the historical process, and the first in a long series of critical engagements with Herodotus’ theology.

Aristophanes of Byzantium is credited with inventing the signs for Greek accents, breathings and vowel lengths, according to a single source: a short text found in two 16th-century Paris manuscripts. The passage has a doubtful history, but the story it tells is of considerable interest. We first provide a new edition of this text, based on a new examination of both manuscripts, and a complete translation. Secondly we argue that the author consulted a source that was in Latin and that dealt at least in part with the Latin accent. We conclude by considering the implications of our proposal for the text’s date and circumstances of composition.

After a brief discussion of earlier etymological theories, this article proposes a new analysis of the Greek noun Vóσoζ ‘disease’ as a possessive compound *n-osw-os ‘not having *(h1)osu’, the second constituent of which is cognate with Hitt. ässu ‘well-being’; just like the latter, Greek Vóσoι are characteristically sent or removed by divinities. Moreover, the reconstruction of an abstract noun *(h1)osu ‘well-being (resulting from divine favour)’ can serve as the etymological basis for the somewhat obscure Greek notion of óσιη, which refers to the state of something that is endowed with such *(h1)osu; in fact, phraseological parallelisms between texts from various parts of the Greek world as well as ancient Anatolia point to a common conceptual framework behind all these words.

It might seem waste of labour to examine minutely an account of the battle of Marathon and the Parian expedition so late as that contained in the brief life of Miltiades ascribed to Cornelius Nepos, more especially as I must confess that the results of my enquiry are in the main negative, and that such positive conclusions as I reach have not the charm of novelty, but serve merely to strengthen theories already well known, and in England at least widely accepted. But this late epitome is almost the only consecutive narrative of these events outside the pages of Herodotus. Marathon was sung by poets, and bespattered with rhetoric by patriotic orators, but such historical accounts as there once were of the battle have perished, save for the still later epitome of Trogus Pompeius made by Justin. Again there is good reason to think that Cornelius Nepos is here following the fourth-century historian Ephorus. This is manifestly the case in his account of the Parian expedition, the kernel of which is little more than a translation of the fragment of Ephorus preserved in Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Paros. That Nepos drew his story of Marathon from the same source is the general, and as I shall hope to show, the right opinion, though it has been denied by Dr. E. Meyer. Further, the view of the campaign and the conception of the battle to be found in Nepos have been accepted as historical by many of the highest authorities in Germany, e.g., by Drs. H. Delbrück, G. Busolt, and in the main by Dr. E. Meyer.

In 1886 the excavations conducted by the Greek Archaeological Society on the Acropolis at Athens laid bare the foundations of a large ancient temple immediately to the south of the Erechtheum. It was at once recognized that this temple must have been the one burnt by the Persians when they sacked Athens in 480 B.C. This conclusion has been generally accepted and there is no ground for questioning it. But Dr. Dörpfeld, who superintended the excavations and to whom we are indebted for a detailed plan and description of the existing remains, has propounded a theory that the temple was rebuilt by the Athenians shortly after the Persian war, and that it continued to exist as late certainly as the second century of our era and probably much later. If Dr. Dörpfeld had based this theory on the nature of the existing architectural remains, his judgment might well have been regarded as final, since no man living is better qualified than he to pronounce an opinion on all questions relating to Greek architecture. Certainly I for one would not have presumed to differ from him. But although Dr. Dörpfeld believes that the temple was twice burnt and twice rebuilt by the Athenians, he does not maintain that a single stone of the existing remains is of later date than the Persian sack. His theory of the restoration of the temple rests almost wholly on considerations of historical probability and on literary and epigraphical evidence. It is therefore one which every scholar is free to examine and estimate for himself.

Ἀναξιμένης ἐν ᾶ Φιλιππικῶν περὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου λέγων φησίν ἔπειτα τοὺς μὲν ἐνδοξοτάτους ἱππεύειν συνεθίσας ἑταίρους προσηγόρευσε, τοὺς δὲ πλείστους καὶ τοὺς πέζους εἰς λόχους καὶ δεμάδας καὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀρχὰς διελὼν πεζεταίρους ὠνόμασεν, ὄπως ἑκάτεροι μετέχοντες τῆς βασιλικῆς ἑταιρίας προθυμότατοι διατελῶσιν ὄντες.

This fragment of Anaximenes of Lampsacus, a historian contemporary with Philip II and Alexander, cited by Harpocration and the Suda to explain the use of pezetairoi in Demosthenes ii 17, alleges that some Alexander not only accustomed the Macedonians of highest repute to serve in the cavalry but also organised the foot in lochoi, decads and ‘other commands’, apparently those of the writer's own day, and entitled them pezetairoi. Since that title already existed, and was known by both Anaximenes and the lexicographers to have existed, in the reign of Philip, the Alexander named cannot be Alexander III. Taking the information offered seriously, most scholars either suppose Alexander I (c. 495–50) or Alexander II (369–8) to be meant, or refer the innovations to Archelaus (c. 413–399) or even to Philip II (359–36). Emendation can of course only be based on the assumption that the excerptors misunderstood the text of Anaximenes before their eyes.

R. Lattimore's translation is neat and accurate:

There is a rocky island there in the middle channel halfway between Ithaka and towering Samos,

called Asteris, not large, but it has a double anchorage

where ships can lie hidden. There the Achaeans waited in ambush.

I assume that Homeric Ithaca is the island now called Ithaki and that Samos is Kephallinia. The channel will then be the Ithaca Channel, and here there is only one island, now called Daskalio (FIG. 1). So Daskalio = Asteris. So far, so good; Homer has deftly pinpointed the location of the ambush by associating it with the only small island off the west coast of Ithaca.

Daskalio is certainly πετρήεσσα; indeed it is nothing but a narrow shelf of rock about 200 yards long, and rising only about 15 feet above water level (Plate IIIa). No one can deny that it is οὐ μεγάλη; the phrase may well be a litotes. It is not strictly in ‘mid-channel’, being 3,000 yards from Ithaca and only 800 yards from Kephallinia, but this may pass in a poetic description. It is with the ‘double anchorage’ that Homer's description appears to lose touch with reality.