In my Attic Black-figure: a Sketch I gave a short account of the Amasis painter, and a list of his works. Since then, I have published a vase by him, and fragments of six or seven others; and Dr. Kraiker has prefixed an important study of him to his Epiktetos. One or two of the following vases are mentioned in my A.B.S. list: but most of them are new.

My thanks are due to Senator Marchese Giorgio Guglielmi di Vulci and to Captain E. G. Spencer-Churchill for their kind permission to publish vases in their collections; to Captain J. E. Acland, Dr. L. D. Caskey, Prof. A. von Salis, Dr. A. Maiuri, Dr. P. Marconi, Mr. H. W. Maxwell, Mr. A. Merlin, Dr. A. Minto, Dr. B. Nogara, and Mr. E. Stefani for their kind permission to publish vases in Dorchester, Boston, Heidelberg, Naples, Palermo, Bristol, the Louvre, Florence, the Vatican, and the Villa Giulia; to Mrs. Ure for sending me photographs of the Dorchester fragments and allowing me to publish them; to Prof. C. Albizzati for generously waiving his claim to publish the Vatican fragments; to Mr. G. R. Stanton for help at Bristol; to my wife for all the photographs reproduced except fifteen.

In a paper on Ancient Oil Mills and Presses I touched upon Heron's screw-cutter, an instrument for cutting an inside screw thread in wood, described by him in his Mechanics (iii. 21). In relation to the oil-presses, it was a mere side-issue; but since the editor of the text, L. Nix, did not seem to have understood the instrument fully, I gave my own interpretation of the text, and a reconstruction, on paper, of the instrument.

This interpretation, or rather, the reconstruction, has been called in question by Mr. E. J. Andre Kenny, who in Antiquity, 1933, 7. 249, declares, that it is ‘ technically impossible.’ If that is the case, either the text, or my interpretation of it (or both), would seem to be at fault. Quite apart from the general inadvisability of starting an argument against a review it seems clear that such a question could only be satisfactorily answered in one way: by a practical experiment.

There are several inscriptions in the Greek Corpus in which occurs the word ἴκρια or its derivatives ἰκριῶσαιἰκριώματα etc., and in the majority of them it is sufficiently evident from the context that ἴκρια means ‘scaffolding,’ i.e. wooden erections used by workmen for operations carried on at a height from the ground, especially in connexion with the building or repair of temples. This is the recognised meaning of the word in such places. But there are certain exceptions—inscriptions in which, though the same word occurs, it has been given a different rendering— not ‘scaffolding,’ but ‘fence’ or ‘balustrade’ (Latin cancelli). The very full article on ἴκριον by Frickenhaus in Pauly-Wissowa will be found to include the occurrences of the word in inscriptions, and it sets out (ii. 2) the cases where this exceptional rendering ‘fence’ or ‘balustrade’ has been generally accepted. These are I.G. iv. 39; i2. 94; i2. 371, 22. It is with these three inscriptions that I propose to deal in this note.

By the kind permission of Professor Sieveking and of Mr. A. M. Woodward, who has informed me of the existence of these objects and has sent me the photographs here reproduced and the necessary notes, I am able to publish a few small objects in ivory, bone, and bronze which were acquired in 1911 by the Museum der Kleinkunst in Munich. A summary account of them by Professor Sieveking has already appeared in the Münchner Jahrb. der bildender Kunst, 1912, p. 73. The channel by which they reached Munich is naturally obscure, but there can be no doubt that they were found at the Orthia sanctuary at Sparta, the excavation of which was finished in 1910, the year before the objects were acquired at Munich. Even before this information reached me, I had learned by a curious accident that there had, in fact, been some small pilfering from the Orthia excavation by one of our workmen.

The three of the excavators of the Orthia Sanctuary most concerned confess to a feeling of discouragement on finding that in the case of one reader at least all their endeavours to tell a plain tale plainly have failed, and that their power of expression has not been equal to the task laid upon it. The reader in question is the writer of the very careful and painstaking review of ‘Artemis Orthia’ which has appeared in the J.H.S. for this year over the initials V. W.-G. It is plain that to the reviewer the grounds on which the latter periods of Laconian pottery, the periods of its decay, upon which so much depends, have been classified are neither clear nor convincing. And since, in fact, the evidence on which that classification was made was both clear and convincing, the failure must lie in the exposition. In the excavators' hands the spade has been mightier than the pen. Or does the fault lie in an historical training which has not been adequate to the appreciation of the minutiae of archaeological evidence? ‘The historian,’ we are told, ‘may differ from the excavator in his estimate of what is proved.’

From Mrs. A. D. Ure's exhaustive review of my Attic Black-figured Lekythoi in the last volume of JHS (57, pp. 263–5), I realise that for the sake of brevity I must often have been less clear than I ought to have been, so that certain passages in my book call for explanation.

‘ The dearth of material for the years following 530 ’ (‘JHS’ 57, P. 264) is only apparent. There is the Phanyllis class (ABL 63–8), which belongs roughly to the period 520–500, although examples occur both before and after; it was placed at the end of its chapter for the sole reason that the stuff is second-rate, and therefore less important, and not because it is later than Other items in this chapter and the foregoing one. On the contrary, it covers a long space of time.

We should turn to ABL 16–8 and 35–7 to see the points from which these groups start. Their terminus ante quem is given on pp. 63–8: in these pages I discuss the groups at the last possible moment—I admit—but they do not deserve a better treatment. The larger, chief types tack on to such lekythoi as Athens 371 and London B 571 (see ABL 63 and 36) in style and decoration, as well as in date. The lesser ones are followers of such small lekythoi as the ‘ fat runner ’ group (offshoot of the Dolphin class): for some examples see ABL 17, below; the groups themselves are discussed on pp. 66–8.

This article reviews a selection of books published over the last decade that explore the relationship between humans and the environment in the ancient Greek world. These publications represent a new phase of the ecological turn in classical studies, in which ancient environmental studies has emerged as a distinct subdivision of the environmental humanities. Their contributions can roughly be divided into two groups according to their approaches and goals: one applies ecocritical analyses to Greek literature, presenting alternative ecologies to those that have produced contemporary environmental crises; the other applies historical methods to written and material evidence to illuminate the realities of ancient Greek human–environment relations. The three subsections of this review provide overviews of scholarship addressing sustainability and the conservation of natural resources; ecology and religion; and societal resilience in the face of ecological stress. I suggest productive avenues for further research in each area, arguing that interdisciplinary communication and collaboration are becoming increasingly important in this evidentially, methodologically and theoretically variegated field.

In a recent paper (JHS LXXII 1 ff.) is set out the distribution of speeches in the Odyssey, and the principles of their arrangement within its principal episodes. It is an obvious and necessary counterpart, to apply the same method of study to the Iliad. Though much has been done by Sir John Sheppard in The Pattern of the Iliad (1932), he has not made express use of the grouping of the speeches; and the present paper is designed to supplement his analysis of their contents by the special examination of their positions in the general design. I am still acutely aware of my debt to The Pattern of the Iliad; and it seems to me only possible to set out my own suggestions in full, at the cost of some repetition from a work so closely linked in its general theme.

Speeches in the Iliad (over 670) are more numerous than in the Odyssey (629 + 8 in Demodocus' second lay), but their distribution is similar:

The largest number, fifty, is in Odyssey XVII; forty-five are in Iliad XXIV.

The biography of Anaxagoras (500–428 BC), the most brilliant scientist of antiquity, contains many unresolved contradictions, which are best explained as follows. After he ‘predicted’ the fall of the meteorite at Aegospotami in 466, he lived nearby at Lampsacus as the protege of its ruler Themistocles. In 460 Pericles became his patron at Athens, where he lived for the next 30 years. In 431, Pericles was taking part in an expedition to the Peloponnese when the sun was eclipsed; he tried to dispel his helmsman’s fear by covering his face with his cloak, illustrating Anaxagoras’ correct account of eclipses. In 430 he led a second such expedition, which failed badly; its return coincided with the plague. The seer Diopeithes brought in a decree that targeted the ‘atheist’ Anaxagoras by banning astronomy. This enabled Thucydides son of Melesias and Cleon to attack Pericles by prosecuting Anaxagoras, on the ground that Pericles’ impiety had angered the gods, thereby causing the plague. Pericles sent Anaxagoras back to Lampsacus, where he soon died; Pericles was himself deposed and fined, in a first triumph for the Athenian populist reaction against the fifthcentury Enlightenment.

Neither literature nor coins bear any witness to the cult of Aphrodite at Olbia, but we have an inscription which is of the highest interest.

[᾿Αφρο]δίτηι Εὐπλοίαι

[Ποσ]ιδεος Ποσιδείου

χαριστήριον

This inscription is of the first century after Christ; Posideos the son of Posideos is no doubt the same individual who dedicated offerings at Neapolis to Zeus Atabyrios, Athene Lindia, and ᾿ Αχιλλεῖ νήσου [μεδέοντι] Boeckh conjectures him to have been a Rhodian, no doubt because of the dedications to Athene Lindia and Zeus Atabyrios, and also because Aphrodite Euploia was worshipped at Cnidus.

The island of Delos is rather less than four miles long from north to south, with a greatest breadth of about a mile and a half. In its midst the granite platform of Cynthus rises to a height of some 350 feet above the sea-level. From the summit of Cynthus, looking westward, there is a view of rare beauty and surpassing interest. The narrow plain which extends along the western shore of the island was once covered by the ancient town of Delos. Near its middle point, a little to our right, and not far from the principal harbour, stood the temple of Apollo, with a cluster of sacred buildings surrounding it, in the brightness of Parian marble. The larger island of Rheneia, separated from Delos by a channel with an average breadth of half a mile, lies parallel with it on the west, but projects beyond it on the north,—veiling it from those who approach in a straight course from Syra. The two islets in this strait between Delos and Rheneia are now called Rheumatiari (ῥευματιάρια), ‘the channel isles’; the largest and southernmost once bore the name of Hecate, being the place where the women of Delos made their offerings of cakes to that goddess.

The casts of Greek and Roman sculpture in the Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge were treated and repaired recently by M. B. Laymann, now of Heidelberg. During his final visit, in 1975, he also restored a cast of the Peplos kore (Fig. I ), supplying the missing parts by analogy, colouring it according to published indications and adding a meniskos, which is conjectural in form, size and height. As for its height, the meniskos cannot have been much lower, to judge by what remains of the spike of other korai (Acropolis 670, 673, 682); and if it had been much higher, it would have given less protection against bird droppings and from experiment my impression is that the effect, particularly of the longer spike, is more disturbing. The size decided on was that just large enough to protect the head; though Aristophanes (Birds, 1114–7) may imply that it protected the whole of a statue, such an extension seems to me awkward visually and in practice would have made the contraption liable to damage in a high wind.

The Troad has been so thoroughly explored of late years that my only excuse for saying anything about my own travels in it during the autumn of 1879 is partly that they were undertaken in the cause of archaeology, partly that I enjoyed the advantage of having Mr. Frank Calvert as a guide. Mr. Calvert has lived so long in the country, and is so well acquainted with its archaeology, in the interest of which he has excavated on various historic and prehistoric sites, that I could not fail to obtain a better knowledge of the whole district than has hitherto fallen to the lot of most visitors. Dr. Schliemann, moreover, had kindly placed his foreman and servant, Nikóla, at the disposal of myself and my friend, Mr. F. W. Percival, and as Nikóla is a native of Ren Keui, I had additional opportunities of making myself acquainted with Trojan topography.

Since Dr. Schliemann, however, has entered fully into this subject in his work on ‘Ilios,’ I shall content myself with a few selections from the notes I made during my journey, and draw attention to one or two matters which have not been observed before. But I must first of all confess myself a convert to the theory which identifies the Ilium of Homer with Hissarlik. If Troy ever existed, it could have only been on the site of Hissarlik.

Since the first publication by Robert of the magnificent krater from Orvieto, which is one of the proudest possessions of the Louvre, its style has been brought in connexion with Mikon, more on account of the figures half disappearing behind the rocks, than on the rather problematic assumption that Mikon's Argonauts might have inspired the artist in the more extensive picture on the side of the vase opposite to the death of the Niobids. This last scene (Fig. 1) is perfectly clear, and would not be in need of any new commentary if Robert had not committed the error of taking the arrow, near the handle, as fallen (freccia caduta per terra), holding this to be a piece of thoughtlessness, rather uncommon with Attic ceramists, and if Hauser had not gone even further, blaming the painter for so absurdly making an unerring god shoot an arrow and lose it. Both of course are wrong, and it is the more surprising that he who understands what escaped Robert— namely that Apollo shooting and Artemis taking a new arrow suggest to our mind the presence, though unseen, behind the hills of the missing sons and daughters of Niobe—fails to understand that the painting is not a poor extract from a larger composition, but that it was precisely the perhaps somewhat extravagant intention of the artist to suggest more than he shows.

Reading University has recently acquired two fresh examples of the group of small vases with outline drawing first discussed by Wide, who tentatively connected them with Mykalessos. One is a kylix, formerly in the possession of Mr. John Fothergill and most generously presented by him to the University, showing Herakles with his club (Figs, 1 and 2b). The second is a pyxis, damaged somewhat in an air raid of 1945, with a subject on the lid that is less easy to recognise (Figs. 2a and 3). Reading has also a third vase, belonging to this series but standing rather apart from the rest. It is a kylix of the same kind as the first, but decorated inside with a rosebud between sprays (Fig. 4). These three vases with Wide's original five and one other kylix published in the Russian Compte Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique 1901 (1903) p. 131 Fig. 229 (reproduced here in Fig. 5) bring the total of vases of this class up to nine. Nothing is known of the provenance of any of the three vases in Reading and the kylix in Russia is published in a list of chance finds and acquisitions in the government of Cherson with no information as to how it was acquired.

Wide associated his group with the cult of Demeter of Mykalessos whose temple, according to Pausanias, was shut every night and opened again by Herakles.

An Article of 1935 in Retrospect.—Since certain views on the above subject, put forward in JHS LV, have received the honour of detailed discussion in Mr. R. M. Cook's important contribution to Vol. LXVI and also in a notable recent book (Dunbabin, The Western Greeks, 446 ff.), some comment from the author of the original article would appear to be in order.

In the opening lines of the Eumenides Aeschylus' Pythia says that the first prophetic deity at Delphi was Gaia. She was followed by two of her daughters in succession, Themis and Phoibe. Phoibe gave the oracle to Phoibos as a birthday present, and it is from her that he had his name.