This article examines the remarkable inscribed monument IG XII.4.132, a dossier of documents dealing with political strife and reconciliation in the small island polis of Telos, as an important new piece of evidence for democracy in the early Hellenistic period. Placing the monument in its historical, geographical and political context, I argue that the background to the strife was most likely the activity of ‘demagogues’ in the courts of democratic Telos. Furthermore, we should view the terms of the reconciliation against the backdrop of issues of community service, publicity and memorialization, all contested political topics in the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods. The dossier shows that the kinds of ‘high politics’ and stasis that affected major poleis could be found also in the small cities of the Greek world, with important local variations. The document sits at a historical crossroads in terms both of judicial practices (including the use of foreign judges) and of constitutional forms (democracy and oligarchy).

The ‘hierarchy of herdsmen’ in pastoral (cowherd > shepherd > goatherd) as discussed by ancient critics of Theocritus and Virgil was an important facet of ancient readers' engagement with this literature; it was known to imperial authors of prose pastoral Longus (1.16.1) and Alciphron (2.33.1-2), who each allude to it and adapt it to their own unique receptions of the pastoral tradition. Alciphron is concerned with hierarchies of wealth and status among his ‘low’ characters; he uses his readers' awareness of hierarchy as a theme of his pastoral hypotexts to sustain a theme of social status throughout his Letters and to order his four books according to their protagonists' position in the hierarchy. His relocation of ‘Idylls’ to a Classical Attic setting, and transposition into the Sophistic Atticizing prose valued by contemporary authors, follows up Longus' attempt to reclaim the pastoral tradition from Virgil for Greek literature. Menander is proposed as an authorial figure for Alciphron in Letters 4.18–19.

This article reviews the historical accuracy of the account of the Spartan wedding ceremony in Plutarch’s Vita Lycurgi. It surveys the texts that are usually quoted in support of Plutarch’s account and argues that none offers a relevant parallel. It also suggests a different kind of wedding ceremony for Archaic and Classical Sparta.

The American excavations in the Athenian Agora were resumed in February 1933, and continued till the middle of July. An account of the work up to May 1 has been published in AJA. 1933, 305 ff. The work is being carried on in four sectors (see AJA. pl. 35)

The wells and cisterns cleared during the latter part of the summer of 1932 are described by Homer Thompson in AJA. 1933, 289 ff. These provide clear evidence of the existence of houses where all traces of walls and foundations have disappeared, notably along the north foot of the Areopagus and north-east of the Theseum, and their contents shew that the inhabitation of this area goes back at least to the early sixth century B.C. In some cases (wells closed in the late sixth and early fifth centuries) the pottery found in the wells seems to indicate the proximity of potters' workshops or warehouses, and pots have been found which had contained miltos. This is further proved for the fourth century by the presence of misfired vase-fragments and lamps. Several pieces of archaic pottery found in these wells are illustrated in the article mentioned above— notably a large one-piece amphora of the earliest class, decorated with a massive sphinx (loc. cit. fig. 3), and from the same shaft an exquisite plastic vase (loc. cit. fig. 5, here Pl XVI)—Ionian, or Ionising, work of about 540 B.C., and without question one of the finest of all existing plastic vases.

Thucydides' and Herodotus' comments on a portentous (and unique) Delian earthquake contain the same phrase, but date the event almost 60 years apart and mutually rule out each other's datings. Two additional problems in these passages – geology demonstrates that Delos has never in fact had an earthquake of any significance and κινεῖν is not the word for an earthquake – point to an explanation for the historians' treatment. They are based on the Delphic oracle quoted by Herodotus which promised to ‘move unmoved Delos’, a paradox based on the island's mythical transition from floating to fixed (Pindar), but liable to confusion with its equally well-known aseismicity. Normally κινεῖν τὰ ἀκίνητα is used of interfering with religious sites; but the oracle's prediction was interpreted as an earthquake, that was assumed to have occurred in due course (although it had not). Both historians accepted the interpretation, but followed different datings since they invested it with different symbolism, Herodotus of the evils of the Persian and subsequent Greek wars, Thucydides of excited anticipation on the eve of the Peloponnesian War, since for him κίνησις meant ‘mobilization’ (1.1).

In 1903 the Russian Archaeological Commission purchased a hydria from a dealer at Olbia which is now in the collection of ancient vases in the Hermitage (Fig. 1). Being considered by some authorities a forgery, the vase was not published in the Report of the Commission. I can assert that there is no doubt as to the authenticity of the vase. Apart from small injuries there are no important parts broken off or restored. The shape, but for some slight variations, is that of a typical late archaic hydria; sharp divisions are avoided, the shoulder being connected with the body by a soft curve and the same profile used for the foot. The ring above the foot is quite flat and not separated from the foot. On the lip of the vase there are two sharp projecting tongues instead of the “rotelle” of the archaic type (Fig. 2).

The handles are round and curved slightly upwards. The varnish is very bad and dull, being laid on very thin, so that the surface of the clay shows through. There are spots where the fire has turned the black varnish red. The clay is of a dull yellow colour, badly cleansed, with holes in the polished surface, evidently in consequence of small stones and pieces of glimmer which have broken away. The surface of the clay, in the panel reserved for the design, is of a reddish colour. The greater part of the foot, the stripes under the horizontal handles, the inner parts of all three handles and the outer part of the lip are left unvarnished. Judging from the quality of the clay and the special character of the varnish, the vase appears to be Etruscan work.

This Index owes its origin to the deciphering of a folio printed in Greek in Paris in 1628. As other books came under my eye, I found that in addition to the ligatures which I had analysed there were still many others, and I was so beguiled by their manifold and often obscure forms that I went far afield in my researches. It was surprising, no less than disconcerting, that with the exception of Proctor, to whom reference will presently be made, no one in modern days had occupied himself with a phase of Greek typography which, owing to its crabbedness and elusive contractions, based no doubt upon the Tironian practices of the scribes, had estranged students from the study of later Greek literature.

Beginning with the Baskerville fount of 1763, I worked backwards, overtaking the Paris fount, till, with a Froben as a complication, I was entangled in an Aldine. This led me to Proctor's erudite monograph on The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century, which was of great value, for by its means I was able to verify my own decipherings and at the same time to add to my list fresh examples from the texts and founts which he had analysed.

Apart from Proctor's work only three lists were accessible. The first was that of Aldus Manutius (1494–5), who gave clues to the more complicated sorts in one of his founts, adding that he passed over many ‘connexiones’ as they could be identified very easily. The next list was that printed at the end of the Greek Grammar of Ramus (Hanover, 1605), in which the Aldine ‘connexiones’ were included and others as well, a thoughtful proceeding if the Grammar was to be of any use, for it was printed almost entirely in ligatures.

This article attempts to summarise the results (1) of those excavations carried out in Greek lands in 1924 of which no report was available in time for my account printed in the last volume of the Journal, and (2) of the excavations of 1925 of which reports had come to hand before the end of September. This system will be followed in the accounts which I hope to contribute annually henceforward.

American School

The varied activities of the American School included excavations at the sites of Corinth, the Argive Heraeum, and Eutresis in Boeotia. At Nemea and Phlius, the opening campaigns at which sites were described in my report of a year ago, no further work was done in the summer of 1925. At Corinth, thanks to a generous subsidy by, and the personal enterprise of, Professor T. L. Shear, substantial progress was made with the Herculean task of clearing the theatre, where, on the south side of the orchestra, the depth of the deposit of earth proved to be 12 metres; before the season closed, over 5000 tons of debris had been removed to a dump a quarter of a mile away. In the west of the cavea the seats proved to be all destroyed, but a remarkable discovery was made, in the form of a wall, originally ca. 2·80 metres high, surrounding the orchestra. This where cleared was preserved to a height of 1·70 m., and was painted in fresco with scenes of life-sized figures engaged in combat with lions. One combatant, in action with a lion which charges him from the left, is clad in a long purple under-garment, with a white over-garment fastened at the knee; another wears a short garment which hangs down in front, leaving the legs bare to the hips, and white sandals; other figures, variously clad, and also fighting lions, appear in other scenes.