In a paper published in this Journal last year (xvi. p. 280) I proposed an arrangement of the sculptures of this basis. Unfortunately I overlooked a very able paper on the same subject by Dr. Amelung, Die Basis des Praxiteles aus Mantinea, München 1895, in which certain observations of a technical kind in regard to the sculptures are made, observations which must be carefully considered before any arrangement of the basis can be regarded as established. I give a translation of these observations.

‘All three slabs are on their left end cut off by a straight line, and have there at bottom a vertical dowel-hole, to receive a dowel rising from below. Thus all on this side joined other slabs. Both the slabs with figures of Muses on their right end have similar flat surfaces. The Marsyas slab is different. At its right end the marble projected above and below so far as the mouldings are concerned, but these projecting mouldings are roughly cut off. The surface of the end between the projections is not perfectly flat, but follows a slight curve. It is evident then that this slab at its right end met neither of the Muse-slabs. Clearly the cornice and basis projected from the front of the basis to the side, and were roughly cut away when the slab was fitted into the pavement of the church.

Basic Structure: A broad flight of twenty-one steps leads up from the south-west angle of the Temple of Apollo to a partially paved court immediately in front of the lower face of the scarp. This is given a quadrilateral delimitation by the angular revetment of an irregularity in the scarp to the west, and by the monumental water tank to the east of the entrance to the grotto. The entrance was hewn in the cliff face in the form of three arches (now much destroyed), and was revetted with large well-draughted limestone blocks. Of these, only the lower two courses are now in situ, but individual blocks of the upper courses have been collected and amongst them are those with crowning mouldings and one bearing the fragment of a Greek inscription (height:of letters, 25 cm. approximately).

The interior of the grotto consists basically of a central oblong depression, paved and cemented, surrounded on the two sides and the back by a raised staging—thus giving rise to the term of reference ‘TRICLINIUM’—while between the staging and the walls are the tanks and channels: associated with the water supply and drainage.

Considered longitudinally, the interior may be divided into three entities. The first extends from the entrance to a pair of rock-hewn columns bearing rude inscriptions. Immediately above this compartment lay the terrace of an ancient rock-cut path and its collapse has breached the path and totally unroofed this section of the grotto.

The three marble statue bases found in February 1922, incorporated as integral parts of the wall of Athens, are unique records of Attic art. While their supreme importance was recognised from the moment of their discovery, their exact contribution to our knowledge of Attic art is a matter upon which a variety of opinions has been expressed.

M. Philadelpheus, who as Ephor of antiquities of Attica was responsible for their custody at the time of discovery, was the first to publish them. He describes each briefly. No. I. he dates to the end of the sixth century B.C. No. II. he leaves undated, and No. III. he assigns either to the Peisistratid period or to the period of the Republic before 480. He makes no attempt to deal with the works in detail or to analyse their artistic significance.

M. Oikonomos has published a brief account of II. b, in which he suggests an interpretation of the so-called ‘hockey’ game. He disregards the problems of style and date.

Dr. della Seta of the Italian School at Athens is the only authority at present to discuss the artistic value and significance of Bases I. and II. and to attempt to place them chronologically in the Attic series. His exhaustive and attractive articles deserve the closest attention.

By the kindness of the owner, Mr. Arthur Bernard Cook, an inscribed electrum coin of the well-known ‘lion’ type is depicted in Fig. 1; its inscription, which exists only in part on the examples in other cabinets, appears to be complete. In the list below, the Keeper of the Department of Coins in the British Museum describes the specimens known in various sizes—Mr. Cook's being No. 5—and shows that the series has been attributed either to Lydia or to an Ionian city. The inscription seems to have been originally the same on all these specimens; it was, however, omitted from the collection of texts in Lydian script (Sardis, VI. ii. p. vii, note 1), because the uncertainty of the reading on the coins then available made its Lydian character doubtful and precluded the transcription of a trustworthy copy. Had Mr. Cook's coin been known to me in 1924, I should have included it in that small corpus as ‘No. 52.’

Professor G. E. Rizzo, in his Saggi Preliminari su L'Arte della Moneta nella Sicilia Greca—a book beautifully produced, and ennobled by Bar Pennisi's wonderful photographs—has done me the honour of quoting several passages from a lecture delivered before the British Academy in 1934, and published in volume XX of its Proceedings under the title Late Archaic and Early Classical Greek Sculpture in Sicily and South Italy.

Since his quotations embody some variants from what I wrote, he will perhaps allow me to correct the more ingenious, leaving aside those where only his English is at fault and any reader interested in accurate scholarship can compare my original text with his rendering of it. But after disposing of this personal matter, and ignoring the frequent abuse which serves to add bulk and save reasoning, I shall quickly pass to a consideration of certain features of his archaeological method; not doubting the prolonged, profound and silent studies here proclaimed, but attempting to judge them rather by their results than by their advertisement.

Plate V represents a small Attic bell-krater in the collection of Mr. Edward Armytage, who has kindly permitted its publication. The subject is novel: it appears to be the arrival in Attica of Theseus, and shews in detail a close correspondence with our main literary source, the seventeenth ode of Bacchylides. The two youths on the left are the two companions of Theseus, Peirithoos and Phorbas—δύο (F)οι φῶτε μόνους ὰμαρτεῖν λέγει (l.c. line 45). They are in travelling costume, booted and cloaked, wearing ephebic fillets and bearing pairs ofspears—ξεστοὺς δὲ δύ᾿ ἐν χέρεσς᾿ ἀκοντας (1. 49, though said of Theseus himself, not of his comrades).

Miss W. Lamb has kindly asked me to publish the terracotta sarcophagus in Cambridge, which comes from Rhodes. Fig. 1 explains the system of reference to the various parts of the face of the typical Clazomenian sarophagus. Unless it is otherwise stated, figures and heads of men and animals face towards the centre of the sarcophagus.

The sarcophagi listed below consist of five found in Rhodes and presumed to be of local manufacture, and of three probably from Clazomenae which are loosely related.

The third Byzantine Congress, held at Athens in October, was attended by some 350 persons, of whom only two were British. While several other Governments were represented and the French, German, Italian and other continental Universities and learned societies sent large delegations—36 delegates came from Jugoslavia alone—only one British learned society, the British Archaeological School of Athens, was represented, and—as was remarked at the Congress—Great Britain was conspicuous by her absence. Yet the Congress was admittedly an important and successful meeting. In all the four sections of history, archaeology, philology and law, medicine and other sciences, notable papers were read by eminent Byzantinologists. In the two sittings of all the four sections united together, Professor Jorga spoke about ‘The great Byzantine families in Roumania and the rebirth of the idea of the Empire among the Roumanians’: Professor Charles Diehl delivered a graceful address on ‘The Legend of the Emperor Theophilos’; Professor Heisenberg, the editor of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, spoke with great tact about ‘Byzantine studies since the World War, their development and their aims’; Professor Darko of Debreczen commemorated J. B. Bury; the great Greek poet, Palamas, told of ‘The Byzantine heritage in modern Greek poetry’; and Professor Grégoire of Brussels examined the sources of Digenis Akritas. There was a visit to the monastery of Daphni, where, after a brief lecture by MM. Koukoules and Soteriou, an al fresco luncheon was offered to the Congressists by the Mayor of Athens, and excursions were made to Monemvasia and Mistra and to Salonika.

The two vase fragments reproduced in the accompanying illustration were among those brought by Mr. Hogarth from Naukratis in 1903, and are now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The subject is painted in black silhouette, no other colour occurring in the fragment of the scene which remains: incised lines are used, not only for the inner markings, but for a great part of the outlines. Immediately below the design are two bands of purple: below these again the vase, which was of considerable size, was covered with black paint. The execution is careless, the paint of the design being very unevenly applied.