A recent article has observed, with particular reference to the Homeric poems, that ‘divine intervention <cannot> be simply removed from the poems to leave a kernel of sociological truths’. I agree; though I should interpret the words in a manner different from their author. I shall endeavour to show in this article that not merely divine intervention, but divine behaviour as a whole in the Homeric poems, is governed by the same values as human behaviour in the poems; so that the ‘sociological truths’—or whatever they should be termed—can encompass divine as well as human behaviour in Homer. Nor, it seems to me, is this even prima facie surprising. True, the conversations on Olympus recorded in Homer are in one sense entirely free composition, since no bard in the tradition had ever met an Olympian or attended an assembly of the gods. But the bards lived in a society which—like later Greek societies that we are better able to observe—believed itself able to discern the hand of gods in the events which befell it or its several members; which, not surprisingly, attributed pleasant events to the favour of its gods, unpleasant events to the anger of its gods; enquired why the god or gods concerned was pleased or angry; and ascribed reasons for divine pleasure or anger analogous to those for which a powerful human being in the society might have been expected to become pleased or angry.

Less than two years after the brilliant victories of Plataiai and Mykale, the Athenians and their Ionian kinsfolk, grown weary of the arrogance of Pausanias the king, declined to serve further under Spartan command and in effect withdrew from the Grand Alliance. Instead, they formed an association of their own, centred upon the shrine of all Ionians at Delos, and swore to fight the Mede till iron should float. The date, 478/7 B.C., is contained in the Aristotelian Ἀθηναίων Πολιτϵία, and it is to be trusted. The first military action of the new alliance was to besiege and take Eion upon the Strymon, a Persian fort, its second the capture and resettlement of the island of Skyros, a nest of Dolopian pirates. In both campaigns the allied commander was Kimon. The siege of Eion is dated to the archonship of Phaidon, that is to the year 476/5; and the capture of Skyros followed an oracle which the Athenians had received in this same archonship. The god had commanded them to recover the bones of Theseus and to watch over them in honour among themselves. Driven from Athens by Menestheus the Erechtheid pretender, Theseus had gone to Skyros and there met his death at the hands of King Lykomedes.

During the first half of the sixth century B.C. a particularly distinctive type of black-figured vase was produced in Athens. This was the panel amphora decorated with the profile of a horse's head. A number of these ‘horse-head amphorae’ has survived to modern times and one such was purchased by the British Museum in 1964 with the aid of funds from the Ready Bequest. Hitherto this class of amphora had been represented in the National collection only by sherds, notably the four found at Tell Defenneh which R. M. Cook published in 1954. However, the subsequent re-organisation of the sherd collection produced four more, still unregistered, sherds, of which one was found to make a join with one of the published Tell Defenneh ones. The publication of the British Museum's newly-acquired amphora, together, for the sake of completeness, with all the London fragments as we now have them, provides the first reason for the present paper.

Moreover, in recent years there has been a spate of Attic horse-head amphorae, re-discovered or arriving fresh, in museums and private collections all over the world. So many are now known that a simple list to supplement that of Beazley's Attic Black-figured Vase-Painters and Paralipomena seemed unworthy of what must now be recognised as an important series of Attic black-figured vase. My other present objective is, therefore, a stylistic classification. I leave for another occasion, or even for others to take up, the many other aspects which the complete discussion of the subject should include. Here I am concerned with stylistic analysis, with making at least a start in distinguishing individual painters and workshops.

The National Museum at Athens houses many fine vases of the late black-figure and early red-figure technique, as well as the Acropolis fragments, but the display cases which perhaps attract no less attention are those containing the small Attic black-figured lekythoi. The paintings on these vases, making no claim to artistic pretensions and produced in answer to local burial needs, often echo impressions the vase-painters received from the theatre or from figures in monumental painting. It is worth noting that they were inspired not only by well-known myths but also by stories of popular belief which the painters of large vases scorned to represent. The large vases were made and painted for the Italian and Etruscan markets and had to be decorated with impressive themes. On the small lekythos which concerns us here (Plate XVIII, 1–2), we meet a unique theme which raises a host of questions and leads to a wealth of conjectures.

The picture is framed by two columns with Doric capitals. The right-hand column, which is the better drawn, spreads to a sort of base, and the painter must have imagined both columns to be of wood. Of the three female figures on either side of the weird figure in the middle, the one on the right, dressed in chiton and himation, turns her head to the left, whilst her feet point to the right. She extends her right arm imperiously, palm open, towards the central figure. The latter is distinguished from the others by the fact that her feet do not appear beneath her himation which hangs below them. Her coiffure differs from that of the others, as we shall see later.

A new approach to the ancient world is only too often a wrong approach, unless it is based on some concrete discovery. But I think it fair to talk of new perspectives, at least, in the study of Greek mythology. Certainly the old and familiar ones are no longer adequate. Indeed it is surprising, in the light of fresh intuitions about society, literacy, the pre-Homeric world, and relations with the ancient Near East, that myth—one of the most pervasive aspects of Greek culture—has been left in its old and rather cobwebby pigeon-hole. Rose's simple paraphrases are accepted as adequate for students; Nilsson's sparse pages in his history of religion are rightly respected, though some of them are too simple; the Murray-Cook-Harrison-Cornford reconstruction of religion, ritual and myth is regarded as a little excessive, but perhaps not too far out; Kerényi and Eliade are roughly tolerated, if not widely read by Classicists, and their books are ordered in profusion for the library; the psychological side is adequately taken care of, or so it is supposed, by what is left from Freud and Jung, with Cassirer as sufficient authority for the sources of mythical imagination.

Many of these critics had their moments of brilliant insight, but most were misleading in their theories taken as a whole. We can now accept that many myths have ritual counterparts, and some have ritual origins, without having to adopt Cornford's belief, developed after Harrison, Frazer and Robertson Smith, that all myths are such.

An inscription (IG i2 115) consisting of a prelude and then of Drakon's law of homicide has long been known. The prelude dates it 409/8 B.C.; it was evidently part of the recodification of Athenian law carried out by Nikomakhos and a board of anagrapheis in most of the years 411/0–400/399 B.C. Drakon's law was on a separate stele, of which the upper part, probably about half, survives. In some period since Antiquity the marble was used as pavement, and the resulting wear has deterred study of it since the edition of 1867. Recently, however, R. S. Stroud has published a new edition of the code inscription and this has stimulated renewed interest in the Athenian law of homicide. Stroud has provided not only a new and much expanded text of the code but also some persuasive solutions to problems that have long perplexed scholars. The code deals with unpremeditated (μὴ ἐκ προνοίας) homicide. This very aspect—the precise scope of the code—receives, oddly, scant treatment. I propose to look into it.

By scope I mean what sorts of homicide were covered by the extant portion of the code. Another, and I think inevitable, way of looking at this problem is to ask, Where did the missing portion of the code, dealing with premeditated homicide, stop, and where did the surviving portion start, i.e. where was the line drawn in Athens between premeditated and unpremeditated homicide? Thus stated, the question makes it clear that one cannot deal with the problem of premeditation in vacuo; it must be examined in the context of Athenian homicide as a whole.

In the Department of Archaeology of the Manchester Museum is a terracotta figurine that is clearly intended to be a model of the Athena Parthenos of Phidias. Though very worn, and of undistinguished provincial Roman workmanship, a'description of the figure, and some comments upon it, are offered here because it perhaps sheds light on all our other replicas of this famous work (Plates XIX-XX)

When the figurine first emerged from the Manchester basements in 1970 comparison with the other published replicas then generally known suggested that it had some unique and interesting features that would make its publication worth while; however, since then Mr B. B. Shefton has most opportunely drawn my attention to a figurine in Exeter that has many points in common (Plate XXII), while Mrs Leipen's valuable collection of all the replicas relevant to the reconstruction of the statue made at the Royal Ontario Museum lists another figurine, in Geneva, that must be from the same mould (Plate XXI). This figure was acquired by the Musée d'art et d'histoire in 1916 from a local family with no antiquarian interests and of unimpeachable reputation, in whose possession it had been since at least 1870—ten years earlier than the discovery of the Varvakeion statue, the only other replica-type in the round to have the column; it had evidently been found on their land at Bassy, near Seyssel in the department of Ain, about 35 km. south-west of Geneva. Its authenticity has at times been doubted, but among the compelling arguments that Deonna brought forward in its defence were the humble circumstances of its discovery, and the fact that its former owners had made no effort to publicise their find. In support of this one can now adduce the statuette in Manchester, whose provenance is unknown, but which was presented to the museum by Miss Hilda Ransome, the author of The Sacred Bee (London, 1937) at some date before 1933, since when it has lain among the museum's reserve collections, apparently forgotten.

Two postwar studies have given a new direction to discussions of the oligarchic revolutions in Athens. In 1956 Mr G. E. M. de Ste Croix attacked the accepted doctrine that the régime which succeeded that of the Four Hundred, in the autumn of 411 (which I shall refer to as the intermediate régime), was one in which all political rights were restricted to men of hoplite status: instead he suggested that the basic rights (membership of the assembly and δικαστήρια) were restored to all who had enjoyed them before the democracy was overthrown, and that the privilege reserved for men of hoplite status was that of holding office. Professor B. R. I. Sealey has advanced a stage further on this line of reasoning, and argues that this form of modified democracy is what was wanted also by those who campaigned in the spring of 411 for rule by the Five Thousand: then, as in the autumn, all citizens were to retain their basic rights, and the Five Thousand were to be the body of men eligible to hold office. This allows Sealey to play down dislike of democracy, as such, and to attach more importance in the agitation for reform to other motives, such as the desire to save public money by excluding from office men who could not afford to serve unless they were paid a salary. My object here is to suggest that this new interpretation is mistaken. Much will have to be taken for granted on other issues, but it may be helpful if I first reveal my presuppositions in a brief note on the sources and the kind of narrative I would reconstruct from them.

This paper is principally concerned with two fifth century Athenian inscriptions and their interpretation. The first, IG i2 19, was discovered on the Akropolis and first published by Ulrich Köhler in 1867. Some twenty years later it was re-examined by H. G. Lolling, who was the first to see that it concerned relations between Athens and Egesta. It has subsequently been the object of the usual ingenious attempts at restoration. I give below a conservative text.

HK = R. Heberdey and E. Kalinka, ‘Die philosophische Inschrift von Oinoanda’ in BCH xxi (1897) 346–443.

William = J. William, Diogenis Oenoandensis fragmenta (Leipzig 1907).

Chilton = C. W. Chilton, Diogenis Oenoandensis fragmenta (Leipzig 1967).

Smith A = M. F. Smith, ‘Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda discovered and rediscovered’ in AJA lxxiv (1970) 51–62.

Smith B = M. F. Smith, ‘New fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda’ in AJA lxxv (1971) 357–89.

fr. = fragment of Diogenes' inscription. Numbers are those of Chilton, unless otherwise indicated.

NF = new fragment(s) of Diogenes' inscription. NF 1–4 are in Smith A; 5–16 in Smith B; 17–18 in this article.

In May 1971 I revisited the Lycian city of Oenoanda, in search of fragments of the philosophical inscription of the Epicurean Diogenes. In 1968–69–70 I had rediscovered forty-five of the fragments found in the nineteenth century, and discovered sixteen new stones bearing about 800 words of text.

My latest investigation of the site yielded just two more new fragments, the texts of which are given infra, and though it is possible that a few more blocks of the inscription may be found without excavation, I have now searched the central part of the city systematically and thoroughly, and I should be surprised if I have overlooked many fragments lying on the surface. At the same time I am confident that a proper excavation of the site would be richly rewarded.

It would seem that the plan of Thessaloniki (fig. 4) was laid out at the time of the city's foundation by Cassander in c. 316 b.c. and that it has close parallels in the plans of other early Hellenistic cities. There was possibly an agora in the upper city from the beginning, but the principal, commercial agora of the Hellenistic city was probably closer to the sea. A large open space to the west was possibly a ‘sacred area’ in Hellenistic times, but the only religious centre whose site is known with any degree of certainty is the Serapeum. A gymnasium is known to have existed to the north of the city from the late Hellenistic period at least, and a nearby stadium probably goes back to Hellenistic times as well.

The Hellenistic fortifications probably followed the lines of those of the mid-fifth century a.d. In common with many other Hellenistic cities there is an acropolis incorporated in the city wall, but the fortifications of Thessaloniki are slightly anomalous in that the lower stretches of the east and west walls run parallel with some of the streets of the city plan.

Thus, even though the reconstruction of Hellenistic Thessaloniki may be an elusive and often a speculative business, the statement of an anonymous writer to the effect that ‘il ne reste à Thessaloniki aucun vestige de la ville hellénistique’ is certainly exaggerated.

During the course of four months' work with oil-damaged sea-birds at the Richmond Bird Rescue Centre in California, I made notes which may help to establish meanings for the following names, which are left doubtful in D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's Glossary of Greek Birds.

Θρφξ. Mentioned only in Dionysius, Ixeuticon ii 14, iii 25, where it is coupled with the κόλυμβος as a bird that sleeps upon the water. Κόλυμβος or κολυμβίς is almost certainly the Little Grebe, being described by Alexander of Myndus (ap. Athen, ix 315d) as ‘smallest of all the water birds’, and θρᾷξ should also be a grebe. As the grebes treated at Richmond recovered their health, there was abundant opportunity to observe the bird's preference for sleeping on the water, and it was in fact accepted as a rule that birds should spend two days and nights continuously on the water in an outdoor artificial pool before being released in the sea. These were Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis), a species unknown in the eastern hemisphere. For θρᾷξ I would suggest the Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus cristatus), which is certainly known in Thracian waters—‘nowhere so numerous as in the harbour of Istanbul’ in March. But I would suggest that its name (or nickname—οἱ καλουμένοι θρᾷκες: Dionysius loc. cit.) comes rather from its crest, comparable to that of the fox-skin cap and helmet nowadays called Thracian. In a writer of the Roman Imperial period there may also be some reference to ‘Thracian’ gladiators. Western Grebes are very pugnacious birds, until one has gained their confidence, and Great Crested Grebes may share this characteristic.

I am delighted with Mr Anderson's article in this number of the Journal (171–2) on the Greek names of sea-birds. Δυτῖνος is a rare word and it must refer to a bird diving from the surface like our divers, the commonest of which is our Little Grebe (Podiceps ruficulus), but of course the term could include all ducks. The name κολυμβίς could also be applied to all these birds but it need not be confined to them. The Greeks knew that terns dived from a height and said κηξ or καυάξ: Homer compares the bird to the lady, who fell into a hold (Od. xv 479).

There is a picture of two birds with plumage like that of Black-throated Divers or Great Northern Divers on a Middle Minoan mug found at Palaikastro near the sea in East Crete (Unpublished Objects 92 fig. 77: Zervos, Crete no. 742). One bird is diving from a rock, towards a root on the bottom, the other is standing on a stone opening its beak to give an alarm signal. It might be objected to this picture that divers do not dive from rocks, nor stand upright on stones; otherwise it is a good picture. According to the Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe, there appear to be two birds, but I can only find one Latin name: Colymbus Arcticus. In spite of its name the bird is known in Greek waters.

In the JHS xxxvi (1916) 162–372, Mr A. H. Smith gives a detailed account of the removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in 1801–5 and of their subsequent history; in his Lord Elgin and the Marbles (1967), Mr W. St Clair brings this account up-to-date. Both authors describe the happenings in Athens of the last week of July 1801, when Lord Elgin's secretary, the Revd Philip Hunt, was in Athens, when excavations began and when the first sculptures were removed from the fabric of the temple. There was also in Athens at that time a party of three young Englishmen, Messrs William Gell, Edward Dodwell and Atkins, and there is a contemporary account by Gell now available, which was not known either to Smith or to St Clair; it provides some further information as to the conditions under which Hunt had to work, and of the immediate emotions and reactions of the four Englishmen as they actually watched the first ‘Elgin marbles’ being removed, as distinct from their later sentiments—and from those of Lord Byron.

It will be remembered that, as he passed through Naples in October 1799, on his way to Constantinople, Lord Elgin had engaged a party of artists and stuccoists, under an Italian artist named Lusieri, but this party did not reach Athens till August 1800. When he visited Athens in the spring of 1801, Hunt found that they were making little progress in their principal task of drawing and modelling the sculptures of the buildings on the Acropolis, because of the obstructionism of the Turkish authorities, and he accordingly went back to Constantinople to obtain some imperial firman to allow the artists to continue with their work (St Clair, op. cit. 87).

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.

‘Theocritus'’ Idyll xxvii describes how a neatherd progressively undresses a girl and then makes love to her. The progress of the neatherd's hand is accurately and humorously depicted. First the maiden says (19)

μὴ ᾽πιβάλῃς τὴν χεῑρα καὶ εἰσέτι; χεῑλος ἀμύξω.

In an article entitled ‘Right and left in the sexual theories of Parmenides’ (JHS xci [1971] 70–9) Mr Owen Kember challenges my statement (Polarity and Analogy [Cambridge, 1966] 17) that ‘Parmenides probably held that the sex of the child is determined by its place on the right or left of the mother's womb (right for males, left for females)’. In his article Kember draws attention, usefully, to the confusions and contradictions of the doxographic tradition. He has, however, in my view, misinterpreted one crucial piece of evidence. This is the testimony of Galen, who quotes Parmenides Fragment 17 (δεξιτεροῖσιν μὲν κούρους, λαιοῖσι δὲ κούρας) in the course of his commentary on [Hippocrates] Epidemics vi ch. 48. Kember notes, correctly, that the meaning of the fragment by itself is quite unclear: ‘the only deduction which can be safely made from the actual fragment is that Parmenides thought right and left were somehow connected with sex, and even here we must rely on Galen's judgement that the passage did in fact refer to sex in the first place’ (op. cit. 76).

In a recent article J. J. Hall has argued that the mysterious πρηστῆρος αὐλός which figures in Anaximander's theory of the universe is the funnel-shaped body of a tornado or waterspout. In reviewing meteorological evidence he notes that lightning often accompanies such storms. Anaximander himself could have concluded that the funnel is actually full of fire and then could have drawn an analogy between fiery heavenly bodies seen through a hole in surrounding mist and internal fire seen through the open bottom of a cloud.

M. L. West has expressed doubt about this suggestion on the grounds that ‘a person in the uncomfortable situation of looking up such a funnel would not see fire.’ There are undoubtedly some difficulties in Hall's proposal, as he himself admits. But West's objection is oddly off the mark. What is initially at issue is what Anaximander believed to be true, not what is true.

Professor R. M. Cook has performed a valuable service by raising again the question of the meaning of this word in this context. He finds that the weight of argument goes against the view that it means ‘fashioned with his own hands,’ in favour of its implying ownership of the workshop from which the vessel issued. In the end I disagree with Professor Cook, but the evidence is difficult to evaluate and appears contradictory, and certainly does not justify an unquestioning acceptance of the first interpretation. There are perhaps a few more general observations to be made, and a few points on which his remarks require modification.

1. The position of those who interpret the word as ‘fashioned’ is not always quite so unquestioning as he seems to suggest. Beazley wrote in Potter and Painter in Ancient Athens (1944): ‘Two explanations have been offered for the epoiese-signature. One, that it gives the name of the potter, the man who fashioned the vase; the other, that it gives no more than the owner of the establishment from which the vase came. At one time I held it more prudent to adopt the second explanation: but I now believe that, in general, the first explanation is the right one: Ευφρονιος εποιεσεν means that Euphronios fashioned the vase with his own hands.’

2. Professor Cook writes that he knows only three vases which bear the same name with both egrapsen and epoiesen: two by Exekias and one by Douris.

B. Shefton and M. Vickers recently called attention to a kind of drinking-cup having clay pellets inside the hollow rim of the foot, or inside the hollow lip, which rattle when the cup is moved. The examples noted belong in part to the beginning of the fifth century, in part to the mid-fourth.

A cup of the earlier series (Oslo University ES 36266, ex Hope) appeared in CV Norway (1) pl. 50, 2. X-ray photographs provided by the laboratory of the Historical Museum, Oslo, can now supplement the description; comparison with the published X-rays of other rattle-cups shows interesting variety in the preparation of such vases. There are nine small pellets in the channel inside the foot. They appear to be of uniform size and regular shape, so it is perhaps not likely that any got in by accident later, although there is an unplugged hole (compare the foot of the cup by Skythes in Toronto, Vickers, pl. 5, 2). In our CV publication the open hole was interpreted as a convenient solution to the combined problems of trapping the pellets and letting the air out, on the theory that the pellets had been previously fired and would not shrink in the kiln as the cup and the hole would. The X-ray reveals an unexpected second hole placed some 120° away from the other and carefully stoppered. No obvious parallel comes to mind except for the cat-hole and kitten-hole in the old story, which is not illuminating; one might cautiously conclude that in the case of one potter at least, the process of preparing a rattle-cup was still a matter for experiment.