The rhyton here published was found in a tomb at Capua in 1872, as described briefly in the Bullettino of that year (p. 42); it was acquired in the following year by the British Museum, and was soon thereafter included, but only in one view, among the ‘Photographs of the Castellani Collection,’ pl. 12. Always much admired for its beauty, both in the modelling of the Sphinx and in the drawing of the figures which encircle the cup above her head or occupy the spaces under her body, this vase has been seen at a certain disadvantage, as I believe, from a defective interpretation of the subject painted round the cup. In the Bullettino this subject was called ‘Triton, Nike and other figures,’ and this description has remained unchallenged. But obviously the figure here named Triton does not end in the tail of a fish, as a Triton should end. It is the tail of a serpent, and therefore he must be identified with some legendary person possessed of this combination—a human body ending in the coils and tail of a serpent. There can be no doubt that he is Kekrops, Κέκροπα σπείραισιν εἱλίσσοντα as he is described by Euripides, or as he appears in a Berlin terra-cotta, representing the birth of Erichthonios. On the terra-cotta Athene receives the infant Erichthonios from Gaia, who rises from the earth holding him up.

With this third part our Numismatic Commentary is completed. It consists of three sections:—

(1) Boeotia and Phocis (Paus. IX. X.)

(2) Athens (Paus. I. 1–38.)

(3) Supplement; containing coins of Peloponnesus omitted in parts I. and II. of the Commentary.

The Athenian section of the work involved great difficulties, especially in view of the fact that it was difficult to treat of the Athenian coins without reference to reliefs and other works of art of Athens. This difficulty the compilers have met as best they could: the Athenian coin-lists were drawn up in the first instance by the Swiss colleague.

Special thanks are due to Herr Arthur Loebbecke and Professor Rhousopoulos of Athens for most liberal envois of casts: also to Professor Michaelis for valuable hints and corrections in the Athenian section.

Mr. Newton in his History of Discoveries, p. 583, gives the following account of an excursion to the peninsula which lies to the west of Budrum (Halikarnassus) where he was then excavating:—

We next proceeded to examine the hill with the level top. This hill is called Assarlik.

Ascending from this gateway we passed several other lines of ancient walls, and on gaining the summit of the hill found a platform artificially levelled. There are not many traces of walls here. The sides of the hill are so steep on the north and east that they do not require walls. The platform terminates on the north-east in a rock rising vertically for many hundred feet from the valley below. The top of the rock is cut into beds to receive a tower. The view from this platform is magnificent.

[After brief mention of several tombs passed in the way down, Mr. Newton proceeds:]

The acropolis which anciently crowned the rock at Assarlik must have overlooked a great part of the peninsula and commanded the road from Halicarnassus to Myndus and Termera. From the number of tombs here, and their archaic character, it may be inferred that this was a fortress of some importance in very early times.

To a traveller sailing over the Aegean from the West, and threading his course between the Sporades towards the Carian coast, two headlands would stand out as prominent landmarks, Mount Poseidion to the north and the city of Myndos to the south. Between these two points lies the middlemost of the three large bays into which the coastline of Caria is irregularly broken. And nearly in the innermost recess of this central bay —for the bay itself is subdivided into a number of lesser inlets—a little rocky island, of only a mile and a quarter in circumference, lies close to the Carian mainland, to which indeed in later days it has become united by a narrow isthmus. Upon this rocky islet, lurking as it were behind the shelter of inclosing shores, a Greek colony—from Argos, it was said—had early established itself. But in their struggle with the Carian natives, who resented their intrusion, the settlers experienced such reverses, that they were glad to invite the son of Neleus, the founder of Miletus, to come to their relief. This he did, and with important results; for this influx of Ionian settlers from Miletus, while it repaired the fortunes of the little colony, transformed lasos from a Dorian into an Ionian city.

The two vases of which portions are reproduced upon Pl. LXXIX. may serve as representative specimens of the two most important classes of Naucratite pottery. They were both found, mixed with innumerable other fragments, amid the rubbish that covered the whole area of the temenos of Aphrodite, excavated by me in the season 1885–6. The two smaller figures represent the two sides of one fragment. These two vases are of especial interest, because they were both beyond any doubt made in Naucratis. Last year the special name of Naucratite ware was given to a class of vases covered with a fine whitish glaze, and with a polychrome decoration outside; black inside, with lotus patterns in red and white. This ware was often found by Mr. Petrie in 1884–5, and also in 1885–6, with dedicatory inscriptions painted on before baking, thus proving beyond doubt its local origin. The fragment now figured with a sphinx is one of the finest specimens of this same ware; in its treatment both inside and outside it preserves the essential characteristics that may be seen in the simpler examples.

The other vase, with the lions and the stag, is one of a set of large bowls of which I found several nearly complete; in 1884–5 only a few fragments had appeared. These always have a dark glaze inside—red or black according to the firing; on this are painted concentric circles in white and purple. Their ornamentation is identical with that found on the inside of the eye-bowls; hence it would seem that these large bowls are a development of the eye-bowl type, just as the large polychrome vases are of the other Naucratite ware.

There are probably no twelve consecutive lines in the Homeric poems which have been obscured by so many explanations as Iliad xviii. 497—508. The interpretation which I propose to give has possibly been anticipated piece-meal, but I have not come across any case in which it has been presented as a whole. Still it is a matter of common courtesy only that one should begin by offering apologies to the unknown previous expositor, if he should after all prove to exist.

For convenience of reference it will be best to begin by setting out the passage at length.

‘The people were gathered in the place of assembly, and there had sprung up a strife; two men were striving about the price of a man slain. The one averred that he had paid in full, and made declaration thereof to the people, but the other refused to accept aught; and both were desirous to take an issue at the hand of a daysman; and the people were shouting for both, taking part for either side. And the heralds were restraining the people, and the elders sate on polished stones in the holy circle, and in their hands they held the clear-voiced heralds' staves. With these they rose up and gave sentence in turn; and in their midst lay two talents of gold to give to him among them that spake the justest doom.’

This paper is an endeavour to discover (1) the origin, (2) the value, and (3) the affinity of the Talent of the Homeric Poems to other systems. In those Poems we find two systems of denominating value, the one by the ox (or cow), or the value of an ox, the other by the talent (τάλαντον). The former is the one which has prevailed and does still prevail in barbaric communities, such as the Zulus, where the sole or principal wealth consists in herds and flocks. For several reasons we may assign to it priority in age as compared with the talent. For as it represents the most primitive form of exchange, the barter of one article of value for another, before the employment of the precious metals as a medium of exchange, consequently the estimation of values by the ox is older than that by a talent or ‘weight’ of gold, or silver, or copper. Again in Homer all values are expressed in so many beeves, e.g.

(Il. vi. 236.)

The talent on the other hand is only mentioned in relation to gold; for we never find any mention of a talent of silver. But the names of monetary units hold their ground long after they themselves have ceased to be in actual use, as we observe in such common expressions as ‘bet a guinea,’ or ‘worth a crown,’ although these coins themselves are no longer in circulation.

The last year has been most fruitful of results to the archæologist. Excavations on many Greek sites have supplied abundant material for new work and speculation. But important as may be the gains to other branches of archæology, none are so brilliant as those that have so greatly increased our knowledge of the early history of Greek sculpture. It must be many years before archæologists are agreed on the exact position and import of the new statues in relation to the early history of art; longer still before all that those statues can teach us shall have been learnt. In the present paper no attempt can be made to criticise and discuss fully the many difficult questions to which their discovery has given rise— much less to assign finally to each of them its place in the history of religion and sculpture. Many of the early chapters of that history must be reconsidered and in part rewritten before all the statues we now possess find their due place in a recognised and unbroken series of monuments of various ages and of various local schools. Meanwhile it may be well to indicate the directions in which the influence of our newly-acquired knowledge is likely to be felt, and to endeavour to estimate the meaning and the importance of the new material that the science of archæology has acquired.

§ 33. Disputes between Venetians and Lombards.—In 1303 a subject of dissension arose between the Republic and the Lombard barons. It was probably about this time that Beatrice da Verona, who shared the Third of her father Giberto with her mother Maria, contracted a second marriage with John de Noyers, Lord of Maisy. Thus John became on his marriage lord of one Sixth, and as the Sixth of his mother-in-law Maria would revert on her death to Beatrice, he was prospectively lord of one Third. Moreover he was practically master for the present of the Sixth in the north of the island which had belonged to Beatrice's first husband Grapozzo, and was administered by her as guardian of her son Pietro. Hence John de Noyers was in a position to make his influence felt in Euboia; and being a man of energy he asserted himself. He assumed an independent attitude towards Venice.

A demand was made by the Lombard podestà in 1303 on a Venetian citizen named Meo, who resided in Lombard territory, to pay taxes. For twenty years he had been a resident in the island and never been called on to pay them before. The requisition is very plausibly ascribed by Hopf to the suggestion of John de Noyers.

By the kindness of the Rev. H. J. Bidder, we are enabled to publish the following inscription, obtained by him from Βοιαὶ, the modern Neápolis, in Laconia. On a slab of white marble: size 11 in. x 7½ in. x ½ in., height of letters ⅜ in. The slab is broken away at the top and right side; more lines may be lost above; it is also broken across.

The forms of the letters are somewhat inconsistent: thus we find l. 6, l. 11, Ρ twice, l. 15, beside the more characteristic forms. In l. 14, the fifth letter was first inscribed as Ν, by a mere inadvertence, and then corrected.

Before the inscription was cut, faintly scratched lines were ruled to keep the letters in even rows.

The date, from the forms of the letters, seems the second or third century of our era.

In the summer of 1884 I was permitted to accompany Professor Ramsay on his journey in Asia Minor, assisted by the Senate of the University of Cambridge with a grant from the Worts Fund. To my great regret, however, a fever compelled me to return home after spending only two months in the country, during which time I had been a novice in the various arts required for scientific travel. Hence, therefore, so far as my personal share in the expedition is concerned, the results obtained are limited both in number and in value. Such as they are, they are embodied in the following pages, and in the accompanying map; I have also introduced matter, as will be seen by the references, of which the credit belongs entirely to Professor Ramsay.

It will be seen from a study of the map, that our route during the part of the journey to be discussed in these pages, lay in the upper valley of the Maeander, with its tributary the Karasu (Morsynus); in the upper valley of the Gerenis Tchai (Indus); in the valleys of the Gebren Tchai and of the Istanoz Tchai, and in the district west of the Lake of Buldur. As regards the political divisions, it lay in the border lands of Caria, Phrygia, and Pisidia. The whole journey occupied about five weeks, as we left the railway at Kuyujak on May 28, and rejoined it near Denisli on July 5.

With reference to the plate and the amphora with representations of the Judgment of Paris, published in the last number of the Journal, Professor Milani, Director of the Museo Greco Etrusco at Florence, kindly sends me the following note:—

‘Il piatto fu di me acquistato pel Museo di Firenze insieme con tutta la collezione Spannochio Sergardi di Cortona e so esattemente di esso proviene dagli scavi fatti presso l' ipogeo di Camucie. Riguardo all'anfora, essa entrò nel Museo insieme con molti altri vasi a f. n. (corinzi ed attici arcaici) e vasi di bucchero trovati dieci o dodeci anni or sono alle Pescie Romana.’

The following list enumerates the chief places in Greece where archaeological investigations are now, or have very recently been carried on, namely, Athens, Piræus, Eleusis, Oropus, Thoricus, Sicyon, Mycenæ, Ptoos, Elateia, Orchomenos, Dimini near Volo, and in the islands of Delos, Thasos, and Cephalonia, to which Tiryns, Olympia, and Epidaurus should be added, although at these places, for the present, the works have been discontinued. There is also the expectation that the French examination of Delphi will be shortly resumed.

In Athens very important results have been obtained. First in interest is the ancient temple on the Acropolis which, although some of its foundations were visible even in 1845, has been practically discovered and the discovery energetically followed up by Dr. Dörpfeld. The position of the temple is shown on the sketchplan (fig. 1) which accompanies this paper. A careful plan of the site and the foundations, and a description, has been contributed by Dr. Dörpfeld to the Mittheilungen in the first part for 1887 (see p. 337, and plate). A plan of the restored temple is given by him in the Antike Denkmaeler of the Kaiserlich Deutsch. Archaeol. Institut, band 1, 1887.

There are two directions in which there has been much good work to report from Greece during the last few months; the discovery of new antiquities, and the arrangement and exhibition in accessible places of those which were known before, the whole now profiting by the able direction of M. Cavvadias. All students of archaeology will be glad to hear that the excellent principle has been adopted of bringing together all the most important sculptures now on Greek soil in the new Central Museum at Athens: the only considerable exception will be in the case of the Olympian discoveries, for which a fine Museum has been built upon the spot. It is thus possible now for archaeological travellers to study the art treasures found upon any site in Greece at their leisure, while living comfortably at Athens: they will then be free, when travelling in other districts, to devote their attention to those questions of architecture and topography that can only be studied upon the sites themselves. In accordance with this principle, many sculptures from various sites have been brought to the Athenian Central Museum; and the arrangement of that Museum is now rapidly progressing. Among well-known works now exhibited there may be mentioned the heads of two heroes and the boar from the pediments of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, which we know to have been designed by Scopas; the archaic statues from Delos, including that dedicated by Nicandra, and the pedestal of Archermos, with the winged figure that high authorities now refuse to associate with it; and the statues found in the Greek excavations at Epidaurus before 1884, notably the pedimental figures of mounted Amazons, &c.