When Mr. Wood in his patient and successful excavation of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus had got down to the natural soil, he observed a number of massive piers underneath the walls of the cella, or rather where the cella walls ought to have been. On the plan in his book he indicates these piers by dotted lines, supposing them to have been made to support the walls of a church built in late times after the temple had been destroyed. It may have been so. But there appears to be no other indication of such a church on the site. This much is certain, that in building these piers a free use had been made of the fragments lying at hand from the older temple which had been destroyed by fire on the night, as we are so often told, when Alexander was born. Fragments of the old frieze and cornice would build in like so many bricks, and give the piers that solidity which Mr. Wood could only break into, as he did reluctantly, by blasting. The result of the blasting was that he obtained a number of archaic fragments of sculpture and architecture which we have now to consider. That happened in 1874. Previously in 1872, he had found some fragments of the same archaic character, not built into piers but apparently loosely mixed with sculpture of a later age.

It will probably be a surprise, even to readers of the Journal of Hellenic Studies, to learn that there are at the present day twenty thousand persons in the south of Italy who speak Greek as their native tongue. These people form two separate groups, composed of a number of villages or townships, one of which is found in the heel of Italy or Terra d'Otranto, the other in the toe of that country, towards the extremity of the modern Calabria, in the neighbourhood of Cape Spartivento, and about twenty miles to the south-east of Reggio. The language which they speak, as might well be supposed, is not ancient Greek; nor is it in any sense a lineal descendant of that which was spoken in the colonies of Magna Graecia; but, though it is essentially modern Greek, it differs considerably from the Romaic of Greece, and these differences are of such a nature, that it must have required the lapse of many centuries to produce them. There can be no doubt that at one time it was spoken over a much wider area than at present; indeed, within the memory of man it has died out, and has been superseded by Italian, in places where it had previously been in use. Any traditions which may have existed with regard to the origin of this people and the fortunes of their ancestors they have now entirely lost; and their history, as far as it can be discovered at all, must be reconstructed from casual notices in historical documents and from intimations contained in the language.

In an article by J. Y. Akerman (Num. Chron. iv. p. 97) is the following inscription:—

Obv. Head of Antoninus Pius.

Rev.. Apollo Embasius of the Ephesians. A galley. (Vaillant, Num. Graeca.)

On turning to Vaillant's work, p. 291, I find the coin referred to by Akerman quite differently described:—

. Apollo stans nudus, dextrâ demissâ sinistro cubito columnae imposito, telum gerit: ex adverso Diana Venatricis habitu, dextrâ pariter demissâ, sinistrâ jaculum tenet. Num. Antmiini Pii. Apollinis fuit cognomen, hoc est, ascendens navim, &c.

Eckhel also cites Vaillant's description and remarks (ii. 516), ‘Apollonius Lib. I. Argonauticorum saepius meminit et quem venerati sunt Argonautae velut qui tueretur eos qui ad iter maritimum accincti ingrediuntur navim, praestaretque salvos egredi. Numen urbi opportunum cujus amplum fuit mari commercium.’

In last year's volume of this Journal (ix. pp. 82, 83) Mr. Theodore Ben described the situation of this Carian town, which he discovered about three miles to the north-east of Loryma. In laying before the reader the inscriptions found on this site, from which we recover its name, I would call attention to the accompanying Map of Casarea and its neighbourhood, prepared by Mr. Bent at my request. He has made it the more valuable by adding the following memoranda:—

‘During investigations on the southern coast of Caria, near the promontory anciently called Cynossema, and now known as Cape Aloupo or Fox, we were anchored in the Bay of Aplotheka, around which are the ruins of ancient Loryma. Whilst here, we heard from the peasants of a curious harbour and ruins at a little distance from the bay. Accordingly we rowed along the coast in our boat past several islets, and soon arrived at this harbour, the entrance of which is not a stone's throw across, though it opens within into a considerable basin surrounded by high mountains.

The historical interest and value of many of the folk-songs of Modern Greece has been often acknowledged, and historians have not disdained to quote them as evidence either of facts or of popular feeling. It is therefore desirable in the case of any ballad supposed to relate some historical event to determine as exactly as possible to what event it really refers.

In Passow's most valuable work, as was inevitable in so large a, collection of popular traditional poetry, a few errors seem to have been made in naming, dating and classifying the pieces. Some apparent cases of such error I propose here to examine.

Three ballads numbered by Passow cxciv., cxcv., cxcvi. are headed Literally translated they run as follows:—

In a former paper in this Journal (Vol. viii.) it was maintained that the Greeks had a weight standard long before the introduction of coined money from Asia, the unit of which was the same as the Attic-Euboic system (130—135 grains Troy) of historical times, and that in the Homeric poems the gold Talanton and cow represented the same value, the unit of metal being adjusted to the more primitive unit of barter. The evidence then adduced was of a purely literary nature, as it was not in my power to appeal to any actually existing weights. I have since obtained some data of a concrete kind which, I think, lends some support to my former contention.

Dr. Schliemann (Mycenae and Tiryns, p. 354) found (in the tomb south of the Agora at Mycenae) ‘four spirals of thick quadrangular, and seven spirals of thick round gold wire, five plain gold rings, and a similar one of silver, of which a selection is represented under No. 529. ‘I remind (adds Dr. Schliemann) the reader that similar spirals and rings of thick gold wire occur in the wall paintings of the Egyptian tombs. They are supposed to have served as presents, or perhaps as a medium of exchange.’ These rings are now at Athens, and my friend Mr. E. A. Gardner of Gonville and Caius College, the Director of the British School at Athens, has kindly procured for me their weights. Before going further I wish it to be clearly understood that I do not assume the rings to be what is called ring-money, but I think that I am justified in assuming that they are ornaments probably made on a given weight.

In previous articles I have shown that the oldest Greek unit of weight, the talent of gold in the Homeric Poems, was identical with the cow or value of a cow, that the same identity existed between the cow in Italy and the gold unit (itself the same as the Homeric Talanton) which lies at the base of the Roman system, and that the like relation existed between cow and gold unit in Sicily. I had further advanced the suggestion that we ought to seek for the origin of the weight standard or standards from which probably all systems in the Old World, modern as well as ancient (save the modern French), have been derived, arguing that as the cow or ox was the most widely diffused common unit of barter, it was natural that when metals came into use as a medium of exchange, the metallic unit would naturally represent the value of the older unit of barter. Ordinary law of supply and demand would fix more or less accurately the amount of gold which one man would be willing to give, and another man be willing to accept for an ox. One point however I did not make clear, and that was how it came to pass that primitive men were able to fix with what practically was a high degree of accuracy the amount of gold which represented the value of an ox. It is, I think, this difficulty which is supposed to surround the process of fixing accurately the metallic unit thus derived which has induced metrologists to make up their minds that weight units could not have been arrived at empirically, and in consequence of this to seek their origin in the scientific astronomy of Babylonia.

Hardly ever has an artist been more unjustly treated by posterity than has he who adorned the Eastern pediment at Olympia with the story of Oenomaus and Pelops. Archaeologists have censured, and artists parodied his work for faults of composition that it owed probably entirely to their own reconstructions. The standard of Greek art is so high, even in lesser things, that where a work of this importance seems to fall short, we had better doubt of our own method, or at least suspend our judgment rather than rashly condemn. The more so here, where there does not even exist a general accord as to the arrangement which ought to be preferred. It is true that those peculiarities of style which seemed most to blame were not controverted, but as long as it appears that the truth has not yet been found, the fault will most probably lie where it is least sought for. And in fact material indications are not wanting that all was not right. For example, it is a curious fact that, though the composition was too loosely spread, the detached horses should stand outside the teams of three worked from one block, and this notwithstanding that they show unmistakable marks of having stood close to the wall. I was so strongly impressed by this circumstance during a visit at Olympia in May 1888, that I resolved to try by all means a new solution on this principle. But of course I lighted on the same difficulty which had prevented others from accepting this arrangement, as the five central figures, spellbound by the words of Pausanias, did not leave sufficient space to right and left for two horses in succession, and I already half despaired of coming to any conclusion, when Prof. Brunn spoke the magic word that broke the spell.

The krater which is the subject of this paper is preserved in the Louvre. It has been well engraved in the Monumenti of the Institute, and discussed by Helbig in the Bulletino (1881, p. 276), by Robert in the Annali (1882, p. 273), and by Winter in his Jüngere Attische Vasen (p. 45). My object in resuming the study of it is twofold. Firstly, the vase is so remarkable for beauty and distinction of style as to have scarcely an equal, and it will be a good thing to bring it in any way to the notice of English artists and archaeologists. And secondly, in spite of Professor Robert's able paper, it appears to me that it is susceptible of a more complete explanation than it has yet received.

It was discovered at Orvieto in 1880, in a large tomb consisting of two chambers. In the same tomb were found several other vases, ranging in date from the early part of the fifth to the middle of the fourth century. Our vase was in that of the two chambers in which were for the most part later vases; but Professor Helbig states that the contents of the two chambers were broken, and so much intermingled that it was difficult to say that the vases lay in distinct groups. It seems therefore that the circumstances of the finding do not compel us to assign a particular date to our vase. Professor Robert would give it to the first quarter of the fourth century.

Under the above title are included a few remarks upon certain classes of early Greek vases which have been, rightly or wrongly, associated with Naucratis or other Greek colonies in the north-west of Africa. If some parts of the discussions which follow are somewhat controversial in tone, I can only plead the nature of the subject in excuse.

A familiarity with the vase-fragments from Naucratis such as could only be gained by handling them and examining them repeatedly has induced me to distinguish with some confidence classes of vases that were made at Naucratis from those that were not: and I therefore wish to correct or confirm certain views that have been expressed upon this question before they pass into handbooks as accepted facts.

The Electra of Sophocles betrays by the plainest indications that it is not a composition complete and rounded within itself, but only a fragment having the qualified completeness which fits it to contribute towards a larger symmetry. The action embraced falls short, it is very true but little, of full conclusion; Clytemnestra and her accomplice Aegisthus fall by the avenging sword of Orestes, and no such hints are admitted of the future troubles of the avenger, as in the treatment of the same subject by Aeschylus prepare for the concluding drama, the Eumenides. The moral dilemma, however, is neither wrought out to its complete statement nor to its most impressive solution. I find indeed in the play an illustration of a well-defined heroic nature and the eventualities of circumstance colliding with exalted character on the most critical emergencies; still we rise from the scene with sympathies in agitation—with minds eager upon interesting inquiries not pacified by adequate response.

The Electra is the second of the preserved plays of Sophocles—the Antigone being another—which bears the name of a heroine for its title; there is this further and more intimate analogy between the two plays, that both the heroines are called on, or believe themselves so, to interfere between rulers of the state and their political victims in the interest of domestic piety, and in doing so exercise an influence and acquire an importance that elevate them to the dignity of the tragic stage.

It may be permitted me to return for a moment to the question, touched on in my first paper, as to the age of the Lion-Gate at Mycenae. The distinction which I drew between the age of the gateway and that of the tombs within the sacred precinct seems to me to be too much neglected, and its significance to be misunderstood. There is a whole class of legends whose object is to make out for the conquerors of the Peloponnesus a legitimate right to its possession. For example, the Aetolians who conquered Elis gave themselves a mythical justification by the tale that an ancestor of their chiefs had been expelled from Elis, and that they were returning to claim his inheritance when the crime for which he had been expelled had been expiated by generations of banishment. Similarly the Spartans found that they could make their cause a just one only by bringing to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the ancient and rightful king. When after a long search they found them, they brought them home, and no doubt instituted a cultus at the grave. After they had thus legitimised themselves by continuing the worship of the ancient chiefs of the land, they were strong to conquer the Tegeans. The worship of Helena and her sacred tree are also well known at Sparta. I believe that there existed at Mycenae a similar worship of the ancient chiefs of the land. The Dorian conquerors continued the family cultus of the chiefs whom they dispossessed. Probably there was both in Mycenae and in Sparta an interval during which the worship was discontinued by the Dorian conquerors, and then the ancient cultus was restored. We shall hardly be wrong if we attribute this zeal of the Dorians to prove themselves rightful heirs of the Achaean chiefs to the growing influence of Homer. It was incumbent on the Dorians to show respect to Homeric traditions, and to prove themselves the lawful possessors of the Homeric poems. Argos, the leading Dorian state, probably began this practice, and Sparta imitated it. The myth at last became a fixed belief, and the Spartan king Cleomenes, at the end of the sixth century, could say, ‘I am no Dorian, but Achaean.’

Few English scholars have an exact knowledge of the history, the constitution, and the labours of the German Archaeological Institute, although the existing science of classical archaeology may be roughly said to be a creation of that Institute. So when, some months ago, an authoritative paper by Professor Michaelis of Strassburg, a member of the Central Direction, appeared in the Preussische Jahrbücher, supplying exactly such information on these matters as should be current among us, the Editors of this Journal thought that the opportunity thus offered was one of which advantage should be taken. Accordingly permission was obtained from Professor Michaelis and the Editors of the Jahrbücher to publish in these pages a translation of the article. The translation was undertaken by Miss Alice Gardner; and Professor Michaelis has himself made some additions to the text to fit it more completely for an English audience. [ED.]

Scientific institutions, which take their functions seriously, live a silent life. This is a result of the very nature of scientific work, which in most points of its manifold occupations cannot appeal to a wide public. Only in case of especially important discoveries, or of conspicuous performances, and on festal occasions do such institutions step out of their quiet round of work into public light, and demand the sympathy of wider circles.

One of the most curious series of Anatolian inscriptions known to me has been published by Mr. Hogarth in this Journal, 1887, pp. 376 ff. Their importance lies in the fact that they show us the manners and religion of one district hardly affected by Greek civilisation, and almost purely native in character. As the use of the Greek language and knowledge of Greek civilisation spread, the native manners were proscribed as barbarous, and even native mythology was discarded and Greek tales adapted to suit the locality. I have frequently given instances of this. At Magnesia ad Sipylum, for example, if we may judge from the references of Pausanias, the mythology of the district was re-modelled under the influence of the Greek literary tradition of Niobe, and localities had to be found to suit the details of the story.

As to the inscriptions published by Mr. Hogarth, Nos. 12–20, probably no one who reads over the texts can doubt that Greek was strange to the writers. They were native Phrygians, speaking their own language with a smattering of Greek, quite uneducated, but impressed with the belief universal over Asia Minor that Greek was the one language of education, and trying to express themselves in Greek. In every part of the country where the inscriptions enable us to penetrate below the Graeco-Roman varnish, the same inference is forced on us. Greek did not succeed in forcing itself on the native population of Phrygia, Galatia, Lycaonia, and Cappadocia (except in the large cities which were centres of Graeco-Roman civilisation) until Christianity gave it the additional power of being the language of the Scriptures.

The subject of the exploits of Theseus as seen on Greek vase-paintings has recently been treated by Professor Milani in a long and interesting paper in the Museo Italiano di antichità classica (iii. 1, p. 236). I propose therefore to set aside all general consideration of the myth and its typography, and to confine myself to the discussion and elucidation of two hitherto unpublished vases (plates I., II.), one of them included in Professor Milani's list, one entirely unknown to him, and both, as I hope to show, having strong claims on the attention of archaeologists. They are (1) a red-figured vase, which for convenience sake I shall call from its owner the Tricoupi cylix; (2) the fragments of a red-figured cylix from the De Luynes collection in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

1. The Tricoupi cylix, plate I. When I was in Athens in the spring of 1888, Miss Tricoupi with her accustomed kindness, so familiar to all visitors to Athens, allowed me to examine at my leisure her brother's collection of antiquities. I found to my surprise that it contained a vase which I have reason to believe is from the hand of Duris, and of which, so far as I am aware, no mention has been made in the numerous discussions of vases dealing with the exploits of Theseus, and which therefore, I suppose to be entirely unknown. I record here my grateful thanks to Miss Tricoupi for her kind permission to publish the vase, and for her goodness in facilitating its exact reproduction. The drawing from which plate I. is facsimiled was made for me by M. Gilliéron under my own personal supervision, and I can therefore vouch for its perfect accuracy. I was specially anxious to secure its.immediate publication as, though the vase is at present in such safe hands, the security of antiquities in private collections is always precarious.

The British Museum has lately acquired five terra-cotta slabs on which are Etruscan paintings of an archaic and interesting character such as have not hitherto been seen in this country. These slabs were found at Cervetri in 1874 inside a small tomb to which they had served as wall decorations. The only measurement that is given of the tomb is the size of the entrance which was forty inches in height. As that corresponds with the height of the three principal slabs we may perhaps assume that they had been placed against the walls so as to rest on the ground and reach up to the height of the doorway. The surface of the slabs has been first covered with a white slip which converts them into πίνακες λελευκωμένοι such as were used by Craton of Sikyon, one of the oldest painters in Greece.

On this white slip the designs were sketched in with an ivory or wood point and then filled in with reds and blacks, the white ground being allowed to stand for the faces and arms of the women and for dresses which were meant to be white, whereas the flesh of the men is always painted red. In this use of white to distinguish women from men we have an artifice familiar in the Greek black-figure vases. But there the white is specially laid on and becomes a conspicuous feature on the vases. Here we have an older stage of the process, more natural, less conspicuous, yet quite effective enough. It is said by Pliny that the painter Eumaros was the first of the Greeks to distinguish men from women, and it has often been thought that this distinction consisted in white colour for the flesh of women. But as this use of white had been traditional from very early times, possibly long before Eumaros, we may perhaps assume that his peculiar name had given rise to the story of his having first made the distinction in question.