Much of our knowledge of the ceremonies of Greek mystical religion comes from the Christian Fathers, who denounced them as wicked and licentious. Their condemnations, however, carry little weight: they decried the outward and visible form without even seeking to understand the inner and spiritual meaning—a method which might have been turned by their opponents against themselves. And, although their evidence is important, it needs to be used with caution, because it cannot be taken for granted that what they tell us of the Mysteries in their own day was equally true of the days of Aeschylus or Sophocles. Here the testimony of Plato is especially valuable. It would not be conclusive in itself, because for the most part he does not speak of the Mysteries directly, but merely describes other things in language borrowed from them, and the extent of his borrowing can only be determined by reference to the direct descriptions of later authors. When, however, his testimony is compared with theirs, it is found that at all important points of contact they correspond. The evidence as a whole is consistent.

The literature on the Acropolis seems to me as untidy as the site itself. Every discovery that could, on the present evidence, be made about its history, every truth that could be pertinently stated has already appeared, I should imagine, in one or other of the books or articles devoted to it since the Greek excavations of the eighties. I am merely attempting the humble but, I think, necessary task of sifting out what seem to me the more interesting discoveries, the more significant conclusions. Before we form any more theories, we must try to discover what under present circumstances we can reasonably know.

In this paper I shall have space only to consider the history of the main buildings, one or perhaps two large temples and perhaps a large propylon, up to the Persian destruction of the archaic Acropolis in 480 and 479. The minor buildings of poros, with triglyphs barely 1 foot or 15 inches wide, and walls or columns consequently less than 15 feet high, will interest me only incidentally. I have found no clear evidence for the sites of any of these, not even Wiegand's ‘Building B’, considered by J. A. Bundgaard (pp. 55 ff.) to be the precursor of the north-west wing in the Periclean Propylaea. Moreover I can isolate the problem of the large buildings more conveniently and with a clearer conscience, because it has already been isolated by C. J. Herington in his stimulating book, Athena Parthenos and Athena Polias (Manchester, 1955). His thesis is an interesting one, that from far back in the archaic period two important temples stood on the Acropolis. The more southerly, dedicated to Athena the Warrior Maiden (Parthenos), occupied a site somewhere within the limits of the present Parthenon. The more northerly and the more important in state ritual was dedicated to Athena as the City Goddess, and occupied the site between the present Parthenon and Erechtheum, generally known as the ‘Doerpfeld Foundation’. Every visitor to Athens will know this series of old broken walls just south of the Caryatid Porch. Wiegand's is still, I think, the most workmanlike plan of it (Wiegand, figs. 72 and 117—my Fig. 1). Herington's thesis, then, enables me to arrange my questions as follows. How many successive temples occupied the Doerpfeld Foundation, what did they look like and how were they related to one another? And again, was there any important temple on the site of the present Parthenon before the decade 490–480, generally considered the date when a marble Parthenon was first attempted ? Because of its possible scale, I shall also have to consider the date and form of the archaic Propylon. If it were a large building, it could be the source of various large fragments hitherto assigned to temples; and Heberdey, the latest American books, and now Bundgaard all make it rather large, between 15 and 20 metres square. (For the actual dimensions they give, see below, pp. 146 ff.)

The controversy as to the arrangement of the oars in ancient warships has been, in one aspect and with the due exceptions, a controversy between the scholars and the sailors, in which, while the sailors cannot well be wrong on their own ground, the same impossibility hardly applies to their opponents. When the practical seaman points out that superposed banks of oars, in the accepted sense, are a frank impossibility, it is hardly a conclusive reply to tell him that his acquaintance with the authorities leaves something to be desired. It follows, that for anyone who, like the present writer, is convinced that the sailors are right, the real interest of the question is this: does the evidence compel me, or even invite me, to believe in a practical impossibility? If it does, the fact obviously has a very real bearing on the question of the degree of credibility to be attached to ancient history generally; and this seems to me to be the true importance of what has become known as the ‘trireme-problem.’ The object of this paper is simply to examine evidence, and to try to ascertain primarily what quinqueremes and triremes were not, with a view to clearing the ground: the period to be considered ends in effect with Actium, which closes an epoch in naval warfare.

My purpose in this article is to call attention to the inconclusive nature of the evidence for the view that the proper accompaniment of early Greek elegiac poetry was the flute. The elegiac couplet has been aptly called ‘a variation upon the heroic hexameter in the direction of lyric poetry’. But how far did it go in this direction? In particular, did early elegiac poetry have a close connexion with music? A distinction is commonly drawn between poetry written κατὰ στίχον, for example the epic hexameter and the iambic trimeter, which was spoken or at most intoned, and poetry in lyric metres which was sung to musical accompaniment: to which group does elegiac poetry belong?

Passages in Plutarch and Pausanias and hints in the lexicographers and in the early elegists themselves have suggested to some scholars that there was a connexion between elegiac poetry and the flute.

This paper examines Herodotus' use of words of the ἀνάγκη family in order to determine which external or internal constraints the historian represents as affecting the causality of events. M. Ostwald's Ἀνάγκη in Thucydides (1988) provides a foundation for examining the more restricted application of these terms in Herodotus (85 occurrences vs. 161 in Thucydides). In Herodotus, divine necessity (absent in Thucydides) refers to the predictable results of human wrongdoings more often than to a force constraining human choices. This represents an especially ambiguous Herodotean category, however, and is expressed by a wider range of terms than those with ἀνάγκη-stems. The analysis of natural ἀνάγκη yields more clear-cut results. (1) In Herodotus (and not in Thucydides) ἀνάγκη often qualifies an aggressive compulsion applied by a personal agent. (2) Victims of this despotic ἀνάγκη are partially excused, but those who resist it earn Herodotus' praise. (3) Most importantly, Herodotus (unlike Thucydides) never in turn applies ἀνάγκη words to circumstances that motivate imperialistic actions, especially starting a war. (4) Whereas in Thucydides agents are ‘compelled’ to act also by fear and other internal impulses, the only psychological factor to which Herodotus applies ἀνάγκη words (and this time mostly in a positive sense) is moral obligation.

Herodotus' concept of ἀνάγκη is moralistic, and consistent with his unwillingness to justify imperialism, his practice of assigning responsibility, and his high regard for nomos, on the one hand, and freedom on the other. The narrator's involvement in these principles is reflected in Herodotus' use of ἀνάγκη terms in self-referential statements of the type ‘I am compelled/not compelled to say x.’ These statements represent the narrator as the opposite of an imperial subject and analogous to the most admirable of his characters on the receiving end of compulsion. He is a free agent, who disregards political pressure and is exclusively compelled by the rules that apply to him as researcher and truthful recorder.

A complete collection of the known Phrygian inscriptions belonging to the Roman Imperial period was published by Professor [Sir] W. M. Ramsay in vol. viii. of the Jahresh. d. Oest. Arch. Inst. (1905), pp. 79–120. On that occasion Professor Ramsay reprinted all the Phrygian texts which he had already collected in Kuhns Zeitschrift für Vergl. Sprachf. xxviii. pp. 381 ff., and added nineteen new inscriptions. The discovery in 1908 and 1910 of a score of fresh inscriptions, many of considerable interest, affords a suitable opportunity to revise the text of the older series. In a large majority, of cases, the new discoveries confirm Professor Ramsay's interpretations. In some cases they suggest or impose modifications. An account of other literature on the subject will be found in Ramsay's later paper. As I shall have occasion to refer constantly to Ramsay's papers in Kuhns Zeitschrift and the Jahresh. d. Oest. Arch. Inst., it will be convenient to call those papers R (a) and R (b) respectively. Professor Ramsay's numbering does not correspond exactly with the number of Phrygian texts published, because his earlier collection contains a few Greek inscriptions.

‘Thucydides does not himself speak the language of religion.’ Thus K. J. Dover summarizes the communisopinio about Thucydides' attitude towards religion. He is supposed to have been sceptical of oracles and to have rejected them as a form of superstition. This view is not, in my opinion, warranted by the evidence. The object of this paper will be to show that Thucydides accepted oracles, like his pious contemporaries Herodotus and Sophocles, and indeed that he exhibited a consistent interest in oracular puzzles and their correct interpretation.

Of the references to oracles in the History some do not merit extensive discussion since they are neutral in tone, and it is evident that Thucydides reports these oracles without any intention of making a special point: no criticism is involved in any of these omitted passages.

The oracles on which I will base my argument are united by having ambiguity as a common characteristic. Oracular ambiguity was ‘an article of Delphic belief’, and was accepted as a fact by the ancients.

In 493 Ionian emigrants from Samos and Miletos, on their way to Sicily to found a new city there at the invitation of the Zanklaians, were persuaded by Anaxilas, just risen to power in Rhegion, to seize Zankle instead, which Skythes, its ruler, had left temporarily unguarded. Skythes seems to have been a dependant of Hippokrates of Gela, but Hippokrates, instead of ejecting the Samians, came to terms and left them in possession. Some years later (probably after Hippokrates's death in 491) Anaxilas in his turn occupied the city which now, under the name of Messene, became his headquarters until his death in 476. In spite of the aberrations of Pausanias (iv. 23, 4–10) the literary authorities provide the material for a consistent account along broad lines of the incident and of the events which led up to and followed it. They show some uncertainty over the date when the name Zankle was changed to Messene and over the identity of Kadmos, son of Skythes (Was Skythes always one and the same? was it ‘with’ or ‘from’ the Samians that Kadmos took over and settled Zankle?), but the general outline emerges clearly. On the other hand, it is often held that the numismatic evidence (and it is abundant) contradicts the historical tradition at many points; and C. H. Dodd who first crystallised it in a careful and closely reasoned article in this Journal, arrived at very different conclusions.

At the end of the Trachiniai, the dying Herakles gives orders for his cremation on Mt. Oita and is carried off to his fiery end. One of the thorniest critical questions about the play is what we, the audience, are to make of this. Did Sophokles intend the audience to remember Herakles' apotheosis from the pyre and complete the story in their own minds? Or did he omit it in order to deny it, the better to deepen the play's supposed general pessimism or censure of Herakles? The case for assuming Herakles' exaltation suffers from two major weaknesses. Its champions do little to answer the arguments of their opponents, which are often forceful and take into account things in the play which the devout would rather ignore, and they do surprisingly little to explain how their position on the question affects the interpretation of the play. Nevertheless, their case is a strong one and deserves better support than it usually receives. This study will present it in some detail, addressing the objections and in the process offering an interpretation.

Mr. Forsdyke in his brilliant article on this subject was unfortunately unable to make use of the important results of Dr. Soteriadhis' recent excavations in Phocis. The site explored near Dhrakmani on the estates of Messrs. Piperis and Ghiannakopoulos has greatly increased our knowledge of the forms of this pottery, supplying just the evidence Mr. Forsdyke requires as a test of his theory. The exploration of the mound near Hagia Marina in the same district serves to supplement the unpublished results from Orchomenos in Boeotia. Now, however, by the kindness of Dr. Soteriadhis I have been able to see the material in the Chaeronea Museum. It will accordingly be interesting to review Mr. Forsdyke's theory in the light of these new finds.

In the large mound of Hagia Marina the excavator has been able to distinguish three main strata. Below the disturbed layers containing modern sherds, came a stratum one metre thick, containing Mycenean (L. M. III.) sherds mixed with Minyan ware. Immediately below this, the pottery called by Furtwängler at Orchomenos Kamares began to appear. At first apparently Minyan and ‘Early Mycenean’—by this I suppose is meant the northern variety of Mattmalerei—occur with it plentifully, but towards the bottom of the layer these disappear.

K. Latte, De saltationibus Graecorum 44, notes the possibility that κορε was originally written, representing κῶρε. There are instances in the hymn of ε and ο representing secondary ε̄ and ο̄ (cf. on 5, 30, 38, 50), though we also find κατῆχε in 38. This orthography must go back to the original written text, and helps to date the composition, being found in a few Cretan inscriptions of the third century B.C. but not later (Bechtel, Gr. Dial, ii 680 ff.). Before the fourth century, η and ω were not used at all in Crete, so that if the hymn were as early as the fifth century, as Wilamowitz asserts (Griech. Verskunst 502) without giving his reasons, we should expect either ε and ο throughout or a uniform transliteration, not the distinction that is actually apparent between η, ω for original η, ω (also for η < αε and εα, ω < εο) and ε, ο for the contraction of εε, οο, and for ε, ο lengthened by compensation. The usual dating of the hymn to the fourth or third century thus receives confirmation.

The fourth century BC Scythian King Ateas is mentioned in no contemporary, or near contemporary extant classical work, yet he is the subject of numerous stories in the works of such later writers as Trogus Pompeius (as epitomised by Justin), Satyrus (as quoted by Athenaeus), Polyaenus, Plutarch, Strabo, Frontinus, Lucian, Clement of Alexandria and Jordanes (in the sixth century AD). These stories all refer to events which might be dated to a period beginning a year or two before Philip's siege of Perinthus and ending the year after the siege. They would have fallen outside the scope of Ephorus' ‘Ιοτορίαι which seem to have come to a sudden end with Philip's siege of Perinthus in 341/40, but would not have fallen outside the scope of Theopompus’ work, Books xlvii–l of which contain many references to Thrace in this period (F217-26). The present paper is an investigation of the historical and historiographical significance of these stories. It will be argued that the various stories dealing with Ateas are historically reconcilable with each other, offer insights into the progress of a Scythian migration into the region south of the lower Danube and are compatible with, perhaps derived from, Theopompus' account of events in that period.

The so-called Second Preface in Arrian's Anabasis is an important statement of both his conception of the work and its place in his intellectual biography. Despite extensive scholarly discussion, interpretative problems remain. Close literary analysis furthers understanding.

It is a common, and irritating, practice of Plutarch's to begin his prooemium with a comparison or a contrast. Perhaps the same move may be appropriate for an essay in the interpretation of an author to whom Professor Dodds, forty years ago, wrote one of the most charming and penetrating introductions. We might put it like this: to be in debt is indeed bad, dangerous and corrupting; but to acknowledge debts of learning and friendship in the manner this volume intends, is both καλόν and ἡδύ.

De vitando aere alieno is a vigorous and lively discourse. Style and subject mark it as somewhat out of Plutarch's usual line. It raises a swarm of problems. Is it genuine? Is it complete? Does it reflect a real crisis? The preliminary to any answer to these, and similar, questions seems to me to be an analysis of the speech as it stands, an attempt to show its connections of thought. This is all I shall try to do here.

The thesis ὅτι οὐ δεῖ δανείζεσθαι involves two distinct propositions: that borrowing is a bad thing (A); and that there are ways of avoiding it (B). To look at it in this way brings it into line with the moral failings that Plutarch discusses in treatises like πϵρὶ φιλοπλουτίας or πϵρὶ δυσωπίας where the principal heads of the subject are naturally the attack on the vice and the suggestions for cure. Now both these basic propositions readily admit amplification. Proposition A can be enlarged by any means that paints the picture in darker colours, for example by representing the debtor as a damned soul (828F, 830F) or as a drowning man (831D). Proposition B leads at once to the hackneyed topics of the renunciation of luxury and the true freedom of the self-sufficient life. Plutarch did, I think, conceive of his subject under these heads. Given his moral preoccupation, this was almost inevitable. And in fact he treats the two themes turn and turn about, and we can detect the passage from one to the other, even where it is masked by the syntactical structure

Little serious archaeological work has been carried out in Greece during the war years. The Greek Archaeological Service has been obliged to give all its attention to the conservation of sites and works of art, a task carried out with courage and devotion in often very difficult circumstances. The foreign Schools have been able to carry out little work. The many military works carried out by the occupying forces have had a less rich harvest of antiquities than might have been expected. In many cases little information is available beyond the bare fact that excavations were carried out or finds made; no Greek experts were present and the finds were not handed over to the Greek Archaeological Service.

This article describes new finds only. It does not cover the damage done by acts of war to monuments and museums, which will be described elsewhere. It does include excavations and finds of 1939–40, which have not yet been reported in JHS, and summarises a number of Greek publications of the war years.

I am indebted for information to P. Amandry (on whose articles in BCH lxiv–lxv (1940–1), 231 ff. and lxvi–lxvii (1942–3), 320 ff. this article is largely based), to J. M. Cook and T. W. French, who collected much of the material, to A. D. Keramopoullos and the members of the Greek Archaeological Service of which he is head, who have given information and assistance at every point. I have also made use of the articles in AA 1940, 121 ff.; 1942, 99 ff.

A lead sling bullet inscribed with the name of Tissaphernes forms the subject of the present article. Like other such missiles, the bullet is almond-shaped; it is 36 mm. long, 22 mm. thick, and weighs 40·423 g. (Plate Va). It was reportedly found at Julia Gordus (the modern Gördes) in Lydia and is now in a private collection. As far as I can determine, the object is unique. By its inscription, it raises questions of some historical interest and illustrates the major changes in the technology of Greek warfare in the period after the Peloponnesian War.

Sling bullets were called in Greek μολυβδίς or μολύβδαινα from the material or σφϵνδόνη from the weapon. They were projected from a sling, σφϵνδόνη, by a slinger, σφϵνδονήτης. The sling, originally a weapon of hunters and shepherds, has a long history. It was known to the Egyptians, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Etruscans; everyone is familiar with the story of its use by David against Goliath.

The selective survival of the corpus of ancient Greek historiography was in large part due to Byzantine historical and religious interests, combined with the ancient valorization, on literary grounds, of the three Classical historians. Our corpus generally reflects the Byzantine interest in Roman history, especially regime-changes, and sacred history, especially the Hellenistic context of Jewish history. Selections from ancient historians dealing with those themes were, in some cases, circulating independently already from the tenth century. The Byzantines had little interest in Hellenistic or local histories. This paper concludes by examining two moments (or ‘indices’) of survival and selection, Photios' Bibliotheke and the Constantinian Excerpta. Our corpus was largely in place by the time of the Excerpta, and the loss of some texts read by Photios may have been facilitated by the process of transliteration but was due to the same selective interests.

Classical Greek kinship terminology, as it is used for example by Isaios, offers few difficulties of meaning in its terms, and describes a bilateral family rather like our own. The principal usages mav be shown in genealogical form as follows:

The noteworthy terms are: (i) kedestes, (2) anepsios, anepsiadous, exanepsios, and (3) adelphos and adelphe. Kedestes is applicable to any male who is a close relative by marriage, but who does not belong to the circle of heirs within the anchisteia: the term thus covers our father-in-law, stepfather, brother-in-law, and son-in-law. The close association of the term with words for ‘mourning’ suggests that this name arose from the duties performed in the funerals of members of their wives' anchisteia, even though they were outside the circle of heirs. The terms pentheros and gambros are, apparently, influenced by the usage of kedestes, and tend to the same classificatory employment. The meaning of nyos similarly tends to wander. Anepsios varies between cousin-german and nephew, and each of these relationships also has its exact term, in both cases a compound of adelphos. Anepsiadous and its synonym anepsiou pais are used not only for the cousin's child (the first cousin once removed), but also for Ego's parent's cousin (also a first cousin once removed): so Theopompos, the mother's cousin and heir of Hagnias, calls himself anepsiou pais to Hagnias. The exanepsios was outside the Attic anchisteia, and the term is rarely found. The terms for blood relatives are of the common IE vocabulary except adelphos and adelphe, which have replaced phrater (surviving to mean ‘member of a phratry’), and the lexicographers' eor.

The defeat at Marathon made it doubly necessary for the Persian government to undertake the subjugation of the Greeks across the sea. If there was ever to be peace on the Aegean that ‘Majuba’ must be ‘wiped off the slate.’

This time there was to be no mistake. The expedition was long and carefully prepared, and was planned on an enormous scale. The number of Xerxes' host cannot indeed be demonstrated, but it may be estimated with some probability, and the historian is bound to attempt an estimate. No sane critic could accept the millions of Herodotus. Nor would many now be found to admit the 700,000 or 800,000 given with or without garniture by Isocrates, Ctesias, and the later authors who mostly depend upon Ephorus. These figures seem to have been deduced from Herodotus. In iv. 87, the land forces led by Darius against the Scyths are said to have numbered 700,000, and it is implied that they were the full levy of the entire empire. In viii. 100 and 113, Mardonius is to be left with 300,000, while Xerxes goes home with the larger part of the army (cf. Thuc. i. 73). In vii. 20, Xerxes' host is larger than that of Darius or any other on record.

In his concluding Address to this Society our late President remarked that he cared more for the products of the full maturity of the Greek spirit than for its immature struggles, and this preference for fruits over roots is likely to be shared by most classical scholars. The prehistoric civilization of the land which afterwards became Hellas might indeed seem far removed from the central interests of Greek culture, and it was only with considerable hesitation that I accepted, even for a while, the position in which the Society has placed me. Yet I imagine that my presence in this Chair is due to a feeling on its part that what may be called the embryological department has its place among our studies.