The structure and composition of the Iliad have been discussed often: usually, however, rather with the object of identifying the component parts and tracing their antecedents, than of apprehending and interpreting the design of the poem as a whole.

I. Homeric Epics as Works of Art

Some critics have argued, or assumed, that there was in fact little or no design; that the cantos or lays somehow fell into their present places like the books of the Old Testament, or at most, as Anaximander might have said, κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου τάξιν in accordance with a traditional sagatheme, which may, or may not, have had historical background or mythical meaning. As to that historical background, again, opinions differ; and whether the myth was solar or sociological.

The Persian army, moving on Athens after Thermopylae, found the city deserted, but the Acropolis held by temple servants and ‘a few poor men’: who, remembering the oracle of the ‘wooden walls,’ ‘for a long time’ defended wooden breastworks against the Persians, but were in the end overpowered.

Dr. G. B. Grundy, having recounted thus far the Herodotean story, writes (The Great Persian War, p. 357):

‘But the strangest part of the whole story is the account of the impression created in the fleet by the news of the capture. The inconsistency between the description of the garrison and its defensive works, and the alarm created by the capture of the fortification, is so glaring as to be irreconcilable, and modern historians have naturally been led to form conjectures as to what actually took place.’

This article examines the place of tragic poetry within the early history and development of ancient literary criticism. It concentrates on Euripides, both because his works contain many more literary-critical reflections than those of the other tragedians and because he has been thought to possess an unusually ‘critical’ outlook. Euripidean characters and choruses talk about such matters as poetic skill and inspiration, the social function of poetry, contexts for performance, literary and rhetorical culture, and novelty as an implied criterion for judging literary excellence. It is argued that the implied view of literature which emerges from Euripidean tragedy is both coherent and conventional. As a critic, Euripides, far from being a radical or aggressively modern figure (as he is often portrayed), is in fact distinctly conservative, looking back in every respect to the earlier Greek poetic tradition.

The aegis is Athena's most intimate and widely-discussed attribute, yet one of its vital aspects has so far been largely neglected: its colour. We shall argue that the nature and the role of the aegis and of its bearer are reflected not only in its shape and decoration, but also in its colour and luminosity. As with Athena's glaukos eyes, the key to chromatic characterization and meaning lies in brightness rather than hue. Most often in literature and art, Athena's aegis is characterized by a yellow or gold reminiscent of the gleam of the sun or of metal, which expresses a general divine gleaming brightness but also Athena's specific charis, namely the beauty, vitality and sparkling (or cunning) attractiveness that she can bestow on mortals under her protection. The dark or even black aegis (kyanaigis or melanaigis), by contrast, expresses the dark, wrathful and furious side of the goddess. Brightly shimmering or darkly obscuring, the aegis refers to Athena's protective, yet also potentially destructive, power. Its variable characterization in terms of ‘colour language’ constituted one tool among the many that were available to the Greeks for the construction of her divine personality.

This paper is intended as a contribution towards the study of only certain Ionian pot fabrics found at Naucratis. I have, therefore, merely drawn attention to the presence of the Bucchero from Lesbos, which demands a much fuller treatment than I am able to give it. I have also only briefly referred to the Clazomenian Black-faced and Pale Slip Ware because this must be studied in connexion with the fragments of the same ware from Daphnae. Throughout the paper in using the name ‘Naucratite Fabric’ I am referring only to the White Slip ‘Chalice Style,’ which may or may not have been made at Naucratis.

In the early eighties of last century, when Professor Flinders Petrie and Professor Ernest Gardner published their account of the first excavations at Naucratis, any strictly systematic classification of the pottery found on the site was practically impossible, owing to the lack of material and data for comparison and identification. Since that date and even since the early years of this century, when Dr. Hogarth made the last excavation of the site, there has been a vast increase in archaeological knowledge and much material is now available. It is in the light of some of this material and this knowledge, especially of that gained from recent excavations either partially or wholly published, that I have ventured to attack the problems presented by the numerous and varied fragments of pottery which were found during the course of both excavations at Naucratis. My studies have had to be limited, practically, to the collections of fragments in the British Museum, the Ashmolean and the Fitzwilliam; but I can safely say, especially in reference to the Naucratite ware proper, that not one single piece of evidence of any real importance derived from accounts of other finds, or from photographs of fragments from other collections, has in any degree refuted, but rather on the contrary has established the conclusions which I had already drawn.

The traveller from Athens who desires to visit the Boeotian Orchomenus proceeds thither on the turnpike-road by way of Eleusis, Thebes, and Lebadeia. He leaves Athens by descending the Hermes Street, turning to the right nearly opposite to the Theseum, and passing on the left the magnificent ancient funeral monuments at the Hagia-Trias as well as the Dipylum, and other vast ruins brought to light in the adjoining excavations. He soon passes to his left the Botanical Garden, enters (18 minutes) the vast plantations of olive trees, and sees at a distance of half a mile to his right the hill of Colonos, which has been rendered celebrated by Sophocles, and on which are the sepulchres of Charles Lenormant and Karl Otfried Müller. In the grove he successively passes three arms of the river Kephissus, which are nearly always dry; among the olive trees there are several to which the famous Athenian botanist, Th. von Heldreich, ascribes an age of more than 1,500 years. It is probable that for some distance from its issue from the olive grove (20 minutes) the present road is identical with the ancient sacred road, for we see there the little chapel of St. George, apparently on the site of a temple on the ancient roadside; a number of excavated rock-cut tombs, which border the road, can leave almost no doubt in this respect. But at the foot of the conical hill of Poikilus, at the entrance of the defile (20 minutes), the sacred road appears to have turned to the right, whilst the modern way turns to the left. The defile is bordered on the right by Mount Icarus, on the left by Mount Corydallus (that is, lark, Alauda cristata), which latter is crowned by a tower and ruined walls. On the left, in entering the defile, we see in an excavation foundations of large stones, which mark the famous sepulchre of the Hetaera Pythionike, excavated in 1855 by General Vassoignes. This monument, which is described by Pausanias as the most remarkable and most magnificent of all ancient Greek tombs, was—according to him—erected by the Macedonian Harpalos in honour of Pythionike, with whom he had fallen so deeply in love that he had made her his lawful wife.

Although the papyrologist and the palaeographer have by now made the study of books in the ancient world a preserve almost peculiarly their own, it may yet be helpful to indicate literary evidence for the reading and writing habits of the educated classes in periods and places in which such modern studies have as yet been able to provide little or no material. A case in point is Antioch in the fourth century A.D., where there is considerable information embodied in the little appreciated works of Libanius, by which light is shed on the question of the writing and publication of books of various kinds. Except for some recent remarks upon copyists and book distribution in Antioch made by Paul Petit, this body of evidence has remained virtually untouched, despite its value. There are limitations, of course; Libanius has no use for any other culture than that of the Hellene and the rhetor. Syriac is mentioned only once in all his writings, and then in a contemptuous aside (Or. xlii 31); Latin, which he realised was increasingly in competition with his own educational system, he met with determined opposition (e.g. Or. i 214, 234; x 14), while he looked upon Christian literature with all the rancour of a confirmed pagan (e.g. Or. xxx 21; xviii 178).

To him, as a schoolmaster, and to his students in rhetoric, books were essential, but it is clear that some restrictions were imposed both on master and pupil by the availability of texts. The ordinary school text seems to have been obtainable, subject to the rules of supply and demand, but other works were correspondingly harder to obtain. One must not look to him for indications of purchase price. It may have been necessary for the parents of his pupils to purchase books—it certainly appears as a normal item in their budget—but he never descends to the mundane question of cost. He himself usually got his books by presentation rather than by purchase, and in any case he maintained his own copyist. His fellow rhetors, Acacius and Demetrius, did the same, and the lending of a text for the purpose of taking a copy was normal practice (e.g. Or. liv 68). There was, however, in addition to the demand which these private copyists satisfied in the establishments of professional sophists or the wealthy families, some market for books for which the professional copyist catered. That there was also some traffic in second-hand books is indicated by Libanius' account of the repeated attempts to burgle his library and of the theft and subsequent misadventures of his prized text of Thucydides. This turned up in the possession of a freshman who had purchased it on the open market (Or. i 148). The ordinary student found the purchase of books a necessity, and Libanius reproves those parents who keep their sons so short of money that they are unable to buy the texts they need (e.g. Ep. 428.3).

Fig. 1 gives the picture on the front of an Attic red-figured bell-krater which was formerly in the Roman market: about 1831 the vase belonged to the dealer Rosi, at another time to the dealer Campanari: it has since disappeared. The reproduction is taken from the lithograph (made from a drawing in Gerhard's apparatus) which was published by C. von Paucker, with a commentary, in AZ 1852, pl. 42 and pp. 450–8.

Two small pieces are marked in the drawing as restored. There may be a little restoration besides this: the cheekpieces of the helmets, part of the shield, and one or two small particulars, were either retouched in the original, or copied carelessly by the modern artist. The faces, too, especially those of the two left-hand figures, cannot be quite as they were in the original.

The date is about 450 B.C. As to the artist, there is much that recalls the Eupolis Painter, and the vase is almost certainly his work (ARV. p. 670 no. 3). Compare the drapery, especially, with that on his name-piece, the bell-krater in Vienna (1772: A, WV. E pl. 12, 1, whence Robert Herm. p. 65 fig. 52: A, von Lücken pl. 113: ARV. pp. 668–9 no. 1).

The Teian inscription CIG 3064, published by Boeckh from copies by Pococke and Guérin, is followed in the Corpus by a long explanatory commentary and has since been the subject of much discussion and controversy. It consists of a list of proper names, to each of which is added the phrase τοῦ (or ἐκ τοῦ) --- πύργου and a family name. I give a representative extract:

With the simultaneous recognition by Jameson and Westlake of the importance o. Plutarch, Nikias 15.2 in the tangled problems of election to the strategia, the discussion has entered a new phase, and the problems are clarified by Professor Dover's article. It is now clear that the formulae which have been thought to indicate ‘chairmanship’ are not reliable guides, but there remains some force in Jameson's contention that double representation of tribes in the strategia arises rather from electing one general ἐξ ἁπάντων to provide a chairman than from any desire to ensure fairness to candidates in a tribe where the post was monopolised over a long period by one candidate. After Dover's article, cases of double representation are left as our sole material for looking at the problem, and my only aim here is to examine some other years where double representation seems possible. I include some negative results and start with one.

It is sad that Acharnians is so rarely produced on stage; it is also strange, for, visually as well as verbally, the play is immensely inventive and funny, and has deservedly engaged a great deal of critical and interpretative attention. One cannot but hesitate to add to the abundant literature. However, Mr E. L. Bowie's theory, recently propounded in this journal, that Dicaeopolis represents Eupolis would, if correct, have interesting consequences both for our interpretation of the play and of some of the surviving fragments of Eupolis, as Mr Bowie shows.

Since its publication in 1876, the scene on the shoulder of this vase has been interpreted as showing the activities of a vase-painters' workshop. The original drawing had been reproduced several times, but its inaccuracies were so numerous that the photographs were long overdue in spite of Beazley's useful notes on it in Potter and Painter.

The scene shows Athena and two Nikai crowning the artists for their skill. In the centre, Athena (plate VII 1), spear in hand, approaches with a wreath to crown the youth who is engaged in decorating a huge kantharos; before him waits a similar vessel with an oinochoe standing inside it. To the left, a boy who is decorating a volute-krater looks round in surprise at the Nike as she places a wreath about his head (plate VI 2). To the right of Athena another boy decorates a calyx-krater and does not notice the Nike who is about to crown him also. To the extreme right, a young girl on a dais begins the decoration of another volute-krater (plate VII 2).

This note is an attempt to show that the scene does not depict vase-painters at work, but rather the decorators of metal vessels.

The purpose of this article is twofold: primarily to draw attention to the evidence for a hitherto unrecognised plot against the throne of Alexander the Great; and incidentally to re-examine the evidence for the regency of Philip II on behalf of his nephew Amyntas son of Perdikkas—a subject which has important repercussions on the main theme.

Until the end of the nineteenth century students of the reign of Philip II of Macedon, on confronting the question of Philip's regency, had simply to make a choice between the circumstantial (but at least partly incorrect) notice of Justin—who says he was regent—and the contrary indication or implication of Diodorus and all other sources, contemporary or later, including of course Demosthenes.

On the death of Perdikkas III in battle against the Illyrians Philip ‘became king of Macedonia, in the archonship of Kallimedes, the first year of Olympiad 105’ (359 B.C.). So says a scholiast on Aischines iii 51. Philip ‘was king over (ἐβασίλєυσєν) the Macedonians for 24 years’, says Diodorus—that is, from 359 to 336. On the other hand, Justin claims that on Perdikkas' death Philip became regent; he remained for a long time—diu—non regem sed tutorem pupilli. His pupillus, his ‘ward’, was Amyntas, son of the late king and nephew of Philip. As Macedonia was threatened, continues this author, with serious wars and required the leadership of more than a mere boy, Philip compulsus a populo regnum suscepit.

Neoptolemus, after defensive action with his shield against the missiles of the Delphians, decides to break away from the altar and try to escape—making in so doing ‘the well-known Trojan leap’, as Euripides says. This phrase plainly implies knowledge of a notorious incident of such a sort, associated, one might presume, with Neoptolemus himself. The schol, ad loc. however refers to a leap made by Achilles from the invasion ship on to Trojan soil, when a fountain of water shot up at the place he landed with his prodigious jump. This incident may be alluded to in El. 439, where the invasion fleet is said to have brought In later literature the legend is confirmed by Lycophron Alex. 245 (with schol.) and Antimachus fr. 59, where The fact that Antimachus uses a simile which resembles of the Delphians in the Andromache might also be thought to connect the two passages, but the image is a common one and Antimachus seems to borrow more directly from Achilles' leap on Hector in Il. xxii 138–9

But although this explanation of ‘the Trojan leap’ is plausible enough, and Norwood in his edition observes ‘obviously Neoptolemus leaping down from the altar suggests Achilles leaping down from the ship’, there is also evidence for a Trojan leap of Neoptolemus himself, and if this story (like the leap to shore of Achilles) came from a familiar Epic Cycle account of the war at Troy, it would be reasonable to suppose that Euripides had in mind an incident involving Neoptolemus rather than his father.

A great advance in this subject was made by A. J. V. Fine, who studied the extant ὅροι and some of the literary evidence, but the general tendency in recent writing about Solon has been to dwell on the views of other scholars rather than to assess the ancient evidence. In seeking to redress the balance in this paper, I acknowledge my debt to the authors of the books and articles which I have used and cited. Our chief task is to discover the conditions under which various forms of property and especially landed property were held in seventh-century Athens; for this is essential, if we are to shed any light on Draco's laws of debt and Solon's Seisachtheia.

Many explanations of Solon's work have been based on the axioms that land in Attica had passed into the possession of individuals long before the time of Solon and was therefore available in his time for mortgage, seizure and sale. This axiom was expressed thus by Swoboda: ‘one thing is quite certain, that private ownership is of high antiquity among the Greeks and the persistence of clan- or family-ownership till Solon's day appears absolutely excluded’; and Glotz drew the logical deduction that during the seventh century land in Attica was changing hands more and more from day to day. The purpose of this paper is to show that this axiom is incorrect in respect of one kind of land and that a new explanation may be advanced. It is divided into five parts: the organisation of society in early Attica, the tenure of property, the Seisachtheia, fourth-century explanations of Solon's reform, and a summary of conclusions.

The argument in the Protagoras which starts with an analysis of giving in to pleasure in terms of ignorance, and leads into a demonstration that courage is knowledge, is certainly one of the most brilliant in Plato and equally certainly one of the trickiest. My discussion deals mainly with three problems: (I) Precisely what absurdity is detected in the popular account of moral weakness, and where is it located in the text? On the basis of largely formal considerations I believe that the absurdity is a much less subtle affair than has been thought, and that it is located at 355c-d. (II) What is the connection between knowledge and belief in 358b-d, and how do these two concepts figure in the arguments which precede and follow this passage? Here I want to comment on differences between the Protagoras and other Socratic arguments. (III) How good is the argument at 356–357e which analyses moral weakness as ignorance? There are several problems here, including a fundamental puzzle of the dialogue, namely that, apparently, Plato uses a non-Socratic hedonism to establish the Socratic thesis that virtue is knowledge. Here I agree with those critics who see irony at the expense of the sophists—sophistic teaching is shown to be grounded in hedonism—but in addition I suggest that Plato also offers an oblique criticism of hedonism itself in the course of which basic points of real substance are made. This interpretation fits in with various other features of the dialogue, including the curious fact that, though the main argument proceeds on a thorough-going hedonistic basis, Socrates is subtly but distinctly not committed to that basis. Hence the unity of the dialogue is supported, and as well an attitude to hedonism is given which is more consistent with that of other dialogues, while we are able to see the Socratic paradox in its regular role as a tool of ethical exploration.

Greeks, unlike Romans, gambled with five not four knucklebones (astragaloi) in their dice games. As Pollux explains, the high number of an individual knucklebone was sometimes eight rather than six, and so when a dicer rolled ‘all eights’ they attained a sum of 40. This roll was called the ‘Euripides’. The confusion about this throw is due to a report found in Byzantine sources and attributed to Suetonius, where it is claimed that dicers of Greek antiquity used four knucklebones. Suetonius may have confused the Roman custom with the Greek one, but there are good grounds for questioning whether the report is from ‘Suetonius’ at all. Elsewhere ‘Suetonius’ reports that Greeks played with three rather than two cubic dice, but such a report cannot have been made before the seventh century AD.

So much has already been written about the battle of Marathon that it is only with great hesitation that the present writer ventures to make another contribution to the subject. But it seems that in spite of the various conjectures and explanations that have been advanced, there is still a solution of the shield signal which has escaped notice hitherto, and which simplifies the story.

For the general scheme of the battle this paper follows in the main the first reconstruction by Mr. J. A. R. Munro (J.H.S. xix. p. 185), with which Dr. Grundy is in substantial agreement (The Great Persian War): the essential feature in this version is, of course, the division of the Persian forces at Marathon after a delay of several days. It is only in the interpretation of the shield signal that any claim to originality can be made, and the view of the signal here given is based on the acceptance of the Herodotean story that a shield was flashed, and that it was flashed when the barbarians were already in their ships.

A number of individual passages in Rhesus, a tragedy whose attribution to Euripides has repeatedly been questioned, evince extensive familiarity with institutions and mentalities prevalent in fourth-century Macedonia. The paper argues that Rhesus was composed and produced for a Macedonian performance context, probably between the late 350s and the late 330s BC, by an author who, while familiar with Athenian tragedy and conceivably of Athenian origin, may have lived in the court of Philip II or Alexander III.

All modern commentators are agreed that the account of the campaign of Marathon left us by Herodotus is often inconsistent, and that as often it is difficult to reconcile it with probabilities. In seeking to disentangle fact from fable in the story of Marathon we have a harder task than in the case of the story of Xerxes' invasion of Greece, for we have much less material at our disposal, and the dilemma of deciding what to accept and what to reject of Herodotus' story is very real. There are, however, some guides through this dilemma. Herodotus wrote with the greater event of Xerxes' invasion between him and the campaign of Marathon. Persia had ceased to be the terror to Greece which she had been in the year 491 B.C., and the memory of Athenian fears and hesitations had been obliterated by pride of achievement. It is some guide in the process of selection from Herodotus' story to imagine the kind of tales of Marathon he would be likely to have heard, when making his inquiries, and the kind of event which would be forgotten or concealed.