All students of Eusebius will feel grateful to Mr. J. L. Myres for his attempt in the last volume of this Journal to discover the original text underlying the list of thalassocracies, preserved in the Chronica of Eusebius, and to reassert its value as historical evidence. The problem that Mr. Myres has set himself is rendered difficult not only by the general obscurity in which the sources of early Greek history are shrouded and by our almost total ignorance of the history of many of the thalassocrats during the period assigned to them in the list, but by the complicated questions of textual criticism which surround the Chronica, and which this problem raises in a particularly aggravated form. While not venturing to follow Mr. Myres through the wealth of historical learning, which he has brought to bear upon the subject, I have thought that I might be able to contribute something by bringing my own studies in the Chronica into relation to the general question.

The object of the present essay is to bring together whatever fragments of evidence we possess which may throw light upon the cults of Olbia, the colony founded by the Milesians at the mouth of the Borysthenes about 647 B.C. But by way of preface it may be worth while briefly to indicate the claims that Olbia has to be the subject of special study. All the Greek settlements on the North coast of the Euxine must have had in common many traits which marked them off from Greek colonies elsewhere, but Olbia, while in many respects it may be regarded as a typical city of the locality, was also undoubtedly possessed of an individuality of its own.

Mrs Ure has recalled attention in recent JHS Notes (lxxxviii [1968] 140 f.; lxxxix [1969] 120 f.) to the class of fifth-century Corinthian cups and other small vases studied formerly by Sam Wide (in AM xxvi [1901] 143 ff.) and her (in JHS lxix [1949] 18 ff.). It is surely time the class had a name and, with Mrs Ure's approval, I suggest ‘The Sam Wide Group’. Mrs Ure mentions a cup of the group in Oxford and I take this opportunity to publish it. It is in private possession but at present exhibited in the Ashmolean museum, whose photographs of it are shown here (Plate II 1–2). The fabric and the outside decoration (partly painted handles, tongues on the lip, a band within the concave foot) are wholly normal for this group. The cup interior, which carries the figure decoration, measures 9.2 cm across. The paint is a reddish brown, used with varying intensity from the pale wash for hatching to heavy stippling over painted areas (as the cloak). The scene is of Oedipus and the Sphinx—with a difference which is easier to describe than explain. Oedipus sits at the left, his petasos slung behind his neck, his sword drawn and held upright over his knees. A chlamys fastened round his neck appears to be raised in a protective gesture over his head. Passing from the ridiculous to the sublime we might compare the gesture of a Niobe protecting her child. The left arm holding the drapery is not shown, but this explanation seems the most plausible. The only alternative is that this is the rock on which we might expect the Sphinx otherwise to be sitting, and which can be shown in this form. The monster is perched on a column with a volute capital which is not strictly Ionic but of the type commonly seen on vases for structures or furniture. A high plinth over the volutes serves as base for the creature, rocking back on its haunches, balancing, it seems, on a springy tail.

It has long been recognised as a puzzling fact that in Ptolemy's map of the British Isles Great Britain is turned abruptly to the east from about latitude 55° north (corresponding roughly to the area of Scotland) so as to make a right angle approximately with the southern part of the country. It may be of interest to review briefly various tentative explanations of this peculiar fact which have been advanced during the last three-quarters of a century, and to add yet another to the list.

In 1885 H. Bradley suggested that either Ptolemy or one of his predecessors had before him three sectional maps representing respectively England, Scotland, and Ireland, and that in fitting the three maps together Ptolemy or his predecessor fell into the mistake of turning the oblong map of Scotland the wrong way. T. G. Rylands next put forward his view that the error was due to a faulty observation of a lunar eclipse at Duncansby Head causing an error of longitude, together with a faulty gnomonic observation at the same place causing an error of latitude. In 1894 H. Kiepert was clearly getting nearer the truth when he wrote: ‘The only coherent, though often deficient source for the knowledge of the [British] islands that has come down to us from the most flourishing period of the Empire, is the map of Ptolemy, the result of a combination of the lines of roads and of the coasting expeditions during the first century of Roman occupation. One great fault, however, has crept into the map by his having made use also of a totally different source, namely the astronomical fixations of latitude executed by Pytheas in the time of the earliest Greek mercantile expeditions to these regions of high latitudes.’ In a footnote to this observation he added: ‘These fixations stop at a borderline at the highest point reached in the north, which according to the itinerary sources would have been crossed in a northward direction, and thus the Alexandrian scholar was forced to give the northern half of the island a bend towards the east, the only possible direction, in consequence of which all the localities of Caledonia have been shifted from their proper positions by about a quarter of a circle.’

The romantic tale of the beautiful princess Andromeda, and how Perseus freed her from the dragon, has been treated by two of the great tragedians, Sophocles and Euripides. Here, if anywhere, Sophocles is thrown into the shade by his rival, so much so that the most important elements of Sophocles' version have been given to the drama of Euripides. Therefore if we wish to restore to Sophocles what justly belongs to him, we must first define as clearly as possible what belongs to Euripides. For although a great deal has been written about this brilliant achievement of Euripides, yet conclusions that seemed settled are constantly being called in question or denied, while questionable or erroneous views are once more put forward as correct. Only after the genuine remains of Euripides' play have been separated out can we hope to form any conception of the Andromeda of Sophocles, or to give any reasoned answer to the question which is the earlier, Euripides' play, which was performed with the Helena in 412 B.C., or Sophocles' play, the date of the first performance of which has not come down to us. The poetry of Euripides was Latinised by Ennius, but the fragments of the Latin tragedy do not give substantial help towards the reconstruction of the Greek one.

Mr J. K. Anderson, in his recent note ‘Stymphalian and other birds’ refers to a modern account of Pelicans in Florida being injured by diving upon fish fastened to boards floating just below the surface of the water, and compares it with the statement of Dionysius lxeuticon iii 22) that the ancients took the bird named Cataractes by means of fish painted upon floating planks, upon which the birds dived. He then quotes with approval a suggestion by the referee of JHS that only birds which dive from the air, like Terns and Pelicans, could be caught in this way; that Terns would be too small to be worth catching; and that Cataractes in Dionysius' statement must therefore be a Pelican.

The collection of antiquities which forms the subject of this paper was presented in the year 1863—4 to the Museum of the Leeds Philosophical Society by the Rev. John Gott, D.D., then Vicar of Leeds and now Dean of Worcester. He tells me that it came into his hands in the following way. Mr. Benjamin Gott, elder brother of the Dean's father, made a tour in Greece about the year 1815, in the company of an intimate friend, Mr. Rawson. They visited Smyrna, and returned through the islands to Athens, purchasing, in the course of their travels, a number of ancient marbles. Mr. Benjamin Gott died of fever at the Piraeus, and was buried at Athens in the Theseium. Many years afterwards, when an English cemetery was opened at Athens, his body, with two others, was removed from the temple to this more fitting resting-place.

Upon Mr. B. Gott's death, the marbles passed into the possession of his fellow-traveller Mr. Rawson, in whose house at Halifax they remained for years. Here six of the inscriptions were copied and sent to Böckh for insertion in the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum which he was then preparing.

It was with some misgiving that I set out in my attempt to identify the birds referred to by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. His greatness as a poet seemed to offer no guarantee of his faithfulness as an observer in an age when science as such did not exist, and the spirit of accuracy it begets was as yet unawakened. Moreover, I had long observed Homer to be before all else a poet of action. His references to natural objects are largely by way of illustration—short, crisp asides, as it were, in which the selected word and the packed phrase reveal the economy of his art in matters subordinate to the main theme. His references to colour in birds are extremely rare; those regarding form are epithetic, and recur with something of the conventional formality of the epithets applied to his heroes. However, whether in the form of epithet or by special description, Homer's portrayal of birds deals chiefly with essentials. In this lie the advantage and the disadvantage of the Homeric method for one whose main purpose is concerned with what in Homer was merely contributory to a fuller one. The advantage of such a method is that it forces essentials to the front, and the disadvantage, that the references to these may be limited by the nature of the matter they serve to illustrate; or that, being references to the characteristics of a class of birds, they may not suffice for the identification of a particular member of that class.

The student of Greek religion and mythology who devoted his attention solely to the more striking figures of the Hellenic Pantheon would very imperfectly apprehend its true extent and character. No doubt the wide-spread cultus and the many-sided nature of its Dii Majores give them a pre-eminent claim upon our study, but at the same time we can never leave wholly out of sight those innumerable subordinate beings—whether divine or semi-human—who were created by the exuberant fancy of the Greek, and honoured by his worship. The presence of these lesser gods is felt at every turn: their images are set, as it were, upon every high hill, and under every green tree; and though their personality may often be less interesting than that of the greater deities, nay, though it be sometimes colourless or barely intelligible, our survey of the broad field of Hellenic worship and legend will always remain imperfect so long as we suffer these, its minuter, objects to escape our vision. Thus, for instance, in treating of the great Greek divinity of healing—Asklepios—we cannot afford to ignore those inferior personages who follow in his train and even share his powers. It is of one of these subordinate divinities—the god Telesphoros—that I propose to speak in the present paper.

Having visited these two outlying islands of the Sporadic group last winter, and having spent in them over two months, I propose to put together a few notes on the antiquities to be found in each. They are islands which are very difficult of access and rarely visited by foreigners, and are consequently peculiarly retentive of customs and myths which bear the stamp of extreme antiquity. Both these islands appear to have had a much more considerable population in ancient times than they have now, though much behind their neighbours on Rhodes and Kos in the arts and civilisation.

The principal feature of the small island of Telos is a precipitous mountain which rises directly behind the chief of the two modern villages of the island, on the summit of which is a fortress covering a triangular plateau about three quarters of a mile in circumference; the foundation of the walls of this fortress are Hellenic, on which during the Middle Ages more modern walls have been constructed. In the centre of this fortress there stands an Hellenic temple now converted into a church, and almost buried on two sides by the débris of Hellenic masonry covered with brushwood. From the gateway which enters the walls on the south side, a broad approach with steps flanked on either side by huge blocks of stone leads straight to the temple; the form of the proaulion is easily distinguished, and the north wall of the temple is almost intact and built of neatly fitting stones without mortar of a coarse bluish marble.

In a recent issue of this journal (xci [1971] 137–8), R. M. Cook argued convincingly that the term ἐποίεσεν should not be taken to mean the craftsman who threw the vase but rather should be taken as a sign of ownership by the head of the workshop producing the pot. While in agreement with Cook's rejection of ἐποίεσεν as a term referring to the craftsman who threw the vase, I am not altogether satisfied with his alternative proposal. Why was the designation of ownership painted on the vase, and by whom was it painted? Cook's suggestion would have the signature act as a trade name to identify the product. If so, why were so few pots designated in this manner? We would expect that a trade name would almost automatically be placed on all goods emanating from a workshop and that if this became customary in the more prominent workshops it would have been adopted in the lesser ones. In short, why were not all Greek vases so designated—at least in the second half of the sixth and the first half of the fifth century?

The only ἐποίεσεν signature to appear with any frequency or consistency is that of Nikosthenes on the special amphora form which now carries his name. Other workshops do not provide the extensive signatures; however, if we can determine the meaning of the signature in the Nikosthenic shop we will not be far from the use of ἐποίεσεν in other workshops.

I propose in the following article to inquire what can be determined concerning the procedure of the Gortynian Inscription. It is scarcely necessary to insist on the importance of the subject. This is the only document that we have that gives us an authentic record of the earlier stages of Greek law. The history of Greek law is little known; knowledge of it is most valuable for the light that it throws on the social and political life of Greece, and especially because it supplies a most important element in the comparative study of law. The legal side of history can never be neglected with impunity. Even though the Greeks never became such accomplished lawyers as the Romans, their legal and political institutions were closely connected, and our ignorance of their laws often prevents us from understanding their politics.

It is however for its relation to the laws of other nations that Greek law deserves chiefly to be studied. Our knowledge of the early legal antiquities of European races is still very limited.

Anything one says about the Letters of Phalaris must be, in some sense, provisional. We have no critical text, and it is clear from the work of Tudeer that exploration of the manuscript tradition might well cast light on the origins and development of this mysterious collection, the most ambitious example of fictitious epistolography that survives from antiquity. But the literary problems are so teasing that even a provisional exploration may serve at least a protreptic purpose.

In many respects Delphi and its varied cults possess an interest which is not to be rivalled by that of any other Hellenic site. The lofty precipices, the dark deeply-cleft ravines, the mysterious caves, and the bubbling springs of pure water, combine to give the place a romantic charm and a fearfulness of aspect which no description can adequately depict.

Again Delphi stands alone in the catholic multiplicity of the different cults which were there combined.

In primitive times it was the awfulness of Nature which impressed itself on the imaginations of the inhabitants.

In an early stage of development the mind of man tends to gloomy forms of religion: his ignorance and comparative helplessness tend to fill his brain with spiritual terrors and forebodings. Thus at Delphi the primitive worship was that of the gloomy Earth and her children, the chasm-rending Poseidon, and the Chthonian Dionysus, who, like Osiris, was the victim of the evil powers of Nature. It was not till later times that the bright Phoebus Apollo came to Delphi to slay the earth-born Python, just as the rising sun dissipates the shadows in the depths of the Delphian ravines, or as in the Indian legend the god Indra kills with his bright arrows the great serpent Ahi—symbol of the black thunder-cloud.

There was no excavation in Neolithic or Chalcolithic sites, but a notable event was the publication of the report by P. Dikaios on his excavations in the mainly pre-pottery settlement at Khirokitía, in which he reviews the relationship and chronology of the cultures preceding the Early Cypriot. A new site of the Erimi stage was located at Palaiómylos near Ayios Thomas by surface finds, including a headless andesite idol of fiddle shape, now in the Limassol Museum.

Bronze Age

Further material from the Kafkála cemetery between Dhenia and Akaki reached the Cyprus Museum through confiscation of pottery looted in the south area, where the tombs are relatively small and poorly furnished. It includes some good red polished II and III and also black polished pottery. With the sponsorship of the Department of Antiquities and the assistance of Mr. G. R. H. Wright of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara, Mr. Justice Griffith-Williams undertook the excavation of two of the large looted tombs in the north part of the cemetery. These proved to be Middle Cypriot, and yielded large quantities of fragmentary but restorable white painted pottery. A small intact Early Cypriot II tomb group was excavated in the south area as part of the same operation. At Onísia near Dikomo a Middle Cypriot cemetery was brought to light by cultivation and one tomb with typical furniture, including some bronze weapons, was excavated by the Department.

Cook Wilson remarks that one of the chief doctrines of the Timaeus ‘relates to the existence of evil … all cosmogonies which attribute the world to some divine activity find a difficulty here. Some assume another spirit, an evil one, though partly subordinate to the good one; others, to avoid making an evil spiritual principle, assume an unintelligent matter, or in general some form of Necessity beside the Good Spirit. We should suppose that Plato, if not monist, would incline to the latter and should have thought he clearly adopted it in the Timaeus.’ In Laws X, ‘soul’ is the cause of evil as of good. So Plato says one thing at one time, another at another. But his interpreters do not like to admit this. Professor Cornford found the spiritual view of evil lurking in the Timaeus too. Mr. Vlastos and lately the Rév. Père Festugière, though they differ about the meaning of Laws X, agree that for Plato the κακοποιόν is always matter. I think that we should not try too hard to smooth over the discrepancies in what Plato says about evil. They call attention to something obscure, perhaps incoherent, in his metaphysical thinking.

This paper gives the results of a journey of exploration undertaken in April, 1905, in the Magnesian peninsula by Mr. A. W. Van Buren of the American School at Rome and myself. The observations are in many cases incomplete, but every effort has been made to make them as perfect as time and means allowed. I would like to point out to archaeologists who are too often content only with a tour to Larissa, Tempe, the Metéora, and Phersala, that Thessaly is in many respects a terra incognita. That it amply repays exploration and excavation is shewn by the results obtained by Dr. Tsountas and Dr. Stais at Dhimini, Sesklo, and Marmariani. It is to be hoped that in future archaeologists will visit Thessaly more frequently and not be content with mere sight-seeing. I myself hope to return this year to study the Ossa district ; and it is possible that the British School at Athens will, if circumstances permit, excavate the temple site at Kato Georgi.

This well known passage has given rise to some discussion in recent years, the words being the centre of the fray.

The Scholiast says

Most modern commentators have followed the Scholiast. But Mr. J. A. Stewart in the Classical Beview (Vol. vii. 3–59) follows the President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in stating that the Scholiast was led astray by the proverb and that there is really no reference at all to the game ot Polis, and compares with it the passage from the Meno, 77 A.