Scholars have long praised the overall topographic accuracy of Thucydides' account of the campaign at Pylos (iv 3–6, 8–23, 26–41); and among the numerous details mentioned, only two apparent inaccuracies have been identified, both involving measurements. One, an inaccurate estimate of the length of Sphakteria, has been previously explained as nothing more than a simple numeral corruption and is, in any case, irrelevant for understanding the military narrative. But the other, the underestimated width of the southern harbour entrance, remains a serious error which implies a fundamental misconception of relevant local geography and has made the account of Spartan strategy incomprehensible. Furthermore, its impact on the question of Thucydides' investigative methodology has been considerable, since most commentators, thinking the information reliably transmitted, have concluded that Thucydides never visited Pylos and somehow accepted misinformation on this crucial point. However, close study of the passage suggests that a textual corruption, not Thucydides, is responsible for the present inaccuracy.

Unlike much else in the Pentecontaetia, the chronology of the Samian War, its antecedents included, has apparently evoked such little critical interest that an almost casual treatment of the subject is observable in modern works. Nesselhauf, for example, annotated his brief discussion of the Samian War with a reference to Busolt and Beloch ‘for the details’. Each scholar provides a radically different chronology from the other. Indeed, the range of dates postulated by modern writers is remarkable considering the relatively small span of time, two years, in which the events appear to have unfolded. Beloch and the authors of ATL date the war between Samos and Miletus, which ultimately caused the revolt, in summer 441 B.C.; Busolt set the war in March-April 440 B.C., E. Meyer a shade earlier. Some scholars fail to specify the date (Nesselhauf, Meiggs). The beginning of the revolt itself has been placed in spring 440 B.C. by Sealey, among others; Gomme and Meiggs date it in early summer, Busolt, strangely, in early July. The direct cause of the revolt, the installation of the democracy at Samos (Thuc. i 115.3), is little discussed, much less fixed in date. The democracy was not established in a day: it therefore requires consideration in any chronological reconstruction. Finally, the end of the war has been variously set in late winter, early spring and early summer 439 B.C.

Such uncertainty is surprising since our evidence is abundant and also specific enough to allow us to make reasonably firm chronological estimates. Indeed, our fortunate possession of mutually independent data—the historical tradition and the monumental evidence—provides us with the opportunity to attempt precision in a degree usually beyond our expectations. However we may separately interpret Thucydides' relative chronology or the random evidence of the stones, these data, when taken in combination, yield knowledge greater than the sum of its parts.

The subject, or subects, of the scenes on the Portland Vase is an old problem which has teased art historians for long enough. There have been fairly long periods when the interpretation seemed to be generally agreed, or when scholars' ingenuity waned, and the last suggestion reigned unchallenged for some time. There have also been short periods when the vase evoked avid scholarly activity, as for instance 1957–68.

For a recent debate one should consult the article by B. Ashmole, and the reply to it made by D. Haynes (JHS 1967 and 1968). In both editions of his British Museum booklet, The Portland Vase (1964 and 1975) Haynes gives an amusing appendix, listing ‘other interpretations’, which from 1642 to 1967 amounted to twenty-three more or less different theories. If one adds to these the articles by Brown and Clairmont published subsequently in AJA (1968, 1970, 1972) and a recent paper by Evelyn Harrison in a German Festschrift (1976), then the vase has knocked up more than its quarter century of rival interpretations. It is no wonder that many modern general works state simply that the scenes have not been satisfactorily interpreted, but that one of the sides may represent a sea goddess.

In summary it may be said that previous theories have taken one of two main paths. They have either linked the scene with a Greek legend, or have sought in the vase a reference to contemporary Roman history, albeit a history dressed up in a Hellenic and classicising style.

The term Tabulae Iliacae is conventionally applied to twenty low reliefs scattered through museums from Warsaw to New York. The common name conceals a bewildering artistic farrago: the earliest Tabula, the Tabula Iliaca Capitolina (1 A; Plate II; Fig. 3), is mid-Augustan (cf. p. 48), the latest (19J) late Antonine (Sadurska 94). Five of the Tabulae bear the name Theodorus and I shall argue (p. 27) that he is the craftsman responsible for their execution. Where provenance is known, it is always Rome or the Roman Campagna. The materials of the Tabulae vary widely: most, but not all, are of some sort of marble, white, yellow, and Giallo Antico (Sadurska 13). Little can be said of their size, for not one survives complete. It would appear, however, that the largest rectangular Tabula, the calcite 1 A, was originally c. 25 cm by 42 cm (Sadurska 14). Two, portraying the Shield of Achilles, were circular (4N and 5O) and 5O may have had a radius of 20 cm (Sadurska 47). The name Iliacae is appropriate only in as much as eleven out of twenty Tabulae portray episodes from the Iliad (Sadurska 15 + 20Par.) and six the Sack of Ilium; others, however, represent (e.g.) Alexander's victory at Arbela and the apotheosis of Hercules. What the Tabulae do display in common is a combination of low reliefs in miniature and inscriptions, often extensive and not always on the same topic as the reliefs (see Plate II). In ancient art, only the Megarian bowls (cf. p. 47) stand comparison, and their ratio of text to illustration is substantially lower.

Pindar, perhaps more than any other ancient poet, seems to demand from his interpreters declarations of their critical premises. In recent years scholars customarily have made initial acknowledgment to the work of E. R. Bundy, as psychoanalysts must to Freud, before they begin to offer their own modifications to and expansions of his fundamental work. Much contemporary scholarship has concentrated on the identification and classification in the odes of the elements whose function Bundy labelled and explained. But useful as this type of analysis has been for exorcising the demon of biographical interpretation, it has, like all orthodoxies, prevented perception of other equally important truths. It constitutes no radical heterodoxy to try to account for the fact that each individual ode, for all its dependence on common conventions of structure and of content, makes a different impression. Nor is it unreasonable to try to explain what makes Pindar's style and approach distinctive.

In my own work I have argued, though perhaps not always convincingly, that language as well as structure contributes to an ode's coherence. Scholars trained in America are more willing to assume that repetition of phrase or theme within a poem has significance, and that metaphors can simultaneously bear more than one connotation. The issues at stake have most recently been delineated by Michael Silk, in his discussion of the effect of metaphor in archaic poetry: ‘By “patent”, I mean effects whose existence is not in doubt, though their character may be disputed; by “latent”, those whose effective significance is so tenuous or marginal that one resents the impression of solidity that even mentioning them produces. Such insensitivity is more common than it should be among American classicists, many of whom have also been influenced by the “New Criticism”…’ As illustration of the erroneous American approach Silk cites Cedric Whitman's description of the thematic relation of fires in the Iliad. Silk himself avoids the trap Whitman falls into by considering only ‘patent’ metaphors, and these consistently out of context, so that there is no necessity to comment on the existence or non-existence of thematic connections among them. But it is possible—at least logically—to frame the question differently, and to ask whether a metaphor cannot have patent and latent associations at the same time.

Athens in the fourth century was undergoing a process of social and economic change of which a major component was the development of elements of market economy. The question to be addressed here is: what response does that historical process meet with in the work of Aristotle? I shall contend that Aristotle has a substantial body of thought, analytical in nature and intent, which is directed specifically to the analysis of that process. M. I. Finley has drawn quite the contrary conclusion, and in addition to developing my own account of Aristotle's thought 1 shall have to examine the shortcomings of Finley's. Finley takes the view that although Aristotle was aware of the process of change he simply ignored it, and that there is no trace of any analytical concern with it to be found in those sections of the Aristotelian corpus which it has been usual to regard as containing Aristotle's ‘economic’ thought, namely, NE v 5, and Pol i 8–10. Finley sees in Aristotle nothing more than moral condemnation of certain practices such as kapelike which he regarded as damaging to the koinonia of the polis.

It sometimes happens that what one finds in an author depends on one's possession or lack of the equipment necessary to recognise what is there and to identify it for what it is. Finley is looking at Aristotle in order to determine the presence or absence of what he terms ‘economic analysis’.

This paper is concerned with the eight Lives in which Plutarch describes the final years of the Roman Republic: Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero, Caesar, Cato, Brutus, and Antony. It is not my main concern to identify particular sources, though some problems of provenance will inevitably arise; it is rather to investigate the methods which Plutarch adopted in gathering his information, whatever his sources may have been. Did he, for instance, compose each biography independently? Or did he prepare several Lives simultaneously, combining in one project his reading for a number of different works? Did he always have his source-material before him as he composed? Or can we detect an extensive use of memory? Can one conjecture what use, if any, he made of notes? And can we tell whether he usually drew his material from just one source, or wove together his narrative from his knowledge of several different versions?

I start from an important assumption: that, in one way or another, Plutarch needed to gather information before writing these Lives; that, whatever may be the case with some of the Greek Lives, he would not be able to write these Roman biographies simply from his general knowledge. The full basis for this assumption will only become clear as the discussion progresses: for example, we shall find traces of increasing knowledge within these Lives, with early biographies showing only a slight knowledge of some important events, and later ones gradually filling the gaps. It will become probable that Plutarch knew comparatively little of the detail of Roman history before he began work on the Lives, and that considerable ‘research’—directed and methodical reading—would be necessary for their composition.

Historias autem plures novisse oportet, quod multa ornamenta saepe in operibus architecti designant, de quibus argumenti rationem cur fecerint quaerentibus reddere debent. Quemadmodum si quis statuas marmoreas muliebres stolatas, quae caryatides dicuntur, pro columnis in opere statuerit et insuper mutulos et coronas conlocaverit, percontantibus ita reddet rationem. Carya civitas Peloponnensis cum Persis hostibus contra Graeciam consensit, postea Graeci per victoriam gloriose bello liberati communi Consilio Caryatibus bellum indixerunt. Itaque oppido capto viris interfectis civitate desacrata matronas eorum in servitutem abduxerunt, nec sunt passi stolas neque ornatus matronales deponere, uti non una triumpho ducerentur sed aeterno servitutis exemplo gravi contumelia pressae poenas pendere viderentur pro civitate. Ideo qui tune architecti fuerunt aedificiis publicis designaverunt earum imagines oneri ferundo conlocatas, ut etiam posteris nota poena peccati Caryatium memoriae traderetur. Non minus Lacones, Pausania Agesipolidos filio duce, Plataico proelio pauca manu infinitum numerum exercitus Persarum cum superavissent, acto cum gloria triumpho spoliorum et praedae, porticum Persicam ex manubiis, laudis et virtutis civium indicem, victoriae posteris pro tropaeo constituerunt, ibique captivorum simulacra barbarico vestis ornatu, superbia meritis contumeliis punita, sustinentia tectum conlocaverunt, uti et hostes horrescerent, timore eorum fortitudinis effectus, et cives id exemplum virtutis aspicientes gloria erecti ad defendendam libertatem essent parati. Itaque ex eo multi statuas Persicas sustinentes epistylia et ornamenta eorum conlocaverunt, et ita ex eo argumento varietates egregias auxerunt operibus. Vitruvius, De Arch. i 4.8–5.11 Rose.

Εἰσαγγελία, ‘impeachment’, has regularly had a few pages devoted to it in books on Athenian law or the Athenian constitution. Recently a book has been published on the subject, one of a series on Athenian legal topics by M. H. Hansen: in it he assembles the evidence for 144 certain, probable or possible instances of εἰσαγγελία between 500 and 323 B.C., and his analysis leads him to disagree with much that has been said hitherto. However, I am not persuaded that all his own conclusions are correct.

One note of warning should be sounded at the beginning, εἰσαγγέλλειν, like γράφεσθαι, φαίνειν, ἐνδεικνύναι and other verbs used of initiating legal proceedings, is a word within whose normal range of meaning one or more technical senses developed. The existence of a technical sense did not, of course, put an end to the non-technical use of the word, and we must always be alert to the possibility that even in a legal context a word may have been used not in its technical legal sense, or that in part or all of the period with which we are concerned a set of technical terms, each with its own distinct meaning, may not have fully crystallised: for instance, unless the word is corrupt, Lys. x 1 uses εἰσήγγελλε of a prosecution which was not an εἰσαγγελία in any technical sense of the word (Gernet and Bizos therefore emend to ἐπήγγελλε); within a single speech, Isae. xi, a charge of maltreating an orphan is referred to both as an εἰσαγγελία (§§6, 15) and as a γραφή (§§28, 31, 32, 35).

The mansion known as the West House or House of the Admiral at Akrotiri, Thera, was excavated by Spyridon Marinatos in the 1971 and 1972 seasons. The miniature fresco, one of the most important monuments of Aegean art yet found, decorated room 5, which was the north-west corner room on the upper, first floor of the building. This room, approximately 4×4 m internally, had wide windows of three and four frames respectively in the north and west walls, an exit eastwards into the central part of the house and a door in the south-east corner into room 4 and the adjacent bathroom, 4a (Fig. i). Although its function cannot now be demonstrated room 5 was probably a living room, with its wide windows and reasonable size. But a curious vessel, which may have been a ritual sprinkler (Thera VI 31—2 and pl. 70), was found in the south-west corner among the fresco fragments and carries a hint of other functions.

The evidence against the Aeschylean authorship of the Prometheus is now overwhelming; or so it appears to me, considering the question without preconception and in that hebdomad of life in which, according to Solon, περὶ πἀντα καταρτύεται νὀος ἀνδρὀς. Those who still maintain that the play is by Aeschylus may probably be divided into three categories: those who have not read Mark Griffith's recent book on the subject; those who are incapable of unlearning anything they grew up believing, at any rate concerning such an important matter; and those who, while not constitutionally incapable of conversion, nor unimpressed by the evidence, yet have a rooted feeling, which they are unwilling to discount, that the play is like Aeschylus. The first group is easy to prescribe for. The second is incurable. To the third I would say that although instinct may certainly on occasion be worth a hundred arguments, its reliability as a pointer to the truth depends on its sources. When it represents a rational calculation performed by the subconscious from considerations or observations of which the conscious mind has not yet taken stock, so that upon reflection it can be put on an objective basis, well and good. There is no doubt an element of such calculation in the present case, for of course the Prometheus does have some Aeschylean features.

At Πєρὶ φυγῆς 20.2 Favorinus introduces an unusual exemplum: if an Ethiopian king wishes to honour one of his subjects he takes off one of his own belts (ζώματα) and gives it to him: αὔτη γὰρ Αἰθιόπων στολή. As long as the recipient wears this, the king's subjects will show him respect; the moment he is deprived of it, he loses his authority. Barigazzi ad loc. notes that the anecdote is otherwise unknown. But this royal belt of the Ethiopians does emerge elsewhere in a slightly different guise. Charicleia, the heroine of Heliodorus' Aethiopica, has a silk ταινία exposed with her, embroidered with an inscription which explains her royal birth and the circumstances of her exposure (ii 31.3, cf. iv 8.6). On her return to Ethiopia she deliberately wears the belt. When about to be sacrificed, she presents it to her mother Queen Persinna, and her royal birth is conveniently established at the eleventh hour. The parallel in Favorinus is a new illustration of one of Heliodorus' characteristic techniques: he is fond of investing an obscure piece of paradoxography with a key role in the plot. A portrait of the white Andromeda determines Charicleia's skin colour at conception (iv 8.5), and makes her exposure necessary in the first place; and among her other birth-tokens is no less a stone than the Pantarbe itself (v 14). Thanks to the papyrus of Favorinus we can conclude that the most important of her inevitable γνωρίσματα is in fact an unusual but attested ‘Ethiopian’ detail of the same order.

Athenaeus (474e) quotes the description of the karchesion cup by Kallixeinos of Rhodes, a third-century B.C. author: ‘a tall cup, slightly contracted at the middle with handles which extend down to the base’. Scholars have easily recognised in this a variety of kantharos, a cup with two vertical handles and either with a low foot or the footless sessile, both types current in Kallixeinos' day. The ordinary kantharos in its Classical form, with a stem and high-swung handles, may have derived its name, shared with the scarab beetle, from the wing-like appearance of the handles rather than from its overall similarity to a boat, which is one of the other meanings of the word (Ath. 473d–474c). It is doubtful whether Greek usage was ever very precise in these matters but ‘karchesion’ was probably reserved for the footless variety regardless of handle shape.

Androtion, FGrH 324 F 6, and Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 22, seem to differ about the date when ostracism was introduced in Athens. But the words τότє πρῶτον in the text of Androtion have been attacked as unsatisfactory Greek. I hold that, on the contrary, they are perfectly acceptable and idiomatic.

For reference, I cite the text of Androtion, which is quoted in the lexicon of Harpocration, and of Aristotle.

Harpocration, s.v. Ἵππαρχος … ἄλλος δέ ἐστιν Ἵππαρχος ὁ Χάρμου … περὶ δὲ τούτου Ἀνδροτίων ἐν τῇ β̄ φησὶν ὅτι συγγενὴς ἦν Πεισιστράτου τοῦ τυράννου καὶ πρῶτος ἐξωστρακίσθη, τοῦ περὶ τὸν ὀστρακισμὸν νόμου τότε πρῶτον τεθέντος διὰ τὴν ὑποψίαν τῶν περὶ Πεισίστρατον, ὅτι δημαγωγὸς ὢν καὶ στρατηγὸς ἐτυράννησεν.

Not much attention is given to the diolkos across the Isthmus of Corinth, nor is much known about it. There are a dozen or so explicit or probable references to it in ancient literature, one relevant inscription and some remains of its track. The remains, principally at the west and close to the modern canal, are from a paved roadway with two parallel channels about 1·50 m apart, evidently to hold the wheels of some sort of carrier; and associated pottery and inscribed letters suggest that it was constructed in the late seventh or early sixth century B.C. The written references tell us that the eastern end of the diolkos was at Schoinos, that it was said to be 40 stades long, that warships were transported across the Isthmus in 412, 220, 217, 102 and 30 B.C., that the diolkos was in use in the early period of the Roman Empire, and that some ships were too big for it: there is, though, no precise statement of the commercial use of the diolkos.

Yet transport of warships is not likely to have been the normal use of the diolkos: ancient historical writers were more interested in war than commerce, and warships cannot have needed transporting very frequently.

It is a widespread feature of Doric temples that the intercolumniations nearest the angles should be somewhat narrower than normal so as to allow a regular distribution of triglyphs and metopes in the frieze. The nature and working of this adjustment have been widely discussed; but little attention has been given to the contrary arrangement in two Athenian Ionic temples, where the intercolumniations nearest the angles are actually wider than normal. Of the standard handbooks on Greek architecture in English, only that of Dinsmoor notes that the angle intercolumniations of the north porch of the Erechtheion are 0·052 m larger than the central one, and even he does not discuss the fact in his main treatment of the building. He also notes that the angle intercolumniations of the temple by the Ilissos are 0·051 m greater than the central one, but attributes that to later distortion of the building. Shear mentions both these instances in her discussion of the possible works of Kallikrates, and accepts the wider intercolumniations of the Ilissos temple as part of the original design. Following Stevens, she explains this feature in the Erechtheion as intended to allow a regular spacing of the ceiling beams, and suggests that the same explanation may apply to the Ilissos temple too.

(2)Εἰσὶ δὲ πᾶσαι αἱ ἕξεις εὐλόγως εἰς ταὐτὸ τείνουσαι 25 λέγομεν γὰρ γνώμην καὶ σύνεσιν καὶ φρόνησιν καὶ νοῦν ἐπὶ τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐπιφέροντες γνώμην ἔχειν καὶ νοῦν ἤδη καὶ φρονίμους καὶ συνετούς. πᾶσαι γὰρ αἱ δυνάμεις αὗται τῶν ἐσχάτων εἰσὶ καὶ τῶν καθ᾿ ἕκαστον καὶ ἐν μὲν τῷ 29 κριτικὸς εἶναι περὶ ὧν ὁ φρόνιμος, συνετὸς καὶ εὐγνώμων ἢ συγγνώμων τὰ γὰρ ἐπιεικῆ κοινὰ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἁπάντων ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἄλλον. (3) ἔστι δὲ τῶν καθ᾿ ἔκαστα καὶ τῶν ἐσχάτων ἅπαντα τὰ πρακτά καὶ γὰρ τὸν φρόνιμον δεῖ ψινώσκειν αὐτά, καὶ ἡ σύνεσις καὶ ἡ γνώμη περὶ τὰ 34 πρακτά, ταῦτα δ᾿ ἔσχατα. (4) καὶ ὁ νοῦς τῶν ἐσχάτων ἐπ᾿ ἀμφότερα καὶ γὰρ… VI xi 2–4

The structure of book VI of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is not pellucid. The general purpose of the book is to define the concept of practical wisdom or φρόνησις and the method by which Aristotle attempts to reach his aim is that of contrasting practical wisdom with other seemingly relevant concepts. The main contrast here, underlying the book as a whole, is that between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom (σοφία) or ‘science’ (ἐπιστήμη).

Another, less general, contrast is the one drawn in chapters ix–xi, from which the above quotation is taken, between practical wisdom and a series of three fairly specific states of knowledge, or capacities: excellence in deliberation (єὐβουλία, ix), ‘understanding’ (σύνєσις, x) and ‘judgement’ (γνώμη, xi 1). These are practical abilities and hence are closely connected with practical (as opposed to theoretical) wisdom but they are not identical with that type of knowledge. The exact way in which they differ from practical wisdom is left somewhat in the dark, but it is possible, I believe, to see them as distinguishing parts of the total state of knowledge which is practical wisdom.

Many citizens of Oenanda are named ‘Diogenes’ on inscriptions surviving there from the Roman period, yet the most famous of them all, who gave his name to the vast Epicurean treatise now lying in fragments across the northern part of the site, has still to be securely identified.

Those who have studied Diogenes' treatise do not agree on a date for the setting-up of the inscription. C. W. Chilton followed most earlier scholars in accepting a date ‘about A.D. 200’, but M. F. Smith, who has devoted great efforts in recent years to the recovery and study of the text, has found reasons for proposing a date as early as Hadrianic times.

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.

A number of studies of the Cyclops episode of Odyssey ix have described modern folktales which resemble it to a varying degree. Most writers have concluded that few of the tales actually derive from the Odyssey; rather they are related to it as independent variations of the same tale. Hitherto there has been no basis for conjecture about the origin of the tale, and speculation has ranged widely but inconclusively.

Perhaps speculation is all we can ever hope for in such questions. But it may help if we can find possible references to a version of the tale earlier than Homer, and the purpose of this note is to draw attention to such a possibility.

One-eyed but otherwise human figures are found, though not often, on cylinder seals from Mesopotamia. Edith Porada describes and illustrates three examples. The earliest of these (Plate VIIIb) dates from around 3000 B.C., and shows the one-eyed figure nude, curly-haired and bearded, holding up two lions by the hind legs. The rest of the scene includes an enclosure of some sort, a grotesque man(?) apparently bending a stick(?), two creatures that look like sheep, and two lion-headed birds (the personified storm-cloud?).