In his interesting study of these engraved shells, in Lindiaka ii., Professor Blinkenberg has compiled a list of these objects so far published or mentioned. In regard to the first section of that list, which deals with Asia, the failure to observe the late Professor L. W. King's observations on this subject have led to some errors in the list which may cause loss of time and labour to future students. The following notes, based upon the numbers in Blinkenberg's list, are intended to be of use in avoiding further confusion.

Nos. 1 and 2, Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, p. 563, below and above, are respectively the inside and outside of the same fragment, although Layard speaks of ‘fragments.’ Registration no. 51–1–1, 176; no. 117997. Layard's woodcuts are unsatisfactory, since the right-hand side of the lower one attributes to the design on the inside part of the outside design which completes the upper edge of the top woodcut. Found by Sir W. K. Loftus at Warka (Erech).

The treatise περὶ στρατιωτικῶν ἐπιτιμίων has been edited at least half a dozen times, and my only justification for bringing out a new text of a book which is not so widely read as it deserves is that all existing editions are based on inadequate manuscript authority and therefore misleading.

There are two editions by Karl Eduard Zachariä von Lingenthal (hereinafter called Z.). The earlier appeared as the thirty-fourth chapter of the Ecloga ad Prochiron mutata (Jus Grœco-Romanum, Pars IV, Lipsiae, 1865, pp. 138—141). It seems from the preface to be based on Paris gr. 1720 of the end of the fifteenth century. The later edition is in Z.'s article ‘Wissenschaft und Recht für das Heer vom 6. bis zum Anfang des 10. Jahrhunderts’ in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Dritter Band, Leipzig, 1894, pp. 450–453. He takes it—so he says at p. 449—‘nach einer Abschrift aus der Epitome ad Prochiron mutata, die ich aus der vorzüglichen alten Handschrift Marcianus 579 genommen habe.’ In an affecting letter to the editor of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift (p. 437, n. 1) he says that, although his eyesight and his pen have failed him, he has been able to complete the undertaking with the support of his children and the local pastor. Greek manuscripts are best collated without the help of women or priests. Certain it is that the manuscript of which Z. gives a copy is not Marcianus gr. 579. The illustrious man died, full of years and wrong references, before his article was published.

In preparing for the press an edition of Aeneas Tacticus, which was left in manuscript form by the late Mr. L. W. Hunter, I have had to consider a good deal the details of the fastening of the Greek city gate. The general principles are familiar to everyone: a gate with two wings (σανίδες) opening inwards only, with a wooden bar (μοχλός) placed horizontally across it on the inside, secured by a metal bolt (βάλανος) which passed through a vertical hole bored in the μοχλός and into a socket (βαλανοδόκη) in the stone beneath, the top of the βάλανος, when pushed home, being well below the top of the μοχλός. The βάλανος must have been a heavy iron pin, thick enough to stand a big strain, since if anyone tried to force the gate everything depended on the resistance of the βάλανος: I imagine it something like twelve inches long and two to three inches thick. It will be remembered that at Plataea in 431 B.C. a soldier fastened one of the gates στυρακίῳ ἀκοντίον ἀντι βαλάνου χρησάμενος ἐς τὸν μοχλόν (Thuc. ii. 4. 3).

Professor Karo and the excavators of Tiryns have welcomed the publication of the report of the excavations which I conducted at Mycenae for the British School at Athens from 1920 to 1923, and have expressed themselves as in general agreement with the results. In the last two numbers of this Journal, Sir Arthur Evans has queried one or two points and the editors have kindly allowed me to reply to his questions here. This is necessary because some of the facts are not quite correctly stated by him. He is inclined to doubt the architectural evolution of the beehive tomb as set forth in our report, and thinks that the two which are most advanced in construction, the Treasury of Atreus and the Tomb of Clytemnestra, should be assigned to an earlier date. Secondly, he would suggest a somewhat different classification and dating for Late Helladic III. pottery. These two questions hang together, since L.H. III. sherds were discovered under the threshold and under the dromos walls of the Treasury of Atreus. It seems best, however, to treat them separately, and we will deal first with the architectural and other evidence for the dating of the two tholos tombs, and later with the problems of L.H. III. ware. In doing so every care must be taken to prevent the danger of allowing theories or preconceived prejudices to outweigh the facts, that is to say, the archaeological evidence obtained by excavation.

In The Times of January 28th, 1925, appeared tne interesting announcement that ‘Mar Shimun XXI, the Patriarch of the Nestorian or Assyrian Christians, who is only sixteen years of age, arrived in England yesterday, and proceeded to St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, where he is to be educated.’

This is not the first occasion on which a Patriarch of an Eastern Church has received his education in England, and it may be instructive to follow the career of the Orthodox predecessor of the Nestorian Patriarch Mar Shimun XXI, especially as we possess a good deal of information about him, which is, I believe, practically unknown in England. The Greek in question was Metrophanes Critopoulos, who subsequently became Patriarch of Alexandria. He arrived in London about the middle of the year 1617.

The whole story of this mission of Critopoulos is extremely interesting, for it is closely bound up with the struggle between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in the Thirty Years' War, and with the aspirations of Cyril Loucaris, that Patriarch of Constantinople who was in close touch with Western ideas, was accused of being a Calvinist, and was duly anathematised therefor by the Council of Constantinople in 1638. He is probably best known in this country for his present of the celebrated Codex Alexandrinus to King Charles I in 1628.

It is not my intention to describe the career of Cyril Loucaris, except in so far as it touches upon the story of Critopoulos; it has been presented at length by Neale, as has also the episode of Metrophanes Critopoulos as far as the information about him was then available.

An inquiry into the classification of the various Island fabrics of the seventh century is accompanied by many difficulties, some of which are the peculiar inheritance of the subject. Not only was much of the material discovered without grouping or stratification in the Catharsis grave at Rheneia; the very fact of the original provenance of these vases from Delos at once deprives the circumstances of their discovery of much of its a priori significance. Further, by far the greater part of the material, from Rheneia remains unpublished; and, lastly, there will always be the difficulty, often amounting to impossibility, of classifying some of the fabrics at all without examining the vases in the hand—a process which involves a visit to several comparatively inaccessible places. The result of these various and partially inevitable causes is a misfortune, inasmuch as Cycladic vase-painting, despite many borrowings, possesses a definite and often very interesting individuality of its own. Of this the published finds have for some years given us a simple and fairly intelligible picture, a chiaroscuro effect, one might say, in which the central figures appeared clearly, if not sharply, grouped against the background. Gradually, however, as our knowledge and materials increase, it appears that the straight-forwardness of the picture was in some measure deceptive. In reality the subject is beset by complications, and there is, unfortunately, much for the chilly work of analysis to do before we can hope to appreciate for its own sake what the various schools of Island painting have to offer, or to understand their point of view in relation to that of their contemporaries in Crete, in Ionia and on the mainland of Greece. Accordingly, the appearance of a work containing much new material was a very welcome event. In Professor Dugas' book the subject receives its first specialised treatment, but his classification presents one or two difficulties, and the notes which follow have been put together as an alternative solution of the problems, independently arrived at.

The problem of the Nike has long been confused by Benndorf's theory that it is the Victory represented on the coin of Demetrius Poliorcetes of c. 306. ‘But,’ it has been said, ‘the statue has no connection with the coin, for a detailed study of the neck and fragments of the right shoulder reveals the impossibility of the trumpet-blowing attitude. The right hand and arm are raised high and backwards, probably with a victor's wreath.’ It may be objected that the condition of the statue does not admit of absolute proof; while the fact that the coin does not show a mantle such as the statue had is poor evidence against the identity of the figures, for small variations must be expected in coins of Hellenic period. A more valid argument against the connexion with Demetrius lies in the circumstance that Samothrace belonged to Lysimachus, who was a bitter personal enemy and would not have allowed the setting up of a trophy on his ground. Benndorf's interpretation must accordingly be given up. Klein produced a theory that the statue was of the time of Mithradates, and then he changed his views on the development of ‘ancient rococo art’ and said it was a Rhodian memorial for the Battle of Actium; but a gigantic Rhodian monument for a Roman civil war would hardly be met with on a distant island, and when Augustus himself wanted a good Nike he had to use an old one from Tarentum.

Professor Aug. Heisenberg, editor of the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, made a copy some years ago of a text of the Papadike or singer's manual preserved in the volume Codex Ambrosianus O. 123 supra (598 in the printed catalogue), and he has now very kindly passed this on to me for study and publication. Being at Milan in 1925, I verified his transcript, which of course proved to be quite accurate. The Papadike is the most familiar of the mediaeval treatises, and it has already been published in slightly differing versions by M. Paranikas, O. Fleischer and W. Christ. I have collated several manuscript copies, and in the present article it will only be needful to point out a few divergences in the Milan text. The number of MSS. containing the Papadike is very great, which shows it to have been the standard manual of the Round Notation; and probably the essential part was drawn up by the inventors of that notation. But the work was re-edited by many theorists, one of them, according to tradition, being John Cucuzeles (A.D. 1300), although we must reject the notion that he was the original author. Most of the copies, like ours, were made in the fifteenth century.

This article summarises all excavations in Greek lands of which particulars have reached me since the completion of my report published a year ago.

American School

At Corinth, Professor T. L. Shear continued his excavations at the Theatre, and at the presumed site of the Sanctuary of Athena Chalinitis. At the former, he has now cleared the entire Orchestra, with the Parodoi leading into it, and uncovered the front part of the stage and the lower rows of the cavea. The wall painted with life-sized figures of men and beasts, which was found in 1925, has now been all laid bare, and on it are preserved novel and interesting scenes in brilliant colours. In one case, a bull, richly bedecked with ribbons and fillets, has rushed on the extended spear held by a crouching gladiator, and blood is shown streaming from a wound in its throat. In another scene, which represents an acrobat making a pole-vault over the back of a charging leopard, both man and beast are depicted at the moment when they are in the air. In another, an athlete, with hands on the ground and head raised, is about to spring over the back of a huge charging lion.

B.M. B46. The catalogue describes this vase thus:—

Acquired 1867: Blacas Coll. Dinos. Ht. 13 in. Diam. 12½ in. Slightly restored, imperfectly fired. Around rim, chain of lotus and buds; on shoulder, tongue-pattern. Two friezes: above, banquet scene, of seven couches, on each of which two male banqueters; between the two end couches, group of five servants, in attendance on the banqueters; below, animal frieze. Beneath this a broad zone of black, and on bottom, polypus pattern.

The principal scene shows a series of seven couches, on each of which recline two bearded male figures, facing to 1.; seven of them wear wreaths. Alongside each couch stands a table, bearing viands for the banquet. From 1. to r., the first, fourth, sixth, tenth and thirteenth hold out phialae in varying attitudes; the third, eleventh and fourteenth hold out kerata, in the act of drinking, or to have them refilled, while the seventh and eighth also have each a keras; the fifth holds out a kantharos; the twelfth raises an apparently empty r. hand; the second also raises his r. hand, but the object he holds is hidden by the first figure; the ninth plays the double flute.

In the literature of the Elgin Collection there is not infrequent reference to the ‘Tomb of Aspasia’ and its contents, which are of interest. The name, however, as I show below, has not even such measure of authority as may be supposed to attach to a local tradition.

During Philip Hunt's stay at Athens, his attention was called to a large tumulus in the Attic plain, and he made arrangements for its excavation. ‘The Calmuck,’ he wrote to Lord Elgin, November 28, 1802, ‘is to begin his excavation of a Tumulus near the Piraeus tomorrow.’ When Lord Elgin visited Athens in January, 1803, on his homeward journey from Constantinople, he sent men from the Diana frigate to continue the excavation, the Diana being the man-of-war in which, as a returning Ambassador, he made his passage.

Nothing apparently was found at this attempt. Indeed the tumulus was much too large an undertaking for such cursory treatment. Fifteen months later the work was taken up again by Lusieri, who reported to Lord Elgin (May 18, 1804) that while he was for the time being excluded from the Acropolis, he was employing the workmen ‘in excavations in various places, not without success.’ This is followed by the account of the excavation ‘du grand tombeau dans les vignes pour aller au Pirée,’ which has been already printed in this Journal.