An Epic is not made by piecing together a series of heroic lays, adjusting their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. There is only one thing which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's general destiny. We do not appreciate what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, unless we see the warfare and the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life. And it is not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us.—Lascelles Abercrombie, The Epic.

I.—The Modesty of Diomed.

Pandar has shot his arrow at Menelaus. The truce is broken, and the critics have been fretting for a display of Agamemnon's prowess ever since they heard the promise and incitement of the Lying Dream. Now, at last, they think, Agamemnon will lead the attack, and the story can develope. A king ought not to sleep all night, said the Dream: and now, with the truce broken, and his precious brother wounded, Agamemnon will surely wake up. He does. ‘Then you would not have seen Agamemnon sleeping nor shirking, but very eager to the fight. He left the horses and the chariot … and went on foot …’ To the battle? No, to review his forces.

The foundation and development of the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople, and the history of the early trading relations between Venice and the Roman Empire are intimately connected with and illustrate the movement by which the Republic gradually passed from actual, through merely nominal, vassalage to actual and formal independence. That movement constitutes an essential part of early Venetian history, the growth of the Republic as a free State between the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West, both weak at sea and in need of a fleet which Venice alone was able to supply, and shows us the Republic skilfully steering her course between Saracens, Normans, Greeks and Germans towards her goal, naval supremacy in the Adriatic and the Levant.

It is not the object of this paper to dwell on the larger movement, but rather to examine the relations between Venice and the Eastern Empire with special reference to the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople. Those relations were governed by the Chrysobulls, or Golden Bulls, whereby the Emperors made gradually extending concessions to the seamen and merchants of their vassal State.

The route by which the army of Xerxes marched across the plateau of Anatolia has never been determined with certainty. On general considerations it may be stated with perfect confidence that the army crossed the Taurus by the pass of the Cilician Gates. The reasons are conclusive; there was, in fact, no other way, and the matter is so generally admitted as to need no discussion. Thereafter the great army gathered on the north side of Taurus at a place called Kritala in Cappadocia (Herodotus, vii. 26). Whether Kritala was a town or a locality (such as a plain with a river) is not stated; but, taking into consideration all the conditions, one can say with certainty that it was situated either in the fertile plain of Tyana or in the equally fertile and well-watered plain that lies between Kybistra and the lake called in modern times Ak-Gyol. The next point stated exactly by Herodotus in the route of the army is Kelainai at the source of the Maeander. The question is how the journey was performed between those points, the Cilician Pass on the east and Kelainai on the west.

An unsolved problem has a peculiar fascination in archaeology as elsewhere. It compels our interest, and we come back to it again and again to try and find a solution. The Ludovisi and Boston Reliefs have presented us with many such puzzles and have consequently been the subject of much discussion. The two most important publications of these monuments—Studniczka's in the Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, 1911, pp. 50–192, and Caskey's in the American Journal of Archaeology, 1918, pp. 101 ff.—have dealt at length with the numerous points involved and many of these have now been satisfactorily solved. The identification of the subjects represented on the reliefs, however, especially of those in Boston, is still only tentative. As Mr. Caskey says, ‘none of the numerous attempts to interpret the reliefs has met with unqualified acceptance.’ To the many explanations which have been advanced I am going to add still another, which to me at least seems the simplest, the most natural, and for that reason the most probable.