The present ‘transhumance versus agro-pastoralism’ debate is here set within the context of a broadly based anthropological approach to pastoralism. Certain constant features of the relationship of pastoralists to their landscape are identifiable, although many aspects of pastoral strategies are variable over time and space and across socio-economic groups. The control of much of the pastoral exploitation of the landscape in antiquity by wealthy estate owners is one important difference from the present day. The resulting observations are applied to the archaeological record of isolated rural sites now widely known from surface survey projects. It is argued that the tendency to assume that pastoralists are archaeologically invisible has meant that these very visible sites have been ignored as possible pastoral bases. The location of a number of these sites suggests that pastoralism was a major element in the activities focused on them in antiquity.

The birth and childhood of the Greek male gods and heroes are themes well documented in classical Athenian art and myth. By contrast, contemporary Athenian iconography and mythology are remarkably empty of references to the birth and infancy of the female heroes and female gods, or alternatively present the newborn goddesses as adult women. This article seeks to shed light on the apparently missing childhood phase of the goddesses and heroines, by examining the evidence of fifth-century Athenian iconography in its socio-historical context. Consequently, in the case of the goddesses, it is proposed that the female child figure represented a state of being incompatible with the nature and manifestation of divinity. It is further suggested that the mythological heroines enter classical Athenian art and myth only once they have attained puberty, because it is at this point that their potential for relations with the male gains significance. And just as was the case with their mortal female counterparts, it is this capacity for interaction with the male sex that makes them of interest to society.

Despite the amount of textual material surviving from classical Greece, our knowledge of the household has remained limited because of the selectivity and orientation of those texts. In this paper, archaeological remains of late 5th- to late 4th-cent. houses are explored in order to shed light on aspects of domestic relations that recur most frequently in the sources: the relationship between male and female household members, and the way in which this was reinforced through the organization of the domestic environment. The traditional picture of a house divided into male and female areas is an over-simplification of a complex pattern of social relationships. A broader approach focuses on interaction between men and women, rather than on women's activity in isolation. The resultant, more detailed model for gender relations offers a glimpse of variability through space and time in how relationships were expressed spatially, and suggests the possibility of differences in the relationships themselves at different levels of the social hierarchy.

The city of Rhodes, founded in 408/7 BC, took full advantage of the possibilities offered by a previously uninhabited site. In the acropolis area many of the main public structures were laid out in an open, natural landscape, but approaches to the summit from the city led past extensive, interconnecting artificial grottoes and ‘nymphaea’, decorated in flamboyant style. These were aligned with the city's grid-plan, and adjoined streets and stoas formalizing their ornamental aspects. The grottoes offered spatial distraction and visual interest, and served as cool, shady venues for displays of small votives to unknown deities; some apparently gave access to the underground aqueducts. The acropolis, as well as a monumental area, was a focus for private religious activity, seen in these dedications. The ornamental landscaping of the acropolis is to be understood, not in terms of a ‘pleasure park’, but as a fitting adornment for a primarily sacred area.

This is a report of an architectural survey of the site of Praisos in E. Crete, undertaken in 1992. A plan of ancient and modern features was produced, which included remains surviving above ground such as ancient walls, rockcuttings, cut blocks, and spolia, together with more detailed plans of features and concentrations of features. This documentation has been supplemented with photographs, elevation drawings, and descriptions of selected features, especially rock-cuttings. Rock-cut features, common on many Cretan sites, have rarely been described in detail or discussed properly; the article seeks to remedy this state of affairs to some extent. The remains seem to date to the Minoan, archaic, and late classical–hellenistic periods, particularly the last. Some historical conclusions are drawn.

A stone built into the church at Kokkinórachi near Sparta carries part of a first-century AD text containing one or more imperial rescripts to Sparta. The author of one section admonishes the Spartans after civil unrest, probably during the lifetime of the dynast Eurykles, his son Lakon, or his grandson Spartiatikos. Epigraphic parallels, and the text's appeal to historic traditions, suggest that the author is Claudius. The document may indicate that communication between cities and emperors by ‘petition and response’ was more widespread now than in the post-Hadrianic era, when cities are thought generally to have addressed the emperor by letter.

Excavations at the Sparta theatre were resumed in 1992: the objective was to survey it and clarify its history. Nine trenches were opened and a catalogue of architectural blocks compiled. A trench in the sw orchestra revealed two staircases; while the seats of honour, the walkway behind, and two or three rows of benches above are preserved, the remainder of the theatre was severely damaged in the 9th–13th centuries. The diazoma's foundations were revealed; below it were ten radial staircases, above seventeen. The lower cavea had thirty-one rows, the upper nineteen. At the top, rows 17–19 rested on concrete over an inner radial wall of concrete-bonded stones; there are traces of a Doric colonnade around the walkway here. The upper cavea yielded pottery suggesting an initial construction under Eurykles (c.30–20 BC); no certain evidence of an earlier theatre has been found. The stage building's architecture suggests Flavian and Severan reconstructions and later repairs. The site's use as a theatre ended c. AD 400, but finds indicate early Byzantine continuity and three later occupation phases (9th–13th centuries). Sculptures found include a statuette of Apollo or Dionysos, an Antonine female portrait (priestess?), and an important late Roman male portrait head.

This article considers the contents of the temple of Hera at Olympia in the light of Pausanias' account and of excavation reports. Of all the temples Pausanias describes, the Heraion is the most crowded, and it is argued that by his day it was acting as a storeroom, primarily for objects from nearby buildings. The implications are assessed for the history of the attribution of the Heraion, and for the use of temples in Pausanias' day.

This study is a description and discussion of all known examples of mortar-and-rubble towers in Attica, extending P. Lock's survey of central Greece in BSA 81 (1986). Attic towers of this type are generally free-standing and located in places of agricultural rather than strategic importance. In this, as well as in the lack of pretension in their architectural form, they conform to the mortared towers of Boiotia studied by Lock, and reinforce his conclusion that they functioned primarily as fortified residences of Frankish lords. Ceramic evidence from various sites, and the evidence of the ‘tower house’ of medieval western Europe, strengthen the arguments for date and function. Included in the discussion are possible Turkish towers and other pre-modern structures such as windmills and monastery towers.

Vincenzo Coronelli (1650–1718), cosmographer to the Venetian republic, produced two books illustrating the towns and fortresses taken from the Ottoman Turks by the Venetians during their second conquest of the Peloponnese (1685–90). These were issued in numerous editions and translations in 1686–7, and formed the basis for other cartographic works. There were many variants of each plate, and the engravings have increasingly become separated from the books in which they were published. The problem is compounded by the many variants of the illustrations, and because different illustrations may exist for a town. By examining the known variants of one town and relating each to the edition in which it appeared, and by a bibliographical examination of the editions, we can determine which illustrations belong to which edition and can distinguish the political and historical bases on which Coronelli changed his illustrations from edition to edition.