The work of the School in 1909, the fourth season spent at Sparta, was marked by the completion of the excavation of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, upon which the greater part of the resources of the School had been spent for the three preceding years, and by the excavation of the building known as the Menelaion on the east bank of the Eurotas. In all the departments of the work the School has always to acknowledge with cordial thanks the support and help of the Hellenic Government, which was ably represented this year at the excavations by Doctor Rhomaios. Especial thanks are owing to him for his zeal in helping the work and readiness to assist in any difficulty.

The campaign of 1909 at Sparta was marked by the conclusion of the excavation of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, and the site may now be regarded as definitely exhausted. This report gives an account of the results of this last season with a General Plan of the excavation (Pl. I). A full resumptive account of the whole work from its beginning in 1906, with final plans and a summary of results is in preparation; the present account will, in the main, be confined to the new results gained this year, and will thus be parallel to the three yearly reports already published in the previous volumes of this Annual.

Not only were more good vases produced by the further excavation of the sanctuary of Orthia in 1909, but much has also been done since the last report was written, in the matter of fitting together, restoring, and photographing those already found, so that it is now possible to proceed with a fuller publication of the Laconian style than could be made a year ago.

The number of fresh inscriptions found in 1909 compares unfavourably with those of 1906 and 1908. This is hardly surprising, for the sanctuary of Orthia, which had previously yielded about one hundred different inscriptions, was known to be almost worked out as far as this class of finds was concerned, and in fact only four new texts were discovered here as the results of this year's excavations. In addition to this, the examination of the foundations of the late-Roman walls, which had yielded a plentiful crop of inscribed marbles in the three previous campaigns, was practically finished as regards the southern side, which, as being nearest to the Agora, was more likely to reward our search than the other sides. It seemed advisable, however, to continue the exploration of these walls on the eastern and northern faces, and this work was not fruitless, for, somewhat contrary to expectation, a large number of inscribed statue-bases of the Imperial age were found within a small area along the northern side of the walls.

A modern parallel to the Spartan practice of electing the divine Lycurgus as eponymous Patronomus is to be found in Cramond's Records of Elgin, vol. i, p. 91 (New Spalding Club, 1903), under date October 3rd, 1547, in the Burgh Court Book.

‘The qlk (i.e. quhilk, which) day the haill communate has electit and menit Sanct Geill thair patroun provest for ane zeyr nyxt to cum.’ As the note by Cramond says, the council for the year consisted of the patron saint, four bailies, and only eight other councillors. The disastrous battle of Pinkie had been fought against the Protector Somerset on September 10th preceding, and the Elgin contingent had suffered severely.

A little to the south of Sparta and opposite the hamlet of Psychiko, at the point where the Magoula river runs into the Eurotas, the hills on the left or eastern bank of the latter approach quite close to the river. These hills, which stand high above the plain, have long been identified with those on which, according to Polybius, the Menelaion stood, and as the site of Therapnai. In fact the statements of this author and of Livy make it practically certain that these are the hills in question. They were first explored by Ross in 1833, and he claimed as the shrine of Helen and Menelaos the building that he began to excavate on the principal peak close to the modern chapel of Hagios Elias, and directly above the Eurotas. No other Greek building has yet been found on these heights, so that we may for the present assume with considerable probability that this one, discovered by Ross, is the shrine of Helen and Menelaos mentioned by Herodotus and Pausanias.

This paper is a brief account of the classical topography of east-central Laconia. It includes all the country on the left bank of the Eurotas between Leonidi and Zarax with the exception of the small piece directly opposite Sparta and round Chrysapha. The whole of this district is not well watered and irrigation is not possible, for the fertile, undulating plain below Geraki is well above the level of the river; the olive tree, however, flourishes here, and in the neighbourhood of Gouves there are some splendid old trees. In the alluvial plain at the mouth of the Eurotas corn grows well but is often severely damaged by winter floods.

The villages of lower and upper Boularioi lie on the hill-side above the modern port of Gerolimena. Above the upper village stands the church of Hagios Strategos (Pls. XI, XII). It is in three parts, the church proper, the narthex, and a small domed porch. The church belongs to the two-columned type of the later Byzantine school, in which the central dome rests upon two columns to the west and upon the dividing walls of the eastern chapels to the east. Internally it is not very accurately or squarely built, but widens rather to the east: it measures about 16 ft. in breadth by 18 ft. long, with walls of about 2 ft. 9 in. in thickness, and terminates in the usual three eastern apses, semicircular both inside and out.

The present irregularities and inconsistencies in the transliteration of Modern Greek make it very desirable to draw up some short notes on the subject, in order to arrive at some reasoned system for future use.

In September, 1908, a leaflet was issued to the contributors to the Annual of the British School at Athens containing a system of transliteration to be applied to Ancient Greek, and this may conveniently be reprinted here to serve as a starting-point for the present discussion.

An investigation of the very scattered literature of the Greek islands, designed primarily to supplement Mr. Dawkins's researches on the dialects, has led me to unexpectedly interesting results touching the Albanian settlements, which may be worthy of independent publication.

Besides printed sources I have consulted the Grand Insulaire of André Thevet (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MSS. Fr. 15, 453 (1586)) and the Isolarii of Antonio di Milo (B.M. (a) Julius, E. II (1587), (b) Add. MSS. 10,365 (1591)), and Francesco Lupazolo of Chios (B.M. Lansd. 792 (1638)).

Not the least interesting of Professor A. Wilhelm's new discoveries in connection with the well-known Attic Quota-lists published in his recent brilliant paper, is that of a small fragment identified by him as belonging to I.G. i. 266, which solves finally the much-vexed question of the restoration of one of the rubrics or headings in that inscription. The stone in question, which is complete on the right-hand side alone, contains in ll. 9, 10 the following letters:

The restoration given by Kirchhoff in the Corpus is (transliterating letter for letter from the stone):

On the north-west side of the great central cone of Mount Ossa a wide fissure runs right across the mountain from Mega Keserlì to Tságezi. On the south side of this fissure and at the base of the central cone lies the village of Spiliá, which is to be distinguished from another village of the same name near Laspochori at the eastern entrance to Tempe. To the north of the fissure rises a peak known as Pláka, which is the part of Ossa that directly overhangs Tempe. A little below the bare rocky summit of this peak, which rises to a height of at least 3,500 feet, and on its south side about an hour's walk from Spiliá, is a cave, which, though long known to the inhabitants of the district, has never before been visited by archaeologists.

Professor Hopf left unfinished at his death a projected work which would have filled a marked gap in our knowledge of the Latin dynasties of the Archipelago—the history of Lesbos and its dependencies under the Gattelusi of Genoa. The possessions of the Gattelusi in their fullest extent included Lesbos, the Thracian islands of Thasos, Lemnos, Samothrace, and Imbros, and the mainland towns of Phocaea (Foggia Vecchia) in Ionia and Aenos in Thrace. The Frankish monuments of the islands had already been adequately chronicled by Professor Conze, but the mainland dependencies remained, from this point of view, unexplored. In the course therefore, of cursory visits to Aenos and Phocaea in 1908, I took notes and photographs of the few surviving monuments, supplementing these researches by visits to Mytilene and Lemnos.

The city of Adalia on the Caramanian coast, still a very fine example of a mediaeval walled town, has been thrice attempted by western arms and was for twelve years garrisoned by the French kings of Cyprus.

It was taken by Gautier de Montbeliard early in the reign of Hugues I. Lusignan (1205–18) but hurriedly abandoned. The warlike Pierre I. captured it in 1361 and it was held till 1373, when his successor, Pierre II. surrendered it. Lastly the ‘Crusaders’ of Mocenigo's expedition in 1472 stormed and sacked the seaward quarter but were unable to make good their footing. The surviving Frankish monuments must be attributed to the second Cypriote period.

At the Archaeological Congress which met at Athens in 1905 one of the most interesting sittings was that at which Furtwängler gave a brilliant exposition of his reconstitution of the Pediment Sculptures of the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina, the result of his recent excavations in the island. Those who were present on that occasion were profoundly struck by an arrangement of the groups calculated to inspire the noble marbles with so much new and vivid life; in regard, however, to the grouping of the figures of the East Pediment there are said to have been not a few dissentient voices. This dissent related more especially to the disposal of the central groups right and left of the Athena and, in a particular way, to the falling pose given to the wounded hero on either side.

The opening words of the Hymn to Diktaean Zeus recently found at Palaikastro instantly arrest attention. Zeus the Father of Gods and Men is invoked by a title that to our unaccustomed ears sounds strange and barely reverent.

The inscribed fragments here published were discovered in the third season of the excavations at Palaikastro. We knew already that a Hellenic temple had stood on the site of the Minoan town. The building itself had been destroyed, but architectural terracottas, bronze shields, and other votive offerings were found near the surface in sufficient numbers to indicate its position, while a bed of ashes fixed that of the altar. The finding among its scattered débris of a Hymn addressed to Zeus of Dikte furnished a welcome identification. It left no doubt that our temple was the temple of Diktaean Zeus which is several times mentioned in the famous award of the Magnesian Arbitrators in the frontier dispute between Itanos and Hierapytna, and that the plain of Palaikastro was the Heleia which both cities claimed.

Square brackets denote conjectural restorations. S denotes the stone; B Professor Bosanquet, to whose copies and photographs of the inscription I owe all my knowledge of it.