The chief fruit of Mr. Theodore Bent's recent visit to Samos is the discovery of an important agonistic inscription, which gives a list of victors in some games at Samos, probably the Heraea. The limits of date are given on the one hand by the mention of Apameia, founded by Seleucus Nicator, on the other hand by the absence of all Roman names. The forms of the letters with their squareness and strongly marked extremities seem to indicate the second century B.C.

The Heraea were celebrated at Samos from early times. Plutarch tells us that after the battle of Aegospotami the Samians renamed the festival after Lysander. But it soon resumed the older name. In one inscription of imperial times it is called in an inscription of the Antonine age the festival is termed The festival was doubtless a great Ionic πανηγυρίς, attended by all the pleasure-loving people of the coast and worthy of the language in which the Homeric hymn speaks of the Delian festival.