In 1921 there came into existence a small Society for the preservation of the remains of Magna Grecia which were fast disappearing, and for making new excavations on sites where more of such remains might be looked for. This Society during its short life has saved much and found much more, working quietly and unobtrusively, and at very little cost.

Side by side with these remains of Magna Grecia, even more widely spread and hardly known except to a few scholars, are the remains of ‘Italia Bisantina,’ ruins of monasteries, caves, lauras and frescoed cave-chapel. These monuments of mediaeval Byzantine history are fast disappearing from neglect. The records of them are very sparse; there are few photographs and no coloured reproductions. They are, in fact, in the same condition as were the remains of Magna Grecia.

This is the title of the attempt made by Ashmole, in the last part of the Journal, to establish the spuriousness of the group of a man carrying off a woman which had been published by Studniczka. His attack is mainly directed against the opinions of ‘a certain professor’; obviously a German, as his quotations show. Ashmole does not name the professor out of consideration for his scientific standing; but that no other of my German colleagues may be suspected, I willingly admit that I am the offender. I would, however, observe that my discussion, in addition to the quoted ‘panegyrics,’ which isolated from their context leave an exaggerated impression, contains solid arguments for the authenticity of the group; and that it was drawn up over three years ago, before the long verbal and written, private and public discussions of the group. At that time I should have been perfectly willing to publish my statement—in its entirety, of course.

The three of the excavators of the Orthia Sanctuary most concerned confess to a feeling of discouragement on finding that in the case of one reader at least all their endeavours to tell a plain tale plainly have failed, and that their power of expression has not been equal to the task laid upon it. The reader in question is the writer of the very careful and painstaking review of ‘Artemis Orthia’ which has appeared in the J.H.S. for this year over the initials V. W.-G. It is plain that to the reviewer the grounds on which the latter periods of Laconian pottery, the periods of its decay, upon which so much depends, have been classified are neither clear nor convincing. And since, in fact, the evidence on which that classification was made was both clear and convincing, the failure must lie in the exposition. In the excavators' hands the spade has been mightier than the pen. Or does the fault lie in an historical training which has not been adequate to the appreciation of the minutiae of archaeological evidence? ‘The historian,’ we are told, ‘may differ from the excavator in his estimate of what is proved.’