In electing me to the Presidency of the Hellenic Society you have paid me the highest compliment to which any British Hellenist can aspire. It is an honour which I accept with all gratitude and, I can assure you, with all humility. It is impossible for me to look back at the names of the distinguished men who have already held the post, without reflecting that I am not of their rank—I am by profession neither a great academic teacher nor, like my old schoolfellow and friend Sir Arthur Evans, whose position I am prematurely called upon to fill, a man who has devoted his whole life to the advancement of archæology. It would be an impertinence in me to praise the work done by Sir Arthur; it is on the lips of all the learned world.

When I think of Evans as we knew him at Harrow, I remember him in a double capacity. First as a scientific observer, by inheritance, as I need not remind you, from his distinguished and many-sided father. Whether it was a question of coins, of flint implements, or of natural history, Evans was always the leader of our school Scientific Society—matched only in some points by another friend, too soon lost to science, Frank Balfour. I remember one small matter, which always strikes me as characteristic—that Evans exhibited at one of our meetings specimens of leaves of plants from the carboniferous epoch which he had picked out of the coal-scuttle in his room.

The federal union of the Ionian cities established on the coast of Asia Minor and on the adjacent islands has not yet been the subject of any comprehensive study. In the standard books on Greek federations it has received no more than passing mention. Freeman has made some instructive comments on it, but has not followed its fortunes beyond the earlier years of its existence; Swoboda has not found room for a description of it in his recent and up-to-date manual.

The number of vases which have disappeared in the last twenty years since they first were published is all too large, as a cursory glimpse of the pages of Klein's Meistersignaturen will show. Consequently it is a cause for gratification when from time to time one of their number is rediscovered and finds shelter within the confines of a good museum, its wanderings over. To this list we may add the psykter signed by Euthymides formerly in the collection of Signor Bazzichelli at Viterbo, which after being lost for several years is now in the Archaeological Museum in Turin (Fig. 1).

The credit for its discovery belongs to Professor G. E. Rizzo of the University of Turin, who has with extreme generosity resigned his claims to publication in my favour, and to whom I am greatly indebted for the facts connected with its discovery as well as numerous technical details, a personal examination by me having proved impossible.

Mr. Forsdyke in his brilliant article on this subject was unfortunately unable to make use of the important results of Dr. Soteriadhis' recent excavations in Phocis. The site explored near Dhrakmani on the estates of Messrs. Piperis and Ghiannakopoulos has greatly increased our knowledge of the forms of this pottery, supplying just the evidence Mr. Forsdyke requires as a test of his theory. The exploration of the mound near Hagia Marina in the same district serves to supplement the unpublished results from Orchomenos in Boeotia. Now, however, by the kindness of Dr. Soteriadhis I have been able to see the material in the Chaeronea Museum. It will accordingly be interesting to review Mr. Forsdyke's theory in the light of these new finds.

In the large mound of Hagia Marina the excavator has been able to distinguish three main strata. Below the disturbed layers containing modern sherds, came a stratum one metre thick, containing Mycenean (L. M. III.) sherds mixed with Minyan ware. Immediately below this, the pottery called by Furtwängler at Orchomenos Kamares began to appear. At first apparently Minyan and ‘Early Mycenean’—by this I suppose is meant the northern variety of Mattmalerei—occur with it plentifully, but towards the bottom of the layer these disappear.

When the fragments of the Nereid Monument, which had been discovered by Fellows, were brought to England they were of course examined by all the experts in classical art, Cockerell, Falkener, Watkiss Lloyd, and others. It was Cockerell who first laid down the lines which all other students have accepted as obviously correct. In a letter to Newton, or rather a note added to the letter, printed in the Classical Museum (vol. v. 1848, p. 194), he wrote regarding the peristyle which is the key of the scheme—‘that such an arrangement of the cella may be obtained from the fragments themselves and the observations made by Mr. Rohde Hawkins [the architect to the expedition] I was able to demonstrate, when by his ingenious father's introduction I had the honour, as a veteran in antiquities of this kind, to be consulted by him.’ Rohde Hawkins had many measurements and sketches taken at Xanthus before the stones were shipped for England, ‘when the backs of the slabs were sawn off for transport [and] the original joints were in some cases lost.’ He made a restoration, following Cockerell's suggestions, which is represented by a drawing at the British Museum and by a description printed in the Civil Engineer (vol. viii.). Fellows made another attempt; but while following the same general scheme, he proceeded on the assumption that he had discovered all the slabs of one of the sculptured friezes. His result is embodied in the model now in the British Museum. Although his restoration of the structure was certainly too small, he associated many of the sculptured slabs together in groups—doubtless with the assistance of Scharf, his draughtsman—in a way which is convincing.

Note.—The illustrations which I have given are not to be regarded as finished drawings, but rather as the best results that could be obtained from the records of my working note-books, and of measurings made in the midst of the statues. The whole purpose is to submit a practicable method.

It is strange that it should be believed by many artists and critics of art that no doctrine of human proportions was known in the schools of the great masters. For the contrary would seem to be the true case, if we are to judge by the practice and the comments of the artists and their friends. Egyptian and early Greek, and indeed all symbolic art is obviously based on measured proportions. The remark of Diodorus (I. 98) about the twentyone parts by which the body was measured in Egyptian sculpture may not be enough for a theory of an Egyptian canon, but it agrees well enough with the plainly systematic treatment of the sitting and the standing figures. It is more difficult to believe that the Egyptian sculptor had not a set of ratios which he used in his work.

The following summary is intended to cover the period from July, 1914, to June, 1915, inclusive. That it is at all complete I hardly dare to hope: the circumstances of the year have rendered the task of compilation peculiarly difficult, and I can but claim to have done my best to render the account as full and as accurate as I could with the materials accessible to me.

General.—Of the great collections of inscriptions the only one which has made progress during the period under review is, so far as my knowledge goes, the Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes, to which has been added a fresh fascicule containing 313 texts, some of which come from the islands off the S.W. coast of Asia Minor (Cos, Nisyrus, Syme, Chalce, Rhodes, Carpathus), while the greater number belong to Lydia.