In a paper published in the Proceedings of the British Academy, I tried to shew that the cities of Ionia which took part in the revolt against Persia in the years B.C. 500–494 issued an uniform coinage in electrum. So far as I am aware, this discovery has met with general acceptance. It may, however, in consequence of the place where it appeared, not have come fairly before most of those who are interested in Greek history and archaeology. I therefore propose here to state my view somewhat more in detail, and to trace certain corollaries which are as yet unpublished.

I need not go through the story of the Ionian Revolt, as narrated by Herodotus: it is fair to assume that every scholar is familiar with it. It may, however, be well here to mention the cities, the names of which occur in this section of the story of Herodotus, with the definite facts recorded of them, as the issues of coins would probably be civic issues. It was Miletus, under the guidance of Aristagoras, which began the revolt (v. 35). It spread rapidly to Mylasa and Termera in Caria, as well as to Mytilene and Cyme.

A complete collection of the known Phrygian inscriptions belonging to the Roman Imperial period was published by Professor [Sir] W. M. Ramsay in vol. viii. of the Jahresh. d. Oest. Arch. Inst. (1905), pp. 79–120. On that occasion Professor Ramsay reprinted all the Phrygian texts which he had already collected in Kuhns Zeitschrift für Vergl. Sprachf. xxviii. pp. 381 ff., and added nineteen new inscriptions. The discovery in 1908 and 1910 of a score of fresh inscriptions, many of considerable interest, affords a suitable opportunity to revise the text of the older series. In a large majority, of cases, the new discoveries confirm Professor Ramsay's interpretations. In some cases they suggest or impose modifications. An account of other literature on the subject will be found in Ramsay's later paper. As I shall have occasion to refer constantly to Ramsay's papers in Kuhns Zeitschrift and the Jahresh. d. Oest. Arch. Inst., it will be convenient to call those papers R (a) and R (b) respectively. Professor Ramsay's numbering does not correspond exactly with the number of Phrygian texts published, because his earlier collection contains a few Greek inscriptions.

It was with some misgiving that I set out in my attempt to identify the birds referred to by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. His greatness as a poet seemed to offer no guarantee of his faithfulness as an observer in an age when science as such did not exist, and the spirit of accuracy it begets was as yet unawakened. Moreover, I had long observed Homer to be before all else a poet of action. His references to natural objects are largely by way of illustration—short, crisp asides, as it were, in which the selected word and the packed phrase reveal the economy of his art in matters subordinate to the main theme. His references to colour in birds are extremely rare; those regarding form are epithetic, and recur with something of the conventional formality of the epithets applied to his heroes. However, whether in the form of epithet or by special description, Homer's portrayal of birds deals chiefly with essentials. In this lie the advantage and the disadvantage of the Homeric method for one whose main purpose is concerned with what in Homer was merely contributory to a fuller one. The advantage of such a method is that it forces essentials to the front, and the disadvantage, that the references to these may be limited by the nature of the matter they serve to illustrate; or that, being references to the characteristics of a class of birds, they may not suffice for the identification of a particular member of that class.

The conclusion here reached, regarding the government of the Aegean under Ptolemy II, is as follows. The sea and all the Egyptian fleets were under the sole control of one nauarchos or admiral; he had, in addition, the powers that would have been exercised by the strategos or general of the Islands, had one existed; the two offices together made him almost a viceroy of the Sea, and he exercised a general control over the Islands. As the islands gradually passed from Egypt, it is possible that the office of nauarch remained attached to the strategia of those that remained: when this strategia finally vanished and Egypt retired from the Aegean, the office of nauarch became attached to another strategia, that of Cyprus. The nesiarch, on the other hand, had no military authority and very little power; he was the Ptolemaic Resident.

I will take the nesiarch first.

We know of three; (1) Bacchon son of Nicetas, a Boeotian, about 280, a contemporary of Philocles, king of the Sidonians; (2) Hermias, possibly of Halicarnassus, who founded the festival at Delos in honour of Arsinoe Philadelphos, afterwards known as the Philadelpheia, the first vase of which appears under the archon Meilichides II. (267), and who therefore was probably Bacchon's successor; and (3) Apollodorus son of Apollonius of Cyzicus, who was a private person in 279, and was nesiarch some time later, and who probably succeeded Hermias, though it is also conceivable that he may have preceded him.

By kind permission of Commander Down, R.N., of Wokmgham, Berks, I am allowed to publish an archaic head (Fig. 1) in his possession. It was found by him in Athens when cruising in Greek waters about the year 1879.

The head, which has been broken off abruptly at the neck, is 13 m. in height, 105 m. in depth, and 315 m. in circumference. The material is a rather coarse-grained white marble. The face has unfortunately suffered considerably: the lower part of the nose has been broken off and the surface of the mouth and chin is damaged, and there is a deep indentation over the left eye.

1. In a recent description of an archaic Etruscan fibula here reproduced in natural size (Fig. 1), I regret that I failed to note certain interesting details with regard to the Sphinxes. The fibula is of pale gold, of a type peculiar to early Etruscan jewellery. It consists of two parts, each composed of four tubes ending in double female heads. In one case the outer tubes are furnished with long gold pins which fit into the hollow tubes corresponding to them in the other half of the fibula. There can be no doubt that these safety-pins were used for fastening a garment on the shoulder. The two halves were locked together by means of hooks and eyes soldered to rectangular plates hinged to the main body of the fibula. The tubes were also connected together by similar plates. The present fibula, which may be dated to the seventh century B.C., is said to have been found in the Roman Campagna. Upon the four rectangular plates already mentioned are seated sixteen Sphinxes in the round, four upon each plate. The eight Sphinxes on the outer plates are composed of the figure of a seated lion, with the head of a woman substituted for a wing.

Not every student of topography is also interested in the more remote paths of hagiography: thus a reader of the Acta Sanctorum may perhaps be pardoned for the following lines. The original Greek text of the Miracula S. Artemii has recently been published by Papadopoulos-Kerameus in Zapiski istoriko-philologicheskago Phakul'teta imperatorskago S.-Peterburgskago Universiteta, Chast xcv, St. Petersburg, 1909. The account of these contemporary miracles was written by an eyewitness between the years 660–668, and we thus secure a fixed date for the topographical references.

It is well known that a large proportion of the Greek epitaphs of Lycia contain a clause by which any person making any burial unauthorised by the founder of the tomb becomes liable to pay a named sum to some corporation, whether public (as the δῆμος, the πόλις, or the imperial treasury) or religious (as the temple of some god), or a powerful association (as the γερουσία).

This liability was not (as might be supposed) a fine imposed by the state in punishment of a criminal offence. Illegal burial was indeed (at least under the Roman government) a crime at law, and was punishable by a fine; but this fine is expressly distinguished from the sum due to the πόλις and the δῆμος. The penalty in question does not, in fact, represent a fine at all, but damages to be recovered by a civil action. This explains the wide variation in the sums specified, and the otherwise unaccountable fact that the amount is fixed by the builder of the tomb. It stands for the value which he placed on the possession of the tomb, modified, probably, by his estimate of the damages which the court was likely to grant.

One of the best Greek vases we possess is the amphora No. 2160 in the Berlin Museum (Fig. 1 and Pll. XV.–XVI). There is something specially charming about these graceful woodland people, the dreaming Silens and their instruments of music, young Hermes with winged head and feet, the gentle fawn. The question, however, who painted the piece, has been variously answered. Furtwängler, in his catalogue, thought of Brygos, but some years later he attributed the vase to the painter called Kleophrades; and Winter said it was by Euphronios. A year ago, the present writer indicated five other vases by the same hand; and he now proposes to examine the work of this anonymous painter, who may be called the Master of the Berlin amphora; for although we possess a fair number of his paintings, none is quite so elaborate as this, though some of them are rightly admired.

The Season of 1910–1911 has witnessed the continuation of most of the excavations mentioned in the last of these reports, and the beginning of work in the island of Corfou (Kerkyra), which has, up to now, hardly yielded its full share of antiquities. This year, however, it has given us the most important discovery of the season, an almost complete sculptured pediment of an archaic Doric temple.

This discovery was made near the monastery of Goritsa, which lies to the south of the town of Corfou. Here the chance finding of a sculptured slab led to an excavation by the Ephor Versakis on behalf of the Greek Archaeological Society. The work was presently supported by the Emperor of Germany, Doctor Doerpfeld assisting at the excavation, and the Greek Government was represented later by the Ephor Rhomaios. The temple itself is much destroyed; the importance of the discovery consists in the almost complete preservation of the sculpture of one of the pediments.