The purpose of this note is to bring to light a piece of evidence on the ‘Lelantine War’ which has hitherto been neglected, and briefly to review the Thucydidean and some of the other evidence in the light of it.

A fragmentary red-figure cup, formerly in the collection of Henri Seyrig, has been connected with the myth of Danae and Perseus ever since Beazley first noted it in 1954. Although a number of iconographical discussions of this myth have appeared since, the vase has never been published and, therefore, its iconography never discussed. Today, the fragments are in the Louvre, inv. no. 980.0820. Thanks to the kindness of F. Villard and A. Pasquier, I am able to publish them here for the first time (plate IXa–b).

The question of the location of the Enneakrounos fountain-house is one of the most controversial problems in Athenian topography.* It is known that a spring, which had been called Kallirrhoe, was embellished and given the name Enneakrounos during the Peisistratid tyranny. The location of the fountain-house, however, is disputed. Some references place Enneakrounos in the vicinity of the Ilissos stream to the south-east of the city; other sources state or imply a location in the city centre.

Hesiod's instructions about cutting wood for a wagon or cart (Op. 424–7) have puzzled commentators since antiquity.* The latest editor of the Works and Days, Martin West, expresses surprise that he should recommend an axle as long as 7 ft (line 424), which West thinks would be liable to break under a heavy load. In his discussion of line 426 he rejects the view of the ancient Scholia and Proclus, that ἁψίς refers to one of four segments which are joined together to make the felloe of a wheel, and that the vehicle is sized by the diameter of the wheel. Instead West accepts the view of Thraemer and Mazon, that ἁψίς refers to the whole wheel, measured across its diameter. He also assumes that it must be a block-wheel, consisting of a solid disc, and he goes on to suggest that the dimension given for the ἄμαξα of ten palms (i.e. about 2·5 ft) refers to the length of the vehicle from front to back. As he says, the result is ‘an oddly proportioned vehicle’, which would in fact be 5 ft wide and 2·5 ft long.

In 1899 E. Oldfield, Librarian and Fellow of Worcester College, gave a small altar to the Ashmolean Museum, where it joined an already growing collection of fine terracottas. Little is known about its history and how it came into the possession of the donor. Taranto, where such small altars occur most frequently, was thought to be their place of origin, though they have also been found in Greece and Asia Minor, mainly in Hellenistic contexts.

The following notes are the outcome of a study of Hunain's translation of Galen's treatise De Elementis Secundum Hippocratem. As we have remarked in connection with the translations of the De Sectis ad eos qui introducuntur, JHS xcviii (1978) 167, and of the Ars Parva, JHS ci (1981) 145, we have found Hunain's versions in general very accurate. The most important apparent divergences from the Greek texts of Helmreich and of Kühn are set out below, the most interesting being, perhaps, the reference to Diodorus as well as Leucippus in ch. 2, where Galen contrasts the theory he ascribes to the followers of Epicurus (that atoms are unbreakable because of their hardness) with that which he attributes to the followers of Leucippus (in the Arabic version to Diodorus and Leucippus), namely that the atoms are indivisible because of their smallness.

I read with pleasure Graham Anderson's learned and amusing note, but am unconvinced. One might question his methodology, in that he does not really go into the question of what shape or shapes the words mean at what times; and illustrates ‘an aryballos’ without indicating its date or place of origin (it turns out to be redrawn from an engraving after an archaic Etruscan tomb-painting). However, these are not, I think, points of substance. λήκυθος and ληκύθιον seem to have been loosely used over a long time and wide area for any form of portable oil-flask; and there is evidence for round aryballoi in fifth- and fourth-century Athens. Also the expressions may have long been in common use, though for us they only surface in Aristophanes and Demosthenes. I cannot, though, myself see any force in Henderson's view that the standard shapes of lekythia do not resemble male genitals; not in detail, certainly, but the white lekythos, the lekythos par excellence in Aristophanes' Athens, is surely phallic enough. If one dreamed of one, Freud would be in no doubt what it meant.

With reference to Dr Graham Anderson's note on ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν (Ar. Frogs 1198–1248), I would like to add the following remarks.

First, terracotta aryballoi fashioned and painted in the likeness of male genitals seem to have been widely distributed in archaic Greece. Examples are known from the East, Attica, Corinth, Sicily, and Tuscany. It is difficult to believe that the analogy responsible for these objects no longer operated in Classical times.

In the course of previous correspondence about Greek waterbirds John Buxton refers to a report that Great Crested Grebes (Podiceps cristatus) still breed at Lake Stymphala in the central Peloponnese for which I was responsible, though details have never been published. Since this is the site of the Fifth Labour of Heracles in which he fought with the birds it may be useful to place an ornithological appraisal of the situation on record.

There seems to be no record of what the ancients knew or believed about birds actually at Lake Stymphalus, apart from the legend of the Stymphalian Birds, and the representations of birds on Stymphalian coins—one perhaps a Great Crested Grebe, and one not identifiable as any species—which have been discussed in previous notes in JHS; but it will perhaps be of interest to see what knowledge ancient authors show of the birds which Dr Bourne saw at the lake and notes above.