Birthday presents should have an element of the unexpected about them, and, if I were to present Professor KlafFenbach with something Attic on this occasion, there would be more duty than pleasure about it, for both of us. I present him therefore with a holiday visit to Italian Locri, confident that the universality of his interests will induce him to overlook, at least in part, the dangers of the journey.

It is a tricky business to intervene with comments on a unified body of material, only half of which is as yet accessible, and which is being published with exemplary competence by A. De Franciscis, who is clearly and rightly reserving discussion of some major aspects of the documents until he has published them all. My excuse is that I think I see one substantial point about the state-organisation which they reveal which seems worth making now. My remaining notes are relatively tiny observations on points of detail, which may help to supplement the editor's patient and well-judged commentary.

The material which we are considering consists of 38 or 39 bronze tablets, of which 19 have been published. It forms a unified archive concerned with the financial relations of the city of Locri Epizephyrii with the treasury of Zeus Olympios. It seems reasonably certain that we should call it a templearchive, in the custody of the annually rotating board of three iɛρOμνάμOνɛςEπi θησα∪ρwι, recording the occasions on which the city borrowed (or on one published occasion only, in no. 9, repaid) sums from the temple-treasure.