The relation of Sparta to the other Greek states in the early days of Greek history has been little examined and less understood. As a result two erroneous hypotheses have found their way into the stock-in-trade of the ancient historian. The first of these is that the development of Sparta was quite exceptional and unique among the Greek states; the second is that the foreign policy of Sparta was wholly opportunist, or, so far as a guiding principle can be traced, was mainly influenced by the domestic question of the helots.

It is the object of this article to prove:—

(1) That down to 550 Sparta underwent a political development closely analogous to that of the rest of Greece.

The Chigi Athena (Fig. 1 and Plate I.) or, to give it a better known name, the Dresden ‘archaistic’ Athena, is one of a class that has only recently come to its rights—the ‘archaistic’ statues. In them the old and the new are blended wihout either losing its identity, but the motive of the mixture has long been disputed; is it the new masquerading under a fictitious archaism, a Chatterton in marble, or is it an honest but not too precise transcription of the ancient archetype? The answer of modern archaeologists is in most cases for the honest transcript.

The identification of the lakes of the Cyzicene and the determination of the site of Dascylium, the seat of the Hellespontine satraps, are problems which have worried every scholar who has had to deal with the history or geography of the district. They are inseparable, because not only the names themselves, but also the statements of our ancient authorities, prove that Dascylium involves the neighbourhood of a Dascylite lake, and the Dascylite lake the neighbourhood of a Dascylium. Investigators have generally adopted one of two theories. Those who, like Dr. Richard Kiepert, have started from a place Dascylium, have fixed it at Daskeli or Diaskeli (Yaskil, Eskil Liman), a roadstead and village on the coast midway between Mudania and the Rhyndacus, and have conjured up a vanished lake in the valley of the Ulfer or Nilufer a few miles to the south. Since the publication of Heinrich Kiepert's large map this view has become an accepted tradition, and still holds the field. Those on the other hand who have started from a lake have usually found it in Lake Manyas, 10 or 12 miles south of Panderma, and have cast about for a site for Dascylium in its vicinity. Mr. F. W. Hasluck discusses the problems in his scholarly book on Cyzicus and the country adjacent to it, and regards this latter solution as the more probable of the two, but hazards a conjecture that Dascylium is perhaps to be sought farther eastward near Brussa. Some new evidence which has lately accrued from the recently published Hellenica Oxyrhynchia and from archaeological discoveries justifies a fresh examination of the questions.

In a former number of this periodical (Vol. XXX., pp. 85 f.) I brought out a revised text of the νόμος γεωργικός, In this article I propose to discuss some of the problems which it raises and to add a translation. The account which Zachariä von Lingenthal gave of the law in his Geschichte des Griechischrömischen Rechts, 3rd ed., pp. 249–57, has formed the basis of most later studies on the subject and his opinion of its origin and scope has been generally followed. To take only one example, Albert Vogt in his work on Basil the First (Paris, 1908) accepts all the views of Zachariä and deduces from them various interesting but, in my opinion, ill-grounded conclusions. For I have the misfortune to differ from Zachariä in three important particulars. We differ first, as to the origin of the Law, secondly, as to the legal position under it of the agricultural classes, and thirdly, as to the economical character of the two forms of tenancy which it refers to. It will facilitate the discussion of these points if I preface it by an analysis of the Law and a sketch of the state of society which, as I read it, it presents.

The objects shown in Figs. 1 and 2 were all found in a ‘Phoenician’ rock-tomb in a field to the south of Rabato, Malta. ‘The tomb with vaulted ceiling was cut in the side of a hill. It contained cinerary urns with burnt bones, but no signs of bodies interred. Under a clay cup (Fig. lb), a gold medallion was found, on which the winged orb displayed over the half-moon, flanked by two serpents, is gracefully figured in a kind of filigree work. The medallion has a diameter of 25 mm. and weighs 6·3 grms. A similar medallion was found at Carthage (Douïmes) in 1895 and described by Delattre. With this medallion’ (i.e. with the Maltese) ‘a pair of silver bangles and fragments of two rings were found. Fragments of a small Greek vase were also discovered with the débris.’ (Fig. 2.)

In my commentary upon an inscription discovered near the village of Remoustapha in south-western Messenia, and published in the J.H.S. xxv. (1905), pp. 49 foll., I discussed the occurrences of the title θοιναρμόστρια, of which I gave what I then believed to be a complete list. Subsequently, however, a new inscription containing the term has been discovered and published, while a second still awaits publication, and I have recently noticed that I had overlooked an important text of Messene in which the word is twice found (G.D.I. 4650). I therefore take this opportunity of correcting my error and of supplementing my note, especially as the articles on the θοιναρμόστρια in the Real-Encyclopädie of Pauly-Kroll and in Roscher's Lexikon have not yet appeared. Thanks to the kindness of Professor W. Kolbe of Rostock, the editor of the Laconian and Messenian section of the Inscriptiones Graecae, I am enabled to give references to the numbers which the inscriptions will bear in the Corpus, this volume of which is now in the press and will, it is hoped, be published before the close of the current year. For the aid thus received and for the permission to refer to the still unpublished text I.G. v. 1. 592 I here tender to Dr. Kolbe my sincere thanks.

The writer of the Golden Bough, Dr. Frazer, has most ably interpreted the inner meaning of the strange ritual in the grove of Diana Nemorensis near Aricia, with reference to primitive folk ideas about the deity who governs vegetation and human life. It seems possible to apply the main principle also to a part of the legend of Theseus. In some ways Theseus seems to be purely a mythological figure, to whom an historical place is assigned at the close of the Minoan supremacy, judging by the story of the ring. To him various myths after the type of the labours of Heracles have been attached, some purely invented to give him prominence, others based entirely on ritualistic elements. One of these—the myth of Sinis—has already been explained in the latter way by Dr. Farnell.

Our party was camping this summer near Yalowadj on the actual site of the ancient Pisidian Antioch, when Mr. Kyriakides, a Greek resident in the town, brought us news of buildings and ‘written stones’ on the summit of a neighbouring peak. Such news in Asia Minor not infrequently leads to a mare's nest, as Prof. Sterrett found in this very district, but Mr. W. M. Calder of Brasenose College determined to test the information. Next day, accordingly, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Kyriakides, he and I set out for the mountain, and we were fortunate enough to find the long-lost ἱɛρόν of Men Askaenos. On the two following days Sir William and Lady Ramsay also visited the shrine, and took up some Turkish workmen to clear away a little of the débris encumbering the remains. Having no permit, we could not make any proper excavations, but merely opened up some of the inscriptions, and this only on a very limited scale. In the circumstances, we were unable to give, either to the inscriptions or to our more general observations, such a careful and minute study as we could have wished, so that this report is only provisional and nothing is to be taken as final until excavation confirms each point.

In a former article on the Tekmoreian Guest-Friends many difficult problems were stated relating to (1) the organization of the Imperial estates which originally were the property of the God Mê at Antioch-towards-Pisidia, and (2) the constitution and character of the Association of Tekmoreioi; and a partial solution of them was proposed. That Saghir was likely to be the best point for excavation and discovery of additional documents was pointed out on p. 350. In 1911 we camped at Kökuler for three nights, as this was the nearest point to Saghir to which waggons could reach. We spent the two intervening days in visits to Saghir; but, as nearly three hours were needed in going and two hours in returning on each day, the actual time in Saghir was very inadequate. On the third day we visited Gondane, and went on towards Oinan-Ova across the mountains. In Saghir we found a score of inscriptions, mostly small fragments, and revised one or two of those already published: this was certainly the chief centre of the Tekmoreian Association. In Gondane we found one new inscription. The need for longer study is as great as ever. That Gondane should be a sort of secondary centre for the Association is probably due to the fact that it lay on the great road from Apollonia and the west to Antioch and the east, whereas Saghir was remote and high on the slopes of Sultan-Dagh.

At the sale of the Forman collection, a hydria with figures of Troilos and Polyxena was purchased for the British Museum. Cecil Smith, in the sale catalogue, described it as in the style of ‘Euthymides?’; but I cannot agree with him. Eight other vases by the same hand are known to me; and I beg leave to call this anonymous painter ‘the master of the Troiloshydria in the British Museum.’ He is no genius; but one of his vases, the krater in Copenhagen, is a respectable performance; and others are not without animation.

In the Archaeological Seminar at Upsala is a vase, presented by Dr. Nachmanson, the design on which is illustrated in Fig. 1. I forbear to discuss it in any other respect than that of the design, as Prof. Sam Wide, to whose kindness I owe the permission to use the illustration, reserves to himself the right of dealing with the vase fully in a subsequent publication.

It is an amphora of good b.-f. style to be dated about 550 B.C., and the scene is framed in a border which displays along the top the maeander pattern and at the sides a double row of dots. In the centre of the scene is an altar towards which the priest advances from the left leading the ram he is about to sacrifice. He is a youthful male figure, draped only in his himation, and crowned with a wreath of olive. Beside the altar on the r. rises a slender column surmounted by a statue, the upper part of which disappears from our ken beyond the borders of the field; evidently the statue was not of paramount importance in the scene depicted.

In the Museo Civico at Bologna there are two Panathenaic amphorae which are not mentioned by Georg von Brauchitsch in his recently published work on these vases. One of them is of considerable interest and importance. I am enabled to publish them by the kindness of the Director, Prof. Ghirardini, who not only obtained for me the photographs here reproduced in line (Pl. IV) but also sent me a copy of the description of them contained in a forthcoming work by Pellegrini: Catalogo dei vasi greci dipinti delle Necropoli Felsinee. I propose also to examine briefly the evidence for certain assumptions which are commonly accepted without question and which seem to me entirely to vitiate many of the theories proposed by von Brauchitsch. Questions with regard to these vases are so frequently arising that these theories should not be allowed to pass uncriticised.