The following inscriptions were either copied or excavated by the members of the British School during the spring of 1896, some during our preliminary visit in January, but the greater part during March—May, when we were living at Trypete. The majority of the inscriptions of the island are the product of the promiscuous amateur digging which has been going on probably almost continuously for nearly a century: they are consequently usually in the hands of peasants, who in most cases can only give one vague traditions regarding their original provenance. The personal interest of their present owners in them is naturally very small: it awakens to a languid existence when from time to time a foreign visitor makes them the subject of notebooks and (occasionally) of drachmas: but for the most part no sort of care is taken for their preservation, and if an inscription is to be employed as a paving-stone, it is usually the inscription side which meets the foot and the weather. Of course this state of things is not confined to Melos: I only mention it because there is at last serious talk of collecting the inscriptions and perhaps some of the other more important antiquities of Melos into a local museum: whether as the result of our urgent representations or of those of the German visitors of last year, or as the result of years of suggestions, it matters very little. It is greatly to be hoped that the good intentions of the demarch of Castri may soon be carried out.

Of late years a good deal of discussion has been devoted to the Road-System of Cappadocia and the Tauros region in ancient times, and it might seem at first sight superfluous to discuss the subject over again. But conclusions already reached must always be tested in the light of new facts; and in the case before us several new facts have come to hand, which illuminate our subject and enable us to introduce into it a considerable amount of simplification. I propose, therefore, in the following paper to describe the roads which traversed this part of the country and then to prove their direction as well as their importance from the evidence of Byzantine campaigns. This is the simplest order to follow, because one campaign generally covers several routes and it would involve a sacrifice of clearness to break up the campaigns into a series of disjecta membra.

At every period in the history of Asia Minor the most important roads from the west converged towards Caesareia-Mazaka (Kaisariye), which in later times became the metropolis of Cappadocia, and radiated thence towards east and south. Sebasteia-Sivas forms another centre only second in importance to Caesareia; and the entire road-system of Eastern Asia Minor is most easily described and most clearly understood by taking these two cities as the starting-points. I shall therefore begin with the roads leading East and South from Caesareia and afterwards go on to those radiating from Sebasteia-Sivas.

In the first two parts of this treatise, vol. xv. p. 136 sq. and 251 sq. I discussed the relation of the MSS. of the Homeric Hymns, and the history of the text so far as it could be inferred from them. Incidentally to this in Part II. a number of observations were offered on passages where the reading of the MSS. differed. I now, by way of completion, comment on lines where the MS. testimony is unanimous. My notes are critical, and do not aim at more than noticing passages where there is or has been doubt as to the reading or the sense. For historical and archaeological information I make constant reference to the excellent commentaries of Ilgen (1796), Baumeister (1860), and Gemoll (1886), to which, failing the discovery of new sources, it is unlikely that much will be added. Gemoll's book is particularly valuable for the care with which the literature is summarised. I refer also frequently to the latest text of the Hymns, published at Oxford in 1896, for which, as Mr. D. B. Monro has been kind enough to declare (Classical Review, Dec. 1896), I am mostly responsible.

The present paper is intended as a brief summary of acquisitions of the British Museum during the past ten years or so, which may be assigned to the Mycenaean period, and which have not as yet been published. The results of the Museum excavations at Curium and Salamis (Cyprus) in 1895–6 are not included, being reserved for publication elsewhere, and the gold treasure acquired in 1892 has been fully described by Mr. Arthur Evans in the Journal, vol. xiii. p. 195 ff. In the case of the vases the terminus post quem is afforded by the publication of Furtwaengler and Loeschcke's Mykenische Vasen in 1886; for the gems, by the issue of the Museum Catalogue in 1888.

The most convenient classification for a description of this kind is perhaps a geographical one, but as in some cases the provenience of the objects is unknown or indefinite, I have thought it better to group them under the heading of material, with a geographical sub-classification, so far as such is practicable.

During the last ten years no less than 4,361 coins of various parts of the Greek world have been added to the national collection. A certain number of these have been published year by year by Mr. Warwick Wroth in the Numismatic Chronicle, under the title ‘Greek Coins acquired by the British Museum.’ A still larger number are described by Mr. Barclay Head, the Keeper of Coins, in the annual Parliamentary Return of the Accounts &c. of the British Museum. As the former publication is not seen by all who are generally interested in classical studies, while the latter suffers the fate of most Blue Books, it has been suggested that a short paper on the subject of these additions might be interesting to readers of this journal. I need hardly say that the selection here given is not meant to be representative. Had I attempted to give a full report of the acquisitions during the last ten years, these notes would have reduced themselves to a mere catalogue. It has been necessary therefore to choose out a very few coins from among the more important acquisitions.

The great popular insurrection which shook the throne of Justinian in the fifth year of his reign and laid in ashes the imperial quarter of Constantinople has been treated again and again by historians, but never in a completely satisfactory way. Its import has not been quite clearly grasped, owing to an imperfect apprehension of the meaning of the circus factions; the sources have not been systematically correlated; the chronology has not been finally fixed; and the topographical questions have caused much perplexity. It is not therefore superfluous to submit the material to a new investigation. I do not propose to enter upon the subject of the circus factions, as they have been well treated recently by the Russian scholar, Th. Uspenski; but shall confine myself to problems relating to the authorities, the chronology, and the topography.

In a paper published in this Journal last year (xvi. p. 280) I proposed an arrangement of the sculptures of this basis. Unfortunately I overlooked a very able paper on the same subject by Dr. Amelung, Die Basis des Praxiteles aus Mantinea, München 1895, in which certain observations of a technical kind in regard to the sculptures are made, observations which must be carefully considered before any arrangement of the basis can be regarded as established. I give a translation of these observations.

‘All three slabs are on their left end cut off by a straight line, and have there at bottom a vertical dowel-hole, to receive a dowel rising from below. Thus all on this side joined other slabs. Both the slabs with figures of Muses on their right end have similar flat surfaces. The Marsyas slab is different. At its right end the marble projected above and below so far as the mouldings are concerned, but these projecting mouldings are roughly cut off. The surface of the end between the projections is not perfectly flat, but follows a slight curve. It is evident then that this slab at its right end met neither of the Muse-slabs. Clearly the cornice and basis projected from the front of the basis to the side, and were roughly cut away when the slab was fitted into the pavement of the church.

The field bearing the name of is one of several small sites which Mr. R. C. Bosanquet and I examined in April 1896. It is marked E in the map, J.H.S. xvi. p. 348. We were afterwards joined by Mr. C. R. R. Clark, architect to the British School, to whose skill and diligence is due the plan which accompanies this paper. In describing the course of the excavation I have had the free use of Mr. Bosanquet's day-book. The inscriptions from our site are Nos. 21, 39, 40, 41. of Mr. Cecil Smith's ‘Inscriptions from Melos,’ published in the present number of this Journal. Our inscription 4 will appear in a second series. Some remarks on the early cruciform font which came to light here will be found in the British School Annual ii. p. 161, 168, in a paper on tne Churches of Melos, by Messrs. H. M. Fletcher and S. D. Kitson. The ‘Three Churches’ field was early included in our list of likely sites. Its prominent position, and ancient retaining walls, as well as the reports of frequent finds of ancient masonry and marble, all pointed to an important public place having existed on the site, which thus afforded exceptional inducements to excavation.

Early in 1894 the Committee of the Cyprus Exploration Fund offered the small balance which remained from the excavations of 1891, to the British School of Archaeology in Athens, for use in Cyprus if possible. As a student of the School was then watching the excavations which were being carried on at Amathus on behalf of the British Museum, this sum was applied to defray part of the cost of several small excavations, the principal object of which was to test certain theories current in Cypriote archaeology; though some new ground was broken incidentally.

Five sites were examined in all; none of them exhaustively, but all with distinct and definite result.

I.—Agia Paraskevi (Nicosia District): Bronze Age Necropolis.

The celebrated Bronze Age Necropolis which occupies the edge of the plateau S.W. of Nicosia seemed the most suitable site for making practical acquaintance with the Bronze Age of Cyprus, and for verifying previous observations, with a view to the re-organisation of the Cyprus Museum which took place in the course of the summer.

Fourteen tombs were opened along the northern edge of the plateau, half a mile north of the Church of Agia Paraskevi, to the west of the Larnaka road, and between it and the stone quarries in the direction of the village of Agii Omologitádes. The tombs in the surface of this part of the plateau were found nearly exhausted by Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter's excavations in 1883–4: but enough evidence was collected to illustrate the general character of the site. Tomb 12, as explained below, was an intruder of Hellenistic or Graeco-Roman date. Similar tombs have been opened on the low hills west of the road to Strobilo village.

The two fragmentary stelae here published were discovered in the course of the excavations of the British School at Kynosarges in the winters of 1895 and 1896. One had been built into a Roman wall, the other into a late Hellenic watercourse. Within the area excavated there was no trace of any tombs of the period to which these reliefs may be referred, nor was any such trace to be expected. But the masons may very well have picked them up from close at hand; originally they may have stood by the side of a neighbouring road; indeed, they may be two of the actual tombstones desecrated by the soldiers of Philip.

The first of these two stelae attaches itself to an early group of gravestones described and dated by Köhler in the Athenische Mittheilungen of 1885. The letters which remain of the inscription run …τησικ… (perhaps Σ]τησικ[λ༵ια or Κ]τησικ[λ༵ια) and end with a second σ on the other side of the break. The H is evidently the Ionic H, and the sigma has four limbs; but this need not prevent the conclusion suggested by the style, that the stele was erected some time, but not a long time, before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.

A few months ago the authorities of the British Museum announced the discovery of some of the lost odes of Bacchylides, the contemporary of Pindar. Hitherto Bacchylides has been known only in fragments, none of them exceeding a dozen lines in length. Now we are promised over a thousand lines, of which as many as two hundred belong to a single ode. The discovery is, thus, one of considerable importance. Directly, it will reveal Bacchylides himself more fully; indirectly, it may be expected to throw light on many points of collateral interest. One such point is the relation of Pindar to the poetry of his time, another is the value of the literary judgments of some of the ancient critics. By both the links just mentioned the subject of this paper associates itself with the discovery.

The author of the Treatise on the Sublime frames an estimate of Bacchylides which seems likely to be confirmed by a fuller knowledge of his poems. He ranks him below Pindar for the same reason that he ranks Hyperides below Demosthenes. Correctness is not to be compared, says he, with genius: flawlessness is no match for inspiration. It is not a little remarkable that, in the case of Hyperides no less than in that of Bacchylides, the preservation of papyrus manuscripts in the sands of Egypt has enabled the modern world to test and verify this estimate.

When Francis Robortello at Basle, in the year 1554, issued the editio princeps of the Greek Treatise on the Sublime, he attributed the work to ‘Dionysius Longinus.’ are the words that are found upon his title-page. In this ascription he was followed by Paul Manutius, who in the next year (1555) published an edition at Venice. The fashion thus set by the earliest editors became universal. Edition followed edition in quick succession, and translations made the book known in almost every European country. But in all the editions and in all the translations, Longinus was assumed to be the author. It was the same with the foremost critics and writers of France and of England. Boileau was in this matter at one with the rest of the translators. His acquiescence in the general view was shared by Fénelon, Rollin, and Laharpe, and in England by Addison, Hume, Hurd, and Blair. Pope, in a well-known passage, speaks of the ‘bold Longinus,’ whose ‘own example strengthens all his laws.’ And even the severely scientific Gibbon refers, with a touch of sarcasm, perhaps, in the adjective but with no touch of scepticism in the name, to the ‘sublime Longinus.’

It has fallen to my lot in the course of the last few months to examine the text of Herodotus with a view to discovering, if possible, the extent to which the Greeks of the time of the Persian War were acquainted with the principles of strategy.

What may be called the ‘incidental’ nature of the historian's narrative demands, of course, that the greatest care should be expended by any one who pretends to examine it, and the manifestly unprofessional character of the military portion of it, together with the evident inexperience of the author in matters connected with war, would render the task a hopeless one, were not the nature of the theatre of events so marked in character as to elucidate much that would otherwise be obscure or incomprehensible.