bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Early Greek Ships of Two Levels
Authors: Williams R. T.
Published: May 2006

As the point of departure I take that controversial passage in Thucydides i. 13.2—

Now the controversy turns on the type of ship that Ameinocles built. Thucydides uses the general word ναῦς, which in Herodotus certainly and, according to Liddell and Scott, in Greek literature generally does seem to be a synonym for τριέρεις, and after Thucydides' use of the word τριήρεις in the previous sentence it would be natural to take ναῦς in the same sense. The Corinthians built the first triremes in Greece and Ameinocles built four of them for the Samians at the end of the eighth century, and there would be at least a reliable terminus ante quem for the introduction of the trireme into Greece. Here the matter would have rested, had not this date conflicted not only with the other literary records, including Thucydides himself, but also with the archaeological evidence, such as it is, which both seem to preclude such an early date.

The marshalling of the literary evidence against the supposition that triremes were built in Greece at the end of the eighth century has been admirably done by Professor Davison in the Classical Quarterly of 1947. He rightly comes to the conclusion that triremes could not have been introduced into Greece before the third quarter of the sixth century, and that in the disputed passage Thucydides was using ναῦς of ships generally and refraining from specifying the class; but in this case how flat the second part of the sentence sounds—the Corinthians were the first in Greece to use triremes, and Ameinocles the Corinthian built four ships of some sort or other for the Samians—nor does it seem to warrant the luxury of a precise date; and why four ships?
Horned-head Vase Handles
Authors: Oakeshott Noël R.
Published: May 2006

The Purpose of this article is to present some of the available evidence for the persistence from late Mycenaean times into the early sixth century of ‘bull's-head’ vase handles, as first exemplified on the Warrior Vase from Mycenae (Athens 1426; plate V). The very similar handles on certain Cypriote vases now dated to around 700 B.C. suggest that a continuous tradition culminated, in this area, in a revival. For convenience I shall speak throughout of bull's-head handles, though in many cases it is open to question whether a bull or calf's head, or the head of a mountain sheep or goat was intended; and the same handles have been differently interpreted at different times. Generally when they appear on Cypriote vases it has been thought that a wild goat is intended, this being the principal wild animal on the island. In fact of course the modelling is often so perfunctory that nothing very convincing zoologically is achieved.
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 984–6
Authors: Cunningham I. C.
Published: May 2006

984 ἐπεὶ F: ἐπί Tr ξυνεμβόλοις FTr: corr. Casaubon 985 ψαμμίας FTr: corr. Wecklein ἀκάτα F: ἀκάτας Tr: corr. Wilamowitz παρήβησ' Tr.

The above is the text of Wilamowitz and Fraenkel, which I believe correct, requiring only interpretation. Wilamowitz translated (Gr. Trag. ii 85), ‘Die Zeit ist grau geworden, seit der Sand von Aulis aufflog, da zur Troiafahrt das Heer die Taue löste’; Fraenkel similarly but more literally, ‘Time has grown old since with the throwing-in of the mooring-cables the sand flew up, when the naval host set forth to Ilion’. Denniston-Page make the linguistically correct objection me ‘sand does not “fly up” when mooring-cables are “thrown in”’. But this misses the real point, viz. that no one ever throws in a cable when a ship is leaving—it is pulled in: throwing occurs only when a ship is coming in to land.
Two Notes on Athenian Topography
Authors: Wycherley R. E.
Published: May 2006

In Pollux, VIII. 20 (ed. Bethe, Leipzig, 1900–37) in the section on σκεύη δικαστικά—κιγκλίς, δρύφακτος κτλ.—we read περισχοινίσαντας (περισκηνήσαντας A) δέ τι τῆς ἀγορᾶς μέρος ἔδει φέρειν εἰς τὸν περιορισθέντα τόπον Ἀθηναίων τὸν βουλόμενον ὄστρακον ἐγγεγραμμένον τοὔνομα τοῦ μέλλοντος ἐξοστρακίƷεσθαι. Dindorf described περισκηνήσαντας, ‘quod hactenus vulgatum est’, as ‘ineptissimum’, and it has been given short shrift. Bearing in mind that good authorities speak of a more solid and substantial barrier than a σχοῖνος on occasions of ostracism, he suggested that περισχοινίƷειν could mean simply ‘circumsepire, cingere, circumdare septo, vel cancellis’. But surely the σχοῖνος element of the word is inescapable; περισχοινίƷειν means ‘;place a rope around’; and if he used this word Pollux is in conflict with other writers, notably Philochorus, and is probably wrong. Carcopino, who quotes περισχοινίσαντας without question, thinks that Pollux has simply made a mistake, misled by recollection of the σχοινίον μεμιλτωμένον with which stragglers were shepherded into the assembly. But there would be little risk of confusion with the red rope; the error is due rather to recollection of the roped enclosures mentioned below.
A New Oracle in an Inscription
Authors: Lloyd-Jones Hugh
Published: May 2006

In JHS LXXIV (1954), 85–7, Mr. G. E. Bean publishes a mutilated inscription from Caunus (no. 21 of his collection) which contains the response of the Gryneian Apollo to an inquiry of the Caunians as to which god they must propitiate to obtain good harvests. Mr. Bean seems not to have noticed that the text of the oracle (which begins at 1. 12) consists of two hexameters; if he had, I do not think he would have thought a new sentence must begin with ἀρσρίσκετε or worried about the sense of δεσμοῑς. I suggest that τιμῶσιν agrees with ὔμμι and that ἀραρίσκετε is imperative. The word after δεσμοῑς will be an adjective agreeing with δεσμοῑς. I can think of no suitable one beginning with Λ, but Α is very like Λ and άλύτοισ will suit the sense; it is an epithet of δεσμοί at Od. 8. 275, Aesch. P. V. 155. At the end of the line I would supply an adjective agreeing with κλέος (e.g. ἀγήρων) an adverbial phrase (e.g. ἐς αἰέί) or perhaps a vocative (e.g. λαοί).
Herakles Crowning Himself: New Greek Statuary Types and Their Place in Hellenistic and Roman Art
Authors: Vermeule C. C.
Published: May 2006

In the course of examining Roman imperial medallions and coins in connexion with a study of Roman cult images, representations of Herakles Crowning Himself, a figure which appears on the reverses of medallions of Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus (Plate I, 2), and Commodus (Plate I, 3), merit further comment. These reverses, whether with or without legend, exhibit identical compositions. In the centre a young, beardless Herakles stands facing, his right hand raised in the act of placing a crown on his head; his left hand, close to his left hip, holds the club upwards in the crook of the elbow. Between club and elbow, the lion's skin hangs down over the forearm to a point midway along the left leg. The head, both forepaws, and tail are clearly visible dangling below. On all the medallions the die designer has made very clear the, important point that Herakles rests his weight on the left foot, with left hip thrown out and the right foot slightly back and out, giving a pronounced bow curve to the right side of the body from foot to shoulder. To Herakles' right and slightly behind him appears an apple tree on one branch of which hang the hero's quiver and bow; to his left rear is seen a square altar, festooned with garlands and with an offering burning on the top, and in her comprehensive monograph on Roman medallions J. M. C. Toynbee suggests that ‘the picture as a whole had been inspired by some bas-relief or painting now lost to us’. The question of relating the central figure to the whole composition will be taken up in Part II, in reappraising the general problem of famous statue types in medallion compositions. For the moment we may see what further progress may be made in identifying the statue type of the young Herakles Crowning Himself.
Some Attic Fragments: Pot, Plaque, and Dithyramb
Authors: Boardman John
Published: May 2006

The only common factor shared by the fragments of vase and votive plaque discussed below is that all are Attic. The plaque fragments seemed to deserve individual treatment outside the general study of votive plaques from the Athenian Acropolis on which I am engaged. The vase fragment with the Marsyas scene which is published here with some comment on the possible literary treatment of the myth is in the possession of Mr. John Leatham. To him I am indebted for permission to study and publish the piece, and to Mme. S. Karouzou, Prof. O. Broneer, the Keeper of Antiquities in the Ashmolean Museum, and the Director of the Thorvaldsen Museum for permission to publish pieces in Athens, Oxford, and Copenhagen.

I. Marsyas and Melanippides

The fragment which is here Illustrated on Plate I, 1, 3 is at present in the keeping of Mr. John Leatham. Unfortunately its provenience can be defined no more nearly than as ‘from Greece’. On the photograph reproduced on Plate I, 3 I have added in white the painted details on the sherd which the camera could not record. It is from the rim and wall of a calyx crater, part of whose lip decoration, a palmette scroll, is preserved. From the figure scene below we see the upper part of an Athena who holds her spear upright in the right hand while her arm hangs at her side, perhaps with the hand on the rim of a shield which rested on the ground beside her. She wears an aegis over her peplos, and an Attic helmet with raised cheek-pieces. She is looking to her left and slightly down towards a figure before a tree with white painted leaves. The figure is apparently seated, and his snub nose shows that he is a satyr or silen, and not a young one to judge by his shaggy white hair.
The Effect of A Simile: Empedocles' Theories of Seeing and Breathing
Authors: O'Brien D.
Published: May 2006

A curious irony hangs over the two similes of the lantern and the clepsydra which Empedocles used to describe his theories of seeing and breathing (frr. 84 and 100). Similes were a feature of Empedocles' style, and it is clear that on these two in particular he has lavished considerable care. They have been preserved in their entirety, as almost the longest continuous quotations which Aristotle makes from any author. Despite such auspicious beginnings, these two similes have proved peculiarly resistant to modern attempts at interpretation. The reason for this, I shall try to show, is that certain features in the two similes took on a spurious significance as a result of Plato's remodelling of Empedocles' theories. Difficulties of interpretation have been caused by trying to read back these innovations of Platonic theory into details of the similes that in their original context were fortuitous and inessential.

In Plato vision occurs when fire leaves the eye and joins fire outside to form a single compacted body, along which movements from the visible object are communicated as sensations to the eye.

According to Theophrastus, Empedocles explained vision as the result of effluences which are given off from objects and enter the appropriate pores of the eye. Dark effluences enter the watery pores of the eyes, and bright effluences enter the fiery pores of the eye. As I have tried to show in an earlier article, Empedocles distinguished good and bad vision, by day and by night, for eyes with a predominance of fire and for eyes with a predominance of water. Good vision results when the dark and light elements which enter the eye are equally balanced. Poor vision results either when there is too much fire in the eye, so that we are dazzled, or when there is too much water in the eye, so that our vision is dimmed. In the whole of his detailed and one would have thought exhaustive account, Theophrastus says nothing about fire leaving the eye as a factor in the act of vision.
Notes on the failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy
Authors: Cawkwell G. L.
Published: May 2006

In one sense the Second Athenian Confederacy did not fail. It was simply abolished in 338 by Philip in the Peace of Demades (Paus. i 25.3), but up till then it continued actively enough. In 346 we see the synedrion engaged in the deliberations on the Peace of Philokratcs (Aisch. ii 60, 86 iii 69–70, 74); a Tenedian went on both the embassies to Philip, representing the allies (Aisch. ii 20, 97, 126); the Peace was made by Philip with Athens and her allies, i.e. the Confederacy. In 346 Mytilene chose to resume membership (GHI 168) and in 343 the synedroi were available in Athens to give evidence about the events of 346 (Aisch. ii 86). In the later 340s, as the fifty-eighth speech of the Demosthenic Corpus shows (cf. §§37–8, 53–6), the machinery of the Confederacy continued to work, and the impression gained from the two surviving decrees which concern the Tenedians (GHI 175, and IG ii2 232) is of willing co-operation between allies and hegemon.
Opramoas and the anonymous benefactor
Authors: Coulton J. J.
Published: May 2006

Opramoas of Rhodiapolis in Eastern Lycia is one of the best known benefactors in the Greek half of the Roman Empire because the decrees and other documents inscribed on his tomb allow us to trace the extent and sequence of his benefactions and the honours he received. Two inscriptions from the Letoon near Xanthos, recently published by A. Balland, seem to extend this picture of generosity, one of them virtually doubling the previous total of Opramoas' benefactions. The first, Balland no. 66, is a statue base recording that Opramoas gave to the Lycian League land to finance a distribution to the koinobouloi of the league; the second, Balland no. 67, is a stele listing a much longer series of benefactions, to the league, to Xanthos and to other Lycian cities, but it does not, and never did, include the benefactor's name. Balland argues that the second inscription also refers to Opramoas, and this has been generally accepted; but it is argued here that its subject is not Opramoas but an anonymous contemporary, so that Opramoas loses his unique position among Lycian benefactors, and we can compare the nature, extent and distribution of his gifts with those of the Anonymous Benefactor and others.
The opposition to Perikles
Authors: Andrewes A.
Published: May 2006

In the critical years that followed the death of Kimon, it is clear that Thoukydides son of Melesias played an important role in opposition. It is less clear what he stood for positively, and Wade-Gery's brilliant and controversial article (JHS lii [1932] 205–27 = Essays in Greek History 239–70), for all its sensitivity to the values of the Athenian aristocracy, did not succeed in settling this issue. My argument here is mainly negative, that Plutarch's description (Per. 11–12 and 14) of the conflict between Thoukydides and Perikles, our only detailed witness, is worthless and has seriously distorted our picture of this period and of Athenian attitudes to the empire; and that the colony at Thourioi, as Ehrenberg maintained, was meant to serve strictly Athenian interests.

1. Plutarch and the Anti-Imperialists

For Ed. Meyer (Forschungen zur alten Geschichte ii 86; Gd A iv2 1.690 n. 1) it was beyond doubt that Plutarch here preserves an authentic account of the debate over the building programme. Wade-Gery assumed the same (240–3, cf. Hesp. xiv [1945] 224–5), and D. L. Stockton (Hist. viii [1959] 69), arguing against Wade-Gery, still calls this a good and possibly contemporary source.2Since the most notable characteristic of these chapters is their vehement rhetoric and the high proportion of nonsense, this position needs more defence than it has received.
Music and perception: a study in Aristoxenus
Authors: Barker Andrew
Published: May 2006

Familiar and important though Aristoxenus is to students of Greek music, philosophers, so far as I can judge, have not always given him a fair run for his money. No one would call him a great philosopher; but his arguments illuminate important aspects of the controversies of the late fourth century, and reflect light backwards onto the different views not only of music, but also of science in general, which had been held and argued over during the previous hundred years. Nor is he merely a referee in other men's contests: his ideas have a philosophical as well as a musical originality which deserves recognition. Plainly a single paper cannot hope to cover all the philosophically important aspects of his work, and I have chosen one topic which I take to be central, his conception of the relations between music and αἴσθησις.

More precisely, I shall be concerned with his views on the role of αἴσθησις in determining the nature of ἁρμονία. ἁρμονία is not the same thing as music, but is a part of it, as for instance is rhythm: and it so happens that ἁρμονία or τὸ ἡρμοσμένον is the main subject of those passages of his work which have come down to us in completest form, under the general heading of ἁρμονικὰ στοιχϵȋα, Elementa Harmonica.
ThePhaedoandRepublicV on essences
Authors: White F. C.
Published: May 2006

Towards the close of Book V of theRepublicPlato tells us that the true philosopher has knowledge and that the objects of knowledge are the Forms. By contrast, the ‘lovers of sights and sounds’, he tells us, have no more than belief, the objects of which are physical particulars. He then goes on to present us with some very radical-sounding assertions about the nature of these physical particulars. They are bearers of opposite properties, he says, in so thorough-going a manner that we cannot say of them that they are nor that they are not: they lie somewhere between being and utter non-being.

This passage of theRepublic(475–80) still awaits an agreed interpretation and I want to suggest as a reason for this that it is usually interpreted in isolation. I will argue that it becomes easier to understand when seen against the background of Plato's developing thought. To be more precise, it makes sense when taken as a rejection by Plato of one of his earlier beliefs: namely, a doctrine of essentialism to be found in thePhaedo.

The greater part of this paper then will be an attempt to show thatRepublicV is a rejection of thePhaedo'sdoctrine of essences. Its concluding part will try to explain why that doctrine was rejected.
Lycophron Italicised
Authors: West Stephanie
Published: May 2006

On 12th March, 1800 Charles James Fox wrote thus to Gilbert Wakefield, imprisoned for seditious libel in Dorchester Gaol. ‘I have lately read Lycophron, and am much obliged to you for recommending it to me to do so: besides there being some very charming poetry in him, the variety of stories is very entertaining. … There remain, after all, some few difficulties, which if you can clear up to me, I shall be much obliged to you. … The most important of these is, that which belongs to the part where he speaks of the Romans in a manner that could not be possible for one who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, that is, even before the first Punic war.’ Fox accordingly inferred that either the Roman passages (1226–80, 1446–50) were interpolated (which he thought the more probable hypothesis) or the poem as a whole was not the work of the author to whom it was traditionally ascribed, Lycophron the tragedian, who organised the texts of comedy for the Alexandrian library under Philadelphus. Wakefield, though normally a far from conservative critic, was not convinced: ‘Is it incredible, that an attentive observer of the times, and the rising greatness of the Romans, might venture to predict the extent of their future sway in the general terms of ver. 1229?’ Fox thought this ‘morally impossible’, and the subject continued to occupy their letters during the remaining months of Wakefield's incarceration. In this remarkable correspondence we find clearly adumbrated the main lines on which the Lycophron Question was to develop. If our hearts sink before the considerable bibliography generated by this controversy, we may find reassurance in the characteristic air of invincible common sense with which its initiator, having hit on a peculiarly happy expedient for cheering the enforced leisure of his imprudent friend, steadily maintained his position, armed against Wakefield's superior erudition by better judgement and a stronger sense of style.
The Siege scene on the gold amphora of the Panagjurischte Treasure
Authors: Griffith John G.
Published: May 2006

The remarkable Treasure, found on December 8, 1949, near the railway station of Panagjurischte, about 40 km north-west of Plovdiv (Bulgaria) on the fringe of a site where traces of earlier settlements had been observed, has attracted less attention in Western periodicals than its interest and importance deserve. I have had two opportunities of viewing the Treasure (in 1968 and 1972) in the Museum at Plovdiv. It is well displayed, but security arrangements are (very properly) such that it would be unreasonable to ask to handle the objects. Fortunately photographs are available giving accurate information on details, though these inevitably fail to reflect the overwhelming impression produced on the spectator by the find as a whole (plate 1a).

Date and Place of Manufacture

Metrological and epigraphical considerations conspire to date the find to the closing years of the fourth century B.C. (or possibly soon after the turn of the century) and suggest North-West Asia Minor as the place of origin. The total weight of the nine pieces is 6·172 kg of high-quality gold. Except for minor damage to two rhytons, all is excellently preserved; some small jewels which served for details such as eyeballs have been lost, but hardly anything is dented. Considered as bullion, this amount of gold is equivalent within 4 g to 730 darics (at 8·45 g) or to 1430 Attic drachmas (at 4·31 g), within 9 g. Since the phiale (plate IIId) scales 845·7 g, the figures neatly inscribed on the outside below the rim in small acrophonic numerals between 3—4 mm high (plate Ib) advertise its weight in terms of both these standards: these are H (=100, sc. darics) and ΗΓΔΔΔΔΙΙΙ, plus an indeterminate fraction, i.e. something over 196 Attic drachmas.
Alexander's campaign in Illyria
Authors: Hammond N. G. L.
Published: May 2006

The campaigns of Alexander in Asia have been extensively studied, but no one has given a detailed account of his campaign in Illyria. The reason is that for many years the interior of Albania has been less accessible than any part of Alexander's route in Asia. It was my own interest in Epirus and Macedonia and my travels in parts of south-eastern Albania which first led me to speculate on the location of Alexander's battle against Cleitus and Glaucias. I came then to the conclusion that the city of Pelion and the battle near it were to be placed by the upper Devoll in the plain of Poloskë. This conclusion was based on a study of the ancient literary evidence and generally on a second-hand knowledge of the terrain; for I had made only one trip and that by car from Florina to Bilisht in the plain of Poloskë and thence to Korcë (Koritsa). In September 1972 I was able to visit this plain through the kindness of the Albanian Government and of my Albanian colleagues. In Section A of this paper I describe the geographical features and the ancient remains in the relevant part of south-eastern Albania, and in Section B I try to reconstruct the campaign of Alexander in this region.
Signa priscae artis: Eretria and Siphnos
Authors: Francis E. D. , Vickers Michael
Published: May 2006

‘Most things in Greece’, so Pausanias tells us, ‘are subject to dispute.’ Nowadays, however, the chronological development at least of archaic and early classical art is no longer regarded as a matter for controversy. Indeed so little dispute remains that the art of this period is being used with increasing confidence to reconstruct the social, political and economic history of Greece. Before new orthodoxies arise, however, it may be in order to question some of the old ones by re-examining the ‘fixed points’ on which the chronology of Greek art is based. These points of contact between art and history are familiar. They include, for example, the sack of Hama in Syria, Thucydides' dates for the western colonies, the siege of Old Smyrna, the Greek occupation of Tell Defenneh and other Egyptian sites, the construction of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, the youthful careers of Athenian kaloi (notably those of Leagros, son of Glaukon, and of his son Glaukon), ostraca, the Marathon tumulus and the Persian sack of Athens.

In this paper we evaluate the evidence of two well-known buildings which are generally thought to have been constructed in the sixth century BC. We argue that available evidence may not require this chronological conclusion. We begin by attempting to demonstrate that the marble Temple of Apollo Daphnephorus at Eretria with its pedimental Amazonomachy was erected in the aftermath of the Persian Wars, not in the sixth century. We then reconsider in the light of this suggestion the traditional date of the Siphnian Treasury (c. 530–25 BC).
Artemis and Iphigeneia
Authors: Lloyd-Jones Hugh
Published: May 2006

Few problems in theOresteiahave been more debated in recent times than that of why Artemis sends the calm which detains the Achaean fleet at Aulis. ‘The main problem, a much vexed one’, wrote Eduard Fraenkel, ‘… arises from the fact that we are not told anywhere in the ode why the wrath of Artemis is directed against the Atreidae’. By ‘the ode’ Fraenkel means, of course, the parodos of theAgamemnon; he might have written ‘in the play’ or ‘in the trilogy’. He believed that Aeschylus had in mind the story, told in theCypriaand in theElectraof Sophocles, that Agamemnon had angered Artemis by boasting that he surpassed her as an archer, but that he made no allusion to it because it seemed to supply a motive too petty to accord with his great theme.

Others have protested that in a trilogy concerned with guilt and retribution it is strange that so important an action should be left unmotivated. Sir Denys Page revived the view of Conington and others that Artemis is angry with the Atreidai because they are symbolised by the eagles which appear at Aulis, and these eagles kill a pregnant hare, an animal under her protection. That is to confuse the world of the portent with the world of reality which it symbolises, besides assigning to the goddess a motive of a still more objectionable pettiness. In pointing this out, twenty years ago, I contended that since the eagles stand for the Atreidai the hare must stand for Troy, and deduced from this that Artemis must be angry at the prospective massacre of the Trojans. In Homer and in the later tradition, Artemis takes the Trojan side against the Greeks, and I argued that since the hare stood for Troy the partiality of Artemis for wild animals and their young must stand for her partiality for the Trojans.
The freedom of the Greeks of Asia: on the Origins of a Concept and the Creation of a Slogan
Authors: Seager Robin , Tuplin Christopher
Published: May 2006

The purpose of this paper is to discover the origins of a political catchphrase, ‘the freedom of the Greeks of Asia’. The opening section presents and analyses first the evidence of Herodotus for the period from the Lydian conquest to the Mycale campaign, then that of Diodorus, where extant, for the same events. The contrasting usage of these two authors poses the question: when did the Greeks of Asia first come to be regularly thought of as a corporate body? That question is studied in the second section through the evidence of Thucydides and later writers for the period of the Athenian empire and that of Xenophon for the Ionian War and the campaigns of the Spartans, especially Agesilaus, in Asia Minor, and an answer is suggested: that the Greeks of Asia first came to be consistently thought of as a unit, and their freedom to be regularly exploited as a slogan, in the years between 400 and 386. The third section attempts to answer the further question which at once arises: why should this have been so?
Rufinus, AP v 60
Authors: Baldwin Barry
Published: May 2006

παρθένος ἀργυρόπεζος ἐλούετο, χρύσεα μαζῶν χρωτὶ γαλακτοπαγεῖ μῆλα διανομένηπυγαὶδ᾿ ἀλλήλαις περιηγέες εἱλίσσοντοῦδατος ὑγροτέρῳ χρωτὶ σαλευόμεναιτὸν δ᾿ ὑπεροιδαίνοντα κατέσκεπε πεπταμένη χείροὐχ ὅλον Εὐρώταν ἀλλ᾿ ὅσον ἠδύνατο.

An interesting poem, though not without its difficulties. Eurotas in the last line has traditionally been regarded as an obscene synonym for the female genitals. Sir Denys Page, however, challenged this in his recent edition of Rufinus. Other matters of language and style are also worth discussing for the light that they may throw on the techniques of a late Greek epigrammatist. Hence the following analysis takes the form of a commentary.

The subject of the poem is a girl bathing. Page claims that it has no parallel in the Anthology. That overlooks the adumbration of this same theme by Antiphilus (AP v 307) instructive, in that it describes Leda bathing in the Eurotas.
M. Basch on triremes: some observations
Authors: Lloyd Alan B.
Published: May 2006

Herodotus informs us at ii 159 that Pharaoh Necho II (610-595 B.C.) built and employed triremes on the Mediterranean and Red Seas. In a recent study I put the case for the traditional view that these triremes were Greek rather than Phoenician in origin. That case may be summarized as follows:

(1) Thucydides believed (i 13) that the trireme had been invented in Corinth during the Cypselid tyranny (c. 657-583 B.C.) and that it was almost immediately taken over by the Samians.

(2) The standard refutations of Thucydides’ statement are invalid.
The date of Euripides' Cyclops
Authors: Seaford Richard
Published: May 2006

There is still considerable disagreement about the date of Euripides'Cyclops. The most common view seems to be that it was written in the last ten years of Euripides' career. And yet in the only recent detailed study D. F. Sutton argues that it was produced in 424 BC. And so theCyclopsis perhaps the only extant Euripidean play about whose date there is still serious disagreement. This is largely because it is the only one to which the metrical dating criteria formulated by Zieliński and others have never been properly applied. This I now propose to do, as part of a case for about 408 BC as the date of the play.

The principle that the frequency and nature of resolution in the iambic trimeter can be an indication of the date of a Euripidean play is generally accepted. Taking the plays of known date, inAlcestis(produced in 438 BC) the number of resolved feet expressed as a percentage of the number of spoken trimeters is 6.2, inMedea(431 BC) 6.6,Hippolytus(428) 4.3,Hecuba(c. 12.7,Troades(415) 21.2,Helen(412) 27.5,Phoenissae(411–09) 25.8,Orestes(408) 39.4,Bacchae(posthumous) 37.6,Iphigeneia in Aulis(posthumous) 34.7. InCyclopsit is 35.0, which would entitle us to place the play after 412 BC, were it not that the figure may express no more than the greater metrical freedom that satyric drama has over tragedy. After all,Cyclopshas 17 anapaests (not involving proper names) outside the first foot, and three irredeemable violations of Porson's Law—a degree of licence impossible in tragedy.
Stymphalian and Other birds
Authors: Anderson J. K.
Published: May 2006

Miss Sylvia Benton, in a recent note, identifies the bird which appears on some of the coins of Stymphalos ‘rising above the leaves of a Water Plantain … with a Fritillary on either side… The bird wears ear-flaps, and for me a marsh bird with earflaps must be meant for the Great Crested Grebe’.

This identification seems to me convincing, though the bill as represented on the coins is perhaps rather short and thick. On April 29th and May 23rd 1974 I visited Stymphalos, in company with my family, in the hope of confirming that the Lake is still within the Grebe's range. This we were unable to do, and I am delighted to learn from Mr Buxton's note that ‘the bird breeds now on the Stymphalian lake’.

The Lake certainly offers in its extensive reed-beds a most suitable breeding-ground for Grebes, which build partly floating platforms of marsh vegetation to serve as nests. Adult birds sleep on the water and are fish-eaters. Grebes cannot therefore have suggested the different literary variants of this Labour of Herakles.
A Mistake to be avoided in the Interpretation of Empedocles fr. 100.
Authors: Booth N. B.
Published: May 2006

Dr D. O'Brien in his interesting article ‘The effect of a simile: Empedocles's theories of seeing and breathing’ (JHS xc [1970] 140–79) unfortunately reverts to D. J. Furley's view that, in the clepsydra simile of Empedocles fr. 100, air must be parallel to air and water to blood. This involves him in interpretations which have no basis in the text of Empedocles. It is obvious, from the clear parallelism of sentence structure presented by Empedocles and duly noted in my article of 1960, that water is parallel to air, and air to blood. The relevant lines are (as quoted from Ross by Dr O'Brien):

The general sense is:

Just as, in the case of the clepsydra, water comes in and out through the sieve in accordance with movements of air on the other side of the sieve:

So, in the case of breathing, air is breathed in and out through holes at the back of the nostrils in accordance with movements of blood on the other side of the holes.
The Scene on the Panagjurischte Amphora: a New Solution
Authors: Borthwick E. K.
Published: May 2006

In JHS xciv (1974) 38 ff. (with Plates IV–V), J. G. Griffith discusses the subject-matter of the scene on the late fourth-century amphora discovered in 1949 at Panagjurischte in Bulgaria, in which a group of four determined-looking men armed only with swords attacks a house-door which has just been half-opened by a startled servant of diminutive stature. Connected, apparently, with the assault is a trumpeter, and finally there is another pair (not obviously involved in the action) consisting of a bearded figure, taken to be a seer since he holds ‘a liver, lobe and all’, which he shows to his more youthful companion.

Griffith has little difficulty in exposing the improbability of earlier attempts to identify a mythological scene—Achilles discovered at Scyros, the Seven against Thebes, or the preliminaries to the murder of Neoptolemus at Delphi, and proposes a novel view that the attackers are komastai, whether the occasion is a ‘genre-scene’ from comedy, or a characteristic scene from real life, in either of which cases help in identifying the individuals would be unnecessary and irrelevant. But I must confess that I find this proposal far-fetched: the attempts to account also for the trumpeter and seer are desperate enough, but he really fails to make a credible case for the use of swords in such escapades, even granted the violence often referred to in literary evidence about the komos, whether fisticuffs among rivals for the favours of the courtesan or mistress, or the use of cudgels, levers and torches to break down, or burn, the door by the ‘exclusus amator’.
Demeter on a Knossian ring-inscription
Authors: Van Effenterre Henri
Published: May 2006

In a recent issue of this Journal (XCV, 1975, pp. 231–2), R. F. Willetts reviews the excellent publication of J. N. Coldstream, Knossos, the Sanctuary of Demeter (BSA, Suppl. Pap. 8, 1973). He draws attention to a boustrophedon inscription on a silver ring bezel, which he transcribes, after Coldstream:

The reading seems to support Willetts' own views on the cult of Demeter as a Mother-Goddess in Crete.

May I express some doubts about the actual reading of the dedication? I recently had the opportunity of examining the Knossos ring in the Heraklion Museum, by courtesy of the Director, Dr Alexiou, and of his Assistant, A. Lebesi. Magnifying techniques and contrasted lighting were available in the now well-equipped laboratory of the Museum. It appears that the lettering of the inscription is not exactly what Coldstream believed, although his photograph and facsimile are fairly accurate. First, the supposed digamma is a true alpha, with parallel strokes, as often occurs on archaic stones: the figure is quite similar to the other alphas of the text if you read it in the proper sense, i.e. as the first letter of the second direct line. Secondly, the last sigma of the retrograde line, with its two short angular strokes at sharp angles at each end of the hasta, seems most unlikely. There is actually a kind of cross-hatching on the surface, which is rather deceiving, but upon it you can distinguish the three bars of a delta, a very clear, although small and slightly debased one. The hasta forms one of these bars, and one other is the upper stroke of the so-called sigma.
Eyeless in Argos; a reading of Agamemnon 416–19
Authors: Steiner Deborah
Published: May 2006

In the first stasimon of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the estranged Helen and Menelaus share the second strophe. Beginning with an account of Helen's departure from Argos and her arrival in Troy, the chorus shifts its focus, moving back to the city deserted by the Queen, and to Menelaus grieving in the palace. With Helen no longer there, and Menelaus prey to the pathos that her absence inspires, ‘a phasma shall seem to rule the house. And the charm of beautiful kolossoi is hateful to the husband, and in the absence of eyes, gone is all Aphrodite’ (415–19). The difficulties of the stanza are legion.
Killing Socrates: Plato's later thoughts on democracy
Authors: Rowe C.J.
Published: May 2006

The paper has two main aims, one larger and one slightly narrower. The larger aim is to undermine further a tendency that has dogged the interpretation of Platonic political philosophy in modern times, despite some dissenting voices: the tendency to begin from the assumption that Plato's thinking changed and developed over time, as if we already had privileged access to his biography. The slightly narrower aim is to reply to two charges of intellectual parricide made against Plato. The first is explicit and well known: that he recommended political structures of a sort that would exclude the free-ranging philosophical inquiry sponsored by Socrates. The second is implicit in the standard reading of the Politicus, and says that Plato actually came to approve (however reluctantly) of Athens' execution of his teacher. I argue that the relevant passage (Plt. 297C - 302B) has been misunderstood, and that it is in fact fully consistent with the blanket criticism we find in the Republic of all existing forms of constitution. The Athenian democracy still got it wrong, both in general, and in making the particular decision to kill off old Socrates. I also argue that so far from proposing to abolish Socratic inquiry, Plato's political works as a whole (Republic, Politicus and Laws included) are actually designed to show the need for it.
The chariot rite at Onchestos:Homeric Hymn to Apollo229-38
Authors: Teffeteller Annette
Published: May 2006

The Onchestos passage in theHomeric Hymn to Apollo(229-38) has been discussed extensively, most usefully by A. Schachter (BICS23 (1976) 102-14) and G. Roux (REG 77(1964) 1-22). Further consideration of the disputed verbal forms in lines 235 and 236 and the plurals of 233-6 suggests that the plurals do indeed indicate a two-horse chariot team but that the presence of a team is not incompatible with the test of a single colt, and that if a chariot is wrecked by the unguided horses, it is righted and leftin situ(with the horses removed) while prayers of supplication are made to Poseidon. The events referred to are interpreted as elements of a religious ritual with explicit military implications, dating from the Mycenaean period. It is, however, noted that a Babylonian ritual parallel might suggest a Near Eastern (and possibly non-military) origin.
The Greek ships at Salamis and the Diekplous
Authors: Morrison J. S.
Published: May 2006

L. claims that the reconstruction of the trieres proposed in AT, being based on late 5th century and 4th century evidence, is misleading for the earlier ships, and that the Greek ships of 480, unlike the later ones, were not built for speed and manoeuvrability, and carried more than ten hoplites. He goes on to say that the Greeks won at Salamis ‘because their ships stood up to ramming better’ than those of their opponents. For this last view he cites no text in evidence, and as far as I know there is none. There is the statement in Herodotus (viii 60a) that the Greek ships were heavier; but L. attributes this greater heaviness not to thicker planking but to the greater number of armed men they carried, which would entrail a broader hull and bulwarks but not thicker planking.
Ath. Pol. 25.2 and Lys. fr. 178: ‘additional’ functions of the Areopagite Council
Authors: Sealey Raphael
Published: May 2006

The author of the Athenaion Politeia, whether Aristotle or a pupil of his, said that in 462/1 Ephialtes took from the Areopagite Council ‘the additional functions (epitheta), through which it had guardianship of the constitution’, and gave some of these to the council of five hundred but others to the assembly and the courts (25.2). The author did not specify the functions given to the recipient bodies; the reason may well be that he did not know what they were. But many readers have supposed that in calling those functions ‘additional’ the author followed the view taken by the reformers of 462/1. This explanation suggests that the author drew, directly or indirectly, on sources contemporary with the reform.
The Wisdom of Lucian's Tiresias
Authors: Branham R. B.
Published: May 2006

The climactic moment of Lucian's Necyomantia occurs when the ludic Cynic preacher, Menippus, finds Tiresias in Hades and poses to him the question which provoked his Homeric quest: what is the best way of life (ποῖόν τινα ήγεῖται τòν ἂριοτον βίον, 21)? The first part of the Theban's response is clear. He praises the life of ‘the ordinary guy’ (ό τῶν ὶδιωτῶ ἂριστος βίος . . .21) and urges the Cynic to ignore the philosophers with their metaphysical speculations and instead to pursue one end alone (τοῦτο μόνον έξ ἄριστος θηράσῃ, 21.3–4). It is this end, the kernel of Tiresias' wisdom, which has not been successfully construed by commentators.
Thracian Hylas
Authors: Huxley G. L.
Published: May 2006

In a recently published fragment of an elegiac poem about gods who loved youths mention is made of stories about Apollon and Hyakinthos, Dionysos and Ampelos, and Herakles and Hylas. In the third tale Hylas is called a Thracian–⊝ρἡïκος) Ύλα. However, Hylas was a Dryopian by birth, because his father Theiodamas was a Dryopian of Mount Oita. There is no sign that the Dryopians were of Thracian stock. The difficulty has prompted the comment that the poet either used a version of the Hylas-myth unknown to us or was deficient in knowledge of Greek geography.

Some Dryopians migrated to the Argolid. Their presence near Argos may be recalled by Hyginus in the words Hylas . . . ex Oechalia, alii aiunt ex Argis, but, as the editors of the elegiacs insist, ‘neither location justifies “Thracian”; nor does his disappearance which A  R places near Cius in Mysia’.
Bellerophon Talets from the Mycenaean World? A Tale of Seven Bronze Hinges
Authors: Shear Ione Mylonas
Published: May 2006

In the sixth book of the Iliad Glaukos relates the story of his grandfather, Bellerophon, who had been sent from Ephyre on the Greek mainland to Lycia carrying with him a folded tablet bearing on it baneful signs.

The single reference to this type of tablet in the early preserved literature suggests that such tablets were rare although they must have been recognizable to the audience at the time they were originally incorporated into the epic tradition.
Grated Cheese Fit for Heroes
Authors: West M. L.
Published: May 2006

The scene inIliad11 where Nestor's slave Hekamede prepares a restorative κυκεών for his guests in his great cup, which only he can lift when it is full, has often been cited in connection with the skyphos from Ischia, dated toc.735–720 BC, with its verse inscription that alludes to Nestor's εὔποτον ποτήριον. Now that scholarly opinion is increasingly swinging towards a seventh-century dating for theIliad, it seems more prudent than ever to see the Ischia inscription as a reflex not of ourIliadbut of a similar Nestorian drinking episode in earlier epic tradition. His cup, as described, has features of a Bronze Age vessel; and the motif of the mighty goblet is paralleled in the Ugaritic Baal epic, current not later than the fourteenth century.

Here I want to consider another element in the scene, namely the grated cheese which Hekamede adds to her posset. I hope to show, by a combination of metrics and archaeology, that this too, even though it cannot be traced back to the Bronze Age, belongs to a traditional account that is many generations older than ourIliad.
Greek and Roman in dialogue: the pseudo-LucianicNero
Authors: Whitmarsh Tim
Published: May 2006

The short dialogue entitledNero or on the digging of the Isthmus, preserved in the manuscripts of Lucian, is an intriguing piece. The contents are quickly summarised. Nero's abandoned attempt to dig through the Isthmus of Corinth is discussed by the two interlocutors, a certain Menecrates and the philosopher Musonius Rufus, who is said to have taken part in the digging (1). The scene is apparently the rugged Aegean island of Gyara to which the historical Musonius was exiled. The discussion broadens out to include Nero's tour of Greece, with a particular focus upon his singing; and it concludes as the news breaks of Nero's death (11). Menecrates' role in the discussion is limited to that of ‘prompter’, while Musonius assumes the authoritative, pedagogic role in the dialogue. Is there any unified meaning to this text? And why the dialogue form (given that Menecrates' role in it is so perfunctory)? This paper proposes one set of answers to these questions, by siting theNeroin the context of the cultural history of Greco-Roman relations, an area that has attracted much attention over the years (and has been further reinvigorated in the light of post-colonial theory).
An interpolated song in Euripides? Helen 229–52
Authors: Lourenço Frederico
Published: May 2006

Euripides may not have been a darling of the ‘gallery’ during his lifetime, but once he was dead he became a classic, to be read, performed—and imitated. Aristophanes' half-serious attempts to show up the ‘depravity’ of Euripidean tragedy had no lasting effect: the many revivals of his plays from the fourth century onwards suggest that later audiences appreciated the purely sensuous appeal in Euripides' verbal dexterity, his rhetorical flourishes, his distraught characters on the brink of madness and self-destruction, no less than the iridescent beauty of his lyric imagery. In particular, the far-fetched melodramatic outpourings in his solo arias must have had a special appeal, their kaleidoscopic rhythms and lush phraseology blending in with the Euripidean monodist's stock in trade, self-pity. At the Athenian theatre of Dionysus, solo arias were felt to be so quintessentially ‘Euripidean’ that Aristophanes included monody in the ‘diet’ with which his ‘Euripides’ claims to have educated the audience's taste (Ran. 944). We have no way of knowing if Athenian theatre-goers really became the sophisticated connoisseurs of fine poetry whom Aristophanes' Euripides wished for. We may surmise, however, that by the early fourth century, as long as Helen and Iphigenia sang an aria which sounded loosely ‘Euripidean’, it did not matter that the said aria had not actually been written by Euripides.