The coin of Sicyon, of the obverse of which a drawing by Mr. F. Anderson (made over a photograph) is given here, has been twice published both times by Professor Percy Gardner.

The inscription on the obverse, which lends special interest to this piece, is unique among adscititious inscriptions upon Greek coins, not only in its elaborate character, but in the manner of its execution. Such inscriptions are in other cases graffiti, scratched with a point; this is pricked into the metal with a pointed instrument.

The centerpiece of Oliver Taplin's recent monograph on Greek drama and South Italian vase-painting is an Apulian bell-krater of the early fourth century in a New York private collection (Plate IV). The vase belongs to the genre conventionally known as phlyax vases, though Taplin would reject that label, since it is the thesis of his book that many, if not most, of these vases reflect Athenian Old Comedy and not an indigenous Italic entertainment, the phlyax play.

It is well known that a large proportion of the Greek epitaphs of Lycia contain a clause by which any person making any burial unauthorised by the founder of the tomb becomes liable to pay a named sum to some corporation, whether public (as the δῆμος, the πόλις, or the imperial treasury) or religious (as the temple of some god), or a powerful association (as the γερουσία).

This liability was not (as might be supposed) a fine imposed by the state in punishment of a criminal offence. Illegal burial was indeed (at least under the Roman government) a crime at law, and was punishable by a fine; but this fine is expressly distinguished from the sum due to the πόλις and the δῆμος. The penalty in question does not, in fact, represent a fine at all, but damages to be recovered by a civil action. This explains the wide variation in the sums specified, and the otherwise unaccountable fact that the amount is fixed by the builder of the tomb. It stands for the value which he placed on the possession of the tomb, modified, probably, by his estimate of the damages which the court was likely to grant.

The epistates of the prytaneis is last attested in 403/2 and the epistates of the proedroi is first recorded in 379/8. So much for the direct epigraphic evidence. Though Rhodes believed that the proedroi might not have been in existence as late as the 390s, MacDowell and Hansen proposed that they were instituted soon after 403/2. But a little noted passage of Apollodorus suggests a low date for the introduction of proedroi.

In my contribution on the ‘Sematography of Greek Papyri’ (J.H.S. xxii, 1902) I included the Ptolemaic symbol Τ or = 900 among those of whose origin no satisfactory explanation could be offered (p. 138); although on p. 145 I identified the symbol with the later minuscule symbol ‘sampi’ or = 900, and pointed out the improbability of any association of the latter with either Pi or San-Sigma, whether in forms or arithmetical values. For the rest, as I said, ‘we must wait until we are in possession of ante-Ptolemaic documents, or of some facts yet to be supplied by epigraphy.’

This paper is the report of a more thorough survey of the field of Greek and general archaeology on all the questions and problems involved in the explanation of the sign. These are in the best sense trivial, lying at the crossing of the ways of nob a few important theories, to which the foremost scholars have recently devoted much investigation—the composition and history of the Greek alphabet, particularly as regards its application for numeration, the enigmatical Tsade, the mutual relations of the ancient alphabets, the antiquity of S. Semitic (Arabian), Minaean, and Sabaean inscriptions, and the place of the Phoenician alphabet in the history of primitive Hellas.

I.—A. Wilhelm has recently republished the inscriptions on an altar at Side in Painphylia, originally published by Van Buren in JHS 1908, 190 sqq. Wilhelm's restorations and commentary, based solely on the photographs printed, without comment, by B. Pace in Annuario III , 33, have very greatly advanced the interpretation of these interesting inscriptions; but the disadvantage of working without seeing either the stone itself or a squeeze of it has led in several cases to readings which are not in fact on the stone. While assisting at the Turkish excavations at Side in September 1948, I had an opportunity of examining the stone in question, and with the kind permission of Prof. Arif Miifid Mansel, director of the excavations, I am able to offer the present note. My purpose is not so much to engage in the controversy concerning the altar and the significance of its inscriptions, as to help to establish the true text.

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.

Since the article on this subject (pp. 229 ff. above) was passed for press I have obtained some additional information in Venice which it seems desirable to put on record.

Of the two coats of arms illustrated on p. 240, that on the left belongs to Sebastiano Renier. The other is of Antonio Garzoni, who was elected podestà of Monemvasia in 1526, and again in 1538, when he was the last podestà before the Turkish conquest. The identification of this latter coat I owe to the assistance of Mr. H. F. Brown.

Hopf's statement, reproduced by me on p. 235, that Monemvasia was Venetian in 1419, is, I find, riot justified by the evidence. I have had some difficulty in tracing the documents cited by Hopf, as the pagination of the Vienna copy of the Misti used by him differs from that in the copy at Venice. The three documents merely shew that Venetian wine-merchants were engaged in the wine-trade at Monemvasia.

The object of the following pages, the substance of which was read before the Cambridge Branch of the Hellenic Society in 1883, is to examine into the true nature of the land-system of the Greeks of the Homeric age by means of the evidence contained in the poems themselves.

On à priori grounds we might have expected, or at least should not be surprised, to find in the Iliad and Odyssey some traces of that primitive system known as the ‘Open-Field’ or ‘Common-Field’ system of agriculture, which the researches of recent years have proved to have once prevailed over a great part of the earth, and of which many survivals still exist.

If the Hymns of Homer are, as probably they are, comparatively little regarded as a rule even by those who take a general interest in Greek literature and its history, this is certainly not for want of artistic merit, and still less for want of historic importance. However widely students have differed, or may differ, in their conclusions about this enigmatic collection, it is an undoubted fact, and worth insisting upon when every day a wider and more popular audience is invited to form a judgment on matters of criticism, that any theory of ‘Homer’, to be entertainable, must make its account with the Hymns not less than with the more celebrated epics. For the sake of this larger bearing, if not for the sake of the poem itself, the reader may be disposed to consider and weigh the following reflexions upon Homer's Hymn to Apollo.

In view of the great interest which has been expressed in the Theatre at Megalopolis, now in course of excavation by members of the British School at Athens, and of its real importance in connection with the question of the Greek Stage, it has been determined to publish, provisionally, a plan and section of it, without waiting for the completion of the work. The excavation will, it is hoped, be finished in the spring: and a full account of our results, with the necessary plans and illustrations, will be published in a future number of this Journal. For the present, therefore, a very few words of explanation must suffice.

The following is an explanation of the woodcuts, made from Mr. Loring's drawings:—

There is no denying that Theophrastus ranks among the most prolific Peripatetic philosophers. Diogenes Laertius lists 225 items in his bibliography, some of them perhaps twice—first as an independent treatise, then as part of a larger work. As time went on, this vast oeuvre suffered the usual vicissitudes: the overwhelming majority of it has been partly or entirely lost. In sharp contrast to the Frankish West, where, despite great losses, more texts were in circulation under Theophrastus' name than was justified, in the ever shrinking Byzantine world we find comparatively few references to him. But this surely does not mean that the small number of references are unreliable.

Like his predecessor Herodotus, Ctesias has a great deal to report of marvellous springs, lakes and other bodies of water. Indeed, in one of the most noteworthy tales in his book on India, he describes a remarkable well which produces not water but gold. The story has never been discussed in full. A recent scholar, in fact, in one of the few allusions to it, reproduces the account, but only in part, namely the lines which concern the gold. The original narrative, however, includes much more, for it deals, in addition, with the iron found at the bottom of the well and with its remarkable properties, as well as with the two swords of this metal which Ctesias allegedly received, one from the queen-mother, the other from the king.