The course of Homeric criticism during the last twenty years or so has not indeed given us any grounds for thinking that unanimity on fundamental questions is likely to be reached in the near future, but it has accomplished one thing. It is possible now to think and speak of Homer as a man who was born at a definite fortunate moment, ate, drank, and even slumbered, composed two long epics much in the same way as other men of genius have composed great works, had his joys and sorrows, triumphs and disappointments, and ultimately died—it is possible to think and speak of him thus without being considered absurdly simple or simply absurd. And so one can venture to approach the problem of the last section of the Odyssey in just the same way that one would approach a similar literary problem in a later age of the world, taking it for granted that the poet lived and worked under ordinary human conditions. In this paper I assume without discussion the truth of the unitarian view that Homer was the author of the Iliad and of the Odyssey (at least to ψ 296), and also that the Odyssey is the later of the two; I assume that in composing them he was aided by the art of writing; and I assume that he lived about 900–850 B.C. at latest.

I think that those who take an interest in the history of the modern Greek language may possibly welcome a short note on a manuscript in the British Museum, which appears to me to be worth some attention, chiefly perhaps from the point of view of the part played by Greek culture in Roumania in the seventeenth century.

The manuscript in question is Add. MS. 38890 in the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum. It was acquired at Hodgson's sale, June 25, 1914, Lot 413, and is from the collection of the Hon. Frederic North, but was later in the possession of Richard Taylor. It is well written and presents but few difficulties of decipherment, and the number of errors is comparatively small. At the end the date of completion is given, viz. December 1686, and the place of writing—Bucharest.

I think the general character of the MS. will be best explained by the reproduction of the short preface prefixed to it. I give it here, together with a translation. The pages and lines are those of the MS., and spelling, punctuation and abbreviations are reproduced as they stand, though I have not adhered to the very fluctuating use of the acute and grave accents.

Our evidence for events in Argos after her crushing defeat by Kleomenes at Sepeia (circ. 494 B.C.) is so scrappy, incoherent, and to a large extent so late, that accurate reconstruction is well-nigh impossible. But a fresh attempt may at least throw into relief certain points which deserve more consideration than they seem to have received.

If we except the passage in Aristotle, Pol. 1303A (the exact significance of which is disputed), our sole authority for the so-called Servile Interregnum is Herodotos, Bk. 6, 83. It is necessary to quote the passage in full.

Ἅργος δὲ ἀνδρῶν ἐχηρώθη οὕτω ὥστε οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτῶν ἕσχον πάντα τὰ πρήγματα ἄρχοντές τε καὶ διέποντες, ἐς ὅ ἐπήβησαν οἱ τῶν ἀπολομένων παῖδες. ἔπειτέ σφεας οὑτοι ἀνακτώμενοι ὀπίσω ἐς ἑωυτοὺς τὸ Ἂργος ἐξέβαλον• ἐξωθεύμενοι δὲ οἱ δοῦλοι μάχῃ ἔσχον Τίρυνθα. τέως μὲν δή σφι ἦν ἄρθμια ἐς ἀλλήλους, ἔπειτα δὲ ἐς τούς δούλους ῆλθε ἀνὴρ μάντις Κλέανδρος, γένος ἐὼν Φιγαλεὺς ἀπ᾿ Ἀρκαδίης• οὕτος τοὺς δούλους ἀνέγνωσε ἐπιθέσθαι τοῖσι δεσπότῃσι. ἐκ τούτου δὲ πόλεμός σφι ἦν ἐπὶ χρόνον συχνόν, ἐς ὄ δὴ μόγις οἱ ᾿Αργεῖοι ἐπεκράτησαν

Dr. Macan infers from this chapter ‘the admission of the “slaves” to the franchise.’ The wording of the first sentence in the extract may seem to support this inference, but Dr. Macan himself considers the chapter to involve both ‘exaggeration and misconception,’ and we may later see some considerations that tell against his inference. For myself I can find in Herodotos' account no convincing evidence of the actual and formal enfranchisement of the slaves. On the contrary, they are throughout described as δοῦλοι, and the last episode in the narrative is an attack from Tiryns of these slaves against their masters. Another remarkable point is that until the outbreak of hostilities at the finish, we hear nothing of any actual conflict between the slaves and their Argive owners.

In the Museum of Alexandria is to be seen a colossal head of fine workmanship which has its face curiously surrounded by rough planes where curly hair would be expected, and where this must have been added originally in coloured plaster (Pl. I. a). It has been taken for a head of Sarapis or Zeus, and I must confess I have accepted the former name unsuspiciously, so great is the similitude in style to the various copies of the Sarapis of Bryaxis, of which the Egpytian museums possess several by far exceeding in artistic merits the more generally known head of the Vatican. On the other hand, it reminded me so much of the famous Blacas Asklepios from Melos in the British Museum (PL I.b) that I did not doubt the likeness went so far as to prove the latter to be another work of Bryaxis.

From The Roman to the Turkish conquest of Greece, a period of sixteen centuries, Athens produced only three historians: Dexippos, Praxagoras and Laonikos Chalkokondyles. Of the two first only meagre fragments have come down to us; indeed, of the three treatises of Praxagoras, The Kings of Athens, composed when he was only nineteen, his History of Constantine the Great, written at the age of twenty-two, and his maturer study of Alexander, King of Macedon, only a summary of the second, amounting to two pages, has been preserved by that omnivorous reader, Photios, in his Library. Such juvenile histories cannot, however, have had much greater value than prize essays, conspicuous rather for their correctness of style than for any seasoned judgment. But we may regret that only thirty-five pages of the three works of Dexippos, The Events after the Death of Alexander, The Historical Epitome, which went as far as the time of Claudius II. in 268, and The Scythian Affairs, have survived. For Dexippos was an author of a very different type, a man of affairs as well as of letters, the type of historian of which we have familiar examples in England in Grote and Macaulay, in Clarendon and Bryce. A worse writer, but a better general, than his model, Thucydides, he defeated the Goths when they invaded Athens, on which occasion a Gothic leader urged the sparing of the Athenian libraries, in order that the Athenians might unfit themselves for the arts of war by much study of books! After these two historians, who flourished, Dexippos in the third, and Praxagoras in the fourth centuries, no Athenian took their place till, in the second half of the fifteenth, Laonikos Chalkokondyles composed the extant ten books of his history, one of the most interesting and valuable productions of the mediaeval Greek intellect.

Few Greek statues are so famous as the draped marble figure, somewhat larger than life, known under the name of ‘Sophocles,’ which has been for many years the chief attraction of the Lateran Museum (Figs. 1, 2). Indeed it was on account of this statue, and on the occasion of its discovery, that Pope Gregory XVI ordered a part of the Lateran Palace to be converted into a Museum, wishing to provide the gem with a worthy shrine of its own.

Nor is such fame undeserved.

The calm and dignified attitude, the high-spirited head, the clever and harmonious arrangement of the drapery, the careful, broad and supple workmanship—everything combines to make our statue not only a masterpiece of Greek art, but the classical type of an Athenian gentleman shown in the bloom of full manhood, as he may have been met with sauntering about the theatre or agora in the fifth century B.C.

Though all do not agree that we have here, as has been often said, the finest lifesize portrait which has come down to us from Hellenic sculpture, at any rate, since the first day of its appearance, artists and archaeologists have been unanimous in its praise.

The vase reproduced on Pl. II. and in Figs. 1 and 2 was sold by Messrs. Sotheby in the summer of 1919, and is now in the collection of Mr. William Randolph Hearst of New York. It is unbroken and well preserved. The height is sixteen inches and a half, say forty-two centimetres. Photographs of both sides were published in the sale catalogue; but the drawings from which Pl. II. has been made have not been published before.

The shape of the vase is not a common one. It is a kind of amphora; and I use the word amphora, unqualified, to cover all those types in which the neck passes into the body with a gradual curve; instead of being set sharply off, as it is in the neck-amphorae, in the amphora of Panathenaic shape, and in the amphora with pointed foot.

Three types of amphora were used by the makers of red-figured vases. Type A, which has flanged handles and a foot in two degrees, is used by black-figure painters as early as the middle of the sixth century, is a favourite with the painters of the archaic red-figured period, and disappears about 460. Type B, which has cylindrical handles and a foot in the form of an inverted echinus, is older than type A; for it is used by Attic painters at the very beginning of the sixth century.

The circumstances attending the death of the Caliph Mamoun (A.D. 833) are thus related by Masoudi (+ c. 956), who wrote about a century after the event. On his return from a victorious raid against the Greeks the Caliph encamped in the beautiful valley of Bedidoun. Like all Orientals, he was susceptible to the charm of clear, running water, and at his orders a rustic pavilion was constructed over the spring called Kochaïrah, from which the river Bedidoun flowed. In this the Caliph sat. A silver coin was thrown into the spring, and so clear was the water that the legend of the coin beneath its surface could be read. Mamoun then noticed in the spring a fish ‘a cubit long and shining like an ingot of silver,’ which he desired should be caught for him. This was done, but the fish, when brought to the Caliph, escaped by a sudden movement into the spring, sprinkling the Caliph's breast, neck and shoulders with cold water as it did so. It was again caught, and the Caliph gave orders that it should be cooked. As he did so he was seized by a shivering fit, and when the fish was cooked he was in a high fever and unable to eat it. This was the beginning of the illness which caused his death. Before this took place he had the guides and prisoners called and asked them the significance of the name of the spring Kochaïrah. He was told that it meant ‘stretch out thy feet,’ which he took for an omen of his death. He then asked the Arab name of the country he was in: the reply was ‘Rakkah.’ As it had been foretold him that he should die at a place thus named, he knew that his hour was come. And he died then and was carried to Tarsus and buried on the left side of the mosque.

On January 20th, and again on February 10th of this year, while digging was taking place on the property of M. Poulopoulos between Erysicthon Street and Thessalonica Street, near the ancient Ceramicus, for the construction of a shop, sections of the Themistoclean circuit wall were brought to light. Built into them were found three quadrangular bases of Pentelic marble, two of which have sculptured reliefs on three of their four sides, while the third has on its principal face alone a painted design, and inscriptions, both of which, however, have been almost completely defaced with some sharp tool.

On the upper and lower surfaces of all three bases are large ellipsoid or rectangular depressions, in the centre of each of which is a socket with lead filling, the upper one being for fixing the statue, the lower for fixing another quadrangular block to complete the basis.

These bases are now in Room A of the National Museum.