Last year, Dr. Diepolder, in the Münchner Jahrbuch, drew attention to a relief published by Stackelberg in 1836. Stackelberg states that it was found near Megara and was bought by a Dr. MacMichael and sent to England. Nothing has been heard of it since. Stackelberg took the relief to be Hadrianic: Diepolder showed that it was an Attic tombstone from the later part of the fifth century, standing particularly close to the fine monument, recently discovered in Salamis and now in the museum at Piraeus, of the two young soldiers Chairedemos and Lykeas. Diepolder dates both reliefs in the twenties of the century, partly by comparison with the dated relief at Eleusis. Not long after the appearance of Diepolder's article I received a letter from Professor Harrower enclosing a photograph of a marble which he had admired in Cairness House, Aberdeenshire. This proves to be the missing Stackelberg relief. The owner, Colonel C. T. Gordon, kindly gave permission for the photograph to be reproduced in the Journal, and added to his kindness by answering several queries of mine, and by consenting to write a brief account of his grandfather, General Thomas Gordon, who brought the relief to this country, and who played an interesting and important part in the history of modern Greece.

Amongst the drawings in the Elgin Collection at the British Museum are many from the sculptures of the Parthenon made by William Pars in 1765–6. Two of the drawings representing the long middle slab of the Eastern Frieze, and the slab next to it on the left, are exceptional in not being merely pencil drawings; these are tinted with the brush in sepia and are highly finished and wonderfully delicate. They are not signed, but it may be safely assumed that they are by Pars. Pars was sent out with the Chandler expedition, organised by the Society of Dilettanti in 1764, partly for the purpose of completing the work of Stuart and Revett in Athens from 1751 to 1753. Pars was engaged for several months in drawing the sculptures of the Parthenon. This work, according to Chandler, he executed ‘with diligence, fidelity and courage.’ Courage was needed, for he drew the frieze of the cella from the stone beam of the peristyle. He recorded all of it that was then on the building, together with some slabs which had been removed from their places. At a meeting of the Society of Dilettanti on December 2, 1766, ‘A great variety of Views and Drawings of Basso relievos of the Temple of Minerva at Athens, and others, were produced by Mr. Pars, which appear'd to the Committee to be done with Taste and Accurateness.’ The original tinted view of the east front of the Temple now hanging in the Elgin Gallery shows his powers of observation and minute record. In this view the metopes have their subjects really drawn in little spaces not much more than a quarter of an inch square.

Much has been written, in recent books and articles on early Greek history, of the so-called ‘trade-leagues,’ whose existence is thought to be implied by the statements of ancient writers about the feuds and alliances of the Greek cities before the Persian Wars. This conception is stimulating and in part sound, but over-simplified and ‘diagrammatic’; it is very easy, where the evidence is so incomplete, to make too much of such information as we have. The ‘trade-leagues’ did exist, but they must have been extremely loose-knit. Evidence of formal organisation such as we should naturally associate with the word ‘league’is wholly lacking. Miletus, Chios, Eretria and their allies—Samos, Chalcis, Corinth and their allies—form, each group, an entente cordiale rather than an alliance properly so called; and certain states, notably Naxos and Paros, seem to transfer their allegiance from one side to the other as circumstances dictate.

Buschor, by his Crocodile, has brought order into the study of Attic plastic vases, but even after Buschor much remains to be done. I propose to examine and classify the Attic vases in the form of human heads. I shall not discuss, or not fully, either the vases in the form of complete human figures —the Dionysos in London, the satyrs in Saraievo and Taranto; or the sphinxes; or the groups—mounted Amazon, blackamoor and cayman, pygmy and dead crane; or the small and usually petty plastic adjuncts to hydriai, oinochoai, kyathoi, epinetra; or the head-vases and bust-vases of the fourth century, which are best studied in connexion with the other plastic vases of the same period.

Some head-vases are oil- or perfume-pots, others drinking-vessels, others jugs. The perfume-pots have the same mouth, neck, and handles as a round aryballos: fourth-century vases borrow this part from the squat lekythos, but with these we are not concerned. The drinking-vessels, whether two-handled or single-handled, have a kantharos mouth: I shall keep the word kantharos for the two-handled sort; the single-handled kantharos I shall call a mug. The jugs nearly always have the same mouth as the kind of vase which I have called oinochoe shape I: but three other kinds of mouth occur as exceptions, and will be noted each in its place.

The article published by Mr. Tarn on ‘The Hellenistic Ruler-Cult and the Daimon’ in J.H.S., 1928, p. 206, is convincing in its main points and an effective refutation of certain serious errors into which Miss Taylor and Dr. Schnabel have fallen. I merely write this note to criticise his interpretation of two passages in his Greek authorities, which I consider wrong, while it does not affect his main argument.

The first is Plutarch, Alexand. c. 54 (p. 696 A), containing the account given by Chares of Mitylene of Alexander's feast, where all the guests drank his health with προσκύνησις, except Kallisthenes, who refused this act of adoration: the first who received the cup from Alexander is said πρὸς ἑστίαν ἀναστῆναι καὶ πιόντα προσκυνῆσαι πρῶτον, εἷτα φιλῆσαι τὸν Ἀλέξανδρον: the phrase πρὸς ἑστίαν ἀναστῆναι puzzled Dr. Schnabel, but Mr. Tarn regards as convincing Prof. Otto's elucidation, ‘who has brilliantly shown that the function of the ἑστία in question was to carry the eternal fire which burnt before the Persian kings’ (p. 207). According to this, the first person who drank Alexander's health rose and before he drank turned towards the πῦρ ἀθάνατον. I need not discuss the significance of this act; for Mr. Tarn himself does not, and I regard the explanation as far-fetched, unnatural, and in fact impossible; for the words will not bear the weight put upon them.

The Bacchae remains a puzzle. It is hard to be content with an interpretation of the play which makes Dionysus the hero, and even approximates him to Christ. Dionysus is more like Judas; he fondles the man whom he means to kill (1. 933). It is equally hard to believe that he is, as Pentheus said, a mere human hypnotist, a γόης ἐπῳδὸς (1.234) and an impostor. For the play is the story of how Pentheus, acting on that belief, was ruined utterly.

I propose to argue, first, that Euripides is here, as elsewhere, a realist, giving us a picture of Dionysus worship as it really was; and that the miracles are meant as evidence of the presence of some supernatural power; and secondly, that if we want to know his judgment on that religion, we shall come nearest his thought, if not his vocabulary, in saying that it seemed to him devilish.

The question as to the sources of metals in ancient Greece, as also in the whole of Europe, in the bronze age, has for some time exercised archaeologists. Apart from certain regions, little exploration has been carried out with regard to ancient mines, and there has especially been a tendency to take a long view in archaeology, and to connect across considerable distances regions where metal is known to have been worked in early times with regions where there is no information on the subject. But early mines are often hard to detect, as either the ore was completely exhausted, or the early workings have been obliterated by later peoples. There is, however, room for much careful investigation in this field, and metal being one of the most important objects of early commerce, the discovery of the sources used should throw a considerable light on this extremely complicated subject.

So much has already been written about the battle of Marathon that it is only with great hesitation that the present writer ventures to make another contribution to the subject. But it seems that in spite of the various conjectures and explanations that have been advanced, there is still a solution of the shield signal which has escaped notice hitherto, and which simplifies the story.

For the general scheme of the battle this paper follows in the main the first reconstruction by Mr. J. A. R. Munro (J.H.S. xix. p. 185), with which Dr. Grundy is in substantial agreement (The Great Persian War): the essential feature in this version is, of course, the division of the Persian forces at Marathon after a delay of several days. It is only in the interpretation of the shield signal that any claim to originality can be made, and the view of the signal here given is based on the acceptance of the Herodotean story that a shield was flashed, and that it was flashed when the barbarians were already in their ships.