In February of 401 B.C., Xenophon, the Athenian, set out in a contingent often thousand Greek mercenaries in the army of Cyrus, the Pretender to the throne of Persia. Cyrus, in fact, was leading the army against his brother Artaxerxes, the Great King of Persia, though the real object of the expedition was not revealed officially until the army reached Thapsacus on the Euphrates in July and crossed the river from Syria into Mesopotamia. Xenophon joined the expedition more or less as a diplomatic attaché, not a soldier. But he became an observer and critic, and, since he was a man of talents, he was driven by self-preservation and by disasters which befell them in the end, virtually to take command. His account of these events was not published or written till many years had elapsed: but it is clear that it must have been based on a regularly kept log or diary.

The geographical problems which Xenophon's report of their itinerary raises have occupied scholars and travellers for nearly two hundred years, the earliest attempt to identify the sites mentioned by him being that of d'Anville in 1779. For this long history of an unsettled problem, the reasons are that, firstly, we still know little from cuneiform sources about the ancient geography of Central Mesopotamia, and as yet no monograph exists which studies Babylonia in this period; secondly, that the record of Xenophon, though invaluable, is bedevilled occasionally by false reports or inadequate or misunderstood data, or possibly by errors in transmission of the text; and in our own time, progress has been held up by insufficient study of the ground, in particular of the ancient courses of the Euphrates and Tigris and the canals that fed them—and finally, by the inadequate use of aerial photography.

Sir William Tarn devoted some of the best pages in his Alexander the Great to Alexander's Macedonian troops. He has made many improvements on the account given by H. Berve. Yet doubts may be voiced or amendments suggested.

I. Prodromoi

It is known that the Companion cavalry at Gaugamela were formed in eight squadrons or ilai (Arr. iii 11.8), of which one was the royal squadron par excellence or the ‘agema of the Companions’. It is unlikely that the number of ilai had been reduced since 334, as reinforcements had probably more than compensated for losses (section V). Plutarch, however, says in his life of Alexander (16.2) that at the Granicus Alexander plunged into the stream with 13 ilai. His account of the battle closely resembles Arrian's, and he cites Aristobulus on the number of Macedonian casualties. The statement quoted probably then corresponds to Arrian's (i 14.6) that Alexander ordered the prodromoi and Paeonians under Amyntas, son of Arrhabaeus, into the river, together with one foot regiment which was preceded by Socrates' cavalry squadron, and that he himself followed with the whole right wing. Plutarch's 13 squadrons may thus be identified with the 8 squadrons of the Companions plus 5 of prodromoi and Paeonians. The Paeonians themselves can be classified, perhaps by error, as prodromoi (Arr. iii 8.1) or distinguished from them (i 14.1 and 6; ii 9.2; iii 12.3); they could have formed only a single squadron, distinct from 4 squadrons of prodromoi under command of the same Amyntas (Arr. i 12.7) or sarissophoroi (iv 4.6) of whom we hear elsewhere.

The politicians of Athens in the 350s and the 340s are a shadowy lot save for Demosthenes and Aeschines, neither of whom was an influential figure before 346: the latter had only just begun his political career by that year, and the former was constantly in opposition and singularly unsuccessful. For the great names, Diophantus of Sphettus, Aristophon, Hegesippus and Eubulus, we have to rely almost entirely on scattered allusions in Demosthenes. No Hellenica survives to provide a framework of events: Diodorus xvi is principally Philippica and even omits entirely the most engaging political affair of the age, the making of the Peace of Philocrates. Except for the few fragments of Philochorus, without which we would be almost wholly without bearings, it is on what we can glean from his greatest opponent that we must rely for our understanding of Eubulus. Small wonder it is that the judgements of many modern historians have been strongly hostile to him. In this way great oratory may persuade posterity where it failed in its own age, and we must beware of judging Eubulus from the standpoint of Demosthenes.

By the courtesy of Mr P. A. Brunt whose admirable paper now published (p. 27 ff.) I had the pleasure of reading at an early stage, and of the Editor in allowing me at Mr Brunt's suggestion to add a short note here, I am enabled to write about a point on which I was unable to follow Mr Brunt in his interpretation. It concerns the date at which Oriental cavalry was first introduced by Alexander into the hipparchies of Companion Cavalry, which (following Mr Brunt) I now believe to have become eight in number by a reorganisation of the year 328.

About the Oriental cavalry actually named by Arrian (at the Hydaspes battle) as participating in the invasion of India there is no disagreement between Mr Brunt and myself: the Arachosians and the Parapamisadae horse, the Bactrians, Sogdians, Scythians and Dahae are mentioned by Arrian in terms that show clearly that they were not included in the hipparchies at this time but were serving as separate units (A. v 11.3, 12.2: Brunt, 43 f.). These people, however, represent only a part of the Oriental cavalry forces available to Alexander, if he chose to use them, at any time after (say) early 330 B.C. for the central satrapies of the Persian Empire (Susiana, Persis and Media), and after the end of 330 for the satrapies occupied with little resistance during that year (‘Parthia’, Tapuria with Hyrcania, Areia and Drangiane). These Western or Central Iranians are never named by our sources as having participated in any of Alexander's campaigns, though the Far Eastern Iranians (Bactrians, Sogdians, etc.) are so mentioned by Arrian at the Hydaspes battle, and indeed as early as the year 328 (A. iv 17.3, Bactrians and Sogdians only).

My business is with a poem preserved on two wax tablets from Egypt in Berlin (Inv. no. 14283), dating from about the first century A.D., and first published by Hermann Diels in 1898. Here is a bibliography:

(1) H. Diels, S.B. der Berl. Akad. 1898 847 f. (with photographs of both tablets).

(2) R. Ellis, American Journal of Philology xxi (1900) 76 f. (irresponsible conjectures on the text; utterly worthless).

(3) W. Crönert, Archiv für Papyrusforschung i (1901) 517 f. (brief general comments).

(4) W. Schubart, Papyri Berolinenses (1911) no. 17; photograph of the first tablet with transcript of that part of the text which it contains (all except the last five lines).

(5) W. Schubart, Symbolae Philologicae O.A. Danielsson octogenario dicatae (1932) 290 f. (new transcript, account of the manuscript, brief commentary and critical discussion).

(6) D. L. Page, Greek Literary Papyri i (Loeb Classical Library, 1942; reprinted 1950) no. 114, p. 470 f. (brief discussion, text and translation).

(7) C. A. Trypanis, Classical Review n.s. ii (1952) 67–8 (note on authorship with brief remarks on text).

(8) W. Peek, RE xxii 1 (1953) 430, 440 f., s.v. ‘Poseidippos’ (general discussion).

(9) E. Heitsch, ‘Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit’, Abh. der Ak. der Wiss. in Göttingen, phil.-hist. kl., dritte folge no. 49 (1961 1) 21 (text and apparatus criticus based on Schubart).

In this Journal last year, in the first part of this paper, we began our discussion of Mattingly's proposal to lower the dates of several fifth-century documents: we began with the two from which he started, namely D7 and D14. These two he proposed to put in the late twenties. We and Malcolm McGregor had put them in the early forties, and after discussing what we took to be Mattingly's most formidable arguments we found no cogent reason to change these dates. We therefore did not go again in detail into their historical contexts, into the numismatic consequences of D14 or into the traces which D7 may have left in the long appendix to quota-list 8.

In this second part of our paper we shall discuss the other documents to which Mattingly has assigned more or less plausible new contexts later than those assigned hitherto. In our judgment, the early date of most is indicated by their script, particularly by the fact that most of them write sigma with three bars instead of four, so that it requires arguments of some cogency to move them much below the mid century.

For three documents, Mattingly has alleged reasons of such cogency: for D11 (Miletos); for Tod 40 = SEG x 30 (Nike priestess); for SEG x 24 (epistatai for Eleusis). All these use the three-barred sigma, and if the positive reasons which he alleges for their late date are valid, then he is entitled to refuse our sigma criterion.

Beazley, quoted by Fraenkel ad loc., has suggested that τρίτον Άθῷον αἶπος Ζηνὁς alludes to τρίτος (Σωτήρ) Ζεύς. The role played by Ζεὺς Σωτήρ in the religious thought of Aeschylus and in his treatment of the Oresteia myth is important (cf. Fraenkel on 1387), but this is not by itself sufficient to prove the allusion here. The route Ida-Lemnos-Athos shows no signs of having been artificially contrived in order to bring Athos into the third place, and while Aeschylus evidently intends to give the signal a divine send-off, so to speak, with the triad Hephaestus, Hermes and Zeus, the importation of a particular Zeus into the context makes no useful contribution to this end. τρίτον may undoubtedly evoke thoughts Σωτήρ, but Aeschylean evocations of thought usually have point; hence, perhaps, the caution detectable in Fraenkel's approach to Beazley's suggestion. Our doubts may be resolved by the fact that even if we restrict τρίτον to the literal sense, Σωτήρ is already present in the context by implication, in the word Ἀθῷον. No audience could distinguish between Ἀθῷον and ἀθῷον, and three of the manuscripts have not succeeded in doing so either (ἄθωον MFTr). Aeschylus frequently embarks on word-play, particularly with proper names (see, e.g., Suppl. 45–7, 315; PV 732–4, 848–52; Ag. 681 ff.; Αἰτν. fr. 27 Mette), and in some of the cases is probably exercising the poet's prerogative to coin his own etymologies, but this may be an instance drawn from popular usage. Athos, rising to a height of 2033 m.

Many authorities on ancient Greek architecture state that during the fourth century B.C. the Doric order was in a decline, and that by the Hellenistic period it was virtually abandoned for temples. The archaeological evidence, it is argued, seems to bear this out. Doric temples were built during this period, but they can be dismissed, for instance by Dinsmoor (Architecture of Ancient Greece 267) as ‘for the most part imitations of earlier works, and completion of earlier undertakings, together with a few sporadic but minor structures in which the style was adopted for conservative reasons’. It is clear, however, that the objection was not against the Doric order as such, since it was employed in all Greek areas to the virtual exclusion of the other orders (at any rate externally) in such buildings as stoas, of which large numbers were constructed during this period. We are to suppose, therefore, that it was only for temples that the other orders, Ionic and Corinthian, were considered superior to Doric, and that it was this belief that led to the decline and eventual abandoning of the Doric order. Since Vitruvius (iv 3.1) refers to statements by certain distinguished architects of the period to the effect that Doric was not suitable for temples, it would seem that the case is proved; moreover we are given the causes of this revulsion, quod mendosae et disconvenientes in his symmetriae conficiebantur, and more specifically, quod impedita est distributio et incommoda in opere triglyphorum et lacunariorum. The problems caused by the corner triglyphs in Doric buildings have been admirably expounded by Professor Robertson, and it is not my purpose to discuss them further. I intend instead to discuss whether their effects, during the Hellenistic period, were quite as catastrophic as have been thought.

It is well known that in his eighth year, 1162 B.C., Ramesses III repulsed onslaughts by the Peoples of the Sea or Sea Raiders as they are often called. The migrating horde was composed essentially of a group of closely related tribes, the Philistines, Tjekker and Dene. They were dressed identically alike in the Sea Raider kilt which was divided into panels and fell to a point in front, and they wore a headdress of feathers, as it is supposed to be, Fig. 1. This, it will be noted, is the very dress of the follower of the chariot on the ivory gaming box from Enkomi, Fig. 2. The panelled kilt falling to a point in front is there, as is the headdress on which even the row of circles or rings so often decorating the head band is shown, as well as the neck guard fitting to the back of the head. Another detail on the Enkomi box allies the scene to the Philistines and therefore to their relatives the Tjekker. It is that like those of the Philistines the charioteer leans forward over his horses. This is a very rare attitude to be adopted, though significantly enough it can be found occasionally among the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh. It is also to be seen on one of the Megiddo ivories of a date not later than c. 1150 B.C. It does not occur in the Mycenaean paintings. The point to which the kilt falls is not quite like that of the Sea Peoples for it is broader. On the other hand, the Egyptian paintings show it on a man coming from ‘the ends of Asia’, that is to say the extremest north of Syria. Quite other evidence proves it to be a north Syrian or perhaps Hurrian detail, for it is shown much later on the Loftus ivories from Nimrud which are under this influence. Besides this, one of these ivories shows a kilt which is just that of the Sea Raiders, but without the tassels.

In JHS lxxxi (1961) 67 f. Professor J. M. Cook put forward the engaging theory that the ΕΥΝ coins represent a pro-Spartan alliance formed in 391 and 390 during the resurgence of Spartan power in the Aegean. Without seeking to retrace the argument of my article in the Numismatic Chronicle xvi (1956), I wish to comment on certain points of this new theory.

First, the Theban coins—a difficulty which Cook formulates as follows. ‘The device on the obverse of the ΕΥΝ coins is of course a well-known Theban one; and though the Spartans, having no coinage of their own, could not contribute a Spartan coin-type, it may be objected that they would hardly have used a well-known Boeotian emblem if they were at war with Thebes at the time.’ Cook's solution is to propose that ‘it is quite possible that in 391 (assuming that to be the year of Thibron's departure for Asia) the Spartans may have considered that a treaty of alliance existed between themselves and the Thebans’.

The reviewer of A. Rowe, ‘Cyrenaican Expeditions’ (JHS lxxxii 199–200), in commenting on the catalogue of the coins from the excavations, criticises, without grounds for so doing, the absence of illustrations and the fact that the short descriptions in the text closely follow Robinson, British Museum Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Cyrenaica (CGC) and Svoronos, Νομίσματα τοῦ κράτους τῶν Πτολεμαίων (SN).

The reviewer appears not to have read the footnotes (especially n. 4, p. 29) in which I clearly discuss the whole problem of recording the coins in question:

‘Many of the coins bearing these types are, as the present example, heavily corroded. Weights and sizes have therefore been omitted and the detail recorded comes from the composite evidence of other less damaged specimens (from CGC and SN). The same practice has been followed throughout wherever expedient. In view of the condition of the coins generally, references to standard catalogues are given instead of illustrations.’

The practice of referring to identical issues recorded in standard catalogues seemed to me preferable to the inclusion of a set of illustrations which no printer would have been eager to accept in view of the worn or damaged condition of many of the coins represented.

The subject of this note is a bronze measure bought at Sotheby's in 1948. It was catalogued simply as ‘A Byzantine bronze grain measure of cylindrical form, the exterior horizontally grooved and with four lines of inscriptions round the rim, dark patination, with malachite green encrustation, 5¼ in., 7th/8th Century, fitted case’. I bought it partly because the lettering was a rounded uncial somewhat similar to that of a manuscript in which I was then interested; partly because the longish. inscription seemed to offer a possibility of finding out something of the circumstances of its production; partly because it was in itself a pleasant object. After puzzling for some time in moments of leisure over the inscription, I wrote to Professor Bernard Ashmole about it. He pointed out that if I had been using the up-to-date Liddell and Scott—a failure just slightly less unpardonable then than it would be now—I would have found that the measure had already been published. As the articles indicated to which he referred me (AA 1923–24 153–64, in JdI xxxviii–ix) Borchardt, who first brought the measure to notice, was shown it in Alexandria by a dealer who told him that it came from Antioch. There seems, however, to have been doubt in Borchardt's mind as to whether he had understood what the dealer said on this point.

In her review of my book (JHS lxxxii 171) Professor A. M. Dale writes: ‘… in Pind. Pyth. 2.21 we are asked to hear doch., pher., iambus, the last five syllables forming another doch, by overlap (the extra syllable at the beginning of pher. is not explained). It is not always clear what happens to ictus in these overlaps where there is a conflict, e.g. E. Alc. 443 where λίμναν is left stranded (link?), is Anacreontic and is pher. by overlap Has -σας ictus or not?’

The identity of the pherecratic-iambus Ἰξίονα φαντὶ ταῦτᾶ βροτοῑς is established by the occurrence of the same phrase in the First Olympian, as I pointed out (pp. 76, 143). The initial syllable is explained by the fact that here the phrase echoes 2 ἵππων τε σιδαροχαρμᾶν, just as it is itself echoed in the final cadence 24 ἐποιχομένους τίνεσθαι. All this is made quite clear, I think, in my analysis of the composition as a whole (pp. 141–2, 157).