Persian troops denominated by Greek writers as κάρδακες appear infrequently in our sources for Achaemenid history, though they are recorded as having a substantial presence at Issus (333 BC). A comprehensive study of these troops is lacking and is of potentially great importance to our understanding of the military system of the Achaemenids, particularly after Xerxes' failed enterprise against Greece, and in light of the 10,000 Immortals' general disappearance from the literary record. Whether they were (a) light or heavy infantry and (b) mercenaries or native Persians has long been the subject of debate, with no particularly conclusive results. This study dismisses Strabo as a useful source on the κάρδακες, and attempts to reconcile the divergent source traditions of Arrian, who describes them as , and Callisthenes (recorded by Polybius), who writes of Persian πελτασταί at Issus. From an investigation of a wide variety of texts, together with lexicographical sources, it is possible to conclude that the hitherto enigmatic κάρδακες were general-purpose infantry not dissimilar to Iphicratean πελτασταί, and that, collectively, they constituted an ethnically diverse infantry force.

This article offers a close reading of Pindar's lacunose fr. 140b S.-M. and explores the evidence it includes for Pindar's contributions to contemporary debates and polemics in late sixth- and early fifth-century musical culture concerning, among other things, harmonics, tonal ranges, instrumentation and the boundaries between different genres. By reading the contents of the fragment against the backdrop of other works from the period that similarly engage in these issues and the later revisionary accounts of the questions first raised by the author-musicians of the early classical age, I show how the diction, imagery and structure of the work are designed to position Pindar as one among the current choral innovators. In the discussion's final part, I address the question of the genre to which the piece belongs and propose some fresh ways of addressing this still outstanding matter. At several points, the article also considers some relevant visual evidence.

This article treats the figure of the fox that appears as one of the members of the embassy sent by the animals to Zeus in Callimachus' second Iamb. By exploring previous appearances of the fox in the poetic repertoire, I identify a series of Archaic and early Classical works that Callimachus uses by way of ‘intertexts’, and argue that the Hellenistic author draws on the animal's place within the interconnected iambic and fable traditions that inform his poem. Already visible in these earlier texts, and anticipating Callimachus, is a concern with literary as well as ethical polemics.

A vase fragment from Olbia has been recognized in recent years as a key piece of evidence for the tragic chorus in fifth-century Athenian drama, especially because it shows the use of masks by dancers in such a chorus. This article provides the first clear illustration of the fragment, revealing much detail about the dress of the dancers, with a range of further information about the object (its size, discovery etc.). The illustration shows for the first time that the scene on the fragment includes inscriptions which declare the central aulete and percussionist to be KALOS and each of the two dancers to be KALE. A survey of KALE tags and similar inscriptions shows that there is no direct parallel for these KALE inscriptions. Moreover, these KALE tags are all the more remarkable in that they are attached to dancers who are appearing in female dress and female roles, but who are also male in biological sex. That usage raises the larger issue of gender in the theatre, which is set beside other indications that actors might be treated as in some sense female.

The present paper is intended as a brief summary of acquisitions of the British Museum during the past ten years or so, which may be assigned to the Mycenaean period, and which have not as yet been published. The results of the Museum excavations at Curium and Salamis (Cyprus) in 1895–6 are not included, being reserved for publication elsewhere, and the gold treasure acquired in 1892 has been fully described by Mr. Arthur Evans in the Journal, vol. xiii. p. 195 ff. In the case of the vases the terminus post quem is afforded by the publication of Furtwaengler and Loeschcke's Mykenische Vasen in 1886; for the gems, by the issue of the Museum Catalogue in 1888.

The most convenient classification for a description of this kind is perhaps a geographical one, but as in some cases the provenience of the objects is unknown or indefinite, I have thought it better to group them under the heading of material, with a geographical sub-classification, so far as such is practicable.

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).

The very term ‘third magistrate’ is really a misnomer, as Margaret Thompson has well argued. The men whose names appear as subsidiary signatures on New Style issues were probably contributors to the cost of this annual liturgy—often relatives, friends or political associates of the two men principally concerned. I would like to examine a few of them closely here.

The chronology of the coinage is now fortunately very tight from c. 140 B.C., mainly thanks to Margaret Thompson's magnificent publication. It is true that she herself wanted to move back the isssue of King Mithradates/Aristion from 87/6 B.C. to c. 120 B.C.—and with it the whole coinage—but the case against this is virtually overwhelming. The arguments surely need not be laboured here. One modification, however, should be made in the ‘low chronology’. I earlier followed Lewis in regarding the Apellikon/Gorgias issue as a fixed point in 88/7 B.C. It is certainly the last of the long series of ‘three magistrates’ issues, after which the mint continued with the King Mithradates gold and silver. But I had overlooked a grave historical difficulty.

The Peripatetic philosopher Athenion returned to Athens some time during the summer of 88 B.C., when Mithradates was already master of Asia Minor and threatening Thrace and Macedonia. He promptly had himself elected hoplite general, secured similar commands for his friends and within a few days established a tyranny. One of his friends—Apellikon of Teos—was put in charge of the fleet. With this he was despatched against Delos, in order to secure the island and its treasures for an Athens dedicated to Mithradates' cause. The surprise raid was a fiasco owing to the commander's incompetence and the resolution of the Italian community on Delos. Almost all Apellikon's force of 1000 men were killed or captured, his equipment destroyed. He was lucky to slip away to safety himself.

Documents in the script known as ‘Minoan Linear B’ were unearthed at Knossos in Crete over fifty years ago. About the same time a few examples of the same script were found at Thebes and other places inmainland Greece. But it was not till 1939 that tablets like those from Knossos came to light in Mainland Greece, near the Messenian Pylos, and not till after the Second World War that they appeared at Mycenae itself.

Before the Pylian discoveries, European scholars had made several attempts to read the script; but their conclusions neither persuaded classical scholars nor wakened public interest. In this matter the discoverer of the Knossian documents, Sir Arthur Evans, seems to have imposed his own restraint on others. The acquisition of what may well be the household accounts of King Nestor created a new enthusiasm for the problem; as soon as the war ended, journals on both sides of the Atlantic began to print essays by various writers who hoped to decipher parts of the script. Mr. Michael Ventris was among these writers; and from the outset his methods were bolder and more resolute than those of the others. By 1951 his tentative decipherment of the Linear B script was being circulated privately; by 1952 he was explaining it in lectures addressed to learned societies; and a year later, in collaboration with Mr. John Chadwick, he published a full account of his solution in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (LXXIII (1953), pp. 84–103).

Mr. Ventris' claims are as follows: (1) The language of all the Linear B writings is Greek, and that of a pre-Dorian kind allied to classical Arcadian and Cyprian. (2) The script is in the main a syllabary, akin to the classical Cyprian syllabary. (3) By studying the way in which the syllabic signs are used (their frequency, position in the word, combination of one sign with another, etc.), and by inferring the content of the documents from certain signs which are not syllabic but ideographic, it is possible to discover the phonetic value of most of the syllabic signs. Mr. Ventris describes how he carried out the work of decipherment and produces phonetic values for most of the signs and also rules of orthography; and finally, he shows how his conclusions can be applied to various documents from Knossos and Pylos.

The author discusses an inscription of the late fourth or early third century BC carved on a bronze plaque found in the first excavations at Dodona, on which a Zakynthian, by name Agathon, records a link of proxeny between himself and his family and the Epirote koinon of the Molossians, through Kassandra, the Trojan prophetess. The plaque is decorated by a prominent phallus with testicles, which the author interprets as referring to the continuity, past and future, of the γενεά of Agathon. Other explanations of the whole piece have been proposed, and the present essay is intended only to explore the possibility of this interpretation.

In the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology I have just published a quantity of new evidence with regard to Keftiu, which should be read as an introduction to the present article. The geographical conclusions in that article were drawn from a variety of sources, and were emphatic that this name was applied by the Egyptians to the country comprised within the boundaries of the later Pisidia, Isauria, Lycaonia and Cilicia. Of this tract Cilicia Tracheia seemed to be the centre. We also found ourselves brought into contact on several occasions with the Philistines. This new evidence, therefore, provides a remarkable confirmation of the results drawn from my original archaeological study of the Keftiuans and their civilisation as exhibited to us on the Egyptian frescoes of the XVIIIth Dynasty.

Professor Karo and the excavators of Tiryns have welcomed the publication of the report of the excavations which I conducted at Mycenae for the British School at Athens from 1920 to 1923, and have expressed themselves as in general agreement with the results. In the last two numbers of this Journal, Sir Arthur Evans has queried one or two points and the editors have kindly allowed me to reply to his questions here. This is necessary because some of the facts are not quite correctly stated by him. He is inclined to doubt the architectural evolution of the beehive tomb as set forth in our report, and thinks that the two which are most advanced in construction, the Treasury of Atreus and the Tomb of Clytemnestra, should be assigned to an earlier date. Secondly, he would suggest a somewhat different classification and dating for Late Helladic III. pottery. These two questions hang together, since L.H. III. sherds were discovered under the threshold and under the dromos walls of the Treasury of Atreus. It seems best, however, to treat them separately, and we will deal first with the architectural and other evidence for the dating of the two tholos tombs, and later with the problems of L.H. III. ware. In doing so every care must be taken to prevent the danger of allowing theories or preconceived prejudices to outweigh the facts, that is to say, the archaeological evidence obtained by excavation.

In a brief digression near the end of the Euthydemus (305 b ff.), Socrates describes one of his anonymous critics, who rejects philosophy in general but imagines himself to be both an accomplished thinker and a successful politikos. Clearly, the portrait is that of Isocrates. The similarity between Isocrates' real character and Plato's stylization is so pronounced that we are tempted to describe 305 b ff. as one of Plato's intentional anachronisms (the dramatic date of the dialogue is earlier than the death of Alcibiades, 275 b). The portrait includes several noteworthy points. First, 305 b-c refers to Socrates' opponent as a writer of forensic speeches. To judge from the tone of the entire passage, which is not markedly hostile to the anonymous person (cf. 306 c 6 ff.), that would be an unfair description of Isocrates if written after the publication of the Panegyricus c. 380 BC. Second, Plato defines the unnamed person as both a speechwriter and a practical politician (306 b: ή πολιτικὴ πρᾶξις ‘the statesman's business’). The latter part of the definition does not square with Isocrates' career as schoolmaster and political adviser or, later on, as the author of political pamphlets. Unless it is assumed that 305 b ff. aims at Isocrates' dealing with Realpolitik, he would not have deserved Socrates' criticism that he ‘partakes’ of two different things. In that case, the same reproof for being ‘the border-ground between philosopher and politician’ might have been addressed to Plato himself as a dialectician and, concerning his other activities, as the head of the Academy and the author of such political dialogues as the Gorgias.

The National Museum at Athens houses many fine vases of the late black-figure and early red-figure technique, as well as the Acropolis fragments, but the display cases which perhaps attract no less attention are those containing the small Attic black-figured lekythoi. The paintings on these vases, making no claim to artistic pretensions and produced in answer to local burial needs, often echo impressions the vase-painters received from the theatre or from figures in monumental painting. It is worth noting that they were inspired not only by well-known myths but also by stories of popular belief which the painters of large vases scorned to represent. The large vases were made and painted for the Italian and Etruscan markets and had to be decorated with impressive themes. On the small lekythos which concerns us here (Plate XVIII, 1–2), we meet a unique theme which raises a host of questions and leads to a wealth of conjectures.

The picture is framed by two columns with Doric capitals. The right-hand column, which is the better drawn, spreads to a sort of base, and the painter must have imagined both columns to be of wood. Of the three female figures on either side of the weird figure in the middle, the one on the right, dressed in chiton and himation, turns her head to the left, whilst her feet point to the right. She extends her right arm imperiously, palm open, towards the central figure. The latter is distinguished from the others by the fact that her feet do not appear beneath her himation which hangs below them. Her coiffure differs from that of the others, as we shall see later.

During the course of four months' work with oil-damaged sea-birds at the Richmond Bird Rescue Centre in California, I made notes which may help to establish meanings for the following names, which are left doubtful in D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's Glossary of Greek Birds.

Θρφξ. Mentioned only in Dionysius, Ixeuticon ii 14, iii 25, where it is coupled with the κόλυμβος as a bird that sleeps upon the water. Κόλυμβος or κολυμβίς is almost certainly the Little Grebe, being described by Alexander of Myndus (ap. Athen, ix 315d) as ‘smallest of all the water birds’, and θρᾷξ should also be a grebe. As the grebes treated at Richmond recovered their health, there was abundant opportunity to observe the bird's preference for sleeping on the water, and it was in fact accepted as a rule that birds should spend two days and nights continuously on the water in an outdoor artificial pool before being released in the sea. These were Western Grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis), a species unknown in the eastern hemisphere. For θρᾷξ I would suggest the Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus cristatus), which is certainly known in Thracian waters—‘nowhere so numerous as in the harbour of Istanbul’ in March. But I would suggest that its name (or nickname—οἱ καλουμένοι θρᾷκες: Dionysius loc. cit.) comes rather from its crest, comparable to that of the fox-skin cap and helmet nowadays called Thracian. In a writer of the Roman Imperial period there may also be some reference to ‘Thracian’ gladiators. Western Grebes are very pugnacious birds, until one has gained their confidence, and Great Crested Grebes may share this characteristic.

Phocylides was famous as a poet of admonitory or gnomic verse. Isocrates names him together with Hesiod and Theognis, saying that they are praised as the best counsellors for human life, though their advice is seldom followed (ii 43). He is again bracketed with Theognis by Dio of Prusa (ii 5), Athenaeus (632d), and Cyril (c. Iul., Patrol. lxxvi 841d). Theophrastus quoted a line of Theognis (147) in different works as ‘Theognis’ and as ‘Phocylides’: we should not infer that it occurred in both poets, but simply that people tended to muddle them. And when Phocylides is dated as σύγχρονος Θϵόγνιδος, we must suspect that this was a guess based on nothing more than the similar tendency of their work, for certainly neither named the other.

At the heart of the Thesmophoria festival lies the story of Persephone and the promise of agricultural fertility, but scholars point out that more seems to be at stake, suggesting that the scene of women ‘camping out’ in the sanctuary under the control of the female archons recalls a primitive time when women, perhaps, ruled the city or that the festival creates a place where women are at least beyond the control of men. There are hints, moreover, that during the Thesmophoria women were also actively involved in some kind of juridical activity, especially on the second day of the festival, when they fasted in imitation of Demeter's grief over the abduction of Persephone and the injustice perpetrated against her. Indeed, the epithet Thesmophoros was understood already in ancient times to have some connection with human law. This paper argues that on the second day of the festival women engaged in some kind of impromptu juridical procedure aimed at solving crimes and punishing anonymous wrongdoers and it uses as evidence Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae and a series of curse inscriptions deposited in late Hellenistic times at the Sanctuary of Demeter at Cnidus, as well as a few single examples from Locri, Amorgos and elsewhere.

Historias autem plures novisse oportet, quod multa ornamenta saepe in operibus architecti designant, de quibus argumenti rationem cur fecerint quaerentibus reddere debent. Quemadmodum si quis statuas marmoreas muliebres stolatas, quae caryatides dicuntur, pro columnis in opere statuerit et insuper mutulos et coronas conlocaverit, percontantibus ita reddet rationem. Carya civitas Peloponnensis cum Persis hostibus contra Graeciam consensit, postea Graeci per victoriam gloriose bello liberati communi Consilio Caryatibus bellum indixerunt. Itaque oppido capto viris interfectis civitate desacrata matronas eorum in servitutem abduxerunt, nec sunt passi stolas neque ornatus matronales deponere, uti non una triumpho ducerentur sed aeterno servitutis exemplo gravi contumelia pressae poenas pendere viderentur pro civitate. Ideo qui tune architecti fuerunt aedificiis publicis designaverunt earum imagines oneri ferundo conlocatas, ut etiam posteris nota poena peccati Caryatium memoriae traderetur. Non minus Lacones, Pausania Agesipolidos filio duce, Plataico proelio pauca manu infinitum numerum exercitus Persarum cum superavissent, acto cum gloria triumpho spoliorum et praedae, porticum Persicam ex manubiis, laudis et virtutis civium indicem, victoriae posteris pro tropaeo constituerunt, ibique captivorum simulacra barbarico vestis ornatu, superbia meritis contumeliis punita, sustinentia tectum conlocaverunt, uti et hostes horrescerent, timore eorum fortitudinis effectus, et cives id exemplum virtutis aspicientes gloria erecti ad defendendam libertatem essent parati. Itaque ex eo multi statuas Persicas sustinentes epistylia et ornamenta eorum conlocaverunt, et ita ex eo argumento varietates egregias auxerunt operibus. Vitruvius, De Arch. i 4.8–5.11 Rose.

The scene in Iliad 11 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 to c.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 the Iliad, it seems more prudent than ever to see the Ischia inscription as a reflex not of our Iliad but 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 our Iliad.