In the history of Greek literature, as regarded by the general reader, there are two remarkable intermissions. The first occurs when ancient Greek literature comes to an end with Lucian in the second century after Christ; or perhaps when the hexameter itself begins to dissolve in the hands of Nonnus in the fourth. The second break naturally follows when Byzantine literature is cut short by the fall of Constantinople in 1453—after which it is commonly and wrongly supposed that hardly a Greek put pen to paper, save in the way of commerce or grammar, until the revolutionary songs of Eegas heralded the revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is, however, one of the fascinations of Greek studies that they introduce us to a language that can be traced in an unbroken descent from Homer to the present day: and wherever the Greek language has been spoken the art of literature has never quite perished, though its traces are sometimes rather faint and its beauties rare. But for the complete study of a language second-rate authors must not be neglected where masterpieces are few and far between. Unfortunately it is only in the last fifty years that scholars have turned their attention to publication of the obscure works that carry on the literary tradition from Byzantium to modern Greece. Of these authors ‘of the Turkish period’ the learned Sophocles, in the introduction to his Lexicon, remarks (1860) : ‘It is unnecessary to inform the reader here that, with very few exceptions, they are beneath criticism.’

As the twelve months which have elapsed since my last report was completed have not witnessed any very sensational discoveries, or the inception of any very important new undertakings, I have less than usual to chronicle in the present article. Most of it relates to work done in 1927, of which particulars had not reached me in time for my last report; and I must pass over, for the same reason, several of the campaigns conducted this year. The usual arrangement is followed.

American School

After a year's interval Prof. T. L. Shear this year resumed work on the Theatre at Corinth, aiming chiefly at clearing the stage and following the east parodos to its exit. Only foundations of the stage remain; there are some Greek walls, but the main structure is of Roman date. The walls of the east parodos are well preserved for their whole extent of 42 metres; about halfway along its course the parodos makes a right angle turn to the north, and then continues its course east, rising all the way by a ramp and a flight of steps. At its east end it opens on to a street running north and south, paved and with a raised side-walk. The pavement near the parodos is 5·70 metres wide and runs for a length of 62 metres, but the street continues, unpaved, southward beyond this point. To the north the street opens on to a plaza, not yet fully excavated; to the south it rises by a ramp and steps, skirting the outer wall of the east cavea. In this wall is an opening to a carefully made pit with triangular footholes in the sides; objects found in the filling of the pit date it, with the cavea wall, as early in the time of Augustus. A large number of coins, found with other small objects in a burnt layer 0·50. metre above the pavement, date from the second to the fourth century after Christ.

Through the kind permission of Mr. H. B. Walters, I am enabled to publish a Caeretan hydria, whose whereabouts has for many years been unknown and of which the only previous illustration is the drawing in Endt, Beiträge zur Ionischen Vasenmalerei, figs. 7, 8. This is the hydria with a young man in a chariot, pursued by a griffin, on the front, and two pairs of satyr and maenad, on the back: it is now in the British Museum, and bears the inventory number 1923, 4–19, 1. Before proceeding with a more detailed description of the vase, I give a list of the group, that of Dümmler (Röm. Mitt. iii, p. 166 f.), to which nos. 15–18 were added by Pottier (B.C.H. 1892, p. 254 ff.), no. 19 by Endt (op. cit., p. 1), no. 20 by Loeschcke (Ath. Mitt. xix, p. 516, n. 1.), no. 21 by Furtwängler in the text to F.R. Pl. 51. The bibliography is only intended to give the handiest illustrations: for a full bibliography and an admirable account of the group as a whole, see E. R. Price, East Greek Pottery (C.V.A. Classification, 13).

My excuse for adding another item to the literature of the Hellenistic ruler-cult is that two new ideas have recently come into prominence. One is that the founder of the official ruler-cult was not Ptolemy II but Alexander; the other is that what was worshipped was not the ruler himself but his daemon. The former idea originated with Dr. P. Schnabel, and was derived by him from a new interpretation of the proskynesis scene at Bactra; he argued that Chares' account in Plutarch (Alexander 54) showed that the proskynesis was made to a statue of Alexander standing on an altar (ἑστία) among the hearth-gods: whether Macedonians in the fourth century had hearth-gods he did not consider, but quoted Roman analogies of a later time. This idea has been much criticised, and I know of no one but Professor L. R. Taylor who has accepted it; in particular, Professor Berve has made a strong case for preferring Arrian's version of the proskynesis scene. But, in fact, Schnabel's interpretation of Chares was killed dead at once by Dr. Th. Birt, though this has not been much noticed, perhaps because it only needed one sentence: Chares in the same passage makes Demetrius say to Alexander οὖτος γάρ σε μόνος οὐ προσεκύνησε where the word σε is conclusive that the proskynesis was made to Alexander (and not to a statue on an altar).

An article in J.R.S. xii. 1922, p. 44, stated, on the authority of J.H.S. xxv. 1905, p. 163 ff., that Isaura Nova has been located with certainty at Dorla. My friend Professor Ormerod, the writer of the article, assures me (confirming my own recollection) that I had no responsibility either for the emphasis of this assertion or for its form. Another friend, who speaks with high authority, but who adduces no evidence, has maintained the contrary opinion, not only in J.H.S. xlviii. 1928, p. 49, but even—flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta mouebo—in Klio, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, xxii. 1928, p. 382. I am content to leave the question of responsibility open; if I had any part in the assertion that Isaura Nova was at Dorla, the more pressing becomes my duty to correct it.

The village of Dorla consists of fifty houses, which lie on either side of a small stream flowing northwards from the Isaurian hills (the general direction of the valley at Dorla is 5° E.). About thirty of the houses lie on and around a hillock on the western side of the stream, about twenty lie on the rising ground near the eastern bank. The ancient site, covered in part by the eastern half of the modern village, extends from the stream for some 500 or 600 yards towards the east and north-east; it probably also extends to the western side of the stream, on the south of the hillock.

The inscription with which this article is concerned was first published by S. Ferri. It has been commented on by Ferri, by Wilamowitz, by Heichelheim, and by De Sanctis. The text reproduced below closely follows that of Ferri, but incorporates a few corrections suggested by Wilamowitz and accepted by De Sanctis.

The main content of the inscription is a series of constitutional regulations. By whom, for whom, and at what date were these issued? Ferri, observing a point of contact between the new constitution and that of the Arcadian Federation as described by Xenophon, and finding evidence in several passages of an overriding control by ‘Ptolemy,’ concludes that the document was drafted c. 250 B.C. by the Arcadian reformers Ecdemus and Demophanes, on behalf of the short-lived Κοινὸν τῶν Κυρηναίων of that period, and subsequently confirmed and amended by Ptoemy III Euergetes. In this opinion he has been followed by Beloch and De Sanctis. But he has been effectively criticised by Heichelheim, who points out (i) that the ‘Alexandrian minae’ mentioned in 11. 9–10 of the text went out of circulation under Ptolemy II Philadelphus and (ii) that the ‘Ptolemy’of our inscription, not being styled ‘king,’ can be none other than Ptolemy I Soter, who did not assume the royal title till 305–304 B.C.

The miniature head published here has not been described in detail before. It was found at Naucratis during the excavations of the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1885–6, and presented by the Committee of the Fund to the British Museum in 1888. Its height, from the crown of the head to the flat base of the neck, is 59 millimetres; its length, from the tip of the nose to the circular disk at the back of the coiffure, is 56 millimetres. It is made of greyish-white clay, coated, except on the eyes and base, with a fine greenish-blue glaze; the eyes are left in the light colour of the clay, and the pupils do not appear ever to have been marked. The thin diadem and the earrings are glazed lemon-yellow, for gold. The earrings consisted originally of a thick ring with a conical pendant; both of these pendants have been broken away from the cheek, leaving only the rings intact.

The forehead is long and receding. The arching brows are sharply defined; and the eyes are large and wide open, with delicately drawn lids. The nose is straight, fine, and round-tipped. The mouth is very short and sinuous, with deep-set corners, and crisp, protuberant lips. The ball of the chin is very round; and underneath it is a full roll of flesh, with three more rolls on the neck, which is long and was evidently never attached to a body.

Just after my paper on the Cretan Plays in the last number of this Journal had gone to press, a search for sources of the Erotokritos led me to the works of Luigi Groto, sometimes called Cieco di Hadria. The version of the Romeo and Juliet story which he embodied in his Hadriana (1578–1583) was not as close as I had hoped to the plot of Cornaro's Erotokritos, but there was sufficient evidence that the Hadriana was known to the Cretan poet. It was therefore with some excitement that I learned that Groto had also written a biblical play called Isach, published in 1586 just after his death. This play seems to be excessively rare, and neither of the specialists in Italian literature whom I have had the opportunity of consulting had ever seen it. It is therefore less surprising that it should never have been mentioned in connexion with the Cretan Thysia tou Avraam. It will no longer be necessary to drag in Feo Belcari or Theodore Beza. There is not the slightest doubt that the Thysia is directly modelled on the framework of Groto's Isach.