The period which succeeded the fourth crusade is perhaps the most intricate period in the history of Greece. The capture of Constantinople which then took place, and the partition of the Eastern Empire between the invading Powers, displaced for a time and permanently enfeebled the Byzantine government, and the various western principalities which arose on its ruins had no real bond of unity, nor strength to impart vitality to them severally. Hence their subsequent history is composed of a succession of struggles and changes, accompanied by shiftings of boundaries which are almost bewildering. According to the treaty of partition which was ratified beforehand by the attacking parties, the empire was to be divided into three parts, one of which should be assigned to the Latin emperor who was to rule at Constantinople, another to Venice, and a third to the remaining powers who took part in the expedition: but in practice this was never carried out, and large portions of the conquered territory fell to the share of adventurers. The position of Emperor of Romania was conferred on Baldwin, Count of Flanders; most of the islands, as might be expected, passed into the hands of Venice; Boniface, Marquis of Monferrat, who had held the office of commander-in-chief of the Crusaders, was established as King of Salonica, with the province of Macedonia; other chieftains occupied various parts of Greece Proper as feudatories of the empire; and Athens itself became the seat of an important principality under a Burgundian nobleman, Otho de la Roche, who received the title of Μέγας Κύριος, or Grand-sire, which was subsequently exchanged for that of Duke. It is in imitation of this title that Dante, who was a contemporary of this dukedom during its flourishing period, speaks of Theseus as ‘Duca d'Atene,’ while he calls Pisistratus ‘Sire’ of the same city. Hence, also Shakespeare, following the Italian writers, introduces Theseus as Duke of Athens, in Midsummer Night's Dream It is noticeable also that though the majority of these new occupants were not French either by descent or by political allegiance, yet the French language was so generally spoken by them that the name Frank, which I have introduced into the heading of this paper, came to be used at that time, as it is at the present day, in those countries as a common title for the inhabitants of Western Europe.

Towards the end of the year 1204, the same in which the Latins captured Constantinople, Geoffrey Villehardouin, a French knight of a noble family in Champagne, and nephew of the Marshal of Romania of that name, whose chronicle has already been mentioned, was returning from Palestine, whither he had proceeded as a crusader, independently of the main expedition, on hearing of the successes of the Franks in overthrowing the Eastern Empire. Owing to stress of weather, however, he was forced to take refuge in the harbour of Modon (Methone) at the south-west angle of the Peloponnese, and while he was kept wind-bound at that place, entered into communication with one of the Messenian nobles, John Cantacuzenus, who was connected by marriage with the imperial family of Angelus, the successors of the Comneni, and conceived in connection with him a scheme for subduing this province of Greece. The circumstances of the country were in many ways favourable to such an undertaking, for the centralising policy of the Byzantine government, which feared nothing so much as revolt, had from time immemorial discouraged all organisation for purposes of self-defence on the part of the provincials, and that government itself had for the moment been destroyed. The prize, moreover, was a tempting one, for this portion of Greece had for several centuries been comparatively undisturbed by attacks from without and by internal struggles, and consequently was carefully cultivated and possessed a considerable amount of accumulated wealth. The alliance of Villehardouin with a native chieftain caused a prepossession among the Greek inhabitants in his favour, and this was afterwards strengthened, when they found that he was disposed to respect their privileges. In this way he with no great difficulty made himself master of the western coast of Messenia, the rich plain of Elis with its capital Andravída, and even the important city of Patras. But early in the following year John Cantacuzenus died, and his son Michael, discovering that the French leader was aiming merely at his own aggrandisement, broke off the alliance with him, and summoned the Greeks to arms in order to expel the invaders. Villehardouin perceived that he would soon be reduced to great straits owing to the smallness of the force at his disposal.

The Greek Chronicle, which brought to light the feudal organisation of the Frank Principality, and is the principal authority for the first century of its existence, was first printed from the manuscript in the Paris library in 1841 by M. Buchon in his Chroniques étrangères relatives aux Expéditions françaises pendant le treizième Siècle. Its existence had long been known, for Ducange in his Greek Lexicon refers to it under the title De bellis Francorum in Morea; and the frequency of his quotations from it attests its value for linguistic purposes, so that it appears in some cases to be the earliest, and in some the only, authority for certain mediaeval Greek words. Ducange also intended to publish it, but was prevented by death, and no use was made of it as a historical document until Buchon's time. When it was first published, the editor believed that it was an original work; but this opinion he was led to alter by the discovery in 1845 of a French text in the library at Brussels, entitled Le Livre de la Conqueste de la Princée de la Morée. The view that this was the earlier of the two, and that the Greek version was derived from it, is now generally accepted, though it was doubted by so excellent a critic of Byzantine literature as the late Dr. Ellissen, who published extracts from the Greek poem, with a verse translation into German and historical notes, in the second volume of his Analekten der mittel- und neugriechischen Literatur, in 1856. The French chronicle was printed as vol. i. of Buchon's Recherches historiques sur la Principauté française de Morée, while the second volume of that work contained another Greek text, taken from a manuscript discovered at Copenhagen. This latter is undoubtedly superior to the text of the Paris manuscript, as it is fuller, and supplies many of its lacunae; but it is inferior in respect of orthography and metre: in the following pages, however, the references are made to the Copenhagen text, and the quotations are taken from it, unless the contrary is stated, because in it alone the lines are numbered. The poem, as edited by Buchon from the Copenhagen manuscript, supplemented in parts by the other, contains 9219 lines of ‘political’ verse, of which 1332 belong to the Prologue, and the remaining 7887 to the Conquest of the Morea. Its title is Χρονικὰ τῶν ἐν Ῥωμανίᾳ καὶ μάλιστα ἐν τῷ Μωρέᾳ πολέμων τῶν Φράγκων; for though the editor has given to the whole work the title Βιβλίον τῆς κουγκέστας, by which it is generally known, and to the part that follows the prologue the separate heading Τὸ πῶς οἱ Φράγκοι ἐκέρδισαν τὸν τόπον τοῦ Μωραίως, which is a line from the poem itself, yet these convenient appellations are his own invention. The Livre de la Conqueste carries the history twelve years further down than the Greek chronicle, for it continues to A.D. 1304, while the Greek manuscripts end in 1292.

The following descriptions of the position and present state of some of the most interesting places connected with the history of the Frank Principality are the result of a journey through the Peloponnese, made with the object of investigating the remains of that period. The ordinary routes through the peninsula, which are followed by tourists naturally anxious to visit the classical antiquities, lead to but few of those sites, and therefore it is almost necessary to undertake a special journey in order to explore them. No doubt the mediaeval fortifications of Patras, Corinth, Argos, and Nauplia, which are frequently visited, are among the finest in the country; but these, as we have seen, are but little associated with the history of the Principality, Patras and Corinth having followed for the most part an independent policy of their own, while Argos and Nauplia were attached as a fief to the dukedom of Athens, and remained in the hands of the family of Brienne even after their expulsion by the Catalans from their possessions in northern Greece. The same thing is true of the maritime fortresses of Modon and Coron in the south-west corner of the Peloponnese, for they were almost from the first in the hands of Venice. Hence the parts of the country which deserve especial attention in connection with this period are the north-western, the central, and the southern districts—or, to adopt the ancient names, Elis, Arcadia, and Laconia, together with the eastern portion of Messenia. The course of my own tour was from Corinth by way of Argos, Nikli (Tegea), and Mistra, to Monemvasia on the extreme south-east coast; thence by Passava in Maina and Kalamata through the pass of Makriplagi to Karitena and Akova in north-western Arcadia; and finally through Elis, visiting Khlemoutzi, Klarentza, and Andravida, to Patras. In what I have now to say, however, I prefer to invert this order, and to commence with the western portion, which formed the headquarters of the Principality. Some of the places to be noticed have been visited by Leake, others by Ernst Curtius; Buchon, also, who was indefatigable in every branch of his subject, made a journey in 1840 and 1841 in quest of these Frankish antiquities, an account of which is given in his interesting volume, entitled La Grèce continentale et la Morée. But the majority of the sites are so little known, and the subject has attracted so little attention, that a succinct account of them, which is the result of personal inspection, may not be without value.

The following inscription was copied by Mr. A. S. Murray when travelling with Mr. Newton in Asia Minor in 1870, ‘from a stelè at the door of a house at Kelibesch.’ It has been put into my hands for publication because the inscribed marbles brought from Prienè by Mr. Pullan in 1870, and presented to the British Museum by the Society of Dilettanti, have been prepared by me for the press, and are now in course of publication. They will form a portion of Part iii. of the Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum. Kelibesch is a Turkish village on the southern slope of Mt. Mykalè, a short distance from the ruins of the temple of Athenè Polias at Prienè. A description of it will be found in Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, vol. i., p. 197. Mr. Murray's memoranda do not furnish any account of the size or colour of the marble employed for this stelè: but it is evidently entire at the top and right side; the left-hand edge is slightly injured, but a good deal is broken off at the bottom.

In the very important Delian inscriptions of which one is published by M. Homolle in the sixth volume of the Bulletin dc Correspondance Hellénique, mention is made among the votive offerings preserved in the temple of Apollo of several sorts of coins. In his comments upon these mentions, both in the inscription which he publishes, and in others which he has read and copied, M. Homolle is less correct than in other parts of his very valuable paper; numismatics being a branch of archaeology in regard to which excellent scholars are sometimes strangely ill-informed. It may perhaps be of some service, in view of M. Homolle's further publications in the same line which may be shortly expected, to insert here a few notes on the votive coins of his Delian lists; and so contribute a little to the full success of his very important labours.

The object of this paper is to bring before the notice of the Society two unpublished vases relating to the escape of Odysseus and his comrades from the cave of Polyphemus. I shall endeavour to show:

1st. The place that these two vases take in the history of vase painting, and certain special points of interest that attach to each of them.

2nd. The relation of the designs on each of these vases to what I must call the ‘typography’ of the myth they represent.

The two questions can in fact, as it is now well understood, scarcely be considered apart. To analyse a vase satisfactorily it is as necessary to consider its ‘typography,’ i.e. the exact form in which the legend is embodied, and the relation of that form to other forms preceding and following, as it is to discuss the actual technique of the design.

The interesting statuette of Eros, a photographic print of which accompanies this paper, was presented by His Majesty the King of the Hellenes to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, who has been good enough to permit its publication in these pages. It is of terra-cotta, gilt, and measures 10¼ inches in height without the plinth. It is almost uninjured; but the thumb of the right hand is a restoration. At the back is the usual round air-hole.

It is evident at once that we have here to do with a very unusual representation of Eros, and with one which is to most people singularly pleasing: the head in particular being very attractive. In spite of grave faults in the modelling which reveal themselves on closer inspection, it remains clear that the statuette must be derived from some notable sculptural type. On first seeing it I was at once convinced that it must stand in no distant relation to one of the celebrated statues of Eros, by Praxiteles; and subsequent study has, I hope, put me in a position to prove what was at first mere matter of surmise.

When I undertook in the months of August, September, and October, 1882, my last excursion into Asia Minor, my principal object was to explore some very little known districts in the northern part of that country. Of these Paphlagonia has hitherto been almost a blank on all critical maps, traversed only by two or three routes of Hamilton, Ainsworth, and Tchichatcheff which gave no hint whatever as to the configuration, the present condition, and the ancient remains of the province. The adjacent parts of Galatia, the inferior course of the Halys, the tract lying between this river and the Iris, the source and length of the famous Thermodon, had all likewise remained unexplored until the present day. No doubt their lack of historical interest must be held to account for their neglect by recent travellers. There were even some important points on the coast-line, such as Kytoros and Kinolis, which had not been visited since Tavernier, two centuries ago.

My starting point was Ineboli, the ancient Abonu teichos Paphlagoniae, lying about the centre of the northern coast of Asia Minor. Hence I explored, as far as was possible in the course of a rapid ride, the western half of the province as far as the river Parthenius. The mountainous character of the country proved very unfavourable for travelling. The mountains were crowded as it were very closely together, separated only by narrow ravines, while the ascents were of extraordinary steepness. Indeed the paths were on the whole far more difficult than I had met with before even in the Taurus of Pisidia and Cicilia.

It is unfortunate that Dr. Buchholz's great book on the Homeric Realien should have had no more adequate guides in the difficult and interesting questions relating to archaic Greek armour than the now rather unsatisfactory work of Rüstow and Köchly, Die Geschichte des Griechischen Kriegswesens (Aarau, 1852). That treatise was written some thirty years ago, when archaeology was comparatively young. In discussing heroic arms the authors make no distinction of archaic and late monuments, while of course they were ignorant of the revolution in our ideas of primitive Greece brought about by recent discoveries, of which those of Dr. Schliemann at Mykenai occupy the chief place. Some valuable hints have been given by Dr. Autenrieth in his Homeric Dictionary, and will also be found scattered through the notes of Ameis and Hentze in their edition of the Iliad; but no important monograph on the question has appeared, so far as I am aware, and we must not perhaps complain if Dr. Buchholz has had to take an antiquated treatise for his text, relegating to notes the scattered suggestions which he has found elsewhere. Dr. W. Helbig's promised work, Das Homerische Epos aus den Denkmälern erläutert, will doubtless leave little to be desired when it appears; meanwhile the following somewhat disconnected suggestions may possibly be of help in clearing up various disputed points.

The document which is the subject of the following paper has the interest of being the only copy of the only direct record of a whole period of Greek literature—the period, namely, of the poets who carried on the traditions of Homeric art in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. It is a fragment in a double sense: first because it is a mere extract, and secondly because the pages on which it is preserved are themselves in a fragmentary condition. It professes to be derived from a certain χρηστομάθεια γραμματική—a kind of primer or résumé of Greek literature—the work of a grammarian named Proclus; and contains, with other matter, part of his account of the so-called ‘Epic Cycle.”

Regarding Proclus himself nothing is certain, except that he is not Proclus Diadochus, the Platonic philosopher of the fifth century. According to Welcker's probable conjecture, he is to be identified with Eutychius Proclus of Sicca, instructor of the emperor M. Antoninus

Of peculiar interest among the Arundel marbles of the Pomfret donation at Oxford, is a slab in the shape of a pediment, ‘in which there is in basso relievo the figure of a man as big as the life with his arms extended as if he was crucified, but no lower than about his paps is seen, the cornice cutting him off as it were; and this extension of his arms is called a grecian measure, and over his arm is a grecian foot.’ The marble thus described by George Vertue, the engraver, was first published in Chandler's Marmora Oxoniensia, Pt. I., Pl. lix., No. 166, but its importance was completely overlooked until the late Prof. Matz, in one of his last papers, published a better drawing and pointed out the artistic interest of the relief as a sculpture belonging to a rather early period of Greek art. On the other hand, the merit of the monument as an authentic document of Greek metrology was set forth, at my request, by my friend Dr. Fr. Hultsch, the author of Griechische Metrologie, whose views are repeated in my Ancient Marbles in Great Britain. The chief result of his exposition was that our relief unites in a most interesting way the indication of the length of a fathom (ὀρλυιά) of 2·06 or 20·07 m. with that of a foot of 0·295 m., which is not, as one might expect, the sixth, but exactly the seventh part of the fathom. As such a division of the fathom does not agree with the well-known facts of Greek metrology, Hultsch imagined that the foot on our marble might rather be a modulus used by sculptors and architects, and he observed that the recent excavations of Olympia seem to show the dimensions of some of the temples, particularly of the very old temple of Heré, to be based on a double measure, on a foot but little longer (of 0·298 m.), as well as on a fathom of 2·084 m. which, again, corresponds to seven of those feet.

Impressions of the following additional inscriptions have been sent me by Mr. Albert Biliotti, from marbles found by himself or his agents at different parts of Rhodes:—

10. On a fragment of marble complete on the top edge only. From the Akropolis of Kamiros. Height 10 in. by 13½ in.

This seems to be a fragment of a list of priests, ἱερεῖς, ἱεροποιοὶ, or ἱεροθύται, perhaps similar to Foucart, No. 62: the letters are clear, well cut, and of a fairly good period. It is unfortunate that the upper portions containing the names of deities should be so little preserved; there is sufficient however still remaining to enable us to recover the title of a deity who has been I believe hitherto unknown—Apollo Mylas—such at least seems to be a reasonable explanation of the fragmentary word at the end of the second line.

Few monuments of ancient art possess either a more obvious beauty and attraction, or a greater interest for the archæological student, than the sarcophagus painted with various scenes of an Amazonomachia, which was discovered in 1869 in a grave at a little distance from Corneto, the ancient Tarquinii, and was a few years afterwards acquired for the Egyptian and Etruscan Museum at Florence. Its date is probably not much after 300 B.C., and the pictures which adorn it, even if not the work of a Greek hand, offer us the best example we possess of the manner of Greek polychrome painting in that age. They have been already described by several highly competent writers, including Dr. Helbig and Otto Donner (Bull. dell' Inst. 1869, p. 198 sq.); the late Dr. Klügmann, who for years made representations of the Amazons in ancient art his especial study (Ann. dell' Inst. 1873, p. 239 sq.); Mr. Dennis (Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, 2nd ed., 1881, p. 96 sq.); and Dr. Woermann (Woltmann and Woermann, Hist. of Painting, English ed., 1880, vol. i., p. 100). But hitherto no adequate illustrations of them have been published. The sketches in slightly shaded outline engraved, (Mon dell' Inst., vol. ix., pl. lx.), to accompany Dr. Klügmann's article above referred to, furnish, indeed, a useful key to the shape and dimensions of the sarcophagus, and to the arrangement and subject-matter of its pictures. But of the style of the work they give little notion, and of its colouring, from the nature of the case, none at all. Coloured facsimiles of some selected portions of these most interesting paintings are published for the first time with the present number of the Journal of Hellenic Studies (Pls. XXXVI., XXXVII., XXXVIII.).

This paper is really the first part of a report on the results attained in 1883 by the Asia Minor Exploration Fund. Besides some minor excursions, I then made two long journeys in the interior of Asia Minor, June to October. I was accompanied almost the whole of the time by Mr. J. R. S. Sterrett, a Virginian student at the American School of Athens. Our usual practice was to ride by separate roads, and in this way the expedition surveyed a much wider country than if I had been alone: the results were so good that I am anxious to arrange the expedition of 1884 in a similar way. Our chief aim was to construct the map of ancient Phrygia, and our method was to examine each district thoroughly enough to be able to say, not only where there were, but also where there were not, ancient sites. The discovery of monuments and inscriptions was a secondary object, and we did not aim at completeness in this regard; but even here our results are important. We copied more than four hundred and fifty inscriptions, which is at the rate of one hundred per month, and I incorporate in this paper those which have most direct bearing on the antiquities of each district. Most of them have passed under the eyes of both of us: where only one of us actually copied the inscription from the stone, I give his initials at the head of the text: where no initials are attached, it is to be understood that we have both verified the text on the stone. I shall speak at another time of the monuments which we found.

The Editing Committee have received a note from Dr. Dörpfeld in reference to the letter signed by him in the Times of 22nd March, 1883 (see Hellenic Journal, IV. p. 153).

Dr. Dörpfeld accepts the responsibility of that letter as a translation of his article in the Allgemeine Zeitung of 30th March, but states that in signing it he overlooked the insertion of the word prehistoric in connection with the 5th city at Hissarlik.