à se faire sentir. Il faut avouer enfin que les meilleurs même baissent d'année en année. A la seconde partie du baccalauréat les études classiques ne sont pas plus représentées que dans l'enseignement de la classe de Philosophie. Les candidats peuvent être interrogés sur certains livres désignés à l'avance, de Platon, Aristote, Cicéron, &c., dans la langue originale. Mais les examinateurs insistent peu sur ce point. Aussi le bachelier ès lettres sait-il beaucoup moins de grec et de latin que l'élève de Rhétorique. 11 a passé une année à oublier ces langues.

Le baccalauréat est le premier grade universitaire, la licence ès lettres le second, le doctorat le troisième. Ce dernier est exigé de ceux qui se destinent à l'enseignement supérieur. Entre la licence et le doctorat se place ordinairement l'agrégation des lettres ou de grammaire, qui donne droit à être professeur dans un lycée. Le titre de licencié suffit pour être nommé professeur dans les collèges, ou chargé de cours dans les lycées. Quelques-uns le recherchent aussi comme titre honorifique. Il y a quatre ordres de licence ès lettres la licence philosophique, historique, licence des langues vivantes, et enfin la licence ès lettres proprement dite. C'est cette dernière qui doit surtout vous intéresser. Les autres n'en different d'ailleurs que par certaines épreuves spéciales destinées à établir la capacité du candidat à enseigner la philosophie, l'histoire ou les langues vivantes.

Les épreuves écrites de la licence sont une composition française et une latine, un thème grec, une composition de grammaire et de métrique; enfin quelques épreuves facultatives et ne pouvant exercer qu'une faible influence, mais toujours favorable, sur le résultat. Elles ont pour sujet des matières non comprises dans le programme ordinaire, comme par exemple, les langues romanes, et particulièrement les vers latins, dont c'est ici le dernier refuge. Une des gloires de l'Université, il y a trente ans encore, les vers latins sont tombés si bas, que c'est à peine si 12 ou 15% des candidats usent du droit qu'ils ont d'en présenter. La composition latine a généralement pour sujet une question de critique littéraire : l'intervention des dieux dans l'Enéide, le jugement d'Horace sur les anciens poètes, l'art dramatique dans tel dialogne de Platon, ou quelque autre banalité de ce genre, qui puisse se traiter en 6 heures à huis clos. Les examinateurs se voient de plus en plus forcés de juger principalement d'après le style, ce qui n'a pas grand inconvénient, puisque la composition française est là pour montrer si le candidat a des idées, s'il sait les disposer et les exposer. Dans la composition latine, il s'agit surtout de s'assurer qu'il manie le latin sans trop de peine, qu'il en a assez l'habitude pour ne pas laisser échapper des incorrections trop graves, en un mot, qu'il sera capable de diriger les exercices latins de sa classe. Le thème grec est l'épreuve la plus redoutée. On ne peut pas être extrêmement exigeant envers des candidats qui n'ont guère commencé à traduire en grec qu'après avoir achevé leurs études secondaires; mais on cherche à relever le niveau en se montrant sévère pour les incorrections et en demandant même que le grec de ces thèmes ne soit pas trop français. La grammaire et la métrique forment ensemble une seule épreuve. Les sujets sont forcément très élémentaires, parce que le candidats, travaillant à huis clos, doivent tout tirer de leurs souvenirs et de leurs réflexions du moment. C'est ou bien une question de morphologie à élucider, ou bien un chapitre de syntaxe à exposer, ou encore quelques lignes de texte à commenter; et pour la métrique, soit des vers à scander, soit la structure de telle ou telle sorte de vers à indiquer. Le programme d'ailleurs ne va pas au-delà des mètres d'Horace. Des tragiques grecs, de Pindare, pas question.

Les candidats dont les compositions ont été jugées passables sont admis à l'examen oral, qui consiste principalement dans l'explication de fragments d'auteurs grecs, latins et français, pris dans un certain nombre d'ouvrages désignés à l'avance par le ministre. En outre, il leur est adressé une série de questions sur l'histoire des trois littératures dites classiques, sur les institutions grecques et romaines ; enfin ils ont à justifier d'une connaissance suffisante de l'allemand ou de l'anglais pour se servir de livres écrits en une de ces langues. En somme, c'est un examen d'études secondaires. On peut le subir avec éclat sans s'être jamais essayé à aucune recherche personnelle, sans s'être servi d'ouvrages de première main sur aucun sujet, sans savoir même ce que c'est que la science de l'antiquité. Il suffit, avec un esprit ouvert et quelques dispositions, d'avoir subi un certain entrainement pour la composition, d'avoir fait des lectures accessibles à toute personne un peu cultivée, et d'avoir préparé avec soin les auteurs du programme. Cependant il faut croire que nous sommes menacés d'un excès d'érudition chez nos jeunes professeurs, puisque des circulaires ministérielles recommandent avec insistance de ne rien demander aux candidats qui sorte du cercle des connaissances générales.

Une fois licencié ès lettres, on peut se présenter à l'agrégation. Encore ici il y a plusieurs catégories. Celles qui vous intéressent sont l'agrégation de grammaire et l'agrégation des lettres. L'agrégation n'est pas un grade que les Facultés confèrent; celles-ci n'ont pas à s'en occuper; elle est au concours. Chaque année le ministre fixe d'avance le nombre de candidats à recevoir, une vingtaine ou une trentaine, par exemple; un jury nommé par le ministre classe les candidats, plus de 150 quelquefois, et les premiers en rang sont reçus jusqu'à concurrence du nombre fixé. Ce système a l'avantage de stimuler beaucoup les candidats, puisque le niveau qu'il faut atteindre n'est pas connu d'avance, et qu'on peut toujours espérer, à force de travail, de surpasser ses concurrents. Mais il a de grands inconvénients aussi. Il implique l'unité de jury, l'unité de session, l'unité de programme pour chaque ordre d'agrégation, et par consequent une uniformité dans les études préparatoires qui n'est certes pas faite pour développer l'esprit d'investigation et pour faire naître les vocations scientifiques. Pour comparer équitablement entre eux 150 jeunes gens, on ne peut examiner chacun sur ce qui l'intéresse et ce qu'il a étudié par goût. serait l'unité de mesure? Combien trouverait-on d'examinateurs capables de passer, pendant 15 ou 20 jours de suite, d'un sujet à l'autre, avec des candidats spécialement préparés sur chacun? Il est inévitable aussi qu'un seul jury en présence de tant de candidats ne soit pas un peu pressé par le temps. Certains candidats des mieux notés rapportent l'impression d'un défilé bien rapide. J'en connais un, reçu second du premier coup, qui a coutume d'appeler l'agrégation un baccalauréat supérieur. Et il est bien vrai, que, à l'agrégation comme à la licence, les épreuves les plus importantes sont des exercices d'écoliers, thèmes, versions, compositions à huis clos, rien qui permette de juger de ce que sera le travail de l'homme fait, du professeur. La leçon et l'explication préparée sont les seules épreuves utiles à cet égard. Mais c'en sont deux sur neuf ou dix, et l'on n'y est admis qu'après avoir réussi aux autres. Il est vrai que

Où

l'agrégation est destinée à recruter le personnel de l'enseignement secondaire, et non celui des Facultés. Mais ce ne sera jamais qu'un enseignement médiocre que celui dont les représentants n'auront pas tout au moins goûté du fruit de l'arbre de la science. Les épreuves écrites de l'agrégation sont à peu près les

mêmes que pour la licence, si ce n'est qu'il s'y ajoute une version latine et une version de langue vivante, et qu'à l'agrégation de grammaire la dissertation latine est remplacée par un thème latin. La partie orale comprend une explication de texte dans chacune des trois langues classiques; une seconde explication, plus approfondie, après 24 heures de préparation, d'un texte grec ou latin: enfin une leçon sur un sujet littéraire ou historique. On peut se présenter au concours d'agrégation indéfiniment, et il est rare d'être reçu la première fois. Il n'y a que peu de différence entre les programmes de l'agrégation des lettres et de l'agrégation de grammaire. Les deux jurys et leur manière d'apprécier se ressemblent beaucoup moins.

Le doctorat ès-lettres est conféré par les Facultés des lettres, en principe. En réalité, c'est la Faculté de Paris senle qui confère le véritable doctorat, celui qui ouvre les portes de l'enseignement supérieur. On ne se présente devant les Facultés de province que pour l'honneur. Pour obtenir le doctorat, on n'a pas d'examen à subir. On écrit deux thèses, une française, qui est souvent un gros livre, et une latine, moins

volumineuse. Ces thèses sont lues par un membre de la Faculté, puis imprimées, si elles sont acceptées ; enfin, on est appelé à les soutenir, en séance publique, devant un jury dont les membres, au nombre de six au moins, les critiquent successivement.

Ainsi se clôt la série des épreuves que trouvent échelonnées sur leur route ceux qui se destinent en France à l'enseignement classique, soit secondaire, soit supérieur. Vous vous étiez demandé peut-être pourquoi je plaçais ma lettre sur les examens entre les deux qui parlent d'enseignement. Vous voyez maintenant que je me souvenais de votre question: how far the instruction given at college is distinct from that given at school. On ne peut guère déterminer la différence qui existe entre l'enseignement secondaire et l'enseignement supérieur, sans comparer le baccalauréat à la licence et à l'agrégation. L'examen placé à la fin d'une période d'études finit toujours, dans une certaine mesure, par en fixer le caractère. Connaissant les examens entre lesquels les études classiques d'ordre supérieur se trouvent encadrées, vous devinez déjà jusqu'à un certain point ce qu'elles doivent être.

TRINITY MONDAY, 1887.

THIS is Election Day for Fellows and Scholars. Our new Fellow is Mr. John Isaac Beare, First Scholar in Classics, 1878, First Senior Moderator in Classics, Fourth Senior Moderator in Logics and Ethics, and University Student, 1879. Seven Classical Scholars of the House were elected.

I promised in my May letter to give some account of the other Classical Schools in Ireland and of the Trinity College men who are connected with them. The Queen's Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway were founded in 1849, and incorporated in 1851 into the Queen's University. In 1882 the Queen's University was dissolved in order to make room for the Royal University. The difference between the two institutions is that the Queen's University consisted of the three Queen's Colleges only, and none but students matriculated at a Queen's College could become graduates of Queen's University; but the Royal University is open to all comers, whether they have or have not matriculated at a Queen's College or at any College. The Queen's Colleges continue to subsist, until some new political move shall bring them down like the University called after them; but the political aspect of matters cannot be treated in these pages, though it is an unfortunate fact that political and sectarian considerations keep cropping up in the most unexpected places in Irish educational history. To return to our own proper subject; the professorial staff of the Queen's Colleges has been all along recruited, almost without exception, from Trinity College, Dublin. At present the Professor of Greek at Belfast, Mr. Hastings Crossley, the Professor of Greek at Cork, Mr. William Ridgeway, and the Professor of Latin at Galway, Mr. John Fletcher Davies, are all Trinity College men. Mr. Crossley entered in 1864 and became a Scholar of the House in 1865. He was First Senior Moderator in Classics, NO. VIII. VOL. I.

and Second Senior Moderator in Logics and Ethics in 1868. He was a candidate for Fellowship in 1870 and 1871, and obtained a prize each time, but ultimately retired from the contest and accepted the Belfast Professorship, to which he was appointed in 1878. Mr. Crossley has published "Saul," a ViceChancellor's prize poem; also an edition of Book I. of the works of Marcus Aurelius. He is completing this edition, we understand, in collaboration with Mr. Lindsay, of Jesus College, Oxford. Mr. Crossley contributed largely to Dublin Translations.

Mr. William Ridgeway became a Scholar of the House in 1873 (having for contemporaries Mr. Louis Claude Purser, now Fellow, and Mr. Oscar Wilde). In 1875 he was second Senior Moderator in Classics and first Senior Moderator in Modern Literature. Subsequently he went to Cambridge and became a Fellow of Caius. He was appointed to the Greek Chair at Cork in succession to Mr. Vaughan Boulger (another Trinity College man) in 1884. Mr. Ridgeway's published work has chiefly consisted of contributions to learned journals.

Mr. John Fletcher Davies was a Scholar of the House as long ago as 1858, and was a Senior Moderator in Classics in 1859. After taking his degree he became head Classical master of Kingstown School, which although a'private and.unendowed institution has perhaps sent out as many brilliant men as any other school in Ireland, especially during Mr. Davies' time. He retired in 1878, and for two years lived principally in England. In 1880, when Dr. Maguire gave up the Chair of Latin in Galway on becoming a Fellow, it was offered to Mr. Davies and accepted by him. Mr. Davies' chief works are his editions of Choephoroc, Agamemnon, and Eumenides. Scholars have differed as to the value of these editions, but whatever may be the opinion formed as to the audacity of the commentator, nobody will deny him the praise of a

8

brilliancy amounting to genius. It is next to impossible to read Mr. Davies' work, and wholly impossible to hold converse with him, without feeling the presence of a quite unique mind. Whatever one may think of his views on particular points, one is compelled to feel that the enthusiasm of scholarship is in the man, to a degree hardly ever paralleled. This is the secret of his influence with his pupils, an influence in which he may be said to be unrivalled among teachers, in Ireland at any rate.

The Professors of Latin at Belfast and Cork, and of Greek at Galway, are Oxford or Cambridge men. There are no Colleges, strictly speaking, affiliated to the Royal University, unless the Queen's Colleges may be said to be so. The relation of the Royal

University to the various independent schools and colleges of Ireland is rather anomalous. The endowed schools and colleges of royal foundation throughout Ireland send their pupils to Trinity College rather than to the Royal University; and so do the Erasmus Smith schools, and others endowed in time past by private founders. The Royal University, therefore, is chiefly recruited from the various Roman Catholic seminaries throughout the island, and it is impracticable to say anything of their staff or their system, except that the staff is not recruited from Trinity College, Dublin.

Not to trespass too much on your space, I reserve for a future letter some account of our curriculum and methods of study.

BRITISH MUSEUM CATALOGUE OF GREEK COINS. The Peloponnesus. Edited by PERCY GARDNER, D. Litt. Lond. 1887.

THIS summer the British Museum Coin Catalogue has advanced one stage farther on the way to completion. Its new volume is, we are sorry to say, the last of the series which will be edited by Professor Gardner, who has just relinquished his post at the Museum in order to go into residence at Oxford as Merton Professor of Classical Archaeology. Geographically speaking we are now brought down to the end of the issues of European Greece, if we except the long-promised volume on Athens and Corinth, which still shows no signs of appearing.

From the numismatist's point of view the Peloponnesus abounds in problems. First and foremost of them is the extraordinary dearth of sixth-century coins in the whole district. With the exception of Corinth, Heraea, and possibly Sicyon, none of its towns seem to have issued money before B. C. 500. Nothing can be stranger than that cities of the first rank like Argos, and great and wealthy religious centres like Elis, should have had no currency at a time when every small town in Asia Minor was accustomed to strike its own coins, and when in Northern Greece comparatively poor states, such as Phocis, had commenced their issues. It is not impossible that archaic coins of additional Peloponnesian towns may some day be discovered, but at present the attributions made to Pheneus, Philius, and other places of early coins with rude incuse reverses are inadmissible: the British Museum wisely classes the coins in question as 'European, Uncertain,' and their fabric seems to point to Thracian and Macedonian rather than Peloponnesian localities. The only explanation of the dearth of issues in Southern Greece is the predominance of the Aeginetan stater, which, as we know from the evidence of inscriptions, was received as the ordinary circulating medium as late as the times of the Peloponnesian war. Taking this hint, we may ascribe the commencement of the issues of Argos, Mantinea, Troezen, Elis, and other cities whose coinage dates from the early years of the fifth century, to the cutting short of the commercial supremacy of Aegina by her first wars with Athens. But even then it remains a problem why the not very important town of Heraea

should have begun to strike money some fifty years before her richer and more powerful neighbours.

The next point of note in the coinage of the Peloponnese is the appearance of a long series of half-drachms and obols bearing the inscription APKAAIKON, which from the evidence of style must be ascribed to the period between the Persian wars and the battle of Mantinea (B. C. 480-417). These pieces should by rights imply the existence of an Arcadian league, and their main type, the figure of Zeus, is the one which we should expect to be chosen for a national coinage. But, on the other hand, we have no historical evidence in favour of any confederation, and the Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnesus was always used to prevent the formation of alliances between the smaller states. It is true that in spite of this the Arcadians strove to combine; in Herod. ix. 35, for example, we read of an occasion on which every state in the country save Mantinea joined in an attempt to throw off the Spartan yoke. But such alliances were too ephemeral to produce a coinage which on the lowest estimate must have covered forty years, and may well have extended to sixty. Moreover, there are numerous coins of Arcadian towns which are contemporary with these federal issues; Tegea, Cleitor, Psophis, Mantinea, and possibly several other places having struck money between 480 and 417 B.C. The existence therefore of the APKAAIKON series places us in a dilemma: either some one town issued pieces which purported to be national and not local, or else-contrary to all historic evidence and probability-some sort of Arcadian league must have lasted on during the greater part of the fifth century. Professor Gardner inclines to the former alternative, and pitches on Heraca as the place of issue, induced by the fact that it was the only Arcadian town which was already possessed of a mint, and by the style of the seated Zeus on the coins, which is not unlike that of some early pieces of Heraea's great neighbour, Elis. That a single town should claim to strike money in behalf of a whole nation is not quite unprecedented: at any rate Tanagra struck coins in the name of the Boeotians in the period 480-470, indicating her individuality only by a T modestly concealed in an obscure part of the coin. Nevertheless, we cannot bring ourselves to accept the conclusion at which Professor Gardner and Dr. Imhoof Blumer have

arrived. Heraea had never any pretensions to a precedence among Arcadian towns; Trapezus was the old site of the kings when the country was still united, while in historical times Mantinea and Tegea were the most important places. Arcadia was usually divided between a philo-Laconian and an antiLaconian party, but in neither of the factions was Heraea the leading town. Neither was it in any way the religious centre of the nation, for that was undoubtedly to be found in the sanctuary of Zeus Lycaeus in the territory of Lycosura. Moreover the idea that the APKAAIKON coins are a mere continuation of the earlier Heraean series is not entirely borne out by the evidence of style. In fabric as well as in artistic treatment there is a very considerable gap between the last coins of the town and the first of the federal series, while, on the other hand, it would not be impossible to contend that the first of the new series of Heracan issues which Professor Gardner ascribes to the period B. c. 417-370 overlap the last of the Federal coins, the work of which is quite compatible with the concluding years of the fifth century, while their incuse square on the reverse is barely visible. On the whole then we should be inclined to believe, with Mr. Head and Professor Curtius. in the existence of an Arcadian league which persisted throughout the fifth century, although many important towns may have stood aloof from it at various epochs. And if a locality must be found for its mint, the great national sanctuary on Mount Lycaeum certainly appears the most natural site.

Turning on to other questions, we are glad to see that Professor Gardner has a word to say in favour of the famous Spartan iron money, whose existence has been so firmly denied. Certainly if, as he says, iron money of Tegea and Argos has been lately discovered, there is not the least reason to doubt the concurrent testimony of tradition as to the persistence of an iron currency at conservative Sparta down to the fourth century. The large Lacedaemonian silver coin with the head of a king, which used to be ascribed to Antigonus Doson's occupation of Sparta after his victory at Sellasia, is moved forward half a century and given to King Areus, of whom the Berlin Museum possesses another tetradrachm, of Alexandrine type, with the unmistakable inscription, ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ APEOE. This identification is certainly very superior to that of M. Bompois, who started the notion that the head was that of Antigonus.

There are one or two attributions in this volume which we should regard as not quite so likely as the last-mentioned one. The Obols ascribed to Parorcia should almost certainly be given to the Parrhasians; the Achaian league coins with a trident and the monogram KA are in all probability merely a variety of the coinage of Troezen, not the issues of the town of Ceryneia. It is difficult to see how Dr. Weil, who first started this theory, came to entertain the view. The two small uncertain' coins at the end of the volume probably belong to Troezen; the Paris collection owns a drachm whose main type is an archaic female head, full face, exactly similar to these pieces.

This book contains the usual lavish allowance of beautiful autotype plates which the Museum publications display, and is in all respects equal to the rest of this magnificent series of volumes.

C. W. C. OMAN.

Rhodes in Modern Times, by CECIL TORR (Cambridge University Press, 1887), is a continuation of the history of that island, the classical portion of which was contained in the author's previous work, Rhodes in Ancient Times. The mediaeval history down to the Ottoman

conquest in 1522 is here given continuously for the first time, and with a view to it the original sources have been conscientiously examined. The task was not a light one, because of the length of the period embraced in the survey, and the obscurity of many of the facts brought to light, which required to be carefully criticised. Only a few of the events included in it come within the scope of this Review. In an enumeration of the earthquakes by which Rhodes has been visited, we learn that the city, after having been destroyed owing to this cause in 227 B.C., and again in 157 A.D., was ruined for the third time in 515 A.D., in the reign of Anastasius I. That emperor made a large grant towards the rebuilding, but neither he nor the Rhodians themselves were in a position to rebuild the place on its former scale; so that it seems to have been at that time that the ancient line of the city walls, which enclosed over a thousand acres, was exchanged for the modern line, which encloses less than a hundred and fifty. Mr. Torr has examined with much acuteness the various stories which grew up around the Colossus of Rhodes. Some of thesefor instance, that after it had fallen it was set up again by Vespasian; that in Hadrian's time it was moved; that it was gilt, and 120 feet in height,- -arose from its being confused with the colossal statue of Nero at Rome. Other mistakes were caused by the word orhan being applied to it in some accounts in its later meaning a statue', and this being confused with the earlier meaning 'a column'. Hence one writer about 300 A.D. describes the Colossus as a marble column a hundred cubits in height, another about 1000 A.D. states that it was a column of bronze a thousand cubits in height; and the stone obelisk in the Meidan at Constantinople was compared in an inscription of the eleventh century upon its base to the Colossus of Rhodes. Again, in allusion to the Colossus, the Rhodians were known among the Byzantine Greeks as Koλoooaeis, and afterwards the official style of the Latin archbishops of Rhodes was Archiepiscopus Colossensis. Hence Sir John Maundeville remarks, that St. Paul wrote an epistle to the inhabitants of that island, ad Colossenses. Another curious fact which we learn from this volume relates to the ceramic art in antiquity. It is well known with regard to the plates of the Rhodian ware of the time of the occupation of the island by the Knights of St. John, which are so highly prized by collectors, that they were intended, not for use, but for suspension against walls as ornaments; and even at the present day, when the peasants throughout the island, in whose cottages these treasures were found, have parted with them, their places have been taken by common modern plates, which are hung in the same manner-sometimes to the number of seventy in one room. With a view to this decorative use, the mediaeval plates of this ware were always pierced with two holes for suspension. Now Mr. Torr informs us, that the earliest dishes from Camiros, dating from about 7C0 B.C., are pierced in just the same way.

H. F. T.

ACQUISITIONS OF BRITISH MUSEUM. Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. A kriophoros; and a seated ram: both in terracotta, from Beyrût.

A terra-cotta statuette of Eros leaning on a term : from Babylonia.

Mr. W. R. Paton has presented the Carpathos vases noted in Loeschcke and Fürtwaengler Myk. Vas. p. 83: the Assarlik antiquities mentioned ante p. 81, and Hellenic Journal viii. 64-82: and three more vases of the Mycenæan' type, found near Pothia in

Kalymna, lower down the hill than those found last year.

A jet panel, with relief of a figure standing with uplifted arms in a ship manned by three rowers (Odysseus mocking the Cyclops?)

Two terra-cotta masks, from Tartus: and a leaden Eros in low relief, from Beyrût.

A green jasper intaglio, with Indo-Greek designs. A gold chain terininating at one end in a lion's head with the Herculean knot: at the other, in a lion's head, with a ring: from Cyprus.

A bronze Etruscan figure of a running female on a flower, probably one of the supports of a cista; she wears the tutulus, and raises her mantle with the left hand from Todi.

A fine series of twenty-six moulds for terra-cotta figures from Tarentum.'

A lekythos with Maenad (?) rushing to right, looking back and holding out a chelys in her left hand: the flesh is coloured white, the hair buff, the chelys buff with white outline, the drapery left with incised outline on the black glaze: from Tarentum: cf. Sammlung Sabouroff, pl. liv., 1.

Large hydria with friezes of warriors, horsemen, &c., in so-called Chalcidian style from Cervetri.

Small oblong plaque of bronze with portions of two panels ranged vertically one above the other; within each panel is incised a pair of nude figures, possibly athletes; the style is somewhat rough, apparently a late imitation of an archaic design similar to those in Ausgrabungen zu Olympia, vol. iv. pp. 18-19 : found in the Tiber, 1887.

Small portrait-head of an old man, in marble. CECIL SMITH.

THE SCARABEUS FROM IALYSOS.-The fact that a scarabæus with a cartouch of Amenhotep III (about 1500 B.C.) was found at Ialysos in Rhodes in a tombchamber containing antiquities of the Mycenaean period has been adduced as proof of the early date of these antiquities. This fact is obviously no proof of their early date, for an object like a scarabæus might be treasured for centuries before interment ; but it is, on the other hand, a striking proof of their comparatively late date. The majority of extant scarabaei with cartouches of kings of the Old or the Middle or the New Empire belong to the Early Egyptian Revival,' which began with the TwentySixth Dynasty (from 666 B. C. onwards), and these can always be readily distinguished from the contemporary scarabæi of those early kings by certain broad differences of style and of workmanship. There cannot be the slightest doubt that this scarabæus from Ialysos -which is now in Table Case B in the First Vase room in the British Museum-belongs to the Revival. The fact that it was found in that tomb-chamber at Ialysos is therefore a proof, not that the antiquities found with it are little (if at all) later than the Fifteenth Century, but that they are little (if at all) earlier than the Seventh. I have pointed this out before, but venture to point it out again, as the old argument is restated in some recent publications on Homer.-CECIL TORR.

In the Εφημερίς 'Αρχαιολογική, 1887, p. 50, Koumanoudes publishes a woodcut of a disk of Pentelic marble, diam. 122 mètre, which he thus describes : 'Εφ ̓ ὅσον σώζεται, εἶναι τὸ τρίτον περίπου μέρος δίσκου (ἢ τυπαρίου τυροῦ μεγάλου) . . . ἔχοντος ἐπὶ τῆς ἑτέρας τῶν ὁριζοντίων τοῦ ἐπιφανειῶν ἀνάγλυπτον κόσμον ἀστεροειδή, σχηματιζόμενον ἐκ φύλλων δάφνης, μεταξὺ δ' αὐτῶν τρύματα κυκλοτερῆ, περὶ δὲ τὴν ἄντυγα γράμματα ἐγκεχαραγμένα κ.τ.λ.

The learned professor hesitates about his explanation, but is inclined to think the 'disk' formed part of a well or fountain, and that the inscription indicated the number of stadia from which the water was drawn.

I think he has rather missed the point. If we imagine the monument restored to its original condition (for which the existing portion gives sufficient data), we obtain an unmistakable wheel, such as is the most usual shape employed, e.g. on vase pictures of the fourth century. It consists of a thick felly with four spokes in the form of elongated myrtle leaves to strengthen these spokes the angles between them and the felly are filled in, so that the spoke is only left free close around the nave: the general view being that of a four-leaved shamrock, the leaves of which represent the empty portions; a form both decorative and obviously most suitable for execution in stone or marble where the spokes would require to be as strong as possible.

The inscription, which as usual upon dedicated wheels 1 runs around the felly, is as follows

... ΣΣΤΑΔΙΩΝ...

Considering that it was found in the Olympieion I think we are justified in restoring ὅρος σταδίων Tò B. If so, the wheel was probably one (the second) of a series of marks set up to delimitate the course of the stadia in the games: this restoration would just cover that portion of the wheel where it would be easily readable in a vertical position.

The remaining slabs of marble found together with this may have formed part of the plinth on which it rested. I am not aware that we have any record of the use of a wheel in this connection: but the single wheel was familiar enough in Greek art, especially in the typical agonistic myth of Pelops and Oinomaos, and I see no reason why this should not have been employed as a distinction from the ordinary goalpost.-CECIL SMITH.

Les Musées d'Athènes. Parts 1 and 2. Athens: Karl Wilberg. Fr. 7.50, per part.

Each part of this publication is to contain eight phototype plates by Rhomaïdes Brothers, nine inches by six without the margin, and short explanatory text in Greek, German, French and English. In the first part the text is by Cavvadias; and by Sophoulis in the second. The plates might be better artistically: but they are good enough for almost all purposes, and they certainly are very cheap. The first shows the portion of the excavations on the Acropolis, to the left of the path from the Propylæa to the Erechtheion, where the archaic marble statues were found in February 1886. Ten plates are devoted to these marble statues. Another represents the Hermes Moscophoros in the Acropolis Museum, for comparison with these. Two others represent two marble heads of somewhat later date, found on the Acropolis in 1882; and the remaining two a bronze head found there in 1882 and another found there in 1886: these last in two aspects each. Altogether, the publication is meritorious and deserving of support.— C. T.

Antike Denkmäler, herausgegeben vom Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Institut. Band 1: erstes Heft. Berlin: Verlag von Georg Reimer. 40 Mk.

THIS publication replaces the Monumenti Inediti so long published in Rome; the Annali being at the

1 See Newton, Ancient Greek Inscriptions, No. 139; and Carapanos, Dodone, pl. xxvi. 1, p. 47.