18 



ARCHAEOLOGY. (GREECE.) 



Relics at Plataea. In the work of the Ameri- 

 can School at Platiea, which was completed in 

 April, 1890, the site was thoroughly surveyed ; the 

 walls, which are more than two and a half miles 

 in circumference, were measured, and a paper on 

 the topography of the battle-field of Plataea was 



ROMAN ALTAR, FOUND AT BINCHESTER, DURHAM, ENGLAND. 



prepared, to be illustrated by a new map. Ex- 

 cavations were carried on at several points within 

 and without the city walls; but neither of the 

 three important temples of Athene, Here, and 

 Demetri was discovered. Among the interest- 

 ing inscriptions brought to light was a slab con- 

 taining a part of the famous edict of Diocletian, 

 " De Pretiis Rerum Venalium," a part of the 

 preamble of which, in Latin, had been found in 

 the previous year. The present part, which was 

 of the body of the edict, was in Greek. It con- 

 cerns the price of textiles, and gives prices that 

 had been hitherto unknown. Another inscription 

 records dedications on the part of women to a 

 goddess, and contains many female names. 



The Tombs at Eretria. The American 

 School gave its attention, in 1891, to the ex- 

 ploration of Eretria in the island of Euboea, 

 a city mentioned by Homer, destroyed by Da- 

 rius in the Persian war, B. c. 490, and subse- 

 quently rebuilt ; after which it became the seat 

 of an important school of philosophy, under 

 Menedemus, a pupil of Aristotle. The theatre 

 was found to have a stage approximately nine 

 feet high, with five rooms in the rear of it. It 

 was between fifty and sixty feet long, and about 

 seven feet wide. In front of the stage building 

 was a low. narrow platform, with an arch through 

 the middle extending to the third of the five 

 rooms ; while a smaller arch ran from the center 



of the orchestra circle toward the stage. The 

 survey of the walls proved that the new city oc- 

 cupied the same ground as the old. The tombs 

 in the cemetery were of all epochs. In some 

 cases as many as four were found made one upon 

 another, the succeeding ones having been built 

 without regard to their predecessors. In the 

 Byzantine graves the articles found, which had 

 been deposited with the bodies, were potteries of 

 coarse material and workmanship. The Roman 

 tombs were built of slabs of stone, were well con- 

 structed, and contained, besides vases of glass 

 and clay of not great value, golden rings, ear- 

 rings, necklaces, bracelets, and silver trinkets. 

 The Grecian graves contained vases, terra-cotta 

 figures and masks, and gold and silver orna- 

 ments ; and the lowest, or archaic graves, con- 

 tained only archaic vases. In one grave, of a 

 group of six, were found lying upon the breast 

 of the skeleton a mass of two ounces of gold cut 

 into two hundred leaves of ivy and oak, on which 

 the veins of the natural leaf were plainly repre- 

 sented. Besides this were found in the same 

 group, which seemed to constitute a family tomb, 

 Grecian vases ; a terra-cotta mask of the god Pan ; 

 terra-cotta statuettes ; seven crowns of gold ; two 

 specimens of the stylus ; a gold ring with a lion 

 rampant as a seal ; earrings composed of doves 

 swinging in a hoop of gold, with eyes of precious 

 stones, feathers of granulated gold work, precious 

 stones set in the wings and the breasts, and the 

 feathers of the tail so arranged as to move with 

 the swinging of the pendant; and a number of 

 white vases, or lekythoi, of the kind hitherto re- 

 garded as peculiar to Athens. An inscription on 

 one of the graves gave the name of the occupant 

 as [B]IOTH [A]PI2TOTEAOT, or Biote, daughter 

 of Aristotle. The gold pen in the grave next to 

 this, and belonging to the same family, might 

 be regarded as denoting that its occupant's pro- 

 fession had been literary. The question arose 

 whether this family was that of the great philoso- 

 pher Aristotle. The facts make this seem pos- 

 sible, but do not afford clear evidence. Aristotle 

 died at Calchis, the adjoining city to Eretria ; and 

 a terra-cotta statuette found in the tomb agrees 

 with the description given by Christodorus of a 

 statue of Aristotle which he saw in a gymnasium 

 at Constantinople, " standing with its hands 

 folded together." Thei-e is, however, no evi- 

 dence that Aristotle was buried at Eretria instead 

 of Calchis, although the graves run almost con- 

 tinuously between the two cities. There were, 

 moreover, several Aristotles in antiquity, and 

 the name Biote is not historically known as that 

 of any member of Aristotle's family. The daugh- 

 ter named by Aristotle in his will was Pythias, 

 child of his wife Pythias. But there is no evi- 

 dence that he had not such a daughter. Dr. 

 Waldstein believes that the tomb is that of the 

 philosopher. 



Ruins of Megalopolis. The principal work 

 of the British School during. 1890 and 1891 was 

 performed in Megalopolis. In addition to the 

 discovery of a stoa with a triple line of columns, 

 and an altar adjoining it, a large theatre in good 

 preservation was partially dug out, the front row 

 of seats or 6p6voi of which bore inscriptions of 

 the classical period. These seats were long 

 benches, nine in number, one corresponding to 

 each K^PKIS or wedge of the auditorium. Each 



