340 



NATURE 



[January 12, 191 1 



covered, mainly small votive offerings, consisting 

 chiefly of figurines of terra-cotta and lead. These 

 leaden figures are extremely interesting, and are well 

 published in a series of plates. Those of warriors are 



Fig. I.— a Laconian Vase of the Seventh Century. From " The Annual of 

 the British School at Athens." 



of rernarkable interest, as showing Spartan military 

 dress from the seventh century onward. Small orna- 

 ments of lead, such as little spiked wreaths, were 

 found in enormous numbers ; Egyptian scarabs were 

 found; of these one, pi. viii.. Fig. 4, is published 

 upside down. These are of the seventh century, 

 as iilso is a ring (Fig. 12, p. 142). 



The work at the Menelaion is described by 

 Messrs. Wace, Thompson, and Droop. Sand- 

 wiched between this and the preceding descrip- 

 tions is a curious note on a Scottish parallel to 

 the Spartan custom of electing the dead Lycurgus 

 as eponymous Patronomus ; in 1547 St. Giles 

 himself was elected patron provost of Elgin for 

 " ane zeyr nyxt to cum." This note, which is by 

 Mr. P. Giles, seems a little incongruous in the 

 prominent position which it occupies, and would 

 have been better as a footnote somewhere else. 



Messrs. Wace and Hasluck continue their in- 

 teresting notes on the topography of Lakonia, 

 and Mr. Traquair describes the notable churches 

 of western Mani. The revival of church building 

 by the always independent Maniotes at the end 

 of the eighteenth century is interesting ; it seems 

 probable that this was largely due to the Greek 

 cruise of the Russian squadron of Orlov, which 

 revived the hopes of Orthodox Christendom for 

 freedom' from the domination of Islam. Mr. 

 Hasluck continues his researches into the byways 

 of Greek history during the Frankish period with 

 his articles on "Monuments of the Gattelusi " 

 (the Genoese lords of Aenos on the Maritza) in 

 the ^gean, and on " Frankish Remains at 

 Adalia," and also deals with "Albanian Settle- 

 ments in the ^-Egean Islands." We return to 

 the classical period with Mr. Woodward's article 

 on a new fragment of an Athenian " Quota-List 

 of the year 417-6 B.C.," giving the amounts paid 

 by the subject-allies to the treasury of the Con- 

 federation of Delos in that year, and with Dr. 

 Duncan Mackenzie's interesting reconstruction of 

 figures in the East Pediment of the Temple of 

 .^gina, in opposition to the views of the late 

 Prof. Furtwangler. Dr. Mackenzie has, we are 

 sorry to say, held over the next instalment of his 

 long article on "Cretan Palaces," which has been a 

 feature of recent volumes of the "Annual." Messrs. 

 Wace and Thompson also contribute a short article 

 on their discovery of "A Cave of the Nymphs on 



NO. 2I';o. VOL. 8sl 



Mount Ossa," previously unknown. A large number 

 of fragmentary votive stelae were found. 



The third portion of this year's "Annual," and not 

 the least important, also deals with Greek religion. 

 This is the publication by Profs. Bosanquet and Gil- 

 bert Murray of the Hynin to the Kouretes, the warrior 

 guardians of the infant Zeus, who, like the Salii c 

 Rome, with whom they were compared long agi 

 leapt in their dance with clashing of sword and speai 

 In the hymn, which was discovered during the t\ 

 cavations of the school at Palaikastro, in Crete, tlie 

 worshippers of Zeus pray the god to leap as did the 

 Kouretes around him when a babe, as a ritual act t<" 

 bring prosperity and good fortune to Crete: "To u 

 also leap for full jars, and leap for fleecy flocks, aru. 

 leap for fields of fruit, and for hives to bring in- 

 crease. Leap for our cities, and leap for our sea- 

 borne ships, and leap for young citizens and f( 

 goodly law." So Prof. Murray admirably translate 

 the Greek of the hymn. The march and dance of the 

 Kouretes and the Salii remind one greatly of the 

 leaping March of the Minoan " Harvesters," as they 

 are called, on the steatite vase found by the Italian 

 excavators at Agia Triada, in Crete, some years ago, 

 of which a cast may now be seen in the British 

 Museum. Are we to see in them Kouretes, or rather 

 the young men performing the parts of Kouretes, as 

 Strabo describes them as doing, in the mysteries of 

 Zeus, with an older man as their leader? The 

 curious implements which they bear will then be of 

 an agricultural nature, since, as Prof. Murray 



Fig, 



2.— The re-discovered inscriptions in the Shrine of Orthia. From " The 

 Annual of the British School at Athens." 



observes, the Kouretes "were certainly connected wii 

 spring and fertility" (p. 360), but developed later inf 

 weapons, which Prof. Savignoni and the Italia; 

 archaeologists first took them to be. I am, at th* 



