DISCOVERY 



97 



go back to Latin hdhis mansus. Opposed to these 

 we have Malpas, " bad ford," an interesting successor 

 to the earlier English name of " Deep batch " or 

 "stream," Malsh, "the ill-placed seat." There is a 

 nice touch of humour in the Essex Beaumont which 

 replaces an earlier English " Foul pit." Even if we 

 throw in Haiitbois, Montacutc, and Egronont it would 

 seem that, from the point of view of picturesqueness 

 and appreciation for natural detail, the French names 

 mark not an advance upon, but a decline from, the 

 native English standard. 



Nick-names as Place-names 



Finally we mav deal with the question of the existence 

 of names which in the sphere of place-names take much 

 the place which nicknames do among personal names. 

 They are not common and there is very little evidence 

 for their use in Saxon times. So far as they find their 

 place on the modern map the}- may be suspected to be 

 of Middle rather than Old English origin, were ver\" 

 probablv influenced b}- the more picturesque methods 

 of naming prevailing among the Vikings, and were 

 imdoubtedly often in the first instance names of fields, 

 which afterwards were extended to whole farms and 

 the like. Of this t3^e we may mention Unthank used 

 of land which is " ungrateful " towards its cultivator, 

 Snapegest or " Snub-stranger " which may have been 

 of similar import or was possibh- applied to a farm where 

 \-agabonds received no friendly welcome. For many 

 of the most picturesque names no early forms are 

 found, and exhaustive study of the history of such in 

 two English counties con\'inced the present wTiter 

 that many of them were created out of nothing, so to 

 speak, somewhere about the middle of the eighteenth 

 century and onward. Names like Glororum, used of a 

 commanding situation which " glowers " over the 

 neighbouring countr}-. Make 'em Rich, used of a 

 prosperous farm. Click 'em in, a common inn-name, 

 Peep Sea, used of a farm with a glimpse of the sea, 

 are self-explanatory, and one would be wrong in these 

 names or in such a name as Pify Me to fancy that these 

 strange names hide, as has been sometimes suggested, 

 some long-lost and weU-concealed British name. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

 In the above article all interpretations of names are based 

 upon a study of their earlier forms, and no theory is based on 

 names for which we have only modem forms. At the present 

 time there is no general book dealing with the problem of the 

 types and varieties of English Place-names, but the Introduction 

 to the Survey of English Place-names, to be pubUshed some 

 eighteen months hence by the Survey of English Place-names, 

 will deal ^vith many of them. At the present time the book 

 which gives the best picture of modern tendencies in the 

 interpretation of place-names is that on the Place-names of 

 Lancashire , by Dr. Ekwall, pubhshed in 1922 as a volume in 

 the Chetham Society's Publications and also as a separate 

 volume bv the Manchester Universitv Press. 



Ball Games in Ancient 

 Greece 



By Stanley Casson, M.A. 



Fellow of New College, Oxford 



Early in February last year a discovery was made in 

 Athens which will rank as one of the most remarkable 

 finds of Greek sculpture ever made. In a fragment of 

 the city wall on the west side of the town, near the 

 so-called Theseium, two statue-bases were found buUt 

 up into the wall. Each measured approximately 80 

 centimetres square and some 30 centimetres in height, 

 and was of fine Pentelic marble. In each case three 

 faces of the bases were adorned with sculptures in fine 

 low relief ; the upper surface showed the sockets for 

 the insertion of the feet of a statue, and the lower 

 surface a square dowel-hole for the insertion of a 

 foundation dowel. The bases had, in all probabilit}-, 

 formed the summit of some rectangular foundation 

 structure. 



A third basis of exactly the same tj^e, but with only 

 one face decorated, was also found embedded in the 

 same stretch of wall, but in this case the decoration 

 had been in paint and there had been an inscription. 

 Both painting and inscription had been deliberately 

 defaced in the days of antiquity. 



Scenes of Athletic Life 



The first two bases were decorated with scenes 

 descriptive of the athletic life of Athens. All three 

 have been published.' The purpose of this article is 

 to examine the meaning of one face of one of the bases 

 only, since the general meaning and description of the 

 reliefs has already been given in the various publications 

 that have already appeared. 



The base in question has on the left side a relief 

 showing six young men standing in different positions 

 which are all vigorous and active. All the men are 

 naked, but their hair is carefully and neatly arranged 

 in short curly locks except in the case of the man on 

 the extreme left, whose locks hang loose over his 

 shoulders. 



The central of the three reliefs shows two men 

 wTestling and two others standmg near, one apparently 

 keeping the ring and in a position to prevent the 

 wTestlers from pushing each other beyond its limits, 

 the other standing ready with a measuring pole to 

 judge the distance of a throw. 



1 In Journal of Hellenic Sludies (1922), p. 104. and Bulletin 

 de Correspondance Hellenique (1922), p. i, by A. Philadelpheus, 

 and in Dedalo (September and December 1922) by A. Delia 

 Seta. 



