men, and so probably marks the end of their artistic career. As the Aeneid was composed by Virgil between 29 B.C. and his death in 19 B.C., and was still unfinished at his death, the description of the death of Laocoon and his children cannot well have inspired the sculptors; on the other hand, it is not likely that the poet had seen the group, which was probably set up in Rhodes. The two are probably independent versions of the same tale, each, as Lessing has shown, according to the canons of its own art.

Among publications of sculpture, a magnificent series like that of Brunn-Bruckmann, which has now reached its 700th number, is of course beyond the reach of most local or private libraries. M. Reinach's Répertoire de la Statuaire, though most handy and useful for reference, only has outline sketches, and so can only give the type, not the artistic quality and details of the work. It was therefore an excellent notion to give a selection of five hundred reduced photographs of ancient sculptures in handy form, and with a descriptive catalogue. This has been done by Dr. von Mach, and his collection will be very useful to students who are not specialists.1 Professor E. A. Gardner's Handbook of Greek Sculpture has now appeared in a new edition, with an appendix on recent discoveries, which can be obtained separately.

2. Architecture.-The Erechtheum has been the object of much attention, both theoretical and practical, during the past year or so. In the first place, it has been to a great extent rebuilt-a restoration less reprehensible than most, because the building has seen many vicissitudes in the past century, including great damage in 1827, a partial rebuilding in 1838 and 1845, and a considerable amount of destruction in 1852. In the course of the restoration several interesting discoveries have been made; there was, for instance, a hole in the roof of the north

1 The book has the somewhat misleading title, Handbook of Greek and Roman Sculpture (University Travel Bureau, Boston, U.S.A.). It is merely a catalogue to the photographs.

portico above the traditional mark of the trident of Poseidon. A more conspicuous feature of the building is the appearance of the east front. Here an American architect, Mr. G. F. Stevens,' has shown that there was a wall, with two windows in it as well as a doorway, behind the columns; and to the windows in this wall he has assigned the richly decorated mouldings of which the fragments have long been known, and which have been assigned to various positions in the building-by Professor Middleton to a small door in the west wall. As to the west end, though there is not much doubt as to what it looked like before its recent destruction, its original design is by no means so clear, and there are several indications that it was modified during the building. Professor Dörpfeld suggests that the whole building was originally intended to be symmetrical, the north porch and the south porch with the Caryatides balancing one another in the middle of the whole, and the western part of the building projecting as far beyond them as the eastern part now does. An independent suggestion made by Professor Simpson in his just-published History of Architectural Development is that the western wall, with the columns resting on it, was originally meant to be in a line with the projecting western columns of the north porch. The anomalous and awkward form of this western end of the Erechtheum has long been a puzzle to architects; and one must welcome a solution which attributes it, not to the designer of the building, but to circumstances that forced it upon him.

3. Vases and Painting.-This year has seen the completion of Furtwängler and Reichholdt's Griechische Vasenmalerei—at least of its first part, for a continuation is already being issued. This magnificent publication gives accurate and full-scale reproductions of many of the finest Greek vases, in a form which shows fully the beauty of the original drawing. It is inevitably expensive; but an excellent use may be made of it by providing 1 American Journal of Archaeology, 1906.

a few frames, in which the plates can be changed from time to time and hung up in class-rooms or libraries. In this way a familiarity may be gained with the finest Greek draughtsmanship, and an interest in its subjects may be aroused. It is true that the vases are chosen more for their artistic interest, and that a few are not suitable for exhibition; but there are enough plates among the sixty to offer ample variety. Mr. H. B. Walters's History of Ancient Pottery, which is based on Birch, but is practically a new work, will be found a most useful book of reference for vases of all places and periods, from early Greek down to Roman provincial wares.

4. General Works.—Mr. H. B. Walters's Art of the Greeks will be found a good and excellently illustrated introduction to the various branches of Greek art. It deals with architecture, sculpture, painting, vases, terra-cottas, coins, and gems. Professor P. Gardner's Grammar of Greek Art, published in 1905, will be especially useful to those approaching the study from the literary side. It deals mainly with the difficulties and misunderstandings that meet a scholar who, without any archaeological training, wishes to avail himself of the evidence of Greek sculpture and painting, or to illustrate his teaching by their help. It should, therefore, conduce to that closer union of literary and archaeological elements which is so much to be desired in classical studies.

E. A. GARDner.

VI

NUMISMATICS

In the department of Ancient Numismatics the year now
under review has not been exceptionally fruitful. Discoveries
falling within the horizon of the general student have been
fewer than usual. The most important substantive publica-
tions have been catalogues, which are addressed primarily
to the specialist. Mr. Head's Greek Coins of Phrygia1 is a
notable addition to the well-known British Museum series.
With its masterly introduction, its full indexes, and its
numerous collotype plates it constitutes a valuable commen-
tary on many aspects of municipal life in this part of Asia
Minor during the first two or three centuries of the Roman
Empire. The great majority of the 2,148 pieces described
were already known, but the mintage of Phrygia has never
before been so carefully and systematically examined. The
third volume of my own Greek Coins in the Hunterian Collec-
tion completes the account of one section of the contents
of Dr. William Hunter's wonderful museum.
It begins
with Syria and concludes with Britain. Among the more
interesting series dealt with are the Seleucid Kings, Antioch
under the Empire, the Jews, the Ptolemaic Kings, and
Alexandria. So far as much of Northern Africa and the
whole of Western Europe are concerned, no continuous
series of collotype illustrations have hitherto been available.
Considerations of size and cost practically exclude the book
from the private shelves of all save workers in the numismatic

1 London, printed for the Trustees, 1906.
Glasgow, MacLehose, 1905.

field. But through the generosity of the late Mr. Stevenson of Hailie copies have been presented to some three hundred public libraries at home and abroad. It is thus very widely accessible, and those who are desirous of identifying stray specimens will often find it worth consulting, on account of the range of ground covered by the plates and by the comprehensive indexes attached to each volume.

The year has produced the usual crop of scattered articles in periodicals. Among these a prominent place must be assigned to Mr. Head's discussion of certain rare tetradrachms hitherto generally supposed to be the earliest coins struck by Alexander the Great in Macedon, and to be older than any issues of his reformed coinage on the Attic standard. Starting from the discovery that a symbol, which has long been assumed to be a prow, should be looked at from another side and interpreted as a satrapal tiara, Head shows that the tetradrachms in question are not Macedonian at all, but Indian, and that it is doubtful whether they were issued until after Alexander himself was dead. Incidentally, a good deal of fresh light is thrown on the sequence of the first series of Greek coins minted in India. Evidence from provenance plays a conspicuous part in the argument. It may be permissible to suggest a moral. Wandering scholars in Greece and Asia Minor can often do excellent service to numismatics by carefully noting the localities where coins, particularly bronze coins, are offered them for sale. Professor Ramsay's records have again and again proved highly valuable. Mr. Hasluck has lately been active in Mysia, and only the other day Mr. Wace succeeded in transporting across the Aegean and restoring to the Magnetes of Thessaly a whole series which it has been customary to ascribe to Magnesia in Ionia.3

In the most recent number of the Zeitschrift für

1 Numismatic Chronicle, 1906, pp. 1 ff.

'Num. Chron. 1906, pp. 26 ff.

3 J.H.S. XXV.