Reliable Witness Research Articles

Lost in the Mall with Mesmer and Wundt: Demarcations and Demonstrations in the Psychologies

This article analyzes the demarcations made within psychology as a feature of the “memory wars”—the current controversy around “recovered” or “false” memory. As it is played out inside professional psychology, the dispute features clinical practitioners acting largely as proponents of recovered memory and experimentalists as proponents of false memory. Tracing a genealogy of this dispute back to a pair of original sites (Mesmer’s salon and Wundt’s laboratory), we show how the traditions’engagement in three modes of scientific demonstration varies systematically in terms of the modes of social relation inherent in their epistemic practices and the kinds of “reliable witness” these practices produce. We conclude that whereas the experimentalist tradition is able to transporttheir produced witnesses from oneto anothersite of demonstration with relative ease, the clinical tradition has much greater difficulty in doing so and thus has to engage in a variety of compensatory demonstrative strategies.

Texts and Documents : E. C. Noble in June 1921, and His Account of the Discovery of Insulin

This article concerns the events in Toronto during June 1921 that led to the discovery of insulin and the controversy that followed. It draws attention to the hitherto unnoticed participation of E. C. Noble in the early lab work on dog 386 between 17 June and 26 June 1921. None of the accounts of the discovery of insulin written by the principal discoverers, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, J. B. Collip, and J. J. R. Macleod, acknowledge Noble's participation in the lab. The fact of his participation has several implications worth noting, as they refine the history of the discovery of insulin-not the least of which is the demonstration of his credentials as a reliable witness to the lab environment in which the first successes were achieved. He remains the only participant in the discovery whose account of the insulin project has not been published; this article includes Noble's anniversary account of 1971.

Crimes of the Dream World: French Trials of Diola Witches in Colonial Senegal

As European powers completed the colonization of the African continent, they faced the difficult task of creating an administrative and judicial structure to control the diverse population of their domains. Questions about the role of indigenous authorities and customary law in colonial system confronted Europeans at the very moment when they were gaining their first extended glimpses into the working of African political systems. In West Africa, the French employed indigenous people as local officials of highly centralized colonial administration while dividing precolonial polities into cercles and cantons. They often chose local officials more for their loyalty and their knowledge of the French language than for any claims to legitimate authority within formerly independent communities. Subject to the indigenat, the legal code that was applied only to Africans, local officials had little protection against arbitrary dismissal or other forms of discipline.' Central to the establishment of such system was the colonial authorities' claim to have a monopoly to dispense justice, not only to their own people, but also to those they have conquered.2 French officials administered local courts with the advice of African dignitaries from an approved list. African systems of law were allowed continued jurisdiction only in those areas outside immediate French concern. Thus the vast majority of French West Africans were subjected to judicial process organized according to French procedures; with French definitions of criminality, evidence, and, as it will be shown, of reality itself. As the European powers extended their authority, many Africans turned to their religious systems for an explanation of the colonial conquest. Prophets who claimed to understand the spiritual causes of the loss of political autonomy advanced new religious doctrines and rituals as way of self-purification and means to regain independence. When such prophetic messages led to armed revolts or evoked the specter of social unrest in the minds of colonial officials, these movements were suppressed and their leaders imprisoned or executed.3 More puzzling to colonial officials was another religious response: the dramatic increase in witchcraft accusations in the wake of the colonial conquest. From Senegal to South Africa, many African leaders blamed their defeat at the hands of the Europeans on the spiritual pollution generated by the practice of witchcraft. This was major part of the teachings of Nongqawuse, the Xhosa woman whose visions led to the Xhosa Cattle Killings of the 185Os.4 It continued after the colonial conquest in such diverse places as Nyasaland, Rhodesia, and Senegal. European observers filled their writings with descriptions of the thousands of people who lost their lives through poison ordeals or other forms of witchcraft accusations as African communities sought to rid themselves of those who used supernatural means to harm other people in their midst.5 Since the vast majority of colonial administrators did not believe in witchcraft, their response was to outlaw witchcraft accusations and to punish those who made such accusations. African concepts of witchcraft were not seen as response to the crisis of conquest, but as justification for the colonial presence and its mission civilisatrice.6 From the very beginnings of their presence on the African coast in the fifteenth century, Europeans had heard rumors that Africans engaged in cannibalism. This belief was strengthened by African claims that neighboring peoples-but never their own societies-practiced cannibalism. Despite investigations by such early ethnographers as Thomas Winterbottom, who concluded that aside from occasional ritual cannibalism, there was not single authentic account by reliable witness, European faith in such stories remained unshaken.7 William Cohen described French colonial novels of the 1920s as preoccupied with images of black cannibalism. …

The Meaning of The Ikhtilāf Al-madhāhib In 'Abd Al-wahhāb Al-sha'rānī's Al-mīzān Al-kubrā

AbstractThe Mīzān kubrā by 'Abd al-Wahhāb al-ShaAErānī (d. 973/1565) was cited by nineteenth-century Muslim scholars to support a wide range of mutually exclusive conceptions of religious authority. In the twentieth century, modern students of Islamic law have given different assessments of ShaAErānī's view of the relationship between the madhāhib: while some stress its innovativeness and potential for legal reform, others regard it as a conservative restatement of scholastic tradition. In substantial agreement with the latter view, I discuss some of ShaAErānī's theories, focusing on the significance of his peculiar blending of Sufi and legal discourses for the cultural history of Islam in the early Ottoman period. I argue that ShaAErānī's aim is to bring Ibn 'Arabī's spiritual hermeneutics of the revelation into line with the "age of taqlīd." As a "legal theorist" no less than a h agiographer, ShaAErānī was an imaginative and reliable witness of the religious values and mentalités of his time. Far from calling into question the established system of the legal schools, he assigned a pivotal role to the metaphysical validation of ikhtilāf in order to strengthen a pluralist view of mainstream Islam.

Qualification and Disqualification in Rape Cases

Between 1946 and 1950, the police in Stockholm interrogated almost 150 men about their involvement in alleged rapes and attempted rapes. The results of these investigations eventually led to seventeen prosecutions and eleven convictions. It was not easy to convict someone of rape. However, a consequence of the way the court operated was also that only certain men could be convicted, only certain women regarded as reliable witness, and only certain kinds of attack regarded as plausible. The question of whether the alleged crime was considered possible to prove was dependent upon who reported whom for what. For the complainants it was a matter of qualifying for inclusion within the protection of the law. But what appeared as a rejection of someone's credibility, was in actual fact a result of a prior rejection of the individual's person and character. From the point of view of the legal system, some individuals were more fitted than others for the role of credible victim or likely offender. The sexually immoral woman and the man at the mercy of his sexuality were both in danger of having their credibility questioned: the former a poor victim and the latter all too suitable an offender.

Past, present—and future?

A Short History of Cultural StudiesJohn HartleyLondon: Sage, 2003, 189 pp. (pbk), ISBN 0-7619-5028-1 Having worked as a researcher and teacher of cultural studies across several continents, John Hartley is well placed to attempt a history of the field—but he begins with an apology: ‘I've tried to be a reliable witness as a historian’, writes Hartley, but given the many and often competing approaches to and concepts of what it means to ‘do’ cultural studies ‘it would be unwise to impose upon it the false unity of a linear history’. Rather, this Short History of Cultural Studies picks up on specific themes, specific schools of thought which have contributed to the overall cultural studies project, and follows their struggles with contemporary views and, frequently, one another.

Daniel, the Three Youths fragment and the transmission of Old English verse

The theories of oral-formulaic composition advanced by Albert B. Lord, his mentor and collaborator Milman Parry, and their later twentieth-century followers have been adduced frequently in studies of Old English verse, elements of whose language must go back ultimately to an oral tradition. After decades of research, however, scholars have yet to find conclusive answers to some basic questions: did literate Anglo-Saxons continue to practise techniques of extemporaneous versification? If so, did they continue to develop the mnemonic skills attributed to oral poets? It is clear that the monuments of Old English verse reveal many examples of formulaic language (for example, se mæra maga Healfdenes, se mæra mago Healfdenes and se mæra maga Ecgðeowes); but should we regard this language as a reliable witness to oral-formulaic versification or, perhaps, as a hybrid, ‘literary-formulaic’ idiom? Finally, if we accept the synchronic (or achronic) models of the formulaic ‘word-hoard’ that inform many Old English studies, is it pointless even to speculate about poetic influence, direction of borrowing and similar concerns? If so, how should we regard, say, two parallel uses of the unusual phrase enge anpaðas, occurring verbatim in Beowulf and the poetic Exodus but nowhere else among the surviving monuments? Must we view these parallels as isolated outcroppings in the trackless expanse of the Old English poetic corpus? Largely as a result of the scarcity of verse preserved in multiple copies, such questions have remained debatable into the present century.

Suspects, lies, and videotape: an analysis of authentic high-stake liars.

This study is one of the very few, and the most extensive to date, which has examined deceptive behavior in a real-life, high-stakes setting. The behavior of 16 suspects in their police interviews has been analyzed. Clips of video footage have been selected where other sources (reliable witness statements and forensic evidence) provide evidence that the suspect lied or told the truth. Truthful and deceptive behaviors were compared. The suspects blinked less frequently and made longer pauses during deceptive clips than during truthful clips. Eye contact was maintained equally for deceptive and truthful clips. These findings negate the popular belief amongst both laypersons and professional lie detectors (such as the police) that liars behave nervously by fidgeting and avoiding eye contact. However, large individual differences were present.

Well…ah…: Hesitations and Hedges as an Influence on Jurors' Decisions1

Hispanic jurors' verdicts and whether these decisions were related to jurors' judgments of the credibility of the witness were the focus of this experiment. A prosecution witness testified in English or in Spanish with interpretation in English. Witnesses' speaking style systematically included hedges and hesitations or did not. Guilty verdicts were independent of language of testimony. Within Spanish‐interpreted conditions, jurors convicted the defendant 47% of the time in the absence of hedges and hesitations. When he hedged and hesitated, they convicted 34% of the time. This effect was complicated by a reliable Witness Hesitation × Juror Language Dominance interaction. These results are interpreted in the context of the courtroom impact of non‐English‐speaking witnesses and the impact of interpretation.

Pediatric foreign body aspiration.

1. Joshua D. Rovin, MD* 2. Bradley M. Rodgers, MD† 1. 2. *Division of Pediatric Surgery, Children’s Medical Center, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville, VA. 3. 4. †Editorial Board. After completing this article, readers should be able to: 1. Delineate the signs and symptoms of foreign body aspiration. 2. Explain the process of evaluating for suspected foreign body aspiration. 3. Describe the possible radiographic manifestations of foreign body aspiration. 4. Explain the management of foreign body aspiration in children. 5. Delineate the potential late complications of foreign body aspiration. Aspiration of foreign bodies by children can lead to serious illness and sometimes even death. According to National Safety Council statistics, in 1995, mechanical suffocation accounted for 5% (167) of all unintentional deaths among children in the United States younger than 4 years of age. Most of these deaths occurred in children younger than 1 year of age (81 deaths, accounting for 10% of all unintentional deaths in children younger than 1 year of age). Fortunately, the number of deaths has decreased over the past decade, which has been attributed to better education of the public and stricter guidelines for toy manufacturers. Nevertheless, foreign body aspiration continues to account for a significant number of preventable childhood deaths. Younger children are at the highest risk for accidental foreign body aspiration. This increased incidence has been attributed to several factors among younger children, including that they: 1) have the tendency to put small objects into their mouths; 2) often cry, shout, run, and play with objects in their mouths; and 3) do not have molars to chew certain foods adequately. Most studies show that fewer than 15% of foreign body aspirations occur among children older than 5 years of age. Boys comprise more than 50% of all cases of foreign body aspiration. By far, the objects aspirated most frequently are organic or food matter. In North America, peanuts are most common (Table 1⇓ ). View this table: Table 1. Commonly Aspirated Foreign Bodies Unlike aspiration in adults, there is only a …

The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition

This re-examination of the text of Genesis 1-11 is based on a strongly positive valuation of the Septuagint as a reliable witness to the original Hebrew. This position is contrary to that taken in most existing studies of the text of Genesis, including some that constitute parts of standard editions and reference works. Nevertheless, Hendel shows, there is an accumulating mass of evidence showing that his position is correct. He presents his analysis as the first step towards an eclectic critical edition of the books of the Hebrew Bible.

Cicero: Pro P. Sulla Oratio (review)

Pro P. Sulla Oratio Ann Vasaly D. H. Berry, ed. Cicero: Pro P. Sulla Oratio. With introduction and commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xxvi 1 335 pp. 2 figs. Cloth, $64.95. (Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries, 30) As the author points out, Pro Sulla is only the fifth of the fifty-eight extant speeches of Cicero to receive a full-scale scholarly commentary in English in this century (the last English commentary on Pro Sulla being J. S. Reid’s school edition of 1882). Berry convincingly argues that this particular speech in no way deserves the neglect into which it has fallen, for it is at once compelling as a paradigm of Ciceronian persuasive technique and invaluable as a reflection of Roman political, social, and legal affairs in the tumultuous period of the 60s b.c. Furthermore, a new edition of the text was surely called for, since neither Clark’s OCT of 1911 nor Kasten’s Teubner editions (1933, 1949, 1966) collated more than three of the manuscripts cited by each, whereas for the present edition Berry has collated all seven of the principal manuscripts and has provided [End Page 471] a complete account of the evidence (using the apparatus criticus for five of the manuscripts and providing a collation of the often corrupt readings of two others in Appendix 2). Unlike earlier editors, he has been able to draw on P. L. Schmidt’s discovery in 1974 of a collation by J. Gulielmius of the twelfth-century codex Erfurtensis. This collation, transcribed and published by Berry in 1989, is particularly valuable as it is the only reliable witness to the lost folios of the Erfurtensis which contained most of Pro Sulla. In addition to an account of the manuscripts, Berry’s full introduction treats the life of P. Cornelius Sulla; historical, political, and legal questions concerning his trial; and various aspects of the speech itself, including structure, prose rhythm, and date of publication. Here, the years Berry has devoted to preparing this work are reflected in his careful and thorough treatment of prosopography (the relationship of the defendant to Sulla the dictator is also treated in a separate appendix) and in his acute analysis of the laws under which the defendant was charged. It is interesting to note that Berry also confronts head-on two issues that ultimately concern our assessment of Cicero not as a persuasive orator or an effective politician but as an ethical human being: “Was Sulla Guilty?” and “The Morality of Cicero’s Defense” comprise the last two subsections of the part of the introduction that deals with the trial. Dismissing the hostile, and ultimately uncritical, method of some earlier scholars who tended to accept as truth the exact opposite of any assertion made by Cicero in a speech, Berry is inclined to absolve Sulla of a number of the more serious charges on which he was prosecuted, and especially of active complicity in Catiline’s attempted coup of 63. Proceeding from this thesis, he goes on to assert—rather boldly, given that the shades of Mommsen, Syme, and Carcopino still haunt any scholar willing to credit Cicero with a show of moral courage—that “if Sulla was indeed innocent of the charges relating to the conspiracy, then Cicero may be regarded as having stepped in, at great personal risk, to save a man who was innocent at least of the main charges on which he was accused, and who otherwise would have been condemned” (42). The commentary expands on various prosopographical and legal questions raised by the text, and Berry is particularly adroit at unraveling the meaning of a number of perplexing passages. Among many valuable discussions that could be cited: Roman social practice vis-à-vis the often conflicting demands of amicitia in judicial proceedings (143); Torquatus’ charges and Cicero’s strategy of response concerning the damning contents of Cicero’s letter to Pompey (265–66); the nature of Torquatus’ accusations of Sulla’s complicity in the “first conspiracy” (270–73); the editio process used to empanel the jurors in the trial (316–18). Every commentary has a unique character that reflects the preoccupations and special interests of its author. The...

Transient epileptic amnesia: a description of the clinical and neuropsychological features in 10 cases and a review of the literature

OBJECTIVESTo clarify the clinical and neuropsychological aspects of transient epileptic amnesia (TEA) based on 10 personally studied cases as well as review of 21 previously published cases; and to propose...

Satire, Fiction and Reference To Reality in Jerome's Epistuia 117

AbstractSatire is essentially a non-fictional literary form. Its point of departure is a real setting, which is directly referred to. But the way satirists magnify certain aspects of the reality they refer to distorts their picture.' Satires therefore are not realistic in the sense of providing reliable eye witness accounts of given situations. But they usually keep to rules, which provide hermeneutical keys for interpreting them with regard to the reality behind their distortions. How concrete that reality is, whether it just reflects a general or stereotype picture of a society or culture in a given age or whether the satire is directed against concrete historical figures, has to be established individually. The text discussed in the following has to be treated with such questions in mind. It is extant as a letter, but its addressees are not named and it is doubted whether they were historical figures. At a closer look it turns out to be a satire, but it seems at first sight to lack the concrete context that would give meaning and purpose to a satire. However, if it is a satire, and we may assume it is, it must have that context and we may try to reconstruct it using material provided by this text as well as others in its historical and literary vicinity; and although we may not succeed in finding definite answers to all the questions raised by this text, we hope nevertheless to shed some new light on this gripping little piece of ancient Christian literature.

Fenomenología crítica motora en pacientes no epilépticos con crisis psicógenas.

Recognition of different ictal motor patterns in psychogenic seizures may be useful in terms of differentiation from epileptic seizures and may also improve understanding the underlying psychopathology. To outline recognizable ictal motor patterns that may help to distinguish psychogenic motor seizures from epileptic convulsive episodes. Chart review from 54 patients with motor psychogenic seizures and no clinical or EEG evidence of concomitant epilepsy. Only 5 patients (9.2%) experienced more than one ictal motor pattern along their illness. Categorization into four subtypes according to ictal motor behaviour was possible in all other patients: psychogenic seizures with flaccid unconsciousness (32.6%), combativeness (32.6%), a hypermobile subtype (24.4%) as defined by the presence of intentional movements or slow rhythmic oscillations of a segment or the entire body, and rigidity (10.2%). Many psychogenic motor seizures consistently present with recognizable motor phenomena which may be readily identified providing the availability of a reliable witness. Psychogenic seizures as presented spontaneously in a general neurology setting may differ from those reported in biased referrals to video-EEG laboratories. Recognition of characteristic patterns may help differentiation from tonic-clonic convulsions, avoid unnecessary examinations, and may provide insights into their underlying psychopathological mechanisms.

Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study (review)

Reviewed by: Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study Joseph Farrell Geraldine Herbert-Brown. Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. xiv 1 249 pp. This revised doctoral thesis is a learned and closely argued work that reads Ovid’s Fasti essentially as a historical document. This clarity of purpose is at once the book’s great strength and its principal weakness. To summarize the basic argument: The Fasti is a particularly reliable witness to the development of Augustan ideology. Its form not only attests the regime’s use of the state calendar as a vehicle for propaganda, but is so inherently unpoetic that only under official compulsion can Ovid have accepted the challenge it presented. Passages written at Rome and dealing with Augustus himself and members of his family must closely reflect how the ruling house wished to be portrayed at any given time. The revisions made during Ovid’s relegation to Tomis are pathetic attempts to curry favor on the part of a poet who is no longer in touch, with the result that they should be seen as producing exactly the opposite of their intended effect. Herbert-Brown’s argument is set forth in five chapters—(1) Why Fasti? (2) Augustus, (3) Julius Caesar, (4) Livia, (5) Germanicus—a brief epilogue, and a substantial appendix on omissions in the Fasti, all of which are accompanied by a bibliography, an index of passages cited, and a general index. The book is well organized and produced, despite quite a few annoying typographical errors. There is no question but that the author has a thorough command of the historical evidence that bears on her subject. Her imagination is vivid and detailed, her attempts to reconstruct the ideological forces that shaped Augustus’ Principate and Ovid’s poem always challenging and instructive. In placing the Fasti within this milieu she makes several important advances. Her method of assessing the presence of Julius Caesar in the poem (109–129) is exemplary, and the argument concerning Vesta (66–80) is in a similar class. But the author’s claim “to have revealed how a mythology could be created to transform Republican titles into roles of monarchical stamp” (214) is overstated: that the Augustan regime relied on and worked to promote such a mythology is hardly a revelation. Nevertheless this study does manage to extend our understanding of how the state religion was manipulated so as to suggest that Augustus and his family ruled almost by divine right. The idea that the unfinished, partially revised condition of the poem makes it not a snapshot of, but something like a running commentary on, a developing imperial ideology is a reasonable and promising hypothesis. On the other hand, the author’s insistence on treating the Fasti only in this way seems to me to distort her understanding not only of the poem but to some extent even of the historical forces that shaped it. So intent is she on minimizing the poetic character of the Fasti that she argues, “It is difficult to believe that [Ovid] would choose something as problematic and unwieldy as the Roman calendar to set to verse unless extraneous pressure were being applied. For this reason it is [End Page 641] more feasible that Ovid’s decision to produce a major work as a tribute to Caesar Augustus came first; his decision to versify the calendar was the result” (1). There are of course two glaringly obvious problems with these assumptions. In the first place, Roman poets had for a long time been following their Hellenistic predecessors in taking up challenging and unpoetic topics. The generation that preceded Ovid had produced wonderful poems that masqueraded as farming manuals, treatises of literary theory, astronomical guides, and so forth. Ovid too had already distinguished himself in the mock-didactic tradition; the more serious, but still light-hearted Fasti represents a greater challenge of a not dissimilar kind. In a related vein, Herbert-Brown’s effort to distinguish the Fasti as much as possible from Callimachus’ Aetia strikes me as particularly unfortunate. Differences, of course, there are, but when all is said, the Fasti is the single surviving ancient...

Serum CPK Elevation After Seizures

To the Editor.— Serial determination of serum creatine phosphokinase (CPK) level is a useful index of acute myocardial infarction. 1 Nevertheless, a rise in serum CPK level must be interpreted with caution, because many extracardiac conditions are recognized to cause CPK level elevation (1974;229:1894). 1 We wish to call attention to the time course of serum CPK level elevation after generalized, tonic-clonic convulsions. We have determined serum CPK levels in five nonalcoholic patients who were admitted to the hospital for examination immediately after their first seizure. Three patients had generalized tonic-clonic seizures, and two had repetitive focal motor seizures involving the face or eralized tonic-clonic seizures, and two had repetitive focal motor seizures involving the face or extremity. Seizures were observed by either a physician or another reliable witness. No intramuscularly given injections were administered. There was no previous history of neuromuscular disease in any patient. Serial ECGs did not

Soviet Foreign Policy and the Invasion of Czechoslovakia

When the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia they thought they were propping up the status quo in order to prevent change. In fact they merely set in motion change of a different sort, creating new problems for themselves and the West. The invasion left the situation in Europe significantly altered. It has bequeathed to Europe an impasse in EastWest relations to which neither side can find a constructive response. Far from making Europe more stable it may turn out to have blocked one of the more hopeful roads to greater stability. The Russians invaded because they feared that Mr Dub£ek would lose control of his country and allow it to slide out of the Warsaw pact, thereby upsetting the balance of power on which European security has rested since the war. To prevent this they were prepared to pay practically any price. According to several accounts they were even prepared to risk a third world war. Zdenek Mlynir, in his new book, says that Mr Brezhnev confirmed this to the captive Czechoslovak leaders in Moscow after the invasion.1 In June the following year Vasil Bil'ak (admittedly not the most reliable witness) made the same point at a meeting, saying that the Russians 'told us in Moscow in May that we must realize that they would never let Czechoslovakia go even if it meant risking some kind of a third world war.'2

The Constant Speaker: Aspects of Conversation in Tristram Shandy

If there is one thing it should not be necessary to say about The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, it is that we must be extremely careful in using Tristram's own explanations of his book as evidence for what the work really is. A writer who can congratulate himself on the 'contrivance' of the 'machinery of [his] work" and who can yet explain his writing process as 'begin[ning] with writing the first sentence -and trusting to Almighty God for the second' (415) is not a wholly reliable witness. Nor is our confidence strengthened when he speaks of writing a book as 'like humming a song' (238), denies that his work is a farce 'unless every one's life and opinions are to be looked upon as a farce' (280), and even has Toby compare writing to defecating (313). We can only conclude that a book may be anything for one with sufficient wit and that, since Tristram prides himself upon his wit, his efforts at definition are merely evidences of his character that serve as examples of frustrated communication in a book which already has more than its share.

Epilycus' Negotiations with Persia

A NDOCIDES 3.29 refers to a treaty and a pact of everlasting friendship negotiated with an unnamed Persian king by an Athenian embassy headed by his uncle, Epilycus, at a date prior to the revolt of Amorges. These negotiations have frequently been discussed,' but almost exclusively in the context of the controversy about the Peace of Callias, and with comparatively little regard to the historical situation obtaining in the opening years of the reign of Darius II, the period to which the negotiations almost certainly belong. It must be admitted that Andocides is never a reliable historical witness,2 and that the agreements to which he refers made no impact upon the ancient tradition. Thucydides, despite his coverage of negotiations and proposed negotiations with Persia by both protagonists in the Archidamian War, notoriously does not mention any such treaty or pact.3 Theopompus, as cited by Theon, does refer to an Athenian claim to have negotiated a treaty with Darius, but it remains extremely doubtful whether Theon actually found the proper name Dareios in the text of Theopompus,4 and equally doubtful whether the name can be legitimately treated as an intruding gloss based on historical comment, whether wellinformed or ill-informed.5 Nevertheless the fact of a treaty with Persia in the period to which Andocides refers now seems confirmed beyond