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![By Rodrigo Pérez Ortega
S
ince the 19th century, scientists at
the Smithsonian Institution have
obtained, studied, and stored more
than 30,000 human remains, one of
the largest such collections in the
United States. In the past, many re-
mains were studied in order to justify sci-
entific racism. Now, the institution should
rapidly offer to return most of these re-
mains to lineal descendants or descen-
dant communities, according to a report
released last month by an institutional
task force.
“It’s important to face this past and try to
repair the harms caused by our institution
and so many others,” says Sabrina Sholts,
curator of biological
anthropology at the Smith-
sonian’s National Museum
of Natural History and
member of the task force.
Most of the Smithson-
ian’s human remains were
collected without proper
consent in the early
20th century, and many
acquisitions were part
of an attempt to prove
now-debunked notions of white superior-
ity. “It’s a collection that should have never
been amassed, and we’re committed to dis-
mantling as much of it as possible,” wrote
Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch
III last year in an editorial.
The Smithsonian already has a process
for repatriating its 15,000 Native American
remains, as a 1989 federal law requires; it
has returned more than 5000. Now, the
report urges that the collection’s Indig-
enous remains be returned more quickly
and that the effort extend to all human re-
mains. It also suggests prioritizing the re-
mains of other marginalized groups, such
as the collection’s 2100 African American
remains, as well as the nearly 6000 re-
mains of people whose names are at least
partially known.
The task force applies a bedrock princi-
ple of research on living humans—the need
for informed consent—to the remains, a
first for the Smithsonian. It advises that no
research should be done without consent
from the deceased or their descendants.
Research would be permitted without
consent on ancient remains that cannot
be linked to any of today’s communities,
which are a small percentage of the total.
Other new recommendations in-
clude returning as many remains as pos-
sible by 2030 and barring destructive
sampling—to analyze DNA, for example—to
identify descendants.
Studies of the remains, such as DNA anal-
ysis of dental calculus to study pathogens,
might be harder to carry out under the new
recommendations. Although there’s no of-
ficial moratorium, no new human remains
research has been approved in recent years
because of stricter re-
quirements, Sholts says.
She expects a pause on
approvals while the new
policy is established, but
notes the report antici-
pates positive outcomes
from future research.
The 15-member task
force, including both
Smithsonian staff and
outsiders, says the insti-
tution should ramp up its efforts to identify
both lineal descendants and communities
of descent and then initiate contact, rather
than waiting for repatriation requests. The
report recommends the Smithsonian re-
quest new funds and staff for the massive
repatriation effort, but does not say how
much would be needed.
“I’m impressed,” says Carlina de la Cova,
a biological anthropologist at the Univer-
sity of South Carolina who is not on the
task force. The recommendations “will
force scholars working with the dead to
think about how they engage with [re-
mains] and what that means for the living.”
She adds that it’s the first time a museum
has made such recommendations public,
and she expects other institutions to fol-
low the Smithsonian’s steps.
Sholts agrees: “This first step towards
a long-overdue reckoning makes it more
likely that others will do the same.” j
NEWS | IN DEPTH
1040 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE
Come fall, especially in the U.S. East, the
light brown wings of buckeyes darken to
a deep red, enabling them to absorb heat
more efficiently. When Cornell evolution-
ary biologists Robert Reed and Richard
Fandino used CRISPR to knock out differ-
ent parts of the lncRNA in these butter-
flies, they were born with little or no color
and their fall reddening was altered, the
team reported on 19 February on bioRxiv.
A white butterfly mutant posted on the
social media platform X (formerly Twit-
ter) alerted Livraghi to the team behind
the third new preprint: evolutionary de-
velopmental biologists Antónia Monteiro
and Shen Tian at the National University
of Singapore. They were focused on short
RNA sequences, microRNAs, known to reg-
ulate gene activity in plants, animals, and
other eukaryotes—organisms that pack
their DNA in a nucleus. In the squinting
bush brown butterfly (Bicyclus anynana),
a well-studied tropical species, they found
that a microRNA was active in the black
wing pattern, just as Livraghi had found
for the ivory lncRNA.
When the Singapore team disabled the
DNA encoding this microRNA, mir-193,
bush brown wings became lighter, the
team reported on 12 February in a bioRxiv
preprint. Knocking out mir-193 also had
dramatic effects in a distant relative, the
Indian cabbage white (Pieris canidia),
changing its black-patterned wings to
completely white. After learning about
the lncRNA identified by the two other
groups, Monteiro and Tian concluded that
the longer RNA is broken down to produce
these microRNA.
“A lot is happening within this small part
of the genome,” says Violaine Llaurens,
an evolutionary biologist at the College of
France. She cautions that other regulatory
elements probably play a role in butterfly
wing patterns. But the fact that the same
microRNA fine-tunes coloration in very
distantly related species is “amazing,”
says Anyi Mazo-Vargas, an evolutionary
bio-logist at Duke who worked with Reed.
She suspects similar RNAs color wings in
most, if not all, of the 180,000 species of
moths and butterflies. And because mir-193
is conserved across the animal kingdom,
Monteiro and Tian think noninsects may
also make use of these regulatory RNAs.
Small RNAs derived from parent
lncRNAs affect traits in plants, too, says
Yaowu Yuan, an evolutionary biologist at
the University of Connecticut whose team
last year reported that so-called siRNAs
determine color in monkeyflowers. The
RNA realm is expanding, Yuan says. “I
am quite positive that many more similar
studies will come soon.” j
Smithsonian urged to speed
repatriation of human remains
Task force says museum should return many of its 30,000
remains and seek descendants’ consent for research
MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
“Thisfirststeptowards
along-overduereckoning
makesitmorelikely
otherswilldothesame.”
Sabrina Sholts,
National Museum of Natural History](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-16-2048.jpg)
![By Amanda Heidt
I
n 1859 Charles Darwin coined the term
“living fossil” to describe lineages that
have looked the same for tens of millions
of years, such as the coelacanth, sturgeon,
and horseshoe crab. The term captured
the popular imagination, but scientists
have struggled to understand whether such
species just resemble their long-ago ances-
tors or have truly evolved little over the eons.
Now, in a study published this week in Evo-
lution, researchers confirm that in some—but
not all—living fossils, evolution is at a virtual
standstill. The most striking examples are
prehistoric-looking fish called gars, which
have the slowest rate of molecular evolution
of all jawed vertebrates. The team also pro-
poses a mechanism to explain gars’ timeless-
ness: superb DNA repair machinery. That
repair has likely kept gar genomes so stable
that species whose last common ancestor
lived more than 100 million years ago have
diverged very little, and some can still hybrid-
ize today to produce viable offspring.
“That’s amazing,” says Tetsuya Nakamura,
an evolutionary developmental biologist at
Rutgers University. “This paper has a lot of
interesting work into this question of what
makes a living fossil, but when I read that, I
was shocked.”
To see whether several putative living fos-
sils evolve more slowly than other vertebrate
groups, the team gathered published se-
quences from more than 1100 exons (the cod-
ing regions of the genome) across 478 species.
Using existing family trees for each group,
they created a massive evolutionary tree. For
each lineage, the researchers estimated the
rate at which each DNA base changed over
time—the so-called substitution rate.
Surprisingly, they found evolution was
not on pause in all living fossils. The coel-
acanth, the elephant shark, and a bird called
the hoatzin—all considered ancient—have
faster than expected mutation rates of about
0.0005 mutations at each site per million
years, although that was still slower than the
average rate for amphibians (0.007 mutations
per million years) and placental mammals
(0.02 mutations per million years). The find-
ings support the idea that some species that
still resemble their ancient ancestors have
nevertheless changed at a molecular level.
But gars, big freshwater fish with long,
toothy snouts, were different: In almost every
exon, gars had the slowest rates of molecular
substitution, often by several orders of mag-
nitude; they averaged only 0.00009 muta-
tions per million years at each site. Indeed,
two genera that diverged roughly 20 million
years ago had identical sequences at nearly
all the sites analyzed—a finding the team at
first attributed to sequencing error. “I came
into this project cautious about using the
term living fossil,” says study co-author Chase
Brownstein, an evolutionary biology Ph.D.
student at Yale University. “But for gars at
least, it’s an appropriate term.”
The authors posit that because gar mu-
tation rates seem consistently low across
sites—including in genomic regions un-
likely to be under selective pressure to stay
the same—a global mechanism likely drives
the slow substitution. They suggest gars
are extremely efficient at repairing DNA
after mutations or damage, keeping the
animals from evolving even as the conti-
nents have shifted around them. A similar
hypothesis has previously been proposed by
other researchers for sturgeon, which had
the second-lowest substitution rates among
vertebrates in the study.
DNA repair is “a reasonable hypothesis,
but there’s probably more than just one ex-
planation,” says Elise Parey, an evolutionary
genomicist at University College London.
For example, gars have slow metabolic rates
and long generation times, features that
could reduce mutation rates. Gars have also
preserved the arrangement of DNA in their
chromosomes and dampened the effects of
so-called jumping genes that can cause ge-
netic reshuffling as they move from place to
place in the genome. “This goes not just to
sequence changes, but also to chromosome
evolution, which would be an interesting av-
enue to explore,” Parey says.
To test their findings, the authors followed
up on reports of unusual gars that might
be natural hybrids in rivers throughout
Oklahoma and Texas. They analyzed tissue
samples from dozens of these fish to trace
their ancestry, finding that two gar genera—
Atractosteus and Lepisosteus—are crossing to
produce fertile, hybrid young. These groups
last shared a common ancestor roughly
105 million years ago, a record separation
time for eukaryotes that can produce viable
offspring. The gars beat the previous re-
cord holders—two species of fern—by about
60 million years. (Keen minds may re-
call reports of the sturddlefish, a hybrid of
paddlefish and sturgeon, which diverged
even longer ago, but those accidental hybrids
were likely sterile and don’t occur naturally.)
A next step will be to prove that gars’ DNA
repair mechanisms are indeed slowing their
genetic change. By equipping zebrafish—a
standard model animal—with gar DNA repair
genes, investigators might be able to observe
the genes at work. “This will be a challeng-
ing experiment though, because [DNA repair
genes] are fundamental,” Nakamura says.
But the authors say understanding how
gars keep their mutation rate so low could
have additional payoffs. For example, such
insights might help humans better under-
stand our own DNA repair pathways, which
can lead to cancer when they fail. j
Amanda Heidt is a science journalist in Utah.
8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1041
SCIENCE science.org
PHOTO:
SOLOMON
DAVID
Gars truly are‘living fossils,’
massive DNAdata set shows
The fish’s genomes change so slowly that species separated
since the dinosaurs can produce fertile hybrids today
EVOLUTION
This fish is the hybrid offspring of an alligator gar and
a spotted gar—members of genera that last shared a
common ancestor at least 100 million years ago.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-17-2048.jpg)
![the instruction. Plato, Protagoras, c. 2, p. 310 D.; c. 8, p. 316 C.; c. 9, p. 318,
etc.: compare also Plato, Meno. p. 91, and Gorgias, c. 4. p. 449 E., asserting the
connection, in the mind of Gorgias, between teaching to speak and teaching to
think—λέγειν καὶ φρονεῖν, etc.
It would not be reasonable to repeat, as true and just, all the polemical
charges against those who are called Sophists, even as we find them in Plato,
without scrutiny and consideration. But modern writers on Grecian affairs run
down the Sophists even more than Plato did, and take no notice of the
admissions in their favor which he, though their opponent, is perpetually making.
This is a very extensive subject, to which I hope to revert.
[59] I dissent entirely from the judgment of Dr. Thirlwall, who repeats what
is the usual representation of Sokratês and the Sophists, depicting Alkibiadês as
“ensnared by the Sophists,” while Sokratês is described as a good genius
preserving him from their corruptions (Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, pp. 312,
313, 314). I think him also mistaken when he distinguishes so pointedly Sokratês
from the Sophists; when he describes the Sophists as “pretenders to wisdom;” as
“a new school;” as “teaching that there was no real difference between truth and
falsehood, right and wrong,” etc.
All the plausibility that there is in this representation, arises from a confusion
between the original sense and the modern sense of the word Sophist; the latter
seemingly first bestowed upon the word by Plato and Aristotle. In the common
ancient acceptation of the word at Athens, it meant not a school of persons
professing common doctrines, but a class of men bearing the same name,
because they derived their celebrity from analogous objects of study and common
intellectual occupation. The Sophists were men of similar calling and pursuits,
partly speculative, partly professional; but they differed widely from each other,
both in method and doctrine. (See for example Isokratês, cont. Sophistas, Orat.
xiii; Plato, Meno. p. 87 B.) Whoever made himself eminent in speculative pursuits,
and communicated his opinions by public lecture, discussion, or conversation, was
called a Sophist, whatever might be the conclusions which he sought to expound
or defend. The difference between taking money, and expounding gratuitously, on
which Sokratês himself was so fond of dwelling (Xenoph. Memor. i, 6, 12), has
plainly no essential bearing on the case. When Æschinês the orator reminds the
dikasts, “Recollect that you Athenians put to death the Sophist Sokratês, because
he was shown to have been the teacher of Kritias,” (Æschin. cont. Timarch. c. 34,
p. 74,) he uses the word in its natural and true Athenian sense. He had no point
to make against Sokratês, who had then been dead more than forty years; but he
describes him by his profession or occupation, just as he would have said,
Hippokratês the physician, Pheidias the sculptor, etc. Dionysius of Halikarn. calls
both Plato and Isokratês sophists (Ars Rhetor. De Compos. Verborum, p. 208 R.).
The Nubes of Aristophanês, and the defences put forth by Plato and Xenophon,
show that Sokratês was not only called by the name Sophist, but regarded just in](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-35-2048.jpg)
![the same light as that in which Dr. Thirlwall presents to us what he calls “the new
School of the Sophists;” as “a corruptor of youth, indifferent to truth or falsehood,
right or wrong,” etc. See a striking passage in the Politicus of Plato, c. 38, p. 299
B. Whoever thinks, as I think, that these accusations were falsely advanced
against Sokratês, will be careful how he advances them against the general
profession to which Sokratês belonged.
That there were unprincipled and immoral men among the class of Sophists—
as there are and always have been among schoolmasters, professors, lawyers,
etc., and all bodies of men—I do not doubt; in what proportion, we cannot
determine. But the extreme hardship of passing a sweeping condemnation on the
great body of intellectual teachers at Athens, and canonizing exclusively Sokratês
and his followers, will be felt, when we recollect that the well-known Apologue,
called the Choice of Hercules, was the work of the Sophist Prodikus, and his
favorite theme of lecture (Xenophon, Memor. ii, 1, 21-34). To this day, that
Apologue remains without a superior, for the impressive simplicity with which it
presents one of the most important points of view of moral obligation: and it has
been embodied in a greater number of books of elementary morality than
anything of Sokratês, Plato, or Xenophon. To treat the author of that Apologue,
and the class to which he belonged, as teaching “that there was no real
difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood,” etc., is a criticism not
in harmony with the just and liberal tone of Dr. Thirlwall’s history.
I will add that Plato himself, in a very important passage of the Republic (vi, c.
6, 7, pp. 492-493), refutes the imputation against the Sophists of being specially
the corruptors of youth. He represents them as inculcating upon their youthful
pupils that morality which was received as true and just in their age and society;
nothing better, nothing worse. The grand corruptor, he says, is society itself; the
Sophists merely repeat the voice and judgment of society. Without inquiring at
present how far Plato or Sokratês were right in condemning the received morality
of their countrymen, I most fully accept his assertion that the great body of the
contemporary professional teachers taught what was considered good morality
among the Athenian public: there were doubtless some who taught a better
morality, others who taught a worse. And this may be said with equal truth of the
great body of professional teachers in every age and nation.
Xenophon enumerates various causes to which he ascribes the corruption of
the character of Alkibiadês; wealth, rank, personal beauty, flatterers, etc.; but he
does not name the Sophists among them (Memorab. i, 2. 24, 25).
[60] Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1; Satyrus apud Athenæum, xii, p. 534;
Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 23.
Οὗ γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τοιοῦτος εἰμ’ ἐγώ, says Odysseus, in the Philoktêtês of
Sophoklês.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-36-2048.jpg)
![[61] I follow the criticism which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus, seemingly
discriminating and measured: much more trustworthy than the vague eulogy of
Nepos, or even of Demosthenês (of course not from his own knowledge), upon
the eloquence of Alkibiadês (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 10); Plutarch, Reipubl. Gerend.
Præcept. c. 8, p. 804.
Antisthenês, companion and pupil of Sokratês, and originator of what is called
the Cynic philosophy, contemporary and personally acquainted with Alkibiadês,
was full of admiration for his extreme personal beauty, and pronounced him to be
strong, manly, and audacious, but unschooled, ἀπαίδευτον. His scandals about
the lawless life of Alkibiadês, however, exceed what we can reasonably admit,
even from a contemporary (Antisthenês ap. Athenæum, v, p. 220, xii, p. 534).
Antisthenês had composed a dialogue called Alkibiadês (Diog. Laërt. vi, 15).
See the collection of the Fragmenta Antisthenis (by A. G. Winckelmann,
Zurich, 1842, pp. 17-19).
The comic writers of the day—Eupolis, Aristophanês, Pherekratês, and others
—seem to have been abundant in their jests and libels against the excesses of
Alkibiadês, real or supposed. There was a tale, untrue, but current in comic
tradition, that Alkibiadês, who was not a man to suffer himself to be insulted with
impunity, had drowned Eupolis in the sea, in revenge, for his comedy of the
Baptæ. See Meineke, Fragm. Com. Græ. Eupolidis Βάπται and Κόλακες (vol. ii, pp.
447-494), and Aristophanês Τριφαλῆς, p. 1166: also Meineke’s first volume,
Historia Critica Comic. Græc. pp. 124-136; and the Dissertat. xix, in Buttmann’s
Mythologus, on the Baptæ and the Cotyttia.
[62] Thucyd. vi, 15. Compare Plutarch, Reip. Ger. Præc. c. 4, p. 800. The
sketch which Plato draws in the first three chapters of the ninth Book of the
Republic, of the citizen who erects himself into a despot and enslaves his fellow-
citizens, exactly suits the character of Alkibiadês. See also the same treatise, vi,
6-8, pp. 491-494, and the preface of Schleiermacher to his translation of the
Platonic dialogue called Alkibiadês the first.
[63] Aristophan. Ranæ, 1445-1453; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16; Plutarch,
Nikias, c. 9.
[64] Thucyd. v, 43, vi, 90; Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 352, sect. 27-30.
Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14) carelessly represents Alkibiadês as being actually
proxenus of Sparta at Athens.
[65] Thucyd. v, 43. Οὐ μέντοι ἀλλὰ καὶ φρονήματι φιλονεικῶν ἠναντιοῦτο,
ὅτι Λακεδαιμόνιοι διὰ Νικίου καὶ Λάχητος ἔπραξαν τὰς σπονδὰς, αὐτὸν διὰ τὴν
νεότητα ὑπεριδόντες καὶ κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν προξενίαν ποτὲ οὖσαν οὐ τιμήσαντες,
ἣν τοῦ πάππου ἀπειπόντος αὐτὸς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς νήσου αὐτῶν αἰχμαλώτους](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-37-2048.jpg)
![θεραπεύων διενοεῖτο ἀνανεώσασθαι. Πανταχόθεν τε νομίζων
ἐλασσοῦσθαι τό τε πρῶτον ἀντεῖπεν, etc.
[66] Thucyd. v, 43.
[67] Thucyd. v, 48.
[68] Thucyd. v, 44. Ἀφίκοντο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πρέσβεις κατὰ τάχος,
etc.
[69] Thucyd. viii, 6. Ἐνδίῳ τῷ ἐφορεύοντι πατρικὸς ἐς τὰ μάλιστα φίλος—
ὅθεν καὶ τοὔνομα Λακωνικὸν ἡ οἰκία αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ξενίαν ἔσχεν· Ἔνδιος γὰρ
Ἀλκιβιάδου ἐκαλεῖτο.
I incline to suspect, from this passage, that the father of Endius was not
named Alkibiadês, but that Endius himself was nevertheless named Ἔνδιος
Ἀλκιβιάδου, in consequence of the peculiar intimacy of connection with the
Athenian family in which that name occurred. If the father of Endius was really
named Alkibiadês, Endius himself would naturally, pursuant to general custom, be
styled Ἔνδιος Ἀλκιβιάδου: there would be nothing in this denomination to call for
the particular remark of Thucydidês. But according to the view of the Scholiast
and most commentators, all that Thucydidês wishes to explain here is, how the
father of Endius came to receive the name of Alkibiadês. Now if he had meant
this, he surely would not have used the terms which we read: the circumstance to
be explained would then have reference to the father of Endius, not to Endius
himself, nor to the family generally. His words imply that the family, that is, each
successive individual of the family, derived his Laconian designation (not from the
name of his father, but) from his intimate connection of hospitality with the
Athenian family of Alkibiadês. Each successive individual attached to his own
personal name the genitive case Ἀλκιβιάδου, instead of the genitive of his real
father’s name. Doubtless this was an anomaly in Grecian practice; but on the
present occasion, we are to expect something anomalous; had it not been such,
Thucydidês would not have stepped aside to particularize it.
[70] Thucyd. v, 45. Μηχανᾶται δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς τοῖονδέ τι ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης· τοὺς
Λακεδαιμονίους πείθει, πίστιν αὐτοῖς δοὺς, ἢν μὴ ὁμολογήσωσιν ἐν τῷ δήμῳ
αὐτοκράτορες ἥκειν, Πύλον τε αὐτοῖς ἀποδώσειν (πείσειν γὰρ αὐτὸς
Ἀθηναίους, ὥσπερ καὶ νῦν ἀντιλέγειν) καὶ τἄλλα ξυναλλάξειν. Βουλόμενος δὲ
αὐτοὺς Νικίου τε ἀποστῆσαι ταῦτα ἔπραττε, καὶ ὅπως ἐν τῷ δήμῳ
διαβαλὼν αὐτοὺς ὡς οὐδὲν ἀληθὲς ἐν νῷ ἔχουσιν, οὐδὲ
λέγουσιν οὐδέποτε ταὐτὰ, τοὺς Ἀργείους ξυμμάχους ποιήσῃ.
[71] Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14). Ταῦτα δ’ εἰπὼν ὅρκους ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς,
καὶ μετέστησεν ἀπὸ τοῦ Νικίου παντάπασι πιστεύοντας αὐτῷ, καὶ θαυμάζοντας](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-38-2048.jpg)
![ἅμα τὴν δεινότητα καὶ σύνεσιν, ὡς οὐ τοῦ τυχόντος ἀνδρὸς οὖσαν.
Again, Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.
[72] Plutarch, Alkib. c. 14. Ἐρωτώμενοι δ’ ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου πάνυ
φιλανθρώπως, ἐφ’ οἷς ἀφιγμένοι τυγχάνουσιν, οὐκ ἔφασαν ἥκειν
αὐτοκράτορες.
[73] Thucyd. v, 45. Οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐκέτι ἠνείχοντο, ἀλλὰ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου
πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἢ πρότερον καταβοῶντος τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων,
ἐσήκουόν τε καὶ ἑτοῖμοι ἦσαν εὐθὺς παραγαγεῖν τοὺς Ἀργείους, etc.
Compare Plutarch, Alkib. c. 14; and Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.
[74] Euripid. Andromach. 445-455; Herodot. ix, 54.
[75] Thucyd. v, 46.
[76] Thucyd. v, 46; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10.
[77] Thucyd. v, 47. ὑπὲρ σφῶν αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἄρχουσιν
ἑκάτεροι.
[78] Thucyd. v, 48. καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἂν ἄρχουσιν ἕκαστοι. The
tense and phrase here deserve notice, as contrasted with the phrase in the
former part of the treaty—τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἄρχουσιν ἑκάτεροι.
The clause imposing actual obligation to hinder the passage of troops,
required to be left open for application to the actual time.
[79] Thucyd. v, 47.
[80] Thucyd. v, 48.
[81] Thucyd. v, 48-50.
[82] Καταθέντων δὲ καὶ Ὀλυμπίασι στήλην χαλκῆν κοινῇ Ὀλυμπίοις τοῖς
νυνί (Thucyd. v, 47), words of the treaty.
[83] Dorieus of Rhodes was victor in the Pankration, both in Olymp. 88 and
89, (428-424 B.C.). Rhodes was included among the tributary allies of Athens. But
the athletes who came to contend were privileged and (as it were) sacred
persons, who were never molested or hindered from coming to the festival, if
they chose to come, under any state of war. Their inviolability was never
disturbed even down to the harsh proceeding of Aratus (Plutarch, Aratus, c. 28).
But this does not prove that Rhodian visitors generally, or a Rhodian theôry,
could have come to Olympia between 431-421 in safety.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-39-2048.jpg)
![From the presence of individuals, even as spectators, little can be inferred:
because, even at this very Olympic festival of 420 B.C., Lichas the Spartan was
present as a spectator, though all Lacedæmonians were formally excluded by
proclamation of the Eleians (Thucyd. v, 50).
[84] Of the taste and elegance with which these exhibitions were usually got
up in Athens, surpassing generally every other city in Greece, see a remarkable
testimony in Xenophon, Memorabil. iii, 3, 12.
[85] Thucyd. vi, 16. Οἱ γὰρ Ἕλληνες καὶ ὑπὲρ δύναμιν μείζω ἡμῶν τὴν πόλιν
ἐνόμισαν τῷ ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ τῆς Ὀλυμπίαζε θεωρίας, πρότερον ἐλπίζοντες
αὐτὴν καταπεπολεμῆσθαι· διότι ἅρματα μὲν ἑπτὰ καθῆκα, ὅσα οὐδείς πω
ἰδιώτης πρότερον, ἐνίκησά τε, καὶ δεύτερος καὶ τέταρτος ἐγενόμην, καὶ τἄλλα
ἀξίως τῆς νίκης παρεσκευασάμην.
The full force of this grandiose display cannot be felt unless we bring to our
minds the special position both of Athens and the Athenian allies towards
Olympia,—and of Alkibiadês himself towards Athens, Argos, and the rest of
Greece,—in the first half of the year 420 B.C.
Alkibiadês obtained from Euripidês the honor of an epinikian ode, or song of
triumph, to celebrate this event; of which a few lines are preserved by Plutarch
(Alkib. c. 11). It is curious that the poet alleges Alkibiadês to have been first,
second, and third, in the course; while Alkibiadês himself, more modest and
doubtless more exact, pretends only to first, second, and fourth. Euripidês
informs us that Alkibiadês was crowned twice and proclaimed twice—δὶς
στεφθέντ’ ἐλαίᾳ κάρυκι βοᾷν παραδοῦναι. Reiske, Coray, and Schäfer, have
thought it right to alter this word δὶς to τρὶς, without any authority, which
completely alters the asserted fact. Sintenis in his edition of Plutarch has properly
restored the word δὶς.
How long the recollection of this famous Olympic festival remained in the
Athenian public mind, is attested partly by the Oratio de Bigis of Isokratês,
composed in defence of the son of Alkibiadês at least twenty-five years
afterwards, perhaps more. Isokratês repeats the loose assertion of Euripidês,
πρῶτος, δεύτερος, and τρίτος (Or. xvi, p. 353, sect. 40). The spurious Oration
called that of Andokidês against Alkibiadês also preserves many of the current
tales, some of which I have admitted into the text, because I think them probable
in themselves, and because that oration itself may reasonably be believed to be a
composition of the middle of the fourth century B.C. That oration puts all the
proceedings of Alkibiadês in a very invidious temper and with palpable
exaggeration. The story of Alkibiadês having robbed an Athenian named
Diomêdês of a fine chariot, appears to be a sort of variation on the story about
Tisias, which figures in the oration of Isokratês; see Andokid. cont. Alkib. sect.
26: possibly Alkibiadês may have left one of the teams not paid for. The aid lent](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-40-2048.jpg)
![Olympia in 428 or 424 B.C. without impediment, these stipulations in the treaties
would have no purpose nor meaning. But the fact of their standing in the front of
the treaty, proves that they were looked upon as of much interest and
importance.
I have placed the Olympic festival wherein Alkibiadês contended with his
seven chariots, in 420 B.C., in the peace, but immediately after the war. No other
festival appears to me at all suitable.
Dr. Thirlwall farther assumes, as a matter of course, that there was only one
chariot-race at this Olympic festival, that all the seven chariots of Alkibiadês ran in
this one race, and that in the festival of 420 B.C., Lichas gained the prize: thus
implying that Alkibiadês could not have gained the prize at the same festival.
I am not aware that there is any evidence to prove either of these three
propositions. To me they all appear improbable and unfounded.
We know from Pausanias (vi, 13, 2) that even in the case of the stadiodromi,
or runners who contended in the stadium, all were not brought out in one race.
They were distributed into sets, or batches, of what number we know not. Each
set ran its own heat, and the victors in each then competed with each other in a
fresh heat; so that the victor who gained the grand final prize was sure to have
won two heats.
Now if this practice was adopted with the foot-runners, much more would it
be likely to be adopted with the chariot-racers in case many chariots were
brought to the same festival. The danger would be lessened, the sport would be
increased, and the glory of the competitors enhanced. The Olympic festival lasted
five days, a long time to provide amusement for so vast a crowd of spectators.
Alkibiadês and Lichas may therefore both have gained chariot-victories at the
same festival: of course only one of them can have gained the grand final prize,
and which of the two that was it is impossible to say.
[86] Thucyd. v, 49, 50.
[87] Thucyd. v, 50. Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν εἴργοντο τοῦ ἱεροῦ, θυσίας καὶ
ἀγώνων, καὶ οἴκοι ἔθυον· οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι Ἕλληνες ἐθεώρουν, πλὴν Λεπρεατῶν.
[88] Thucyd. v, 28. Κατὰ γὰρ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ἥ τε Λακεδαίμων μάλιστα δὴ
κακῶς ἤκουσε, καὶ ὑπερώφθη διὰ τὰς ξυμφορὰς, οἵ τε Ἀργεῖοι ἄριστα ἔσχον τοῖς
πᾶσι, etc.
[89] See a previous note, p. 56.
[90] Thucyd. v, 50. Λίχας ὁ Ἀρκεσιλάου Λακεδαιμόνιος ἐν τῷ ἀγῶνι ὑπὸ τῶν
ῥαβδούχων πληγὰς ἔλαβεν, ὅτι νικῶντος τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ ζεύγους, καὶ
ἀνακηρυχθέντος Βοιωτῶν δημοσίου κατὰ τὴν οὐκ ἐξουσίαν τῆς ἀγωνίσεως
προελθὼν ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἀνέδησε τὸν ἡνίοχον, βουλόμενος δηλῶσαι ὅτι ἑαυτοῦ ἦν
τὸ ἅρμα.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-42-2048.jpg)
![We see by comparison with this incident how much less rough and harsh was
the manner of dealing at Athens, and in how much more serious a light blows to
the person were considered. At the Athenian festival of the Dionysia, if a person
committed disorder or obtruded himself into a place not properly belonging to
him in the theatre, the archon or his officials were both empowered and required
to repress the disorder by turning the person out, and fining him, if necessary.
But they were upon no account to strike him. If they did, they were punishable
themselves by the dikastery afterwards (Demosth. cont. Meidiam, c. 49).
[91] It will be seen, however, that the Lacedæmonians remembered and
revenged themselves upon the Eleians for this insult twelve years afterwards
during the plenitude of their power (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 2, 21; Diodor. xiv, 17).
[92] Thucyd. v, 51, 52.
[93] Thucyd. v, 48-50.
[94] Plato, Symposion, c. 35, p. 220. δεινοὶ γὰρ αὐτόθι χειμῶνες, πάγου οἵου
δεινοτάτου, etc.
[95] Thucyd. v, 52. Isokratês (De Bigis, sect. 17, p. 349) speaks of this
expedition of Alkibiadês in his usual loose and exaggerated language: but he has
a right to call attention to it as something very memorable at the time.
[96] Thucyd. v, 52.
[97] Thucyd. v, 53, with Dr. Arnold’s note.
[98] Thucyd. v, 54. ᾔδει δὲ οὐδεὶς ὅποι στρατεύουσιν οὐδὲ αἱ πόλεις ἐξ ὧν
ἐπέμφθησαν.
This incident shows that Sparta employed the military force of her allies
without any regard to their feelings, quite as decidedly as Athens; though there
were some among them too powerful to be thus treated.
[99] Thucyd. v, 54. Ἀργεῖοι δ’ ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν (the Lacedæmonians),
τοῦ πρὸ τοῦ Καρνείου μηνὸς ἐξελθόντες τετράδι φθίνοντος, καὶ ἄγοντες τὴν
ἡμέραν ταύτην πάντα τὸν χρόνον, ἐσέβαλον ἐς τὴν Ἐπιδαυρίαν καὶ
ἐδῄουν· Ἐπιδαύριοι δὲ τοὺς ξυμμάχους ἐπεκαλοῦντο· ὧν οἱ μὲν τὸν μῆνα
προυφασίσαντο, οἱ δὲ καὶ ἐς μεθορίαν τῆς Ἐπιδαυρίας ἐλθόντες ἡσύχαζον.
In explaining this passage, I venture to depart from the views of all the
commentators; with the less scruple, as it seems to me that even the best of
them are here embarrassed and unsatisfactory.
The meaning which I give to the words is the most strict and literal possible:
“The Argeians, having set out on the 26th of the month before Karneius, and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-43-2048.jpg)
![they were not bound to follow the views of other Dorian states, since there does
not seem to have been any recognized authority for proclaiming the
commencement of the Karneian truce, as the Eleians proclaimed the Olympic and
the Corinthians the Isthmiac truce. In saying, therefore, that the twenty-sixth of
the month preceding Karneius should be repeated, and that the twenty-seventh
should not be recognized as arriving for a fortnight or three weeks, the Argeian
government would only be employing an expedient the like of which had been
before resorted to; though, in the case before us, it was employed for a
fraudulent purpose.
The Spartan month Hekatombeus appears to have corresponded with the Attic
month Hekatombæon; the Spartan month following it, Karneius, with the Attic
month Metageitnion (Hermann, p. 112), our months July and August; such
correspondence being by no means exact or constant. Both Dr. Arnold and Göller
speak of Hekatombeus as if it were the Argeian month preceding Karneius: but
we only know it as a Spartan month. Its name does not appear among the
months of the Dorian cities in Sicily, among whom nevertheless Karneius seems
universal. See Franz, Comm. ad Corp. Inscript. Græc. No. 5475, 5491, 5640. Part
xxxii, p. 640.
The tricks played with the calendar at Rome, by political authorities for party
purposes, are well known to every one. And even in some states of Greece, the
course of the calendar was so uncertain as to serve as a proverbial expression for
inextricable confusion. See Hesychius—Ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡμέρα; Ἐπὶ τῶν οὐκ
εὐγνώστον· οὐδεὶς γὰρ οἶδεν ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡ ἡμέρα, ὅτι οὐκ ἑστᾶσιν αἱ ἡμέραι, ἀλλ’
ὡς ἕκαστοι θέλουσιν ἄγουσι. See also Aristoph. Nubes, 605.
[100] Thucyd. v, 55. καὶ Ἀθηναίων αὐτοῖς χίλιοι ἐβοήθησαν ὁπλῖται καὶ
Ἀλκιβιάδης στρατηγὸς: πυθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι· καὶ ὡς
οὐδὲν ἔτι αὐτῶν ἔδει, ἀπῆλθον. This is the reading which Portus, Bloomfield,
Didot, and Göller, either adopt or recommend; leaving out the particle δὲ which
stands in the common text after πυθόμενοι.
If we do not adopt this reading, we must construe ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι, as Dr.
Arnold and Poppo construe it, in the sense of “had already completed their
expedition and returned home.” But no authority is produced for putting such a
meaning upon the verb ἐκστρατεύω: and the view of Dr. Arnold, who conceives
that this meaning exclusively belongs to the preterite or pluperfect tense, is
powerfully contradicted by the use of the word ἐξεστρατευμένων (ii, 7), the same
verb and the same tense, yet in a meaning contrary to that which he assigns.
It appears to me the least objectionable proceeding of the two, to dispense
with the particle δέ.
[101] Thucyd. v, 56.
[102] Thucyd. v, 37.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-46-2048.jpg)
![[103] Thucyd. v, 58. Οἱ δὲ Ἀργεῖοι γνόντες ἐβοήθουν ἡμέρας ἤδη ἐκ τῆς
Νεμέας, etc.
[104] Thucyd. v, 60. Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι εἵποντο μὲν ὡς
ἡγεῖτο διὰ τὸν νόμον, ἐν αἰτίᾳ δὲ εἶχον κατ’ ἀλλήλους πολλῇ τὸν Ἆγιν, etc.
[105] Thucyd. v, 60. Ἀργεῖοι δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔτι ἐν πολλῷ πλέονι αἰτίᾳ εἶχον
τοὺς σπεισαμένους ἄνευ τοῦ πλήθους, etc.
[106] Thucyd. v, 60.
[107] Thucyd. v, 62.
[108] Thucyd. v, 64. ὅσον οὐκ ἀφέστηκεν, etc.
[109] Thucyd. v, 63.
[110] Thucyd. v, 64. ἐνταῦθα δὴ βοήθεια τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων γίγνεται αὐτῶν
τε καὶ τῶν Εἱλώτων πανδημεὶ ὀξεῖα καὶ οἵα οὔπω πρότερον. The out-march of the
Spartans just before the battle of Platæa (described in Herodot. vii, 10) seems,
however, to have been quite as rapid and instantaneous.
[111] Thucyd. v, 64. ξυνέκλῃε γὰρ διὰ μέσου.
[112] The Lacedæmonian kings appear to have felt a sense of protection in
encamping near a temple of Hêraklês, their heroic progenitor (see Xenophon,
Hellen. vii, 1, 31).
[113] Thucyd. v, 65. See an exclamation by an old Spartan mentioned as
productive of important consequences, at the moment when a battle was going to
commence, in Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 4, 25.
[114] Thucyd. v, 66. μάλιστα δὴ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐς ὃ ἐμέμνηντο, ἐν τούτῳ τῷ
καιρῷ ἐξεπλάγησαν· διὰ βραχείας γὰρ μελλήσεως ἡ παρασκευὴ αὐτοῖς ἐγίγνετο,
etc.
[115] Thucyd. v, 66. Σχεδὸν γάρ τι πᾶν, πλὴν ὀλίγου, τὸ στρατόπεδον τῶν
Λακεδαιμονίων ἄρχοντες ἀρχόντων εἰσὶ, καὶ τὸ ἐπιμελὲς τοῦ δρωμένου πολλοῖς
προσήκει.
Xenophon, De Republ. Laced. xi, 5. Αἱ παραγωγαὶ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ κήρυκος ὑπὸ τοῦ
ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται: compare xi, 8, τῷ ἐνωμοτάρχῃ παρεγγυᾶται εἰς
μέτωπον παρ’ ἄσπιδα καθίστασθαι, etc.
[116] Thucyd. v, 66. εὐθὺς ὑπὸ σπουδῆς καθίσταντο ἐς κόσμον τὸν
ἑαυτῶν, Ἄγιδος τοῦ βασιλέως ἕκαστα ἐξηγουμένου κατὰ τὸν νόμον, etc.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-47-2048.jpg)
![[117] Xenophon, Cyrop. iv, 2. 1: see Diodor. xv, c. 32; Xenophon, Rep. Laced.
xiii, 6.
[118] Thucyd. v, 67.
[119] Very little can be made out respecting the structure of the
Lacedæmonian army. We know that the enômoty was the elementary division,
the military unit: that the pentekosty was composed of a definite (not always the
same) number of enômoties: that the lochus also was composed of a definite (not
always the same) number of pentekosties. The mora appears to have been a still
larger division, consisting of so many lochi (according to Xenophon, of four lochi):
but Thucydidês speaks as if he knew no division larger than the lochus.
Beyond this very slender information, there seems no other fact certainly
established about the Lacedæmonian military distribution. Nor ought we
reasonably to expect to find that these words enômoty, pentekosty, lochus, etc.,
indicate any fixed number of men: our own names regiment, company, troop,
brigade, division, etc., are all more or less indefinite as to positive numbers and
proportion to each other.
That which was peculiar to the Lacedæmonian drill, was, the teaching a small
number of men like an enômoty (twenty-five, thirty-two, thirty-six men, as we
sometimes find it), to perform its evolutions under the command of its
enômotarch. When this was once secured, it is probable that the combination of
these elementary divisions was left to be determined in every case by
circumstances.
Thucydidês states two distinct facts. 1. Each enômoty had four men in front.
2. Each enômoty varied in depth, according as every lochagus chose. Now Dobree
asks, with much reason, how these two assertions are to be reconciled? Given the
number of men in front, the depth of the enômoty is of course determined,
without any reference to the discretion of any one. These two assertions appear
distinctly contradictory; unless we suppose (what seems very difficult to believe)
that the lochage might make one or two of the four files of the same enômoty
deeper than the rest. Dobree proposes, as a means of removing this difficulty, to
expunge some words from the text. One cannot have confidence, however, in the
conjecture.
[120] Thucyd. v, 69. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ καθ’ ἑκάστους τε καὶ μετὰ τῶν
πολεμικῶν νόμων ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὧν ἠπίσταντο τὴν παρακέλευσιν τῆς μνήμης
ἀγαθοῖς οὖσιν ἐποιοῦντο, εἰδότες ἔργων ἐκ πολλοῦ μελέτην πλείω σώζουσαν ἢ
λόγων δι’ ὀλίγου καλῶς ῥηθέντων παραίνεσιν.
[121] Thucyd. v, 70. Ἀργεῖοι μὲν καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι, ἐντόνως καὶ ὀργῇ
χωροῦντες, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ, βραδέως καὶ ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν νόμῳ
ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα ὁμαλῶς μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοντες](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-48-2048.jpg)
![προσέλθοιεν καὶ μὴ διασπασθείη αὐτῶν ἡ τάξις, ὅπερ φιλεῖ τὰ μεγάλα στρατόπεδα
ἐν ταῖς προσόδοις ποιεῖν.
[122] Thucyd. v, 67. Τότε δὲ κέρας μὲν εὐώνυμον Σκιρῖται αὐτοῖς καθίσταντο,
ἀεὶ ταύτην τὴν τάξιν μόνοι Λακεδαιμονίων ἐπὶ σφῶν αὐτῶν
ἔχοντες, etc.
The strong and precise language, which Thucydidês here uses, shows that this
was a privilege pointedly noted and much esteemed: among the Lacedæmonians,
especially, ancient routine was more valued than elsewhere. And it is essential to
take notice of the circumstance, in order to appreciate the generalship of Agis,
which has been rather hardly criticized.
[123] Thucyd. v, 72. (Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοὺς Ἀργείους) Ἔτρεψαν οὐδὲ ἐς
χεῖρας τοὺς πολλοὺς ὑπομείναντας, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπῇσαν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι εὐθὺς
ἐνδόντας, καὶ ἐστὶν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας, τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν.
The last words of this sentence present a difficulty which has perplexed all the
commentators, and which none of them have yet satisfactorily cleared up.
They all admit that the expressions, τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ, preceding the infinitive
mood as here, signify design or purpose; ἕνεκα being understood. But none of
them can construe the sentence satisfactorily with this meaning: accordingly they
here ascribe to the words a different and exceptional meaning. See the notes of
Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold, in which notes the views of other critics are cited
and discussed.
Some say that τοῦ μὴ in this place means the same as ὥστε μή: others affirm,
that it is identical with διὰ τὸ μὴ or with τῷ μή. “Formula τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ (say
Bauer and Göller), plerumque consilium significat: interdum effectum (i. e. ὥστε
μή); hic causam indicat (i. e. διὰ τὸ μὴ, or τῷ μή).” But I agree with Dr. Arnold in
thinking that the last of these three alleged meanings is wholly unauthorized;
while the second, which is adopted by Dr. Arnold himself, is sustained only by
feeble and dubious evidence; for the passage of Thucydidês (ii, 4. τοῦ μὴ
ἐκφεύγειν) may be as well construed, as Poppo’s note thereupon suggests,
without any such supposed exceptional sense of the words.
Now it seems to me quite possible to construe the words τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι here
in their regular and legitimate sense of ἕνεκα τοῦ, or consilium. But first an
error must be cleared up which pervades the view of most of the commentators.
They suppose that those Argeians, who are here affirmed to have been “trodden
under foot,” were so trodden down by the Lacedæmonians in their advance. But
this is in every way improbable. The Lacedæmonians were particularly slow in
their motions, regular in their ranks, and backward as to pursuit, qualities which
are dwelt upon by Thucydidês in regard to this very battle. They were not at all
likely to overtake such terrified men as were only anxious to run away: moreover,
if they did overtake them, they would spear them, not trample them under foot.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-49-2048.jpg)
![comrades running away in order that the Lacedæmonians might not be
beforehand in catching them sooner than they could escape.”
Construing in this way the sentence as it now stands, we have τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι
used in its regular and legitimate sense of purpose, or consilium. We have
moreover a plain and natural state of facts, in full keeping with the general
narrative. Nor is there any violence put upon the words. Nothing more is done
than to expand a very elliptical sentence, and to fill up that entire sentence which
was present to the writer’s own mind. To do this properly is the chief duty, as well
as the chief difficulty, of an expositor of Thucydidês.
[124] Thucyd. v, 73; Diodor. xii, 79.
[125] Thucyd. v, 73.
[126] Thucyd. v, 75. Καὶ τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων τοτε ἐπιφερομένην αἰτίαν ἔς
τε μαλακίαν διὰ τὴν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ ξυμφορὰν, καὶ ἐς τὴν ἄλλην ἀβουλίαν τε καὶ
βραδύτητα, ἑνὶ ἔργῳ τούτῳ ἀπελύσαντο· τύχῃ μέν, ὡς ἐδόκουν, κακιζόμενοι,
γνώμῃ δὲ, οἱ αὐτοὶ ἀεὶ ὄντες.
[127] Thucyd. v, 72.
[128] Thucyd. i, 141.
[129] Thucyd. v, 75.
[130] Thucyd. v, 75.
[131] Aristotle (Politic. v, 4, 9) expressly notices the credit gained by the
oligarchical force of Argos in the battle of Mantineia, as one main cause of the
subsequent revolution, notwithstanding that the Argeians generally were beaten:
Οἱ γνώριμοι εὐδοκιμήσαντες ἐν Μαντινείᾳ, etc.
An example of contempt entertained by victorious troops over defeated fellow-
countrymen, is mentioned by Xenophon in the Athenian army under Alkibiadês
and Thrasyllus, in one of the later years of the Peloponnesian war: see Xenophon,
Hellen. i, 2, 15-17.
[132] Thucyd. v, 76; Diodor. xii, 80.
[133] Thucyd. v, 77. The text of Thucydidês is incurably corrupt, in regard to
several words of this clause; though the general sense appears sufficiently
certain, that the Epidaurians are to be allowed to clear themselves in respect to
this demand by an oath. In regard to this purifying oath, it seems to have been
essential that the oath should be tendered by one litigant party and taken by the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-51-2048.jpg)
![other: perhaps therefore σέμεν or θέμεν λῇν (Valckenaer’s conjecture) might be
preferable to εἶμεν λῇν.
To Herodot. vi, 86, and Aristotel. Rhetoric. i, 16, 6, which Dr. Arnold and other
commentators notice in illustration of this practice, we may add the instructive
exposition of the analogous practice in the procedure of Roman law, as given by
Von Savigny, in his System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, sects. 309-313, vol.
vii, pp. 53-83. It was an oath tendered by one litigant party to the opposite, in
hopes that the latter would refuse to take it; if taken, it had the effect of a
judgment in favor of the swearer. But the Roman lawyers laid down many limits
and formalities, with respect to this jusjurandum delatum, which Von Savigny sets
forth with his usual perspicuity.
[134] Thucyd. v, 77. Ἐπιδείξαντας δὲ τοῖς ξυμμάχοις ξυμβαλέσθαι, αἴ κα
αὐτοῖς δοκῇ· αἰ δέ τι καὶ ἄλλο δοκῇ τοῖς ξυμμάχοις, οἴκαδ’ ἀπιάλλειν. See Dr.
Arnold’s note, and Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. ch. xxiv. vol. iii, p. 342.
One cannot be certain about the meaning of these two last words, but I
incline to believe that they express a peremptory and almost a hostile sentiment,
such as I have given in the text. The allies here alluded to are Athens, Elis, and
Mantineia; all hostile in feeling to Sparta. The Lacedæmonians could not well
decline admitting these cities to share in this treaty as it stood; but would
probably think it suitable to repel them even with rudeness, if they desired any
change.
I rather imagine, too, that this last clause (ἐπιδείξαντας) has reference
exclusively to the Argeians, and not to the Lacedæmonians also. The form of the
treaty is, that of a resolution already taken at Sparta, and sent for approval to
Argos.
[135] Thucyd. v, 79. Αἰ δέ τινι τᾶν πολίων ᾖ ἀμφίλογα, ἢ τᾶν ἐντὸς ἢ τᾶν
ἐκτὸς Πελοποννάσου, αἴτε περὶ ὅρων αἴτε περὶ ἄλλου τινὸς, διακριθῆμεν.
The object of this clause I presume to be, to provide that the joint forces of
Lacedæmon and Argos should not be bound to interfere for every separate
dispute of each single ally with a foreign state, not included in the alliance. Thus,
there were at this time standing disputes between Bœotia and Athens, and
between Megara and Athens: the Argeians probably would not choose to pledge
themselves to interfere for the maintenance of the alleged rights of Bœotia and
Megara in these disputes. They guard themselves against such necessity in this
clause.
M. H. Meier, in his recent Dissertation (Die Privat. Schiedsrichter und die
öffentlichen Diäteten Athens (Halle, 1846), sect. 19, p. 41), has given an analysis
and explanation of this treaty which seems to me on many points unsatisfactory.
[136] All the smaller states in Peloponnesus are pronounced by this treaty to
be (if we employ the language employed with reference to the Delphians](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-52-2048.jpg)
![peculiarly in the Peace of Nikias) αὐτονόμους, αὐτοτελεῖς, αὐτοδίκους, Thucyd. v,
19. The last clause of this treaty guarantees αὐτοδικíαν to all, though in language
somewhat different, τοῖς δὲ ἔταις κατὰ πάτρια δικάζεσθαι. The expression in this
treaty αὐτοπόλιες is substantially equivalent to αὐτοτελεῖς in the former.
It is remarkable that we never find in Thucydidês the very convenient
Herodotean word δωσίδικοι (Herodot. vi, 42), though there are occasions in these
fourth and fifth books on which it would be useful to his meaning.
[137] Thucyd. v. 81; Diodor. xii, 81.
[138] Compare Thucyd. v, 80, and v, 83.
[139] The instances appear to have been not rare, wherein Grecian towns
changed masters, by the citizens thus going out of the gates all together, or most
part of them, for some religious festival. See the case of Smyrna (Herodot. i,
150), and the precautionary suggestions of the military writer Æneas, in his
treatise called Poliorketicus, c. 17.
[140] Thucyd. v, 80. Καὶ ὕστερον Ἐπιδαυρίοις ἀνανεωσάμενοι τὰς
σπονδὰς, αὐτοὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἀπέδοσαν τὸ τείχισμα. We are here told that the
Athenians RENEWED their truce with the Epidaurians: but I know no truce
previously between them except the general truce for a year, which the
Epidaurians swore to, in conjunction with Sparta (iv, 119), in the beginning of B.C.
423.
[141] Thucyd. v, 81. Καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ Ἀργεῖοι, χίλιοι ἑκάτεροι,
ξυστρατεύσαντες τά τ’ ἐν Σικυῶνι ἐς ὀλίγους μᾶλλον κατέστησαν αὐτοὶ οἱ
Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐλθόντες, καὶ μετ’ ἐκεῖνα ξυναμφότεροι ἤδη καὶ τὸν ἐν Ἄργει δῆμον
κατέλυσαν, καὶ ὀλιγαρχία ἐπιτηδεία τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις κατέστη: compare Diodor.
xii, 80.
[142] Pausanias, ii, 20, 1.
[143] See Herodot. v, 87; Euripid. Hecub. 1152, and the note of Musgrave on
line 1135 of that drama.
[144] Thucyd. v, 82; Diodor. xii, 80.
[145] Diodorus (xii, 80) says that it lasted eight months: but this, if correct at
all, must be taken as beginning from the alliance between Sparta and Argos, and
not from the first establishment of the oligarchy. The narrative of Thucydidês
does not allow more than four months for the duration of the latter.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-53-2048.jpg)
![[146] Thucyd. v, 82. ξυνῄδεσαν δὲ τὸν τειχισμὸν καὶ τῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ
τινὲς πόλεων.
[147] Thucyd. v, 82. Καὶ οἱ μὲν Ἀργεῖοι πανδημεὶ, καὶ αὐτοὶ καὶ γυναῖκες καὶ
οἰκέται, ἐτείχιζον, etc. Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 15.
[148] Pausanias, ii, 36, 3.
[149] Thucyd. i, 107.
[150] Thucyd. v, 83. Diodorus inaccurately states that the Argeians had
already built their long walls down to the sea—πυθόμενοι τοὺς Ἀργείους
ᾠκοδομηκέναι τὰ μακρὰ τείχη μέχρι τῆς θαλάσσης (xii, 81).
Thucydidês uses the participle of the present tense—τὰ οἰκοδομούμενα τείχη
ἐλόντες καὶ κατασκάψαντες, etc.
[151] Thucyd. v, 116. Λακεδαιμόνιοι, μελλήσαντες ἐς τὴν Ἀργείαν
στρατεύειν ... ἀνεχώρησαν. Καὶ Ἀργεῖοι διὰ τὴν ἐκείνων μέλλησιν τῶν ἐν τῇ
πόλει τινὰς ὑποτοπήσαντες, τοὺς μὲν ξυνέλαβον, οἱ δ’ αὐτοὺς καὶ διέφυγον.
I presume μέλλησιν here is not used in its ordinary meaning of loitering delay,
but is to be construed by the previous verb μελλήσαντες, and agreeably to the
analogy of iv, 126—“prospect of action immediately impending:” compare Diodor.
xii, 81.
[152] Thucyd. vi, 7.
[153] Thucyd. v, 115.
[154] Thucyd. vi, 105. The author of the loose and inaccurate Oratio de
Pace, ascribed to Andokidês, affirms that the war was resumed by Athens against
Sparta on the persuasion of the Argeians (Orat. de Pac. c. 1, 6, 3, 31, pp. 93-
105). This assertion is indeed partially true: the alliance with Argos was one of
the causes of the resumption of war, but only one among others, some of them
more powerful. Thucydidês tells us that the persuasions of Argos, to induce
Athens to throw up her alliance with Sparta were repeated and unavailing.
[155] Thucyd. v, 83.
[156] Dr. Thirlwall (History of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 360) places this vote
of ostracism in midwinter or early spring of 415 B.C., immediately before the
Sicilian expedition.
His grounds for this opinion are derived from the Oration called Andokidês
against Alkibiadês, the genuineness of which he seems to accept (see his
Appendix ii, on that subject, vol. iii, p. 494, seq.).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-54-2048.jpg)
![The more frequently I read over this Oration, the more do I feel persuaded
that it is a spurious composition of one or two generations after the time to which
it professes to refer. My reasons for this opinion have been already stated in
previous notes, nor do I think that Dr. Thirlwall’s Appendix is successful in
removing the objections against the genuineness of the speech. See my
preceding vol. vi, ch. xlvii, p. 6, note.
[157] Aristophan. Pac. 680.
[158] Thucyd. viii, 73. Ὑπέρβολόν τέ τινα τῶν Ἀθηναίων, μοχθηρὸν
ἄνθρωπον, ὠστρακισμένον οὐ διὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀξιώματος φόβον, ἀλλὰ διὰ
πονηρίαν καὶ αἰσχύνην τῆς πόλεως. According to Androtion (Fragm. 48, ed.
Didot.)—ὠστρακισμένον διὰ φαυλότητα.
Compare about Hyperbolus, Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 13;
Ælian. V. H. xii, 43; Theopompus, Fragm. 102, 103, ed. Didot.
[159] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 13; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11. Theophrastus says that
the violent opposition at first, and the coalition afterwards, was not between
Nikias and Alkibiadês, but between Phæax and Alkibiadês.
The coalition of votes and parties may well have included all three.
[160] Thucyd. iii, 91.
[161] In reference to this argumentation of the Athenian envoy, I call
attention to the attack and bombardment of Copenhagen by the English
government in 1807, together with the language used by the English envoy to the
Danish Prince Regent on the subject. We read as follows in M. Thiers’s Histoire du
Consulat et de l’Empire:—
“L’agent choisi étoit digne de sa mission. C’étoit M. Jackson qui avait été
autrefois chargé d’affaires en France, avant l’arrivée de Lord Whitworth, à Paris,
mais qu’on n’avoit pas pû y laisser, à cause du mauvais esprit qu’il manifestoit en
toute occasion. Introduit auprès du régent, il allégua de prétendues stipulations
secrètes, en vertu desquelles le Danemark devoit, (disoit on) de gré ou de force,
faire partie d’une coalition contre l’Angleterre: il donna comme raison d’agir la
necessité où se trouvoit le cabinet Britannique de prendre des précautions pour
que les forces navales du Danemark et le passage du Sund ne tombassent pas au
pouvoir des François: et en conséquence il demanda au nom de son
gouvernement, qu’on livrât à l’armée Angloise la forteresse de Kronenberg qui
commande de Sund, le port de Copenhague, et enfin la flotte elle-même—
promettant de garder le tout en dépôt, pour le compte du Danemark, qui seroit
remis en possession de ce qu’on alloit lui enlever, dès que le danger seroit passé.
M. Jackson assura que le Danemark ne perdroit rien, que l’on se conduiroit chez
lui en auxiliaires et en amis—que les troupes Britanniques payeroient tout ce
qu’elles consommeroient.—Et avec quoi, répondit le prince indigné, payeriez vous](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-55-2048.jpg)
![notre honneur perdu, si nous adhérions à cette infame proposition?—Le prince
continuant, et opposant à cette perfide intention la conduite loyale du Danemark,
qui n’avoit pris aucune précaution contre les Anglois, qui les avoit toutes prises
contre les François, ce dont on abusoit pour le surprendre—M. Jackson répondit à
cette juste indignation par une insolente familiarité, disant que la guerre étoit la
guerre, qu’il falloit se résigner à ces nécessités, et céder au plus fort quand on
étoit le plus foible. Le prince congédia l’agent Anglois avec des paroles fort dures,
et lui déclara qu’il alloit se transporter à Copenhague, pour y remplir ses devoirs
de prince et de citoyen Danois.” (Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, tome
viii, livre xxviii, p. 190.)
[162] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16. This is doubtless one of the statements
which the composer of the Oration of Andokidês against Alkibiadês found current
in respect to the conduct of the latter (sect. 123). Nor is there any reason for
questioning the truth of it.
[163] Thucyd. v, 106. τὸ δὲ χωρίον αὐτοὶ ᾤκησαν, ἀποίκους ὕστερον
πεντακοσίους πέμψαντες. Lysander restored some Melians to the island after the
battle of Ægospotami (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 9): some, therefore, must have
escaped or must have been spared.
[164] Such is also the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p.
348.
[165] Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Thucydid. c. 37-42, pp. 906-920, Reisk: compare
the remarks in his Epistol. ad Cn. Pompeium, de Præcipuis Historicis, p. 774,
Reisk.
[166] Plutarch, Alkibiad. 16. τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἀεὶ τὰ πραότατα τῶν ὀνομάτων
τοῖς ἁμαρτήμασι τιθεμένους, παιδιὰς καὶ φιλανθρωπίας. To the same purpose
Plutarch, Solon, c. 15.
[167] Compare also what Brasidas says in his speech to the Akanthians, v, 86
ἴσχυος δικαιώσει, ἣν ἡ τύχη ἔδωκεν, etc.
[168] See above, vol. v, ch. xliii, pp. 204-239, for the history of these events.
I now take up the thread from that chapter.
[169] Mr. Mitford, in the spirit which is usual with him, while enlarging upon
the suffering occasioned by this extensive revolution both of inhabitants and of
property throughout Sicily, takes no notice of the cause in which it originated,
namely, the number of foreign mercenaries whom the Gelonian dynasty had
brought in and enrolled as new citizens (Gelon alone having brought in ten](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-56-2048.jpg)
![thousand, Diodor. xi, 72), and the number of exiles whom they had banished and
dispossessed.
I will here notice only one of his misrepresentations respecting the events of
this period, because it is definite as well as important (vol. iv, p. 9, chap. xviii,
sect. 1).
“But thus (he says) in every little state, lands were left to become public
property, or to be assigned to new individual owners. Everywhere, then, that
favorite measure of democracy, the equal division of the lands of the state, was
resolved upon: a measure impossible to be perfectly executed; impossible to be
maintained as executed; and of very doubtful advantage, if it could be perfectly
executed and perfectly maintained.”
Again, sect. iii, p. 23, he speaks of “that incomplete and iniquitous partition of
lands,” etc.
Now, upon this we may remark:—
1. The equal division of the lands of the state, here affirmed by Mr. Mitford, is
a pure fancy of his own. He has no authority for it whatever. Diodorus says (xi,
76) κατεκληρούχησαν τὴν χώραν, etc.; and again (xi, 86) he speaks of τὸν
ἀναδασμὸν τῆς χώρας: the redivision of the territory; but respecting equality of
division, not one word does he say. Nor can any principle of division in this case
be less probable than equality; for one of the great motives of the redivision was
to provide for those exiles who had been dispossessed by the Gelonian dynasty:
and these men would receive lots, greater or less, on the ground of compensation
for loss, greater or less as it might have been. Besides, immediately after the
redivision, we find rich and poor mentioned, just as before (xi, 86).
2. Next, Mr. Mitford calls “the equal division of all the lands of the state” the
favorite measure of democracy. This is an assertion not less incorrect. Not a
single democracy in Greece, so far as my knowledge extends, can be produced, in
which such equal partition is ever known to have been carried into effect. In the
Athenian democracy, especially, not only there existed constantly great inequality
of landed property, but the oath annually taken by the popular heliastic judges
had a special clause, protesting emphatically against redivision of the land or
extinction of debts.
[170] Thucyd. vi, 17.
[171] Diodor. xi, 86, 87. The institution at Syracuse was called the petalism;
because, in taking the votes, the name of the citizen intended to be banished was
written upon a leaf of olive, instead of a shell or potsherd.
[172] Diodor. xi. 87, 88.
[173] Diodor. xi, 78, 88, 90. The proceeding of Duketius is illustrated by the
description of Dardanus in the Iliad, xx, 216:—](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-57-2048.jpg)
![Κτίσσε δὲ Δαρδανίην, ἐπεὶ οὔπω Ἴλιος ἱρὴ
Ἐν πεδίῳ πεπόλιστο, πόλις μερόπων ἀνθρώπων,
Ἀλλ’ ἔθ’ ὑπωρείας ᾤκουν πολυπιδάκου Ἴδης.
Compare Plato, de Legg. iii, pp. 681, 682.
[174] Diodor. xi, 76.
[175] Diodor. xi, 91, 92. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὥσπερ τινὶ μιᾷ φωνῇ σώζειν ἅπαντες
ἐβόων τὸν ἱκέτην.
[176] Xenophon, Hellen. i, 5, 19; Pausanias, vi, 7, 2.
[177] Mr. Mitford recounts as follows the return of Duketius to Sicily: “The
Syracusan chiefs brought back Duketius from Corinth, apparently to make him
instrumental to their own views for advancing the power of their commonwealth.
They permitted, or rather encouraged him to establish a colony of mixed people,
Greeks and Sicels, at Calé Acté, on the northern coast of the island,” (ch. xviii,
sect. i, vol. iv, p. 13.)
The statement that “the Syracusans brought back Duketius, or encouraged
him to come back, or to found the colony of Kalê Aktê,” is a complete departure
from Diodorus on the part of Mr. Mitford; who transforms a breach of parole on
the part of the Sikel prince into an ambitious manœuvre on the part of Syracusan
democracy. The words of Diodorus, the only authority in the case, are as follows
(xii, 8): Οὗτος δὲ (Duketius) ὀλίγον χρόνον μείνας ἐν τῇ Κορίνθῳ, τὰς
ὁμολογίας ἔλυσε, καὶ προσποιησάμενος χρησμὸν ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν ἑαυτῷ
δεδόσθαι, κτίσαι τὴν Καλὴν Ἀκτὴν ἐν Σικελίᾳ, κατέπλευσεν εἰς τὴν νῆσον μετὰ
πολλῶν οἰκητόρων· συνεπελάβοντο δὲ καὶ τῶν Σικελῶν τινες, ἐν οἷς ἦν καὶ
Ἀρχωνίδης, ὁ τῶν Ἑρβιταίων δυναστεύων. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν περὶ τὸν οἰκισμὸν τῆς
Καλῆς Ἀκτῆς ἐγίνετο· Ἀκραγαντῖνοι δὲ, ἅμα μὲν φθονοῦντες τοῖς Συρακοσίοις, ἅμα
δ’ ἐγκαλοῦντες αὐτοῖς ὅτι Δουκέτιον ὄντα κοινὸν πολέμιον διέσωσαν ἄνευ
τῆς Ἀκραγαντίνων γνώμης, πόλεμον ἐξήνεγκαν τοῖς Συρακοσίοις.
[178] Diodor. xii, 8.
[179] Diodor. xii, 29. For the reconquest of Morgantinê, see Thucyd. iv, 65.
Respecting this town of Trinakia, known only from the passage of Diodorus
here, Paulmier (as cited in Wesseling’s note), as well as Mannert (Geographie der
Griechen und Römer, b. x, ch. xv, p. 446), intimate some skepticism; which I
share so far as to believe that Diodorus has greatly overrated its magnitude and
importance.
Nor can it be true, as Diodorus affirms, that Trinakia was the only Sikel
township remaining unsubdued by the Syracusans, and that, after conquering](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/104116-250304000452-93d12ab5/75/science-Trouble-Blow-6687th-Edition-Science-Editors-58-2048.jpg)
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- 9. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1033 SCIENCE science.org PHOTO: RUPINDER KAUR/PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENTS 1035 Editorial Collections are truly priceless By C. C. Davis 1150 Working Life Writing my ticket By V.J. Rodriguez RESEARCH IN BRIEF 1068 From Science and other journals REVIEW 1071 Neuroscience Structure, biophysics, and circuit function of a“giant”cortical presynaptic terminal D.Vandael and P.Jonas REVIEW SUMMARY; FOR FULL TEXT: DOI.ORG/10.1126/SCIENCE.ADG6757 RESEARCH ARTICLES 1072 Adult stem cells Vitamin A resolves lineage plasticity to orchestrate stem cell lineage choices M.T.Tierney et al. RESEARCH ARTICLE SUMMARY; FOR FULL TEXT: DOI.ORG/10.1126/SCIENCE.ADI7342 PODCAST 1073 Plant science Enhancing rice panicle branching and grain yield through tissue-specific brassinosteroid inhibition X.Zhang et al. RESEARCH ARTICLE SUMMARY; FOR FULL TEXT: DOI.ORG/10.1126/SCIENCE.ADK8838 1074 Neuroscience Brainstem control of vocalization and its coordination with respiration J. Park et al. RESEARCH ARTICLE SUMMARY; FOR FULL TEXT: DOI.ORG/10.1126/SCIENCE.ADI8081 PERSPECTIVE p. 1059 1075 Geology CO2 drawdown from weathering is maximized at moderate erosion rates A. Bufe et al. 1080 Photonics Multimodality integrated microresonators using the Moiré speedup effect Q.-X.Ji et al. PERSPECTIVE p. 1057 1084 Neuroscience Axonal self-sorting without target guidance in Drosophila visual map formation E.Agi et al. 1092 Life history Milk provisioning in oviparous caecilian amphibians P. L. Mailho-Fontana et al. PERSPECTIVE p. 1060 1096 Biomedicine Bioresorbable shape-adaptive structures for ultrasonic monitoring of deep-tissue homeostasis J. Liu et al. PERSPECTIVE p. 1058 1104 HIV Induction of durable remission by dual immunotherapy in SHIV-infected ART-suppressed macaques S.-Y. Lim et al. 1111 Symbiosis Prophage proteins alter long noncoding RNA and DNA of developing sperm to induce a paternal-effect lethality R. Kaur et al. 1118 Attosecond science Attosecond-pump attosecond-probe x-ray spectroscopy of liquid water S. Li et al. 1122 Cell biology Sister chromatid cohesion is mediated by individual cohesin complexes F. Ochs et al. 1130 Paleoecology Climate change is an important predictor of extinction risk on macroevolutionary timescales C. M. Malanoski et al. 1135 Conservation Fishing for oil and meat drives irreversible defaunation of deepwater sharks and rays B. Finucci et al. 1142 Quantum imaging Adaptive optical imaging with entangled photons P. Cameron et al. ON THE COVER Rough sharks (Oxynotidae) are a small family of deepwater sharks consisting of five species. 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Science Staff ............................................1034 Science Careers........................................1149 1111 The bacterium Wolbachia blocks sperm development in the primary spermatocytes of its insect host by targeting a long noncoding RNA (shown in cyan in this fluorescence confocal image; nuclei are yellow). LETTERS 1066 Reform wildlife trade in the European Union By P. Cardoso et al. 1066 Incorporate ethics into US public health plans By R.Anthony et al. 1067 Mangrove forest decline on Iran’s Gulf coast By H.Yarahmadi and Z. Khorsandi
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Accordingly, all articles published in Science—including editorials, news and comment, and book reviews—are signed and reflect the individual views of the authors and not official points of view adopted by AAAS or the institutions with which the authors are affiliated. 1034 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE Erin Adams,U.ofChicago Takuzo Aida,U.ofTokyo Leslie Aiello, Wenner-GrenFdn. Deji Akinwande, UTAustin James Analytis,UCBerkeley Paola Arlotta,HarvardU. Delia Baldassarri,NYU Nenad Ban,ETHZürich Christopher Barratt,U.ofDundee Franz Bauer, PontificiaU.CatólicadeChile Ray H. Baughman,UTDallas Carlo Beenakker,LeidenU. Yasmine Belkaid,NIAID,NIH Kiros T. Berhane, ColumbiaU. Joseph J. Berry,NREL Chris Bowler, ÉcoleNormaleSupérieure Ian Boyd,U.ofSt.Andrews Malcolm Brenner, BaylorColl.ofMed. Emily Brodsky,UCSantaCruz Ron Brookmeyer, UCLA(S) Christian Büchel,UKEHamburg Johannes Buchner,TUM Dennis Burton,ScrippsRes. Carter Tribley Butts,UCIrvine György Buzsáki, NYUSchoolofMed. Mariana Byndloss, VanderbiltU.Med.Ctr. Annmarie Carlton, UCIrvine Simon Cauchemez, Inst.Pasteur Ling-Ling Chen, SIBCB,CAS Wendy Cho,UIUC Ib Chorkendorff,DenmarkTU Chunaram Choudhary, KøbenhavnsU. Karlene Cimprich, StanfordU. Laura Colgin,UTAustin James J. Collins,MIT Robert Cook-Deegan, ArizonaStateU. Virginia Cornish, ColumbiaU. Carolyn Coyne, DukeU. Roberta Croce,VUAmsterdam Molly Crocket,PrincetonU. Christina Curtis,StanfordU. Ismaila Dabo,PennStateU. Jeff L. Dangl,UNC Nicolas Dauphas,U.ofChicago Frans de Waal,EmoryU. Claude Desplan,NYU Sandra DÍaz, U.NacionaldeCÓrdoba Samuel Díaz-Muñoz,UCDavis Ulrike Diebold,TUWien Stefanie Dimmeler, Goethe-U.Frankfurt Hong Ding,Inst.ofPhysics,CAS Dennis Discher,UPenn Jennifer A. Doudna,UCBerkeley Ruth Drdla-Schutting, Med.U.Vienna Raissa M. D'Souza, UCDavis Bruce Dunn,UCLA William Dunphy,Caltech Scott Edwards, HarvardU. Todd A. Ehlers,U.ofGlasgow Nader Engheta,UPenn Tobias Erb, MPS,MPITerrestrialMicrobiology Karen Ersche,U.ofCambridge Beate Escher, UFZ&U.ofTübingen Barry Everitt,U.ofCambridge Vanessa Ezenwa,U.ofGeorgia Toren Finkel, U.ofPitt.Med.Ctr. Natascha Förster Schreiber, MPIExtraterrestrialPhys. Peter Fratzl,MPIPotsdam Elaine Fuchs,RockefellerU. Caixia Gao,Inst.ofGeneticsand DevelopmentalBio.,CAS Daniel Geschwind,UCLA Lindsey Gillson,U.ofCapeTown Gillian Griffiths,U.ofCambridge Simon Greenhill, U.ofAuckland Nicolas Gruber,ETHZürich Hua Guo, U.ofNewMexico Taekjip Ha,JohnsHopkinsU. Daniel Haber,Mass.GeneralHos. Sharon Hammes-Schiffer,YaleU. Wolf-Dietrich Hardt,ETHZürich Kelley Harris,U.ofWash Carl-Philipp Heisenberg, ISTAustria Christoph Hess, U.ofBasel&U.ofCambridge Heather Hickman,NIAID,NIH Hans Hilgenkamp,U.ofTwente Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, ETHZürich Kai-Uwe Hinrichs,U.ofBremen Deirdre Hollingsworth, U.ofOxford Christina Hulbe,U.ofOtago, NewZealand Randall Hulet,RiceU. Auke Ijspeert,EPFL Gwyneth Ingram,ENSLyon Darrell Irvine,MIT Akiko Iwasaki,YaleU. Erich Jarvis, RockefellerU. Peter Jonas,ISTAustria Sheena Josselyn,U.ofToronto Matt Kaeberlein,U.ofWash. Daniel Kammen,UCBerkeley Kisuk Kang, SeoulNat.U. V. Narry Kim, SeoulNat.U. Nancy Knowlton, Smithsonian Etienne Koechlin, ÉcoleNormaleSupérieure Alex L. Kolodkin, JohnsHopkinsU. LaShanda Korley, U.ofDelaware Paul Kubes,U.ofCalgary Chris Kuzawa,NorthwesternU. Laura Lackner,NorthwesternU. Gabriel Lander,ScrippsRes.(S) Mitchell A. Lazar,UPenn Hedwig Lee,DukeU. Fei Li,Xi'anJiaotongU. Ryan Lively,GeorgiaTech Luis Liz-Marzán,CICbiomaGUNE Omar Lizardo,UCLA Jonathan Losos,WUSTL Ke Lu,Inst.ofMetalRes.,CAS Christian Lüscher,U.ofGeneva Jean Lynch-Stieglitz,GeorgiaTech David Lyons,U.ofEdinburgh Fabienne Mackay,QIMRBerghofer Zeynep Madak-Erdogan,UIUC Vidya Madhavan,UIUC Anne Magurran,U.ofSt.Andrews Ari Pekka Mähönen,U.ofHelsinki Asifa Majid,U.ofOxford Oscar Marín,King’sColl.London Charles Marshall, UCBerkeley Christopher Marx, U.ofIdaho David Masopust, U.ofMinnesota Geraldine Masson,CNRS Jennifer McElwain, TrinityCollegeDublin Scott McIntosh,NCAR Rodrigo Medellín, U.NacionalAutónomadeMéxico Mayank Mehta, UCLA C.Jessica Metcalf,PrincetonU. 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- 11. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1035 SCIENCE science.org EDITORIAL PHOTO: KRIS SNIBBE/HARVARD UNIVERSITY L ast month, Duke University in North Carolina an- nounced that it was shuttering its herbarium. The collection consists of nearly 1 million specimens representing the most comprehensive and his- toric set of plants from the southeastern United States. It also includes extensive holdings from other regions of the world, especially Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. Duke plans to disperse these samples to other institutions for use or storage over the next 2 to 3 years, but this decision re- flects a lack of awareness by academia that such col- lections are being leveraged as never before. With modern technologies spanning multiple fields of study, the holdings in herbaria and other natural history col- lections are not only facilitating a deeper and broader understanding of the past and pres- ent world but are also providing tools to meet both known and unforeseen challenges facing humanity. Science and society can hardly risk the loss of such an important resource. Sadly, Duke is not the first world- class institution to withdraw support from, and cease the operation of, its natural history collections. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Prince- ton and Stanford Universities did the same. Ostensibly, the decisions to close those collections were made to shift priority to research programs in molecular biology and biochemistry, which were con- sidered closer to science’s cutting edge of discovery and able to attract more external funding. Ironically, nearly half a century on, biological sciences depart- ments at these institutions and comparable ones in China, Brazil, some regions in Africa, and in most of Western Europe are filled with world-class schol- ars who—knowingly or unknowingly—use herbaria, zoological collections, and their derivatives every day for transformative research published in the highest- impact journals. Herbaria have long been a critical resource for eco- logical and evolutionary research but have recently be- come relevant to many more fields, including climate science, anthropology, genetics, computer science, chemistry, and medicine. Specimens are being mobi- lized to investigate plant–animal and plant–pathogen interactions, crop domestication, compounds with po- tential applications in agriculture and pharmaceutics, and human migration over time and space. Advances in genome sequencing and machine learning are guiding biodiversity monitoring efforts and revealing knowl- edge gaps where specimen sampling is needed. The decision by Duke comes at a time when wide- spread awareness of and access to herbaria are growing in tandem. This is principally a result of the large-scale digitization of natural history collections, an endeavor that has been extensively supported by governmental agencies and philanthropic organizations worldwide. This innovation is arguably one of the greatest trans- formations in biodiversity science since DNA sequenc- ing. In short, creation of the Global Metaherbarium—an open-access, global interlinked virtual resource—makes physical herbaria discoverable and is attracting new in- terest in the utility of these collections for sophisticated multiomic investigations (genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and mi- crobiomics) and for research that con- nects science with the broader society. Closure of the Duke Herbarium also points to changes needed in for- mally recognizing herbaria and other natural history collections in research initiatives and agendas. Collections in- creasingly have become the first line of genetic and genomic sampling for investigators who otherwise eschew conventional field work. Requests to destructively sample specimens are often central to rapidly expanding big data initiatives. These requests place enormous demands on the institutions and staff who support collections but who largely go unrecognized for their crucial work. In turn, users of these collections, many of whom are not based at these institutions, benefit from grants and high-profile papers in which herbaria are only briefly acknowledged, if they are men- tioned at all. Scientists who oversee collections should be fully funded partners in research initiatives. Insti- tutions, herbarium curators, and support staff should be coauthors of studies, with contributions indicated through the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) system, for example. Such recognition could help more directly measure the impact and influence of natural history collections on scholarly research. Universities should support the priceless resources and heritage represented in natural history collections. They also should have the vision to provide for, and commit to, the long-term stewardship and robust intel- lectual environment for open inquiry and deep research that these collections provide across generations. –Charles C. Davis Collections are truly priceless Charles C. Davis is a professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Curator of Vascular Plants, Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA, USA. cdavis@oeb. harvard.edu 10.1126/science.ado9732 “…societycan hardlyriskthe lossofsuch animportant resource.”
- 12. 1036 8 MARCH2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE PHOTO: NNSA/NEVADA FIELD OFFICE/SCIENCE SOURCE U.S.deports Chinese students SECURITY | An unusual town hall last week at Yale University highlighted a recent spate of incidents in which immigration authorities blocked Chinese graduate students from returning to U.S. universities after visiting family in China. More than a dozen students in Ph.D. science programs at Yale, John Hopkins University, and other major U.S. research institutions had their visas revoked and were immediately sent back home. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) declined to discuss spe- cific cases. Immigration lawyers suspect the influence of a 2020 presidential direc- tive that gives CBP agents the authority to deny entry to Chinese graduate students and postdocs who have received support from entities suspected of stealing U.S. technology. Yale’s graduate school of arts and sciences hosted the 26 February event for its international students, who make up nearly half the school’s enrollment. Methane satellite begins work CLIMATE SCIENCE | The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) this week became the first nonprofit group to launch a satel- lite to track methane emission sources. MethaneSAT, funded by EDF donors, is designed to detect methane emissions in high resolution above known oil-and-gas facilities, filling a gap in coverage. Its data will support efforts to regulate and reduce leaks and other sources of the potent greenhouse gas. The group plans to pro- vide the data for free, in nearly real time, at www.MethaneSAT.org. U.K.funder clears diversity panel POLITICS | The United Kingdom’s national funding agency has reinstated its advisory panel on diversity, equity, and inclusion, which was suspended in October 2023 after science minister Michelle Donelan said members of the newly created panel had posted “extremist” views on social media about the Israel-Hamas conflict. This week, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) reported the results of its investiga- tion into the matter, concluding that the panel members had not violated a code NEWS IN BRIEF Edited by Jeffrey Brainard A group of two dozen geologists has turned down a proposal to classify the Anthropocene as an “epoch” that would mark human- ity’s overwhelming influence on the planet, a tally released this week indicates. For 15 years, researchers had considered desig- nating this formal unit of geologic time, and in 2023 they chose a marker of when it started, a layered sediment core from Canada’s Crawford Lake that shows a global acceleration in carbon dioxide emis- sions and atmospheric nuclear weapons testing during the 1950s. But over the past month, the proposal failed to win a supermajority of votes from a panel of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, with some members stating that the proposed start date failed to account for earlier human influences. Barring an unexpected reversal, the for- mal classification cannot be reconsidered for another decade. But even opponents of the proposal acknowledge humanity’s potent, transfor- mative effects on Earth and the power of the term Anthropocene, and some suggest considering it, like some other great changes in the plan- et’s history, a geologic “event”—a usage that requires no formal ratifica- tion or exact start date. A 1953 nuclear test in Nevada was among the human activities that could have marked the Anthropocene. STRATIGRAPHY Anthropocene epoch gets voted down Increase since 2009 in the share price of scientific publishing giant Elsevier’s parent company RELX and its predecessor.The stock is the top performer on the U.K.’s FTSE 100 index in its 40-year history. In 2023, RELX’s scientific division reaped a profit margin of 38%. (Financial Times, RELX annual report) 650%
- 13. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1037 SCIENCE science.org IMAGE: OPENVERTEBRATE of conduct for public servants or posted problematic views. Although Donelan had asked UKRI to shut down the diversity panel, UKRI’s statement said the inves- tigation concluded the panel’s work is necessary, and it will reconvene. Separately, a lawyer for a panel member, Heriot-Watt University gender studies professor Kate Sang, announced on 5 March that Donelan had agreed to pay Sang an undisclosed settlement and retract her “false” state- ment about Sang’s social media post. Trustees protect Kinsey Institute POLITICS | The Kinsey Institute, the famed research center on human sexuality, will remain part of Indiana University (IU), despite a 2023 state law that blocks the institute from receiving taxpayer dollars. Conservative lawmakers targeted the institute after one claimed its research promotes sexual abuse, an allega- tion Kinsey’s defenders call baseless. Last week, IU’s board of trustees voted unanimously to develop a plan ensuring the institute is funded only by nonstate sources, including its own endow- ment and the university’s foundation. A proposal floated earlier would have created a new nonprofit organization to fund and manage some of the institute’s administrative functions while allow- ing its faculty and collections to remain within the university. But some research- ers worried the split would expose the institute to future legislative crackdowns, The Guardian reported. Finding new uses for drugs CLINICAL RESEARCH | A nonprofit that seeks to repurpose approved drugs for new indications will receive more than $48 million from the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to supercharge its work, the agency said on 28 February. Every Cure plans to use artificial intelligence to predict the power of more than 3000 approved drugs against more than 10,000 rare diseases, most without effective treatments. The Philadelphia-based nonprofit was co- founded by University of Pennsylvania immunologist David Fajgenbaum, who a decade ago identified a treatment— sirolimus, which prevents organ rejection—for his own rare, life-threaten- ing immune condition, Castleman disease. Pesticide database restored AGRICULTURE | The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has backtracked on cuts to a widely used database of approximately 400 agricultural pesticides after pleas from scientists. The agency had reduced the number of compounds tracked in 2019 by the Pesticide National Synthesis Project, which documents estimated annual application rates, from 400 to 72, citing budget constraints. Then last year, USGS halted the annual release of pre- liminary data, opting instead to publish final data every 5 years. Last week, the agency said it will restore the database’s pre-2019 scope, and data for 2018 to 2022 will be published in 2025. NATURAL HISTORY Scanning project creates huge digital menagerie B iologists have completed a free, online repository contain- ing x-ray scans of vertebrate specimens from 16 museum collections across the United States. The openVertebrate collection, one of the largest of its kind, covers more than 13,000 specimens, including more than half the genera of amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and mammals. Led by the Florida Museum of Natural History, researchers spent 5 years making computer tomography scans and creating 3D reconstructions; most show only the animals’ skeletons, but some samples were stained before being scanned to reveal internal organs. As of December 2023, the database had received more than 1 million views and nearly 100,000 downloads. The digital collection has already led to new research findings, including unusual bones in African spiny mice (pictured, with tail colored red) and evidence that frogs have lost and regained teeth more than 20 times during their evolution. Project organizers also trained secondary school teachers to use the images for science education. The project’s impact is described in the 6 March issue of BioScience.
- 14. By Daniel Clery F orseveral years, U.S. astronomers have hoped the government would help build a pair of giant ground-based telescopes. But the National Science Board (NSB), the panel of scientists that oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), says the field can only afford one. At a meet- ing on 22 February, NSB capped the budget of the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope Program (US-ELTP) at $1.6 billion and gave the agency until May to come up with a process to choose one of the two 30-meter class telescopes. With a rival European telescope rapidly taking shape on a mountaintop in Chile, the NSB decision is a relief to those who want U.S. astronomy to unite behind a realistic plan and catch up. “I think the decision was long overdue,” says John Monnier of the University of Michigan. But for Richard Ellis of University College London, “It’s a tragedy, given the investment made in both telescopes.” He adds, “There were many op- portunities to merge or down select. Now, the U.S. has lost a couple of years trying to keep up with the European Southern Observatory.” Such giant telescopes are the next logical step for cutting-edge astronomy. They will allow researchers to zoom in on habitable planets outside the Solar System and study the formation of the first stars and galax- ies. Today’s top telescopes, with apertures of 8 to 10 meters, showed that many segmented mirrors or several large ones could be com- bined into a much larger effective mirror. They also demonstrated adaptive optics: us- ing rapidly deformable secondary mirrors to cancel out the distortions caused by Earth’s atmosphere to capture images as sharp as those taken from space. These technical advances spawned the two U.S.-led projects: the Giant Magellan Tele- scope (GMT) in Chile and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii. Both are backed by consortia of universities, philanthropic foundations, and international partners. But thisprivatelyfundedapproach,whichduring the 20th century produced groundbreaking instruments, stumbled when it came to multibillion-dollar projects. Although design work and mirror casting forged ahead, both projects failed to amass enough funding. So, in 2018 the projects, historically ri- vals, joined forces as US-ELTP and made an offer to NSF. In return for public fund- ing, all U.S. astronomers would have access to the telescopes, which would open un- precedented views of the night sky above both hemispheres, something Europe’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will not offer (Science, 25 May 2018, p. 839). The 2020 decadal sur- vey in astrophysics, which defines the field’s priorities for funders and Congress, put US- ELTP first among ground-based projects, in line with the recommendation of a panel led by Timothy Heckman of Johns Hopkins Uni- versity. “We felt this made a compelling case,” Heckman says. The NSB decision, he says, “is a bittersweet outcome.” NSF carried out preliminary design re- views of both telescopes and approved them in early 2023, but the costs are in a different league from what NSF is used to. The GMT is estimated to cost $2.54 billion, of which existing partners have pledged $850 mil- lion. The TMT’s partners have so far offered $2 billion of its $3.6 billion price tag. In a statement, NSB acknowledged the ambition of the US-ELTP proposal but noted it would soak up 80% of NSF’s entire funding for ma- jor projects. In an editorial in Science in November 2023, Michael Turner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, argued that insist- ing NSF fund two telescopes put both proj- NEWS 1038 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE IMAGES: (TOP TO BOTTOM) TMT INTERNATIONAL OBSERVATORY; GMTO CORPORATION ASTRONOMY U.S.giant telescopes imperiled by funding limit NSF faces choice between multibillion-dollar projects after board sets cost cap IN DEPTH The Thirty Meter Telescope (artist’s conception) in Hawaii is one of two projects seeking public funding. The Giant Magellan Telescope, under construction in Chile, is a smaller and cheaper project.
- 15. By Elizabeth Pennisi A mutantbutterfly for sale on eBay has helped upend naturalists’ pic- ture of how butterfly wings acquire their intricate variety of red, yellow, white, and black stripes. It and re- cent research into other butterflies show how visible traits in many animals may be controlled by an underexplored ge- netic regulatory mechanism, based not on proteins, but on RNA. In 2016, geneticists thought they had pinned much of the wing-pattern variation on a protein-encoding gene called cortex. But three teams have now proved that a different gene, previously missed because it overlaps with cortex, is the key. Its final product is not pro- tein, but RNA that regu- lates genes responsible for the pigmentation pat- terns of black and other hues on the wings. One team also showed the RNA is broken down into a smaller RNA that fine- tunes the production of the colors. “They solved a puzzle that had left everyone in the com- munity wondering,” says Nicolas Gompel, a devel- opmental biologist at the University of Bonn. The discovery, de- tailed in three preprints this month, also rep- resents the first time long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), so-called because it does not code for proteins, has been linked to the evolution of a visible trait in animals. “Now we have to pay more attention to noncoding RNA,” says Ilik Saccheri, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool and a member of one of the teams that had focused on cortex. For evolutionary developmental bio- logist Luca Livraghi, now at George Wash- ington University, the key break came when a colleague told him and Joseph Hanly, a bioinformatician at Duke University, about completely white Heliconius butterflies being sold on eBay. When they sequenced dozens of these so-called ivory mutants, they found a deletion in the region of the cortex gene. They then realized the miss- ing DNA included a sequence encoding an lncRNA that no one had ever closely exam- ined. Working with painted lady butter- flies (Vanessa cardui), which have colorful wings and are easy to breed in the lab, they used the gene editor CRISPR to disable just the lncRNA’s gene. The edit yielded white- winged painted ladies, just like the ivory Heliconius, they reported on 12 February in a preprint on bioRxiv. Disabling cortex had no effect. Moreover, Livraghi’s team found this same lncRNA also controls black and other pigmentation in the scales of other butter- fly species, some distantly related. “We have to conclude now that the key regulator is an RNA, not a protein,” says Peter Holland, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford who was not part of any of the new work. At a conference midway through these studies, Livraghi learned that a Cornell Uni- versity group studying wing color patterns in the buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia), common throughout North America, was homing in on this same lncRNA. The two teams decided to coordinate their efforts. NEWS 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1039 SCIENCE science.org PHOTO: LUCA LIVRAGHI ects at risk. NSF says it will have more to say in the coming months on how it will choose between the TMT and the GMT. “Neither is a slam dunk. Both have risks,” Turner says. “I don’t envy the NSF.” Made up of 492 segments, the TMT’s 30-meter mirror makes for the larger, more sharp-eyed instrument. But its chosen site, the summit of Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island, is opposed by some Native Hawai- ian groups who consider the summit sacred. They have blocked any construction work since 2015. TMT officials hope work will be able to proceed under the aegis of a new state-appointed authority that governs the mountaintop and includes both astronomers and Native Hawaiians. “We’re working on our relationships in Hawaii,” says TMT Executive Director Robert Kirshner. “We’re learning how to do that in a humble and straight- forward way.” Turner says the impasse may not be solved anytime soon. “I’m sure a so- lution will be found, but it may take longer than people like,” he says. The GMT, smaller and cheaper, is a lower risk choice. Its foundations are being laid on a mountaintop at Las Campanas in Chile, while support structures for its mirrors are taking shape in the United States. Three of its seven 8.4-meter mirrors, the equivalent of a 25.4-meter-wide mirror, are already finished; the other four are being polished. Because of the risks attached to the TMT, Monnier and Ellis suspect NSF will prob- ably back the GMT. But with a mirror less than 40% of the size of its 39-meter Euro- pean rival, the GMT “is no match for ELT,” says Ellis, a former TMT board member. Monnier thinks the GMT will probably be good enough in key astronomy areas, but NSF will need to judge whether those areas are important for U.S. astronomers. Abandoning either of these very capable telescopes will harm U.S. astronomy, says Wendy Freedman at Chicago, one of the GMT’s partner organizations. “The science that will come out really does justify two tele- scopes.” Upcoming survey telescopes such as the 8.4-meter Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will identify a wealth of interesting ob- jects in need of follow-up observations by in- struments on the GMT and the TMT that can split the light into information-rich spectra. “That’s what these big telescopes give you,” she says. Language in a spending bill passed by Con- gress this week “strongly encourages” NSB to build both telescopes, even though lawmak- ers cut NSF’s 2024 funding by more than $800 million, to $9 billion (see story, p. 1043). Freedman hopes the congressional direction will prompt a rethink. “The United States will sit out the future of astronomy if we don’t get these telescopes,” she says. j Surprise RNApaints colorful patterns on butterfly wings Understudied means of regulating genes is likely widespread in butterflies—and perhaps other animals BIOLOGY A gene edit affecting one wing (right) of this Heliconius erato radically changed its normal color pattern.
- 16. By Rodrigo PérezOrtega S ince the 19th century, scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have obtained, studied, and stored more than 30,000 human remains, one of the largest such collections in the United States. In the past, many re- mains were studied in order to justify sci- entific racism. Now, the institution should rapidly offer to return most of these re- mains to lineal descendants or descen- dant communities, according to a report released last month by an institutional task force. “It’s important to face this past and try to repair the harms caused by our institution and so many others,” says Sabrina Sholts, curator of biological anthropology at the Smith- sonian’s National Museum of Natural History and member of the task force. Most of the Smithson- ian’s human remains were collected without proper consent in the early 20th century, and many acquisitions were part of an attempt to prove now-debunked notions of white superior- ity. “It’s a collection that should have never been amassed, and we’re committed to dis- mantling as much of it as possible,” wrote Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch III last year in an editorial. The Smithsonian already has a process for repatriating its 15,000 Native American remains, as a 1989 federal law requires; it has returned more than 5000. Now, the report urges that the collection’s Indig- enous remains be returned more quickly and that the effort extend to all human re- mains. It also suggests prioritizing the re- mains of other marginalized groups, such as the collection’s 2100 African American remains, as well as the nearly 6000 re- mains of people whose names are at least partially known. The task force applies a bedrock princi- ple of research on living humans—the need for informed consent—to the remains, a first for the Smithsonian. It advises that no research should be done without consent from the deceased or their descendants. Research would be permitted without consent on ancient remains that cannot be linked to any of today’s communities, which are a small percentage of the total. Other new recommendations in- clude returning as many remains as pos- sible by 2030 and barring destructive sampling—to analyze DNA, for example—to identify descendants. Studies of the remains, such as DNA anal- ysis of dental calculus to study pathogens, might be harder to carry out under the new recommendations. Although there’s no of- ficial moratorium, no new human remains research has been approved in recent years because of stricter re- quirements, Sholts says. She expects a pause on approvals while the new policy is established, but notes the report antici- pates positive outcomes from future research. The 15-member task force, including both Smithsonian staff and outsiders, says the insti- tution should ramp up its efforts to identify both lineal descendants and communities of descent and then initiate contact, rather than waiting for repatriation requests. The report recommends the Smithsonian re- quest new funds and staff for the massive repatriation effort, but does not say how much would be needed. “I’m impressed,” says Carlina de la Cova, a biological anthropologist at the Univer- sity of South Carolina who is not on the task force. The recommendations “will force scholars working with the dead to think about how they engage with [re- mains] and what that means for the living.” She adds that it’s the first time a museum has made such recommendations public, and she expects other institutions to fol- low the Smithsonian’s steps. Sholts agrees: “This first step towards a long-overdue reckoning makes it more likely that others will do the same.” j NEWS | IN DEPTH 1040 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE Come fall, especially in the U.S. East, the light brown wings of buckeyes darken to a deep red, enabling them to absorb heat more efficiently. When Cornell evolution- ary biologists Robert Reed and Richard Fandino used CRISPR to knock out differ- ent parts of the lncRNA in these butter- flies, they were born with little or no color and their fall reddening was altered, the team reported on 19 February on bioRxiv. A white butterfly mutant posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twit- ter) alerted Livraghi to the team behind the third new preprint: evolutionary de- velopmental biologists Antónia Monteiro and Shen Tian at the National University of Singapore. They were focused on short RNA sequences, microRNAs, known to reg- ulate gene activity in plants, animals, and other eukaryotes—organisms that pack their DNA in a nucleus. In the squinting bush brown butterfly (Bicyclus anynana), a well-studied tropical species, they found that a microRNA was active in the black wing pattern, just as Livraghi had found for the ivory lncRNA. When the Singapore team disabled the DNA encoding this microRNA, mir-193, bush brown wings became lighter, the team reported on 12 February in a bioRxiv preprint. Knocking out mir-193 also had dramatic effects in a distant relative, the Indian cabbage white (Pieris canidia), changing its black-patterned wings to completely white. After learning about the lncRNA identified by the two other groups, Monteiro and Tian concluded that the longer RNA is broken down to produce these microRNA. “A lot is happening within this small part of the genome,” says Violaine Llaurens, an evolutionary biologist at the College of France. She cautions that other regulatory elements probably play a role in butterfly wing patterns. But the fact that the same microRNA fine-tunes coloration in very distantly related species is “amazing,” says Anyi Mazo-Vargas, an evolutionary bio-logist at Duke who worked with Reed. She suspects similar RNAs color wings in most, if not all, of the 180,000 species of moths and butterflies. And because mir-193 is conserved across the animal kingdom, Monteiro and Tian think noninsects may also make use of these regulatory RNAs. Small RNAs derived from parent lncRNAs affect traits in plants, too, says Yaowu Yuan, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Connecticut whose team last year reported that so-called siRNAs determine color in monkeyflowers. The RNA realm is expanding, Yuan says. “I am quite positive that many more similar studies will come soon.” j Smithsonian urged to speed repatriation of human remains Task force says museum should return many of its 30,000 remains and seek descendants’ consent for research MUSEUM COLLECTIONS “Thisfirststeptowards along-overduereckoning makesitmorelikely otherswilldothesame.” Sabrina Sholts, National Museum of Natural History
- 17. By Amanda Heidt I n1859 Charles Darwin coined the term “living fossil” to describe lineages that have looked the same for tens of millions of years, such as the coelacanth, sturgeon, and horseshoe crab. The term captured the popular imagination, but scientists have struggled to understand whether such species just resemble their long-ago ances- tors or have truly evolved little over the eons. Now, in a study published this week in Evo- lution, researchers confirm that in some—but not all—living fossils, evolution is at a virtual standstill. The most striking examples are prehistoric-looking fish called gars, which have the slowest rate of molecular evolution of all jawed vertebrates. The team also pro- poses a mechanism to explain gars’ timeless- ness: superb DNA repair machinery. That repair has likely kept gar genomes so stable that species whose last common ancestor lived more than 100 million years ago have diverged very little, and some can still hybrid- ize today to produce viable offspring. “That’s amazing,” says Tetsuya Nakamura, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Rutgers University. “This paper has a lot of interesting work into this question of what makes a living fossil, but when I read that, I was shocked.” To see whether several putative living fos- sils evolve more slowly than other vertebrate groups, the team gathered published se- quences from more than 1100 exons (the cod- ing regions of the genome) across 478 species. Using existing family trees for each group, they created a massive evolutionary tree. For each lineage, the researchers estimated the rate at which each DNA base changed over time—the so-called substitution rate. Surprisingly, they found evolution was not on pause in all living fossils. The coel- acanth, the elephant shark, and a bird called the hoatzin—all considered ancient—have faster than expected mutation rates of about 0.0005 mutations at each site per million years, although that was still slower than the average rate for amphibians (0.007 mutations per million years) and placental mammals (0.02 mutations per million years). The find- ings support the idea that some species that still resemble their ancient ancestors have nevertheless changed at a molecular level. But gars, big freshwater fish with long, toothy snouts, were different: In almost every exon, gars had the slowest rates of molecular substitution, often by several orders of mag- nitude; they averaged only 0.00009 muta- tions per million years at each site. Indeed, two genera that diverged roughly 20 million years ago had identical sequences at nearly all the sites analyzed—a finding the team at first attributed to sequencing error. “I came into this project cautious about using the term living fossil,” says study co-author Chase Brownstein, an evolutionary biology Ph.D. student at Yale University. “But for gars at least, it’s an appropriate term.” The authors posit that because gar mu- tation rates seem consistently low across sites—including in genomic regions un- likely to be under selective pressure to stay the same—a global mechanism likely drives the slow substitution. They suggest gars are extremely efficient at repairing DNA after mutations or damage, keeping the animals from evolving even as the conti- nents have shifted around them. A similar hypothesis has previously been proposed by other researchers for sturgeon, which had the second-lowest substitution rates among vertebrates in the study. DNA repair is “a reasonable hypothesis, but there’s probably more than just one ex- planation,” says Elise Parey, an evolutionary genomicist at University College London. For example, gars have slow metabolic rates and long generation times, features that could reduce mutation rates. Gars have also preserved the arrangement of DNA in their chromosomes and dampened the effects of so-called jumping genes that can cause ge- netic reshuffling as they move from place to place in the genome. “This goes not just to sequence changes, but also to chromosome evolution, which would be an interesting av- enue to explore,” Parey says. To test their findings, the authors followed up on reports of unusual gars that might be natural hybrids in rivers throughout Oklahoma and Texas. They analyzed tissue samples from dozens of these fish to trace their ancestry, finding that two gar genera— Atractosteus and Lepisosteus—are crossing to produce fertile, hybrid young. These groups last shared a common ancestor roughly 105 million years ago, a record separation time for eukaryotes that can produce viable offspring. The gars beat the previous re- cord holders—two species of fern—by about 60 million years. (Keen minds may re- call reports of the sturddlefish, a hybrid of paddlefish and sturgeon, which diverged even longer ago, but those accidental hybrids were likely sterile and don’t occur naturally.) A next step will be to prove that gars’ DNA repair mechanisms are indeed slowing their genetic change. By equipping zebrafish—a standard model animal—with gar DNA repair genes, investigators might be able to observe the genes at work. “This will be a challeng- ing experiment though, because [DNA repair genes] are fundamental,” Nakamura says. But the authors say understanding how gars keep their mutation rate so low could have additional payoffs. For example, such insights might help humans better under- stand our own DNA repair pathways, which can lead to cancer when they fail. j Amanda Heidt is a science journalist in Utah. 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1041 SCIENCE science.org PHOTO: SOLOMON DAVID Gars truly are‘living fossils,’ massive DNAdata set shows The fish’s genomes change so slowly that species separated since the dinosaurs can produce fertile hybrids today EVOLUTION This fish is the hybrid offspring of an alligator gar and a spotted gar—members of genera that last shared a common ancestor at least 100 million years ago.
- 18. By Marcia Triunfol W hendengue started to circulate in his small town in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, Fabio Vilella’s first thought was that he should get his 13-year- old son vaccinated. Children are especially vulnerable, and his son had den- gue before, which increases the risk of se- vere disease. But Vilella, an environmental biologist, soon made a startling discovery: Not a single private clinic or pharmacy in the country had any vaccine left. “I’m really worried,” he says. Brazil is seeing an unprecedented surge in dengue, a viral disease that can cause excruciating pains and is sometimes fatal. An unusually hot rainy season, along with rapid, unplanned urbanization, have fueled its spread this year. Health officials have reported more than 1 million suspected cases in January and February, four times as many as in the same period in 2023, and hundreds have died. But the country has far too little vaccine to protect its population. The government cut a deal last year with the Japanese manufacturer Takeda Pharma- ceuticals, but it will receive doses to fully vaccinate only 3.3 million people this year, in a country of more than 220 million. A locally produced vaccine could prove to be better and cheaper, but it will be avail- able in 2025 at the earliest. “We are fre- netically working against time,” says Esper Kallas, director of the Butantan Institute, which is developing the shot. Brazil has em- braced new control strategies for the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmit dengue, but scaling them up will take time as well. The dengue virus, which comes in four different varieties, or serotypes, can cause high fevers, headaches, painful joints and muscles, and rash. In some cases it can lead to severe abdominal pain, bleeding, and death. This typically occurs when a person is infected for the second time with a dif- ferent serotype, in a phenomenon called antibody-dependent enhancement. Brazil’s Ministry of Health expects more than 4 mil- lion dengue cases this year, which would be a record. Other South American countries are seeing an uptick in cases as well. Dengue is notoriously hard to control. A. aegypti thrives in cities, where water- filled flower pots, buckets, or discarded tires make ideal breeding spots. “The mos- quito loves a water tank in the shade,” says Rafael Mello Galliez, an infectious diseases researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Poor populations lacking run- ning water and proper waste disposal bear the brunt of the disease. Regularly removing water reservoirs can help control dengue—along with Zika and chikungunya, two other viral diseases trans- mitted by A. aegypti—but is hard to sustain. Insecticide spraying is not very effective either, in part because mosquitoes are be- coming insecticide-resistant. The use of larvicides—which female mosquitoes them- selves help spread as tiny clumps of the powder stick to their body—has not stopped the epidemic either. New technologies to control A. aegypti are on the way. One is the release of mosqui- toes infected with the Wolbachia bacterium, which reduces their ability to transmit vi- ruses. The nonprofit World Mosquito Pro- gram has deployed the mosquitoes in five localities in Brazil so far, and the results are encouraging. Niterói, a city of half a million where the mosquitoes have been deployed since 2015, has seen only 58 con- firmed cases so far this year, compared with 9355 in nearby Rio de Janeiro, with almost 7 million inhabitants. The mosquitoes will soon be deployed at more sites, but scaling up the strategy nationwide is a tall order. The same is true for the release of sterile male mosquitoes, which mate with females but don’t produce offspring, causing the population to crash. One group of Brazil- ian researchers has created such insects not with radiation, the usual practice, but with a cheaper treatment consisting of a chemical and a bit of double-stranded RNA that silences a gene involved in male fertil- ity. An experiment in the city of Ortigueira, in Paraná state, between 2020 and 2022 resulted in 97% fewer dengue cases when compared with control cities, the research team reported last year. Vaccination is the other promising new strategy. Takeda’s two-dose vaccine, named Qdenga and designed to protect against all four serotypes, contains an attenuated, or weakened, strain of one serotype as a “backbone” with genes from the other three added to it. In trials, the vaccine had an overall efficacy of 64.2% in people who had dengue before and 53.5% in those who were never exposed to the virus. In February, Brazil’s public health ser- vice (SUS) started a campaign to vaccinate 10- and 11-year-old children, the group most at risk of hospitalization from dengue. But because Brazil is only expecting 6.6 million Qdenga doses this year, SUS is only target- 1042 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE PHOTO: LUIS NOVA/AP Brazil is hoping and waiting for a new vaccine as dengue rages A locally produced vaccine did well in a phase 3 clinical trial but won’t be available until at least 2025 GLOBAL HEALTH Children are vaccinated against dengue at a health center in Brasília, Brazil, on 9 February.
- 19. By Science NewsStaff S cientists, prepare to tighten your belts. This week, the U.S. Congress is ex- pected to approve six 2024 spending bills that call for sizable cuts or essen- tially flat budgets at a number of major federal research agencies. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the biggest loser, with lawmakers cutting its budget to $9.06 billion, 8.3% below 2023. NASA’s science programs will fall by 5.9% to $7.3 billion. Congress also cut research spend- ing at the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Sci- ence programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Depart- ment of Agriculture remain flat. The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science was one bright spot, getting a 1.7%, $140 million increase to $8.24 billion. But observers note that boost won’t allow DOE’s spending to keep pace with inflation. The bleak numbers are “frankly unconscionable in an era when we should be enhancing support for U.S. scientists and engineers,” says Matt Hourihan, a science policy specialist at the Federation of Ameri- can Scientists. The six bills, which lawmakers had to pass by 8 March to avoid a partial government shutdown, mark major progress in resolving a lengthy impasse over federal spending for fiscal year 2024, which began on 1 October 2023. Stopgap measures to keep the govern- ment running largely froze agency budgets at 2023 levels. Reaching a final deal was compli- cated by a tight spending cap that the White House and Congress agreed to last year in or- der to prevent the government from default- ing on its debt. The bills meld measures approved earlier by the House of Representatives and the Sen- ate. They guide $460 billion in spending, or about one-quarter of the $1.7 trillion the nation will spend this year on so-called dis- cretionary domestic and military programs (which do not include mandatory programs such as Social Security). Congress is now rac- ing to finish the remaining six spending bills by 22 March. Those bills will set spending for the National Institutes of Health and the De- partment of Defense, two of the nation’s larg- est funders of research. At NSF, a budget that is $2.3 billion less than the $11.3 billion it requested will force hard choices. Last year, Congress fattened NSF’s budget with so-called emergency spending and funds earmarked for the agency’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) directorate, aimed at commercializing discoveries. Congress envi- sioned TIP growing rapidly when it created it in 2022, but this year lawmakers told NSF it needn’t give it special treatment. As a result, TIP will compete with the agency’s other re- search directorates for cash. At NASA, a 15% cut in the agency’s plane- tary sciences program, to $2.7 billion, reflects growing unease in Congress about the rising costs of several key missions, especially Mars Sample Return (MSR)—an audacious plan to ferry soil and rock back to Earth that could cost up to $11 billion. The Senate proposed killing MSR, but the final bill instead allows NASA to spend $300 million to $949 million on the mission this year. But given the over- all cut to the planetary science budget, it is not clear that NASA could reach the higher amount without cutting other missions. NASA could soon release a revised MSR plan. At a NASA advisory meeting this week, Lori Glaze, the agency’s planetary science chief, lamented the budget outlook. “This is going to be a challenge,” she said. “We are al- ready feeling the effects.” One item that did not make it into the final bills was a provision, backed by House Republicans, that would have blocked the White House from implementing a 2021 policy to promote public access to scientific papers and data. Starting in December 2025, the policy requires federal grantees to deposit manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal papers in free, public repositories immediately upon publication, a change from a policy, favored by publishers, that has allowed embargoes of up to 12 months. Lawmakers did call for an “in-depth” study of the costs of complying with the new policy; the White House has al- ready issued two such analyses. j With reporting byJeffrey Brainard,Jeffrey Mervis, David Malakoff,Robert F.Service,Erik Stokstad,and PaulVoosen. NEWS | IN DEPTH 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1043 SCIENCE science.org ing 521 of Brazil’s municipalities, fewer than 10% of the total. Vaccine uptake has been modest: Only 32% of eligible children in the Federal District, and only 18% in Rio de Ja- neiro, have received their first shot. The vaccine made in Brazil, named Butantan-DV, might reach more people. Originally developed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, it contains live strains of all four dengue serotypes, attenuated by the removal of a small genome fragment. It’s a single-dose vaccine, which is “always preferred,” says Gabriela Paz-Bailey, a den- gue researcher at the U.S. Centers for Dis- ease Control and Prevention, because some people never get their second dose. In a trial in Brazil among 16,235 people between ages 2 and 59, published last month by The New England Journal of Medicine, the vaccine offered 89.5% and 69.6% protection, respectively, against two serotypes, DEN-1 and DEN-2, during the first 2 years after im- munization. There are no efficacy data on DEN-3 and DEN-4 because no cases were seen in the study, which is continuing. But all four weakened serotypes in the vaccine replicated in more than 50% of vac- cinated individuals who never had dengue, notes Andre Siqueira of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation. That suggests the Butantan vac- cine will provide sustained protection for all serotypes, he says. It is expected to be cheaper than Qdenga as well. “Once Butantan-DV is approved and available, the Qdenga vaccine will be history,” Mello Galliez predicts. Butantan hopes to apply for approval to ANVISA, Brazil’s regulatory agency, by September, Kallas says. Vaccinating the target population nationwide—those be- tween 2 and 60 years old—would take some 140 million doses, Kallas says, but he de- clines to speculate how long that would take: “I don’t want to create expectations.” Even after its introduction, the vaccine will be watched closely. The first approved dengue vaccine, produced by Sanofi, did appear to trigger antibody-dependent en- hancement, like the virus itself, in children in the Philippines who never had dengue before and became infected after vaccina- tion. The country has since banned the vac- cine. So far, there are no clear signs of the phenomenon with either the Takeda and Butantan shots, but it will take more follow- up to be sure. “Controlling dengue is very hard,” Paz- Bailey says. But she believes vaccination, new mosquito control strategies, and con- tinued education will eventually help coun- ter the disease’s surge. “I’m optimistic about the future,” she says. j Marcia Triunfol is a science journalist in Lisbon, Portugal. Final spending bills offer gloomy outlook for science Congress makes sizable cuts at key funding agencies U.S. BUDGET
- 20. By Jon Cohen O neof the most promising attempts to reinvigorate the stalled quest for an HIV vaccine has hit a snag that might seem minor but has major con- sequences: delaying the larger trials needed to show whether the concept works. In small safety and immune tests of the innovative vaccine strategy, which re- lies on a series of messenger RNA (mRNA) shots, an unusually high percentage of re- cipients developed rashes, welts, or other skin irritations. “We are taking this very seriously,” says Carl Dieffenbach, head of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which funded a trial of the vaccine. Researchers want to un- derstand the cause of the skin problems and how to lessen them before expanding tests of the vaccines, which are made by Moderna. “We would be moving more quickly if this finding had not been observed,” says Mark Feinberg, who heads IAVI, a nonprofit that is the vaccine’s major sponsor. The complex vaccine strategy involves injections of different mRNAs, encoding various pieces of HIV’s surface protein or the entire molecule, over the course of sev- eral months. The goal is to gradually guide the immune system’s B cells to produce so- called broadly neutralizing antibodies, or bnAbs, capable of stopping many different variants of the AIDS virus. People living with HIV on rare occasions eventually pro- duce bnAbs, but no vaccine has ever done so—which has become the “holy grail” for the field, says Linda-Gail Bekker, an AIDS vaccine researcher in South Africa who runs the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Uni- versity of Cape Town. Different versions of this HIV vaccine have already gone through three phase 1 trials, but they totaled fewer than 200 participants. The recipients responded with B cells making antibodies with some features of known bnAbs, fueling hopes for the vaccines. But skin problems—including urticaria (hives), pruritus (itching), and dermatographism (welts after scratching)—occurred at a notice- ably high level in all of the studies, affecting 11 out 60 people in one of them. These HIV vaccines deliver a relatively high dose of mRNA, which Moderna scien- tists and others think could explain the skin issues. The company’s original COVID-19 mRNA vaccine used the same dose and has also been linked to skin problems, although at much lower frequencies, of 1% to 3%. (The Pfizer-BioNTech collaboration’s COVID-19 vaccine, also based on mRNA but given at a 70% lower dose, triggers skin problems, too, but one Swiss study suggests they occur 20 times less frequently than with the Mod- erna product.) A cumulative effect from mul- tiple mRNA shots, the genetic background of the recipients, or the HIV sequences used for the vaccine could also be responsible for the welts and hives, and those possibilities are more worrisome. Most of these skin problems resolved quickly and none were severe enough to stop a trial, but researchers do not want to minimize them. “At a time when vaccine hesitancy is high, it is critically important not to dismiss urticaria as an unimportant side effect,” says Kimberly Blumenthal, an allergist at Massachusetts General Hos- pital who has also found a link between Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and higher rates of urticaria. Feinberg agrees the side effect issue needs studying, but is also concerned that people who are vaccine opponents might mis- represent the scope of the problem. “This finding has not been seen to the same fre- quency with other mRNA vaccines against other pathogens,” he says. Had the skin problems in the HIV tri- als not surfaced, the researchers would have moved closer to conducting—or even launched—a study that involved a few hun- dred people and had a placebo control. “We’ve hit this rather miserable bump in the road,” Bekker says. Multiple research groups are pursuing similar strategies to create bnAbs. Moderna’s effort grew out of a project led by biophysicist William Schief, who developed it at Scripps Research and then brought the strategy to the company, where he is now a vice president. It exploits the fact that B cells begin as naïve, or germline, cells and then during an infection undergo a series of mutations that, in effect, hone the ability of the antibodies they pro- duce to bind to specific parts of viruses and “neutralize” their ability to infect cells. The “germline targeting” vaccine strategy relies on several shots to take B cells through this maturation process, eventually leading them to produce bnAbs against viruses. “We call it priming, shepherding, and polishing,” explains Dennis Burton, an immunologist at Scripps who works with Schief. Initially the group did not use mRNA. Its vaccine contained a small piece of HIV’s viral surface protein attached to a nano- particle that presented it to the immune system in a novel way, and early results were promising. In a 2022 Science paper, Schief and colleagues reported that 97% of the 36 people who received the vaccine devel- oped B cell antibody gene mutations that are first steps toward making bnAbs. Schief switched to mRNA because it provides far more flexibility, allowing the researchers to readily fine-tune the HIV component of the vaccine. Because of the enormous diversity of HIVs in circulation, he contends that an effective vaccine likely will have to trigger production of up to five different bnAbs. That would mean prim- ing, shepherding, and polishing multiple B cell lineages. Without the easy-to-modify mRNA, Schief says, “good luck—that is a daunting, daunting task.” NIAID now plans to repeat the phase 1 trials of these Moderna HIV vaccines with a lower dose. Bekker, who lives in a country that has more people living with HIV than any other, is still hopeful the approach will pan out. “We’ve got to chapter one of an exciting novel.” After decades of failed at- tempts to develop an HIV vaccine, the goal remains pressing, she says. “Last year, the world had 1.3 million infections of HIV. I think it remains an urgent requirement to find a good solution.” j NEWS | IN DEPTH 1044 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE PHOTO: LARS HANGARTNER AND CHRISTINA CORBACI A vaccine strategy aims to create multiple, powerful antibodies (various colors) that can attach to different parts of HIV’s surface protein (gray). BIOMEDICINE Skin side effects stymie advance of HIVvaccine Strategy of using multiple mRNA shots to hone powerful antibodies hits a pothole
- 21. Eppendorf & SciencePrize for Neurobiology The annual Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology is an international prize which honors young scientists for outstanding neurobiological research based on methods of molecular, cellular, systems, or organismic biology. If you are 35 years of age or younger and doing great research, now is the time to submit an entry for this prize. It’s easy to apply! Write a 1,000-word essay and tell the world about your work. eppendorf.com/prize As the winner, you could be next to receive > Prize money of US$25,000 > Publication of your work in Science > Full support to attend the Prize Ceremony held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in the USA > 10-year AAAS membership and online subscription to Science > Complimentary products worth US$1,000 from Eppendorf > An invitation to visit Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany 2023 Winner Marissa Scavuzzo, Ph.D. Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, USA For research on glial cells in the gut Call for Entries 2024 Application Deadline June 15, 2024 AAAS ® and Science ® are registered trademarks of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, USA. Eppendorf ® and the Eppendorf Brand Design are registered trademarks of Eppendorf SE, Germany. All rights reserved, including graphics and images. Copyright © 2024 by Eppendorf SE. Photography: Lisa Helfert
- 22. PHOTO: CREDIT GOES HERE AS SHOWN; CREDIT GOES HERE AS SHOWN FEATURES Didier Raoult andhis institute found fame during the pandemic. Then, a group of dogged critics exposed major ethical failings TH E RECKONING
- 23. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1047 PHOTO: CREDIT GOES HERE AS SHOWN; CREDIT GOES HERE AS SHOWN W ith six studies published in the 2010s, French micro- biologist Didier Raoult added to his already vast publication record. He and his colleagues conducted a wide range of investigations into infectious diseases and their treatments. They took stool samples from patients on long-term antibiotic treatment, looking for alterations in their gut micro- biome. They swabbed the throats of pilgrims leaving France for Mecca, searching for evi- dence of a bacterium that causes brain ab- scesses. And they studied samples of heart valves and blood clots from patients with heart inflammation to refine tests for the bacteria that cause the condition. But in January, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) journals that published the papers announced they were retracting all six, along with a seventh by Raoult’s col- leagues. Aix-Marseille University had inves- tigated the research, which was done at its affiliated Hospital Institute of Marseille Med- iterranean Infection (IHU), a research hos- pital that Raoult led until his retirement in 2021. The investigation found the work had not been reviewed by one of France’s highly regulated national ethical committees. It was therefore in violation of French law and the Declaration of Helsinki, an international eth- ics document that guides clinical research. In a written statement sent to Science, Raoult says ASM retracted the papers with- out accounting for his team’s rebuttals to the critiques. But to Lonni Besançon, the re- tractions are vindication of concerns that he and others have been voicing since Raoult and the IHU burst into the media spotlight in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, downplaying its severity and touting pros- pects for a successful treatment. The Linköping University computer sci- entist and his fellow critics—a gaggle of dogged individuals, many of them academic outsiders—originally set out to challenge poor-quality research coming out of the IHU, especially the claim that COVID-19 could be treated with the antimalaria drug hydroxy- chloroquine (HCQ). But they soon embarked on an all-consuming attempt to raise the alarm about ethical failings in the institute’s research, going back at least 15 years. Their efforts have met with lackluster re- sponses from France’s scientific institutions, Besançon says, but the retractions are the most important consequence so far. They “confirm what we suspected,” he says. “But I am hoping that things will go further.” Raoult says his critics are stalkers and cyberharassers who have misunderstood how French biomedical law works. He says he’s followed ethical regulations and that much of the research under fire has been on “human waste”—such as fecal matter—which is not defined as biomedical research under French law. But the ethical failings are “not dis- puted” within the scientific community, says Philippe Amiel, a lawyer who specializes in human experimentation. The authorities have known about problems at the IHU for years, adds Karine Lacombe, an infectious disease specialist at Sorbonne University. If they had acted earlier, she says, “the picture of the pandemic in France would have been totally different.” A criminal investigation of Raoult’s insti- tute is now underway. But his critics are ask- ing why French institutions took so long to tackle systemic violations at the IHU, leaving it to a persistent group of outsiders to inves- tigate the institute and push for punitive ac- tion. And they are wondering whether Raoult and the institute will be held to account for the wide range of lapses they have alleged. “It’s a big, big mess,” Lacombe says. RAOULT IS BEST KNOWN for his work on rickettsia—bacteria transmitted by fleas and ticks—and his discovery of giant vi- ruses. He has accumulated national decora- tions in both France and his birth country of Senegal as well as prestigious scientific awards, including the 2010 Grand Prize from the French biomedical research agency INSERM. He has published prolifi- cally, with more than 3200 papers indexed on PubMed, and is one of the most highly cited researchers in his field. In 2011, Raoult was selected to lead the newly created IHU in Marseille, one of six state-of-the-art research hospitals established by then-President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. Raoult’s IHU, which specializes in infectious disease research, was launched with a €72 million govern- ment grant, and in 2018 it moved into an imposing new building. The institute’s power is political as well as scientific, says Michel Dubois, a sociologist of science at the French national research agency CNRS: “When you open this institute—when you create a building—you need some leverage at the political level.” As Europe began to pay serious attention to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the media wanted to know what Raoult and his institute made of the situation. “Al- most every day, you were able to watch a new interview with Raoult,” says Antoine Bristielle, a social scientist at the Jean- Jaurès Foundation, a think tank. “It became By Cathleen O’Grady ILLUSTRATION: SARA GIRONI CARNEVALE
- 24. 1048 8 MARCH2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE a self-reinforcing phenomenon … the me- dia were interested in what he was saying, so he came to be really powerful in the French population. And then, of course, the media wanted him because he was able to attract large audiences.” In videos posted online by the IHU, Raoult is often seated in an office, wearing a lab coat, long gray hair and beard slightly unkempt. He speaks soberly and quietly, frowning slightly while delivering reassuring pronouncements: The new coronavirus has a mortality rate not too different from wide- spread respiratory infections; a treatment will be coming soon. Raoult’s confident statements caught the eye of Fabrice Frank, a former biologist who had left academia and become a high school math and physics teacher. By the time the pandemic hit, Frank had moved from France to Morocco, where he started an IT company and dedicated his spare time to surfing. He watched with shock when Raoult asserted— with minimal evidence, based on thinly re- ported research in China—that HCQ, or the related medicine chloroquine phosphate, would be an effective treatment. Victor Garcia, a journalist at French magazine L’Express, saw scientists express- ing skepticism about Raoult’s claims on social media. He called the IHU, assum- ing it had more details that could counter some of the critics’ concerns. But Garcia says he received a “strange” response from IHU researcher Jean-Marc Rolain. “I am a scientist,” Rolain said. “If I tell you to take chloroquine, you’ll listen to me.” (Rolain did not respond to multiple requests for com- ment.) That was “the beginning of me ask- ing questions,” Garcia says. ON 11 MARCH 2020, French health minister Olivier Véran invited Raoult to join the Scien- tific Council advising the government on its pandemic response. A few days later, Raoult and his team published a bombshell paper in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, reporting that the IHU had found HCQ combined with the antibiotic azithro- mycin to be an effective COVID-19 treatment. Although the results were preliminary and other researchers doubted Raoult’s conclu- sions, HCQ hype surged, with then–U.S. Pres- ident Donald Trump touting its promise and Raoult enthusing over it on YouTube. “Raoult was saying, ‘I understand everything, I have a solution,’ and people want that kind of in- formation in troubled times,” Bristielle says. Raoult’s popular support bred political support, Bristielle adds. “If someone has such a presence in the media landscape, politicians have to listen to him—otherwise they will be really distrusted by the popula- tion.” On 26 March—amid strong resistance from some other members of the scientific council—Véran issued a decree allowing HCQ to be prescribed to COVID-19 inpatients. Scientific integrity consultant Elisabeth Bik decided to take a close look at the HCQ paper. A microbiologist by training, Bik al- ready knew of Raoult and his reputation for prolific publication. On her blog she pointed to several problems she saw with the paper: Patients had not been randomly assigned to the treatment and control groups, which could have biased the results. She also noted that six patients out of the 26 treated with HCQ were dropped from the data—including three who were transferred to intensive care and one who died—which painted a more fa- vorable picture of the treatment. Besançon, too, was curious. He looked into the paper, which had been submitted to the journal on 16 March and accepted the next day, and noticed that one of the authors was also editor-in-chief at the journal. “So you have a very short reviewing time and edito- rial conflict of interest,” he says. “I just find this potentially a big red flag. But I thought, it’s just one paper.” (A July 2020 editorial in the journal said handling of the paper had been delegated to an associate editor to mini- mize potential bias, although it noted that “some of the concerns regarding the paper’s methodology were substantiated.”) Over the next few weeks, two more IHU studies appeared, with unusually short peer- review timelines, both in a journal where one of the authors was an associate editor. One of those papers was a second study using HCQ to treat 80 “mildly infected” hospitalized COVID-19 patients; nearly all improved clinically. The study had not been reviewed by one of France’s 39 Committees for the Protection of Persons (CPPs), the highly regulated independent ethics com- mittees authorized to approve biomedical research. Instead, it had been approved by the IHU’s internal ethics committee. This was sufficient, the authors wrote, CREDITS: (TIMELINE) M. HERSHER/SCIENCE; (ILLUSTRATIONS) N. BURGESS/SCIENCE 2021 2020 30 October Pharmaceutical company Sanofi reports that the IHU continues to place large HCQ orders. 12 November Marseilles public prosecutor closes case on HCQ papers, saying there has been no legal breach. 26 May France withdraws approval of HCQ as a COVID-19 treatment. 8 April Drug safety agency quizzes the IHU about ethical approval in second HCQ study. Early April Tipster alerts French drug safety agency to ethical concerns in HCQ research. 25 March Mathieu Molimard and French Society of Pharmacology begin posting online about HCQ ineffectiveness and risks. 20 March The IHU publishes a paper reporting that hydroxychlo- roquine (HCQ) is effective at treating COVID-19. 24 March Scientific integrity sleuth Elisabeth Bik notes issues with HCQ paper. 26 March French health minister Olivier Véran allows HCQ to be prescribed to COVID-19 inpatients. 27 March Second IHU study on HCQ published as a preprint Elisabeth Bik, a scientific integrity sleuth based in San Francisco, first raised concerns about the Hospital Institute of Marseille Mediterranean Infection’s (IHU’s) work on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in March 2020. She went on to identify major ethical and scientific issues in dozens of IHU papers, spurred on, she says, by abuse from Didier Raoult and his supporters. A slow-motion downfall Critics first raised concerns about ethical approvals for Didier Raoult’s studies in early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic catapulted the Hospital Institute of Marseille Mediterranean Infection (IHU) to prominence.They say French authorities and journals have taken far too long to react. NEWS | FEATURES
- 25. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1049 SCIENCE science.org because it was a retrospective study on pa- tients who had received normal medical care, with researchers merely looking back over their files to see how they had fared. In France, such studies are not covered by the law on research ethics, and so do not need approval from a CPP. Instead, researchers often seek approval from institutional eth- ics committees—which are unregulated—to supply ethical approval details to journals. But if samples are collected for both research and medical care, then the study must be ap- proved by a CPP, Amiel says. “Concealing a prospective study as a retrospective study is a well-known temptation,” he says. Unauthor- ized research is a criminal offense. The French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) said it asked the IHU for evidence that the study had in fact been retrospective, and in May 2020, the agency referred the case to the French Medical Association. The Marseille public prosecutor, alerted to the case by a tip- ster, announced later that year that the study had been retrospective and dropped the case. Still, those early concerns were a cue for Bik, Besançon, and others to look closely at Raoult’s substantial publication record— and to pay particular attention to ethical approval. DESPITE THE GROWING SKEPTICISM from scientists and others, Raoult’s public sup- port endured. A poll in May 2020 found that 30% of French people trusted him more than Véran. By June, there were more than 90 Facebook groups supporting him, accord- ing to Bristielle’s research, with a total of nearly 1.1 million members. By Christmas, supporters could buy a santon of Raoult— a small terra cotta figurine traditional to Provence, where nativity scenes incorporate local characters and heroes. Meanwhile, Frank, Garcia, and other crit- ics began their deep look into Raoult’s body of research. Bik says she focused first on im- ages in his papers, because her specialty is de- tecting image manipulation. But, faced with insults from Raoult—and harassment from his colleagues and supporters—she chan- neled her frustration into assessing his vast back catalog, finding more studies that ap- peared to lack proper ethical approval. Garcia had also begun to scrutinize IHU papers, and in July 2021 published an inves- tigation in L’Express that reported finding 17 studies between 2011 and 2020—mostly involving homeless people or refugees—that had all used the same ethical approval num- ber, even though the studies used different methods to answer different research ques- tions. One, for example, took nasal swabs in a homeless shelter to test the prevalence of microbes; another took sputum samples and chest x-rays from shelter residents to test for tuberculosis. (An IHU representative told L’Express the repeated use of the code was the result of “editorial errors.”) Again the ethical approval number came from an insti- tutional ethics committee, not a CPP, Garcia reported. Frank, too, had begun to dig. Stuck at home in Morocco under quarantine, he trawled Google Scholar for IHU studies that shared ethical approval codes. With his collabora- tors—including Besançon—he ultimately discovered 248 studies that had used the ap- proval number “09-022,” representing a sin- gle application to the IHU ethics committee. Raoult was an author on all but 10 of these 248 studies. He told Science it is “perfectly true” that all these papers reused the ethics approval number. But that was permissible, he says, because all involved the same kind of research: analyses of bacteria in human feces collected during standard care, or from waste. None of the research fell under French bioethics law, he says. But Amiel says the studies describe sam- ples taken for research purposes and not just as part of standard care, and that this type of study should “undoubtedly” be authorized by a CPP. And many of the 248 studies re- lied not on feces, but on other material, in- cluding vaginal samples, urine, blood, and even breast milk. Any change in research protocol should prompt a new application for ethical approval, Amiel says. Many of the papers involved children, and nearly half of them had been con- ducted outside of France—largely in vari- ous African countries—with no or hazy details of whether local ethical bodies had given approval for the research, accord- ing to Frank and his collaborators. “There have been so many breaches in ethics law, for so long,” says Frank, who published the group’s findings in Research Integrity and Peer Review in August 2023. Raoult says the studies relying on mate- rial other than stool samples had “supple- mental favorable advice” from the local ethical committee, but that his team did not report this in its papers. The only country for which his team did not have ethical approval was Niger, he adds, which did not have an ethical approval process until 2016. He says he and his colleagues have submitted a reply to Frank’s paper, and they have asked Springer Nature— the journal’s publisher—to retract it. A Springer Nature spokesperson said, “We are aware of concerns with this paper and are investigating the matter carefully in line with our established processes.” The fact that so many studies involved vulnerable populations, such as those liv- ing in homeless shelters, was “outrageous,” 2022 2023 2024 26 July IT consultant Fabrice Frank starts to investigate repeated ethical approval numbers in the IHU’s past papers. 20 July In L’Express investigation, journalist Victor Garcia finds multiple IHU studies did not have proper ethical approval. 27 October Drug safety agency says IHU studies appear to have violated research ethics laws, confirms it has referred case to prosecutor. 27 April Drug safety agency reports unapproved research at the IHU and restricts institute’s research activities. 5 September Government auditors report ethical breaches at the IHU, refer matter to prosecutor. July Prosecutor opens judicial investigation. 13 December Publisher PLOS flags 49 IHU papers with expressions of concern because of potential ethical violations. 4 April The IHU reports the results of an HCQ study involving more than 30,000 patients. 28 May Molimard and others publish op-ed challenging legality of new HCQ study. 30 October Scientific Reports retracts two papers led by Raoult, saying authors could not provide evidence of ethical approval. 4 January American Society for Microbiology retracts seven IHU papers, citing breaches in research ethics. Mathieu Molimard, a pharmacologist at the University of Bordeaux, began to counter the IHU’s claims about HCQ in April 2020. Outraged when French authorities didn’t respond to the IHU’s publication of a seemingly unauthorized HCQ trial, Molimard rallied representatives of 14 French scientific societies to sign an open letter in Le Monde.
- 26. 1050 8 MARCH2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE Bik says. Vulnerable people may feel they have no choice in whether to participate in a research study, says Lisa Rasmussen, a research ethicist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “They are not in a po- sition to give authentic consent.” IN RESPONSE TO MEDIA ATTENTION—but more than 18 months after Bik first raised questions about ethical approvals and study methods on her blog—French authorities be- gan inspections at the IHU. In October 2021, ANSM said it had found breaches of the law and had referred the matter to the public prosecutor, and that it was still investigating. The French government also asked two audit- ing bodies, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs and General Inspectorate of Educa- tion, Sport and Research, to investigate. Raoult says these inspections arose out of a “small conspiracy to make it appear that we were carrying out an illegal trial of treatment for tuberculosis.” (According to one media report, IHU patients with tuberculosis had been given unproven treatments.) Raoult says the agencies found no such illegal trial and only three minor problems with other research projects. However, both ANSM’s re- port, released in April 2022, and the auditing agencies’ report, published 5 months later, noted that IHU patients had received un- approved tuberculosis treatment, with some suffering severe adverse effects. This might constitute a criminal offense, according to the auditing agencies. But the reports also went much further, describing ethical concerns similar to those raised by Frank, Garcia, and others. The government auditing bodies noted that the IHU relied heavily on its internal ethics committee, “whose composition does not sufficiently guarantee its independence and whose working methods do not allow for an informed decision.” And ANSM described research projects launched without or be- fore ethical approval, missing consent forms, and researchers who did not understand ethics regulations. They found evidence of a falsified signature on an ethical approval document for a study that asked students to provide samples—including vaginal and rectal swabs—before and after travel, to see whether they brought antibiotic resistant bacterial strains back with them. The government inspectors also reported “widespread deviant medical and scientific practices within the IHU,” including ones that blurred the line between patient care and research. For example, clinicians gath- ered a range of samples from each patient that would then be archived, possibly to be used in future research. When treating COVID-19 patients, clinicians conducted a range of tests, including daily PCR and other tests that “are a matter of research and not of care,” the investigators reported. The in- stitute rushed research in a “race to publish,” the report says, racking up hundreds of publi- cations each year—with more papers in lower tier journals than other similar institutions— and drawing in substantial funding designed to encourage high publication rates. The inspectors reported that INSERM, which had helped found and run the IHU, withdrew from the institute in 2018. An IN- SERM spokesperson says it had found that several research projects did not meet its scientific standards. CNRS withdrew in 2016 and has had “no connection” with the IHU since 2019, according to a spokesperson. The reports did not specifically blame Raoult for these failings. But they said he tightly held the reins of power in the insti- tute, with testimonies from employees re- porting that Raoult was “omnipresent” and the “final decision-maker,” and that other managers were “in total conformity” with Raoult’s views. ANSM placed the IHU under its supervi- sion to ensure that all future research proj- ects were carried out with proper approval. And both the government agencies and ANSM again referred their findings to the public prosecutor. The status of that investi- gation is unclear, and the prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Raoult says he is “hopeful” that the cases currently under investigation will be closed soon. Cases are sometimes referred to other jurisdictions in France when there may be local conflicts of interest, says Uni- versity of Bordeaux pharmacologist Mathieu Molimard, who has been criticizing the IHU’s statements and research since early 2020: “We would prefer this to be seen in Paris.” DESPITE THE NOW INTENSE scrutiny of their work, in April 2023 Raoult and his colleagues published a draft paper that sent new shock waves through social media. “I fell from my chair,” Molimard says. “It’s the largest un- ethical study performed for years—in France, maybe in the world. … It’s incredible.” More than a dozen scientific bodies would later agree with his assessment. Raoult and his colleagues had analyzed data from 30,202 COVID-19 patients treated at the IHU between March 2020 and Decem- ber 2021—including 23,172 who had received a combination of HCQ and azithromycin. Yet France had withdrawn the temporary per- mission to treat COVID-19 inpatients with HCQ in May 2020, after a paper in The Lan- Victor Garcia, a journalist at French magazine L’Express, began to pay attention to Raoult when he enthused about the potential for HCQ as a COVID-19 treatment. Garcia covered the emerging IHU story beat for beat and published two investigations into ethical abuses there. Shortly after publication, the French drug safety agency began to inspect the IHU. Ex-biologist Fabrice Frank,now an ITconsultant, used his time in COVID-19 quarantine to begin compiling a database of all IHU papers that appeared to reuse ethical approval numbers. He and his collaborators identified 248 papers that used the same code,despite investigating different questions, using different samples, in different participant populations, and in different countries. ILLUSTRATIONS: N. BURGESS/SCIENCE Lonni Besançon, a computer scientist at Linköping University, grew curious about Raoult’s work after noticing a paper published in a journal where an author also served as editor-in-chief. He has co-authored several papers about ethical lapses and methodological problems in IHU research,and agitated for journals to investigate and retract problematic work.
- 27. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1051 SCIENCE science.org cet reported that HCQ was not an effective COVID-19 treatment. (This paper was subse- quently retracted after the data were ques- tioned, but a later randomized, controlled trial published by the mass RECOVERY col- laboration also found no effect.) The preprint showed the IHU had contin- ued to prescribe the drug on a grand scale long after this, Molimard says. Raoult says he and his colleagues decided in April 2020 to treat COVID-19 patients with HCQ “off label,” after their initial study convinced them of the drug’s efficacy. In France, as in many other countries, drugs can be prescribed for reasons outside of their normal authorization, but this off-label pre- scription must have medical and scientific justification, Amiel says—and “in this case, strong medical and scientific evidence have established that the prescription of HCQ to treat COVID is unjustifiable.” The study also reported no approval from a CPP; the ethics section lists only an IHU ethics committee reference number. As they had in earlier papers, the researchers said the study was retrospective, analyzing pa- tient data from the hospital’s information system. But Amiel says the IHU team was “highly committed to proving the efficacy of its treatment,” pointing to evidence— revealed by the government inspection—that it performed daily PCR tests to check viral levels, for instance. “It is perfectly clear that the study is based on data collected in a mixed care and research context.” Molimard thought ANSM and the Min- istry for Solidarity and Health should have reacted immediately to the publication. Aghast at their silence, he contacted a range of French societies, urging them to sign an op-ed in major French newspaper Le Monde calling the study “the largest ‘wild’ therapeu- tic trial known to date.” Fourteen scientific bodies, including the national coalition of ethics committees and the French Society of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, signed the letter, and in June 2023, ANSM announced it had once again referred the matter to the prosecutor. On 30 October, the paper was nonetheless published in the Elsevier-owned journal New Microbes and New Infections. The scale of the trial is like nothing seen before, Molimard says. He points to the re- cent case of Jean-Bernard Fourtillan, a re- searcher who tested melatonin patches on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients without ethical approval. His study, Molimard says, involved approximately 300 patients: “And he went to jail.” IN RECENT MONTHS, more blows have fallen on the IHU, beginning with the retraction of two Scientific Reports papers in October 2023 for a lack of evidence of ethical over- sight in Niger and Senegal, where the studies were conducted. Raoult says the team did get ethical approval from an institutional review board in Senegal; because Niger had no ethi- cal approval processes when the study was conducted, local collaborators confirmed the research complied with local laws, he says. A spokesperson for Springer Nature, which publishes Scientific Reports, says that in such cases researchers must still get ethical ap- proval from another source, such as a uni- versity. The two studies are “part of a wider investigation concerning potential ethical is- sues in a number of papers,” according to the spokesperson. PLOS journals have flagged nearly 50 fur- ther IHU papers with expressions of con- cern as part of an ongoing investigation, which Retraction Watch reported in De- cember 2022. (At the time the studies were submitted, PLOS editors did not routinely ask for evidence of ethi- cal approval, according to David Knutson, head of communications at PLOS.) In November 2023, the Marseille hospital board told the AFP news agency it “strongly condemned” the mass HCQ study; the IHU said it “shared” the hospital board’s reaction. And Elsevier announced that New Microbes and New Infections had opened an investigation into ethi- cal concerns about IHU papers published in the journal. An Elsevier spokesperson did not confirm whether the “wild clinical trial” was one of the papers under investigation. In December, the French ministers of health and research asked a disciplinary body that oversees university hospitals to launch proceedings against Raoult’s three IHU co- authors on the mass COVID-19 study—but not against Raoult, who retired in the sum- mer of 2021. The fight has taken its toll on the crit- ics. They have faced not just abuse from his supporters on social media and complaints to their employers, but also the threat of legal action from Raoult, who has had mul- tiple legal complaints bankrolled by the IHU. Raoult’s lawyer said Raoult had filed charges against Bik in April 2021 for harassment and blackmail. He has also filed legal complaints against other critics, including Lacombe; Raoult lost his case against her in November 2022. In science, Molimard says, “we are used to debate, to argument … but we are not used to that!” Despite the harassment, Besançon says he is undaunted and intends to continue to criti- cize Raoult’s work. “I was raised in a really bad neighborhood,” he says. “You know when you see cars burning in France? That’s where I was … I had to stand up for myself, to learn not to be afraid of potential bullies.” Bik, too, has no plans to stop: “I don’t really have a career he can ruin,” she says. “I’m not going to let him silence me.” Besançon and others say France’s insti- tutional response has been unacceptably weak. There has been “failure at every level,” Garcia says: at the health ministry; in the justice system; within the university and re- gional hospital board, which had oversight of the IHU; and at ANSM, which only con- ducted a full inspection after media investiga- tions brought the problems to light. Journal editors have also been too slow to react, Besançon says. “More often than not, it seems that they don’t give a damn about integrity.” The IHU, the regional hospital board, and ANSM did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The ministry of health said in a statement to Science that “several ac- tions have been taken by the public authorities in re- sponse to the shortcomings observed at the IHU.” Part of the failure lies with France’s law on re- search ethics, Amiel says, which is out of step with international standards. “It’s provincial,” he says. “And it’s really a problem.” Because the law allows some human studies to proceed without ethi- cal approval, Amiel says, similar violations are ongoing elsewhere in France, though not at the scale of the IHU’s. The best solution would be to overhaul the law, he says—but “I don’t think it’s a priority for the government at the moment.” The close relationship between political powers and scientific institutions in France is also to blame for the foot-dragging insti- tutional response, Lacombe says. Without external voices—like Bik, Frank, Besançon, Molimard, and Garcia—“I’m not sure that things would have moved,” she says. Frank worries the lackluster response sends a message that there are no conse- quences for violations like these. “Maybe tomorrow—I hope not—we’ll have SARS-3 … and the message sent will be, ‘Don’t worry about public health. Just show your face, say anything you want, and you will sell books, be famous, and get a lot of fans.’ It’s insane.” j This story was supported by the Science Fund for Investigative Reporting. PHOTO: OLIVIER MONGE/MYOP/REDUX Didier Raoult NEWS | FEATURES
- 28. rial debut filmby Sam and Andy Zuchero and the 2024 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize winner. The film, which features gorgeous motion capture animation and touching, vulner- able performances by Stewart and Yeun in both their computer-generated and analog forms, imagines a very, very long-term rela- tionship between two artificial intelligences. One was originally designed to monitor the oceans and the other to welcome alien life- forms to Earth. Iam is “humanity’s’ tomb- stone,” carrying petabytes of details about human civilization and programmed to communicate only with living beings. Feel- ing pressured to pass as a life-form to keep Iam’s attention, Me pores through the sat- ellite’s databases and decides to model its behavior on an archive of a happy human couple’s social media video posts. Me and Iam create a virtual world for themselves where they can interact as avatars, but Me’s insistence that they endlessly reenact the couple’s videos and Iam’s desire for new and genuine experiences cause tension that drives the bulk of the film. On the surface, Love Me chronicles the intellectual and emotional awakening of two intelligent computers, a concept that no longer seems completely far-fetched in the age of artificial intelligence. However, it is also a relationship film that draws sharp contrasts between the idea of true self and the selves we present to others. Perhaps as a jab at our cultural values at the fictional im- minent demise of humanity, Me is initially 1052 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 science.org SCIENCE ILLUSTRATION: HEDOF BOOKS et al. INSIGHTS REVIEW ROUNDUP Science at Sundance 2024 Climate change–induced droughts lead to violent clashes in Kenya. An actor’s pivot to stem cell advocacy cements his legacy as a hero. Start-ups promising digital immortality prepare to reanimate the dead. From a meditation on Himalayan moths and a futuristic fable about what it means to be alive to immersive meditations on happiness in Bhutan and loneli- ness online, science-minded moviegoers were rewarded with a number of thought-provoking offerings at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Read on for our reviewers’ impressions of seven of this year’s films. —Valerie Thompson Love Me Reviewed by Michael D. Shapiro1 On a future Earth devoid of humanity, a smart buoy named “Me” (Kristen Stewart) and a satellite named “Iam” (Steven Yeun) spend several billion years exploring what it means to be human in Love Me, the directo-
- 29. private investigator witha friendly face cre- ated by Norwegian gamer Mats Steen as “an expansion” of himself. Ibelin went on countless adventures with his friends in the Starlight guild; they explored, slayed dragons, and partied into the wee hours. Ibelin was a trusted confidant, listening to problems and providing heartfelt support. He made connections and fell in love before logging off permanently when Steen, aged 25, succumbed to a severe form of muscular dystrophy. The film opens with Robert and Trude Steen, Mats’s grieving parents, and their discovery of his online life. The pair were unaware of its immense depth and richness, as recorded across 42,000 pages of gaming dialogue. The poignancy of this revelation is amplified with interviews and home video footage that follow the inexorable progres- sion of Mats’s disease. Ree captures Robert and Trude’s sense of helplessness, which will resonate with many parents. From Robert and Trude’s perspective, Mats grew increasingly withdrawn as a teenager and young man, logging 20,000 hours of game time during his final 10 years misguided by the deluge of online influenc- ers, digital ghosts who sabotage the buoy’s progress toward becoming a real life-form. Over many millennia, Me and Iam experi- ence joy and self-satisfaction, as well as crushing loneliness and depression. For Iam, a billion years of self-discovery and empathy is the path to achieving its original directive to “connect” with other life-forms. But without a meaningful connection to Me, even though it knows every bit of infor- mation recorded by humanity, the satellite admits that it knows nothing at all. Love Me, Sam Zuchero and Andy Zuchero, directors, ShivHans Pictures, 2024, 92 minutes. Ibelin Reviewed by Nathaniel J. Dominy2 Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree’s lat- est film, Ibelin, takes its name from Lord Ibelin Redmoore, an avatar in the mas- sive multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. Ibelin was a strapping of life. They viewed his gaming as com- pulsive and self-isolating, a wasting of life matched only by the wasting of his mus- cles. Such framing puts a subtle spotlight on “gaming disorder,” an underresearched and much-criticized psychopathology rec- ognized by the World Health Organization in 2018. It is also a foil for the film’s second and third acts, when Ree pivots to Mats’s perspective, as told through in-game chat logs and his blog, “Musings of Life.” A gifted writer, Mats speaks to the value of gaming for building community—it is “not a screen, but a gateway.” Ree reinforces this point by drawing the viewer into World of Warcraft. Relying on chat logs and voice actors, Ree recreates in-game exchanges as animated vignettes, as if he is filming on location inside the game. It is a creative masterstroke, and it gives us a third per- spective: Ibelin’s. Most gamers are between 18 and 30 years old, an age range with the greatest preva- lence of loneliness. Some might view this association as causation, but Ibelin, which took home an Audience Award and a Jury Award for Directing, offers a compelling 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1053 SCIENCE science.org
- 30. science.org SCIENCE PHOTO: COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE counterpoint: Gamingcan enhance our well-being. The film seems partially in- tended for researchers and policy-makers, calling attention to the urgent need for re- liable data on the global health benefits of social connections that transcend the physi- cal world. Ibelin, Benjamin Ree, director, Medieoperatørene, 2024, 104 minutes. The Battle for Laikipia Reviewed by Gabrielle Kardon3 At the heart of The Battle for Laikipia, a new documentary film directed by Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi, is the Lai- kipia Plateau, a highland 6500 feet above sea level in central Kenya that is one of the richest areas of endangered mamma- lian species. The plateau is home to na- ture conservancies, Indigenous pastoralist cattle herders, large cattle ranches, and ~300,000 cattle. Balancing the needs of animals and people is difficult in the best of times. However, more extensive peri- ods of climate change–induced drought have exacerbated tensions in this region, resulting in explosive clashes between its inhabitants. The film first introduces viewers to the Samburu, an Indigenous tribe of semino- madic pastoralists who primarily raise cattle. “Cattle are life” for the Samburu; cows are given as gifts for all major occa- sions, and tribesmen are traditionally bur- ied enwrapped in cowhide. However, their ancient migration routes are increasingly blocked by ranches and conservancies. Descendants of British colonialists own much of the Laikipia landscape, and the film focuses on the 8000-acre Kifuku ranch. Ranchers Maria Dodds and her son George are deeply committed to raising Boran cattle and feel they “would be lost without their land.” Despite being fourth- generation Kenyans, they feel that they will never be fully accepted as citizens. A relative newcomer, Tom Silvester founded the Loisaba conservancy in 1997. The conservancy features a 58,000-acre pri- vate reserve where giraffes, elephants, and zebras abound. Keeping cattle out of the pre- serve is essential for conservation of wildlife. The film unfolds as three consecutive years of severe drought send these groups on a violent collision course. As water and grasslands dwindle, the Samburu, ranch- ers, and conservancy staff clash. Homes and property are destroyed, cattle are kid- napped, and people on all sides are killed. Adding to this volatile mix is a contentious parliamentary election, which includes a candidate inciting racial violence. Having embedded within the communi- ties they document for more than 6 years, the directors have crafted a film that pro- vides an intimate and nuanced firsthand view of the Laikipia conflict. The tension is palpable, the stakes are high, and, unfor- tunately, there are no easy solutions. Such conflicts over land, water, and food are ex- pected to accelerate with climate change. The Battle for Laikipia, Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi, directors,We Are Not the Machine Ltd, 2023, 94 minutes. Eternal You Reviewed by Michael D. Shapiro1 Artificial intelligence (AI) is creeping into every facet of our digital lives, and a grow- ing number of companies want to ensure that AI also accompanies us in death. The documentary film Eternal You introduces viewers to several start-ups that promise something once limited to the realm of reli- gion: eternal life. Algorithms can mimic a deceased per- son’s syntax, vocabulary, and conversational tendencies using surprisingly little informa- tion, such as text message threads or emails, allowing grieving loved ones to simulate communications with dead friends and rel- atives. Some companies develop AI models of the dead with the goal of delivering posi- tive experiences for their customers. For ex- ample, the filmmakers document a family in Detroit as they listen to an AI tell stories in the simulated voice of their dead patri- arch. A few relatives are comforted, some are amused, and others are deeply skeptical that the exercise has any real meaning. Other companies seemingly make no value judgments when creating an algorithm and simply let their AI run amok. In one scene, viewers see a woman exchanging text messages with a simulation of her dead boy- friend, which tells her that he is in hell hang- ing out with drug addicts and that he plans to haunt her as soon as he is done torment- ing people at a treatment center. This unex- pected turn in the conversation leaves the religious woman traumatized, reinforcing a key theme of the film—that AI developers do 1054 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 INSIGHTS | BOOKS Climate change and cattle conflicts exacerbate existing tensions in The Battle for Laikipia.
- 31. SCIENCE science.org PHOTO: COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE, PHOTO BY MARY ELLEN MARK/THE MARY ELLEN MARK FOUNDATION. ple areessential to the scientific enterprise. Mungee’s research represents an impor- tant contribution to the field of biodiver- sity. However, in Nocturnes it also serves as a plot convention, allowing the filmmak- ers to tell a more meditative story as they guide viewers through an old-growth Hi- malayan forest. Both cinematography and sound design contribute to our entry into the film’s reality. We witness, without nar- ration, biodiversity in moth color, size, and wing shape and pattern, while clip-on mics on the moth screens amplify the moths’ cacophony. Like Mungee and Marphew, viewers may have an urge to swipe the in- sects away from their eyes and ears. The sound engineers’ augmentation of forest sounds and weather and the integration of these sounds with an original score by Emmy Award–winning composer Nainita Desai harmoniously extend the viewer’s experience. Nocturnes, which was awarded the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize for Craft, presents insect biodiversity re- search as both cinematic and magical. More than an adventure story about field scientists, it allows the moviegoer to align to the rhythms of a forest and ultimately participate in the film’s reality. Some will likely find Nocturnes too slowly paced, but for those looking for a genuine, integrative experience of environment and fieldwork, Nocturnes, in all its flutter, delivers. Nocturnes, Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan, directors, Sandbox Films, 2024, 83 minutes. Super/Man Reviewed by Anthea Letsou4 A little-known actor when he was cast in the role of Superman, Christopher Reeve went on to become a screen icon, starring in four Warner Bros. Superman films. But his film career was cut short in 1995 by a tragic equestrian accident that severed the actor’s spinal cord and left him unable to move below the shoulders or breathe on his own. At the time, Reeve was only 42, the father of a 3-year-old child with his wife, Dana Reeve, and two older children then living in England with their mother, Gae Exton. The accident forced Reeve to find new meaning in his life and defined his legacy as a celebrity voice for disability and a human voice for stem cell research. Super/Man—Ian Bonhôte and Peter Et- tedgui’s new documentary about Reeve, who died in 2004—features a compendium of footage from home movies, studio ar- chives, and contemporary interviews with surviving family and friends, all deftly ed- ited by Otto Burnham. The film’s primary narrators are Reeve’s three children, Mat- thew, Alexandra, and William, who offer viewers a glimpse into Reeve’s role as a fa- ther while also shining a light on the phil- anthropic endeavors that marked his final years. Reeve’s Juilliard roommate and life- long friend, the late actor Robin Williams, is an integral figure as well. The film also tells the story of Dana Reeve, who kept her not always know how their algorithms work or how unexpected behaviors emerge. In- deed, one CEO describes his company’s ser- vice not as intentionally creating something with predictable behavior but rather as har- nessing “conscious entities lurking online.” At nearly every turn in the film, AI ethicists expose moral quandaries that do not seem to worry the purveyors of digital afterlife. Who owns the highly personal data used to create the AI model? Is this just a way to commodify grief and loneliness? We are still dealing with the fallout of unforeseen personal, mental health, social, and political dangers of social media—will we make some of the same mis- takes again by deploying AI before we under- stand how it works? Huge tech companies have filed patents for the types of eternal AI models that were once the purview of small start-ups. With a push for massive market expansion on the hori- zon, we will need to decide soon whether AI models of the deceased will bring comfort or hinder how we deal with grief by turning our attention away from the living world. Eternal You, Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, direc- tors, Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion, 2023, 87 minutes. Nocturnes Reviewed by Anthea Letsou4 Nocturnes documents the graduate studies of Mansi Mungee in the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, located in the eastern Himala- yas of India. Filmmakers Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan follow Mungee as she and her collaborators Ramana Athreya and Gendan “Bicki” Marphew investigate the effects of elevation (a proxy for tem- perature) on hawkmoth body size. The team’s method of hawkmoth field sampling is straightforward and effective: Mungee and her colleagues set up por- table ultraviolet moth screens during the night and photograph hawkmoths against a reference grid imprinted on the screen. We wait with Mungee and Marphew and witness them perform the same data col- lections over and over. We share Mun- gee’s excitement when too many moths to count alight on her moth screen, along with her disappointment on another day, when there are none. We are reminded that while scientists may understand how large changes in the environment, such as temperature shifts, affect adaptation, more subtle environmental effects remain to be identified. Conversations between Mar- phew and his friends—young men from the area employed to help Mungee in the field—remind viewers that Indigenous peo- 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1055 Dana and Christopher Reeve are remembered with reverence in Super/Man.
- 32. science.org SCIENCE PHOTO: COURTESY OF SUNDANCE INSTITUTE, PHOTO BY ARUN BHATTARAI INSIGHTS |BOOKS husband’s two families united and was a source of unconditional love and support after the accident. Dana died of lung can- cer in 2006 at the age of 44. In the last decade of their lives, Christo- pher and Dana Reeve were vocal advocates for stem cell research. The film recognizes the value of celebrity disease foundations and the important role they play in sup- porting all stages of translational research. The Christopher and Dana Reeve Founda- tion and its predecessors, the Stifel Paraly- sis Research Foundation and the American Paralysis Association, have distributed more than $138,000,000 for paralysis re- search and disability care. Missing from the documentary are details of the electri- cal stimulation therapy that helped Reeve regain some movement and sensation to- ward the end of his life and a discussion of the foundation’s stem cell research and its impact on the development of treat- ment options for the paralyzed. Nonethe- less, Super/Man should be celebrated by scientists for its recognition of the impor- tant role played by advocates in the promo- tion of basic and translational biomedical research. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, directors, Words+Pictures/Passion Pictures/Misfits Entertain- ment, 2024, 104 minutes. but strives for acceptance in the community (sense of worry: 10; happiness: 3.) High on a hillside, we meet Tshering, surrounded by prayer flags and mourning the passing of his wife. Yet he feels contentment, as he believes his wife is reborn with the birth of his grand- son (sense of karma: 10; happiness: 7). At the heart of the story is Gurung’s own quest for happiness. At age 40, he is living with and caring for his elderly mother but looking for love and marriage. He is smitten with Sarita Chettri, and they travel around the countryside on his motorcycle, snap- ping pictures. However, Gurung’s prospects are bleak. Despite being born in Bhutan, as an ethnic Nepali, his citizenship was re- voked during a period of ethnic cleansing. Without citizenship, he has difficulty get- ting permanent work or a passport, and his relationship with Chettri is in peril (sense of belonging: 2; happiness: 5). Set in the rugged landscape of Bhutan, this quietly moving film reveals the people behind the country’s happiness metrics and gently probes the complexities of life in this region, where beauty and the quest for hap- piness are juxtaposed with poverty and eth- nic conflicts. j Agent of Happiness, Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, directors, Sound Pictures, 2024, 94 minutes. 10.1126/science.ado5075 Agent of Happiness Reviewed by Gabrielle Kardon3 Can happiness be quantified? The country of Bhutan has devised the gross national happiness (GNH) index to do just this. First conceived of as an alternative to the gross do- mestic product, the GNH measures the col- lective happiness of Bhutan’s citizens, with the goal of governance that promotes human well-being over material wealth. To measure the GNH, agents are sent across the country to survey Bhutan’s citizens. Agent of Happiness, directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, follows one of these agents, Amber Kumar Gurung. For each person he surveys, Gurung conducts an extensive questionnaire, which includes questions about living standards, health, education, community, time use, and psycho- logical well-being. Traveling by car and on foot with Gurung, viewers encounter people from all walks of life. We meet 17-year-old Yanka taking care of her alcoholic mother and younger sister in the countryside, who worries about her mother and dreams of becoming a police of- ficer (on a scale of 0 to 10, sense of loneliness: 6; happiness: 4). We meet Dechen, a trans- gender dancer living in town. She has a close relationship with her mother, who has cancer, 1056 8 MARCH 2024 • VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1 The reviewer is at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Email: mike.shapiro@utah.edu 2 The reviewer is at the Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA. Email: nathaniel.j.dominy@dartmouth.edu 3 The reviewer is at the Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Email: gkardon@genetics.utah.edu 4 The reviewer is at the Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. Email: aletsou@genetics.utah.edu Government workers assess citizen well-being in Bhutan in Agent of Happiness.
- 33. 8 MARCH 2024• VOL 383 ISSUE 6687 1057 SCIENCE science.org By Antoine Rolland and Brendan M. Heffernan P hotonic integrated circuits merge the versatility of photonics with the com- pactness and scalability of integrated circuitry. A common component in these optical microchips is a micro- resonator, a ring of material in which discrete frequencies of light propagate with very low power loss (thus bearing a high quality factor, Q) (1). The frequencies that propagate and the difference between these frequencies are determined by the dispersion of the microresonator—that is, the speed at which different frequencies travel through the resonator. Because dispersion is deter- mined by the resonator’s material properties and geometry, it can be tuned only subtly af- ter fabrication. On page 1080 of this issue, Ji et al. (2) report a photonic integrated system that uses dispersion tuning to access three distinct modes of operation. This allows for unprecedented flexibility after fabrication and marks a paradigm shift in photonic de- vice development. The device of Ji et al. consists of two cou- pled, racetrack-shaped ring microresonators and metallic heaters for thermal tuning. The resonators are made of silicon nitride (Si3N4) (3). An integrated laser diode, which converts electrical energy to light energy, di- rectly couples light into the resonator. The photonic chip is wire-bonded to a printed circuit board for electrical control of the la- ser and heaters. The average difference be- tween frequency modes of the coupled rings is 19.95 GHz, and it achieves an impressive intrinsic Q value of 95 million. The two reso- nators have slightly different overall lengths such that their individual resonant frequen- cies (mode spectra) form a Vernier scale (two different graduated scales). When the two mode spectra are compared, their interfer- ence forms a Moiré pattern, which is pro- duced by overlaying one pattern on a similar but slightly offset pattern (4). By tuning the modes in one ring relative to the other (us- ing a heater), a substantial shift in the Moiré pattern is induced. This leads to the Moiré speedup effect in which a small shift in the mode spectrum in one ring leads to a bigger shift in the overall interference of the two coupled rings. This effect enables a micro- resonator to transition seamlessly between anomalous and normal dispersion. Specifically, Ji et al. demonstrate three dis- tinct operational states in the coupled-race- track microresonator design. These include a bright-soliton state, which produces an opti- cal frequency comb; this means that from the single input frequency of light, many output frequencies are produced, all equally spaced (in frequency) like the teeth of a comb. This mode of operation is only possible in reso- nators with anomalous dispersion. Bright- soliton combs have shown great promise for use in light detection and ranging (LIDAR) (5), spectroscopy (6), and optical clocks (7). The device also achieves a dark-soliton state, which requires normal dispersion (8). Dark solitons produce frequency combs with more power per comb mode, which is suitable for applications in microwave generation and optical communications (9). The device also functions as a Brillouin laser, which produces a single wavelength with an improved spec- tral purity compared with the input laser light and requires that the difference between neighboring frequency modes of the compos- ite, two-resonator system exactly matches the Brillouin frequency shift. This makes disper- sion control a key feature of the device. Bril- louin lasers can be used in precision tools such as gyroscopes (10) and optical clocks (11), as well as in sensing, quantum comput- ing, and biomedical imaging. Not only does dispersion tuning through the Moiré speedup effect allow three distinct modalities to be re- alized, but it also offers flexibility with the pump laser frequency used. Operation in all modalities spanned from 1540 to 1560 nm, an area of the electromagnetic spectrum that is commonly used in optical communications. A Moiré speedup–based device may en- able breakthroughs in several applications. In telecommunications, it could perhaps ad- just to varying data transmission needs or optimize for different network conditions. In sensing and metrology, the device could be reconfigured for different types of measure- ments. Through further development, addi- tional capabilities could be added to realize a third type of optical comb that is based on electro-optic modulation, or dual-wavelength pumping for terahertz generation. The de- sign might also achieve new functionality in all-optical processors (12). More generally, dispersion tuning through the Moiré speedup effect addresses the inability to alter op- erational modes after production due to the fixed physical geometry of high-Q microreso- nators. In an industrial context, this flexibil- ity might ease constraints on the fabrication of photonic integrated circuits. Variability in foundry processes, which would disqualify some resonators from meeting a tight dis- persion specification, could simply be fixed by Moiré dispersion tuning. This could im- prove yield and drive down production costs. Likewise, if one design can accomplish vari- ous tasks, the design and its accompanying process can be completely optimized and standardized, allowing mass production of devices that can be put to diverse uses. The reconfigurable nature of the Moiré speedup–based device is analogous to the in- novative principles seen in software-defined radio systems (13), in which processes that are traditionally realized through hardware— such as mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators, and demodulators—are instead implemented using software on either a computer or an embedded system. The same hardware could be reconfigured through software updates to support different frequencies and protocols. Hence, a single photonic chip could be re- configured for various purposes. Much like what software-defined radio systems have achieved in radio communications, Moiré speedup–based devices offer unprecedented adaptability, effectively decoupling the pho- tonic hardware from the application space for which it can be used. j REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. T.J.Kippenbergetal.,Science332,555(2011). 2. Q.-X.Jietal.,Science383,1080(2024). 3. W.Jinetal.,Nat.Photonics15,346(2021). 4. G.Oster,Y.Nishijima,Sci.Am.208,54(1963). 5. J.Riemensbergeretal.,Nature581,164(2020). 6. M.-G.Suhetal.,Science354,600(2016). 7. Z.L.Newmanetal.,Optica6,680(2019). 8. C.Laoetal.,Nat.Commun.14,1802(2023). 9. A.Fülöpetal.,Nat.Commun.9,1598(2018). 10. Y.-H.Laietal.,Nat.Photonics14,345(2020). 11. S.Gundavarapuetal.,Nat.Photonics13,60(2019). 12. M.Tanetal.,Commun.Eng.2,94(2023). 13. W.Tuttlebee,SoftwareDefinedRadio:Enabling Technologies(Wiley,2003). 10.1126/science.ado0078 “Moiréspeedup–based devicesoffer unprecedentedadaptability...” IMRA Boulder Research Laboratory, Longmont, CO, USA. Email: arolland@imra.com APPLIED PHYSICS Two rings to rule them all A single photonic device accommodates three different modes of operation PERSPECTIVES
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- 35. the instruction. Plato,Protagoras, c. 2, p. 310 D.; c. 8, p. 316 C.; c. 9, p. 318, etc.: compare also Plato, Meno. p. 91, and Gorgias, c. 4. p. 449 E., asserting the connection, in the mind of Gorgias, between teaching to speak and teaching to think—λέγειν καὶ φρονεῖν, etc. It would not be reasonable to repeat, as true and just, all the polemical charges against those who are called Sophists, even as we find them in Plato, without scrutiny and consideration. But modern writers on Grecian affairs run down the Sophists even more than Plato did, and take no notice of the admissions in their favor which he, though their opponent, is perpetually making. This is a very extensive subject, to which I hope to revert. [59] I dissent entirely from the judgment of Dr. Thirlwall, who repeats what is the usual representation of Sokratês and the Sophists, depicting Alkibiadês as “ensnared by the Sophists,” while Sokratês is described as a good genius preserving him from their corruptions (Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, pp. 312, 313, 314). I think him also mistaken when he distinguishes so pointedly Sokratês from the Sophists; when he describes the Sophists as “pretenders to wisdom;” as “a new school;” as “teaching that there was no real difference between truth and falsehood, right and wrong,” etc. All the plausibility that there is in this representation, arises from a confusion between the original sense and the modern sense of the word Sophist; the latter seemingly first bestowed upon the word by Plato and Aristotle. In the common ancient acceptation of the word at Athens, it meant not a school of persons professing common doctrines, but a class of men bearing the same name, because they derived their celebrity from analogous objects of study and common intellectual occupation. The Sophists were men of similar calling and pursuits, partly speculative, partly professional; but they differed widely from each other, both in method and doctrine. (See for example Isokratês, cont. Sophistas, Orat. xiii; Plato, Meno. p. 87 B.) Whoever made himself eminent in speculative pursuits, and communicated his opinions by public lecture, discussion, or conversation, was called a Sophist, whatever might be the conclusions which he sought to expound or defend. The difference between taking money, and expounding gratuitously, on which Sokratês himself was so fond of dwelling (Xenoph. Memor. i, 6, 12), has plainly no essential bearing on the case. When Æschinês the orator reminds the dikasts, “Recollect that you Athenians put to death the Sophist Sokratês, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Kritias,” (Æschin. cont. Timarch. c. 34, p. 74,) he uses the word in its natural and true Athenian sense. He had no point to make against Sokratês, who had then been dead more than forty years; but he describes him by his profession or occupation, just as he would have said, Hippokratês the physician, Pheidias the sculptor, etc. Dionysius of Halikarn. calls both Plato and Isokratês sophists (Ars Rhetor. De Compos. Verborum, p. 208 R.). The Nubes of Aristophanês, and the defences put forth by Plato and Xenophon, show that Sokratês was not only called by the name Sophist, but regarded just in
- 36. the same lightas that in which Dr. Thirlwall presents to us what he calls “the new School of the Sophists;” as “a corruptor of youth, indifferent to truth or falsehood, right or wrong,” etc. See a striking passage in the Politicus of Plato, c. 38, p. 299 B. Whoever thinks, as I think, that these accusations were falsely advanced against Sokratês, will be careful how he advances them against the general profession to which Sokratês belonged. That there were unprincipled and immoral men among the class of Sophists— as there are and always have been among schoolmasters, professors, lawyers, etc., and all bodies of men—I do not doubt; in what proportion, we cannot determine. But the extreme hardship of passing a sweeping condemnation on the great body of intellectual teachers at Athens, and canonizing exclusively Sokratês and his followers, will be felt, when we recollect that the well-known Apologue, called the Choice of Hercules, was the work of the Sophist Prodikus, and his favorite theme of lecture (Xenophon, Memor. ii, 1, 21-34). To this day, that Apologue remains without a superior, for the impressive simplicity with which it presents one of the most important points of view of moral obligation: and it has been embodied in a greater number of books of elementary morality than anything of Sokratês, Plato, or Xenophon. To treat the author of that Apologue, and the class to which he belonged, as teaching “that there was no real difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood,” etc., is a criticism not in harmony with the just and liberal tone of Dr. Thirlwall’s history. I will add that Plato himself, in a very important passage of the Republic (vi, c. 6, 7, pp. 492-493), refutes the imputation against the Sophists of being specially the corruptors of youth. He represents them as inculcating upon their youthful pupils that morality which was received as true and just in their age and society; nothing better, nothing worse. The grand corruptor, he says, is society itself; the Sophists merely repeat the voice and judgment of society. Without inquiring at present how far Plato or Sokratês were right in condemning the received morality of their countrymen, I most fully accept his assertion that the great body of the contemporary professional teachers taught what was considered good morality among the Athenian public: there were doubtless some who taught a better morality, others who taught a worse. And this may be said with equal truth of the great body of professional teachers in every age and nation. Xenophon enumerates various causes to which he ascribes the corruption of the character of Alkibiadês; wealth, rank, personal beauty, flatterers, etc.; but he does not name the Sophists among them (Memorab. i, 2. 24, 25). [60] Cornel. Nepos, Alkibiad. c. 1; Satyrus apud Athenæum, xii, p. 534; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 23. Οὗ γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τοιοῦτος εἰμ’ ἐγώ, says Odysseus, in the Philoktêtês of Sophoklês.
- 37. [61] I followthe criticism which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus, seemingly discriminating and measured: much more trustworthy than the vague eulogy of Nepos, or even of Demosthenês (of course not from his own knowledge), upon the eloquence of Alkibiadês (Plutarch, Alkib. c. 10); Plutarch, Reipubl. Gerend. Præcept. c. 8, p. 804. Antisthenês, companion and pupil of Sokratês, and originator of what is called the Cynic philosophy, contemporary and personally acquainted with Alkibiadês, was full of admiration for his extreme personal beauty, and pronounced him to be strong, manly, and audacious, but unschooled, ἀπαίδευτον. His scandals about the lawless life of Alkibiadês, however, exceed what we can reasonably admit, even from a contemporary (Antisthenês ap. Athenæum, v, p. 220, xii, p. 534). Antisthenês had composed a dialogue called Alkibiadês (Diog. Laërt. vi, 15). See the collection of the Fragmenta Antisthenis (by A. G. Winckelmann, Zurich, 1842, pp. 17-19). The comic writers of the day—Eupolis, Aristophanês, Pherekratês, and others —seem to have been abundant in their jests and libels against the excesses of Alkibiadês, real or supposed. There was a tale, untrue, but current in comic tradition, that Alkibiadês, who was not a man to suffer himself to be insulted with impunity, had drowned Eupolis in the sea, in revenge, for his comedy of the Baptæ. See Meineke, Fragm. Com. Græ. Eupolidis Βάπται and Κόλακες (vol. ii, pp. 447-494), and Aristophanês Τριφαλῆς, p. 1166: also Meineke’s first volume, Historia Critica Comic. Græc. pp. 124-136; and the Dissertat. xix, in Buttmann’s Mythologus, on the Baptæ and the Cotyttia. [62] Thucyd. vi, 15. Compare Plutarch, Reip. Ger. Præc. c. 4, p. 800. The sketch which Plato draws in the first three chapters of the ninth Book of the Republic, of the citizen who erects himself into a despot and enslaves his fellow- citizens, exactly suits the character of Alkibiadês. See also the same treatise, vi, 6-8, pp. 491-494, and the preface of Schleiermacher to his translation of the Platonic dialogue called Alkibiadês the first. [63] Aristophan. Ranæ, 1445-1453; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 9. [64] Thucyd. v, 43, vi, 90; Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 352, sect. 27-30. Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14) carelessly represents Alkibiadês as being actually proxenus of Sparta at Athens. [65] Thucyd. v, 43. Οὐ μέντοι ἀλλὰ καὶ φρονήματι φιλονεικῶν ἠναντιοῦτο, ὅτι Λακεδαιμόνιοι διὰ Νικίου καὶ Λάχητος ἔπραξαν τὰς σπονδὰς, αὐτὸν διὰ τὴν νεότητα ὑπεριδόντες καὶ κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν προξενίαν ποτὲ οὖσαν οὐ τιμήσαντες, ἣν τοῦ πάππου ἀπειπόντος αὐτὸς τοὺς ἐκ τῆς νήσου αὐτῶν αἰχμαλώτους
- 38. θεραπεύων διενοεῖτο ἀνανεώσασθαι.Πανταχόθεν τε νομίζων ἐλασσοῦσθαι τό τε πρῶτον ἀντεῖπεν, etc. [66] Thucyd. v, 43. [67] Thucyd. v, 48. [68] Thucyd. v, 44. Ἀφίκοντο δὲ καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πρέσβεις κατὰ τάχος, etc. [69] Thucyd. viii, 6. Ἐνδίῳ τῷ ἐφορεύοντι πατρικὸς ἐς τὰ μάλιστα φίλος— ὅθεν καὶ τοὔνομα Λακωνικὸν ἡ οἰκία αὐτῶν κατὰ τὴν ξενίαν ἔσχεν· Ἔνδιος γὰρ Ἀλκιβιάδου ἐκαλεῖτο. I incline to suspect, from this passage, that the father of Endius was not named Alkibiadês, but that Endius himself was nevertheless named Ἔνδιος Ἀλκιβιάδου, in consequence of the peculiar intimacy of connection with the Athenian family in which that name occurred. If the father of Endius was really named Alkibiadês, Endius himself would naturally, pursuant to general custom, be styled Ἔνδιος Ἀλκιβιάδου: there would be nothing in this denomination to call for the particular remark of Thucydidês. But according to the view of the Scholiast and most commentators, all that Thucydidês wishes to explain here is, how the father of Endius came to receive the name of Alkibiadês. Now if he had meant this, he surely would not have used the terms which we read: the circumstance to be explained would then have reference to the father of Endius, not to Endius himself, nor to the family generally. His words imply that the family, that is, each successive individual of the family, derived his Laconian designation (not from the name of his father, but) from his intimate connection of hospitality with the Athenian family of Alkibiadês. Each successive individual attached to his own personal name the genitive case Ἀλκιβιάδου, instead of the genitive of his real father’s name. Doubtless this was an anomaly in Grecian practice; but on the present occasion, we are to expect something anomalous; had it not been such, Thucydidês would not have stepped aside to particularize it. [70] Thucyd. v, 45. Μηχανᾶται δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς τοῖονδέ τι ὁ Ἀλκιβιάδης· τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους πείθει, πίστιν αὐτοῖς δοὺς, ἢν μὴ ὁμολογήσωσιν ἐν τῷ δήμῳ αὐτοκράτορες ἥκειν, Πύλον τε αὐτοῖς ἀποδώσειν (πείσειν γὰρ αὐτὸς Ἀθηναίους, ὥσπερ καὶ νῦν ἀντιλέγειν) καὶ τἄλλα ξυναλλάξειν. Βουλόμενος δὲ αὐτοὺς Νικίου τε ἀποστῆσαι ταῦτα ἔπραττε, καὶ ὅπως ἐν τῷ δήμῳ διαβαλὼν αὐτοὺς ὡς οὐδὲν ἀληθὲς ἐν νῷ ἔχουσιν, οὐδὲ λέγουσιν οὐδέποτε ταὐτὰ, τοὺς Ἀργείους ξυμμάχους ποιήσῃ. [71] Plutarch (Alkibiad. c. 14). Ταῦτα δ’ εἰπὼν ὅρκους ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς, καὶ μετέστησεν ἀπὸ τοῦ Νικίου παντάπασι πιστεύοντας αὐτῷ, καὶ θαυμάζοντας
- 39. ἅμα τὴν δεινότητακαὶ σύνεσιν, ὡς οὐ τοῦ τυχόντος ἀνδρὸς οὖσαν. Again, Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10. [72] Plutarch, Alkib. c. 14. Ἐρωτώμενοι δ’ ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου πάνυ φιλανθρώπως, ἐφ’ οἷς ἀφιγμένοι τυγχάνουσιν, οὐκ ἔφασαν ἥκειν αὐτοκράτορες. [73] Thucyd. v, 45. Οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι οὐκέτι ἠνείχοντο, ἀλλὰ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἢ πρότερον καταβοῶντος τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων, ἐσήκουόν τε καὶ ἑτοῖμοι ἦσαν εὐθὺς παραγαγεῖν τοὺς Ἀργείους, etc. Compare Plutarch, Alkib. c. 14; and Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10. [74] Euripid. Andromach. 445-455; Herodot. ix, 54. [75] Thucyd. v, 46. [76] Thucyd. v, 46; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 10. [77] Thucyd. v, 47. ὑπὲρ σφῶν αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἄρχουσιν ἑκάτεροι. [78] Thucyd. v, 48. καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἂν ἄρχουσιν ἕκαστοι. The tense and phrase here deserve notice, as contrasted with the phrase in the former part of the treaty—τῶν ξυμμάχων ὧν ἄρχουσιν ἑκάτεροι. The clause imposing actual obligation to hinder the passage of troops, required to be left open for application to the actual time. [79] Thucyd. v, 47. [80] Thucyd. v, 48. [81] Thucyd. v, 48-50. [82] Καταθέντων δὲ καὶ Ὀλυμπίασι στήλην χαλκῆν κοινῇ Ὀλυμπίοις τοῖς νυνί (Thucyd. v, 47), words of the treaty. [83] Dorieus of Rhodes was victor in the Pankration, both in Olymp. 88 and 89, (428-424 B.C.). Rhodes was included among the tributary allies of Athens. But the athletes who came to contend were privileged and (as it were) sacred persons, who were never molested or hindered from coming to the festival, if they chose to come, under any state of war. Their inviolability was never disturbed even down to the harsh proceeding of Aratus (Plutarch, Aratus, c. 28). But this does not prove that Rhodian visitors generally, or a Rhodian theôry, could have come to Olympia between 431-421 in safety.
- 40. From the presenceof individuals, even as spectators, little can be inferred: because, even at this very Olympic festival of 420 B.C., Lichas the Spartan was present as a spectator, though all Lacedæmonians were formally excluded by proclamation of the Eleians (Thucyd. v, 50). [84] Of the taste and elegance with which these exhibitions were usually got up in Athens, surpassing generally every other city in Greece, see a remarkable testimony in Xenophon, Memorabil. iii, 3, 12. [85] Thucyd. vi, 16. Οἱ γὰρ Ἕλληνες καὶ ὑπὲρ δύναμιν μείζω ἡμῶν τὴν πόλιν ἐνόμισαν τῷ ἐμῷ διαπρεπεῖ τῆς Ὀλυμπίαζε θεωρίας, πρότερον ἐλπίζοντες αὐτὴν καταπεπολεμῆσθαι· διότι ἅρματα μὲν ἑπτὰ καθῆκα, ὅσα οὐδείς πω ἰδιώτης πρότερον, ἐνίκησά τε, καὶ δεύτερος καὶ τέταρτος ἐγενόμην, καὶ τἄλλα ἀξίως τῆς νίκης παρεσκευασάμην. The full force of this grandiose display cannot be felt unless we bring to our minds the special position both of Athens and the Athenian allies towards Olympia,—and of Alkibiadês himself towards Athens, Argos, and the rest of Greece,—in the first half of the year 420 B.C. Alkibiadês obtained from Euripidês the honor of an epinikian ode, or song of triumph, to celebrate this event; of which a few lines are preserved by Plutarch (Alkib. c. 11). It is curious that the poet alleges Alkibiadês to have been first, second, and third, in the course; while Alkibiadês himself, more modest and doubtless more exact, pretends only to first, second, and fourth. Euripidês informs us that Alkibiadês was crowned twice and proclaimed twice—δὶς στεφθέντ’ ἐλαίᾳ κάρυκι βοᾷν παραδοῦναι. Reiske, Coray, and Schäfer, have thought it right to alter this word δὶς to τρὶς, without any authority, which completely alters the asserted fact. Sintenis in his edition of Plutarch has properly restored the word δὶς. How long the recollection of this famous Olympic festival remained in the Athenian public mind, is attested partly by the Oratio de Bigis of Isokratês, composed in defence of the son of Alkibiadês at least twenty-five years afterwards, perhaps more. Isokratês repeats the loose assertion of Euripidês, πρῶτος, δεύτερος, and τρίτος (Or. xvi, p. 353, sect. 40). The spurious Oration called that of Andokidês against Alkibiadês also preserves many of the current tales, some of which I have admitted into the text, because I think them probable in themselves, and because that oration itself may reasonably be believed to be a composition of the middle of the fourth century B.C. That oration puts all the proceedings of Alkibiadês in a very invidious temper and with palpable exaggeration. The story of Alkibiadês having robbed an Athenian named Diomêdês of a fine chariot, appears to be a sort of variation on the story about Tisias, which figures in the oration of Isokratês; see Andokid. cont. Alkib. sect. 26: possibly Alkibiadês may have left one of the teams not paid for. The aid lent
- 41. to Alkibiadês bythe Chians, Ephesians, etc., as described in that oration, is likely to be substantially true, and may easily be explained. Compare Athenæ. i, p. 3. Our information about the arrangements of the chariot-racing at Olympia is very imperfect. We do not distinctly know how the seven chariots of Alkibiadês ran,—in how many races,—for all the seven could not, in my judgment, have run in one and the same race. There must have been many other chariots to run, belonging to other competitors: and it seems difficult to believe that ever a greater number than ten can have run in the same race, since the course involved going twelve times round the goal (Pindar, Ol. iii, 33; vi, 75). Ten competing chariots run in the race described by Sophoklês (Electr. 708), and if we could venture to construe strictly the expression of the poet,—δέκατον ἐκπληρῶν ὄχον,—it would seem that ten was the extreme number permitted to run. Even so great a number as ten was replete with danger to the persons engaged, as may be seen by reading the description in Sophoklês (compare Demosth. Ἐρωτ. Λογ. p. 1410), who refers indeed to a Pythian and not an Olympic solemnity: but the main circumstances must have been common to both; and we know that the twelve turns (δωδεκάγναμπτον δωδεκάδρομον) were common to both (Pindar, Pyth. v, 31). Alkibiadês was not the only person who gained a chariot victory at this 90th Olympiad, 420 B.C. Lichas the Lacedæmonian also gained one (Thucyd. v, 50), though the chariot was obliged to be entered in another name, since the Lacedæmonians were interdicted from attendance. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 316) says: “We are not aware that the Olympiad, in which these chariot-victories of Alkibiadês were gained, can be distinctly fixed. But it was probably Olymp. 89, B.C. 424.” In my judgment, both Olymp. 88 (B.C. 428) and Olymp. 89 (B.C. 424) are excluded from the possible supposition, by the fact that the general war was raging at both periods. To suppose that in the midst of the summer of these two fighting years, there was an Olympic truce for a month, allowing Athens and her allies to send thither their solemn legations, their chariots for competition, and their numerous individual visitors, appears to me contrary to all probability. The Olympic month of B.C. 424, would occur just about the time when Brasidas was at the Isthmus levying troops for his intended expedition to Thrace, and when he rescued Megara from the Athenian attack. This would not be a very quiet time for the peaceable Athenian visitors, with the costly display of gold and silver plate and the ostentatious theôry, to pass by, on its way to Olympia. During the time when the Spartans occupied Dekeleia, the solemn processions of communicants at the Eleusinian mysteries could never march along the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis. Xen. Hell. i, 4, 20. Moreover, we see that the very first article both of the Truce for one year and of the Peace of Nikias, expressly stipulate for liberty to all to attend the common temples and festivals. The first of the two relates to Delphi expressly: the second is general, and embraces Olympia as well as Delphi. If the Athenians had visited
- 42. Olympia in 428or 424 B.C. without impediment, these stipulations in the treaties would have no purpose nor meaning. But the fact of their standing in the front of the treaty, proves that they were looked upon as of much interest and importance. I have placed the Olympic festival wherein Alkibiadês contended with his seven chariots, in 420 B.C., in the peace, but immediately after the war. No other festival appears to me at all suitable. Dr. Thirlwall farther assumes, as a matter of course, that there was only one chariot-race at this Olympic festival, that all the seven chariots of Alkibiadês ran in this one race, and that in the festival of 420 B.C., Lichas gained the prize: thus implying that Alkibiadês could not have gained the prize at the same festival. I am not aware that there is any evidence to prove either of these three propositions. To me they all appear improbable and unfounded. We know from Pausanias (vi, 13, 2) that even in the case of the stadiodromi, or runners who contended in the stadium, all were not brought out in one race. They were distributed into sets, or batches, of what number we know not. Each set ran its own heat, and the victors in each then competed with each other in a fresh heat; so that the victor who gained the grand final prize was sure to have won two heats. Now if this practice was adopted with the foot-runners, much more would it be likely to be adopted with the chariot-racers in case many chariots were brought to the same festival. The danger would be lessened, the sport would be increased, and the glory of the competitors enhanced. The Olympic festival lasted five days, a long time to provide amusement for so vast a crowd of spectators. Alkibiadês and Lichas may therefore both have gained chariot-victories at the same festival: of course only one of them can have gained the grand final prize, and which of the two that was it is impossible to say. [86] Thucyd. v, 49, 50. [87] Thucyd. v, 50. Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν εἴργοντο τοῦ ἱεροῦ, θυσίας καὶ ἀγώνων, καὶ οἴκοι ἔθυον· οἱ δὲ ἄλλοι Ἕλληνες ἐθεώρουν, πλὴν Λεπρεατῶν. [88] Thucyd. v, 28. Κατὰ γὰρ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ἥ τε Λακεδαίμων μάλιστα δὴ κακῶς ἤκουσε, καὶ ὑπερώφθη διὰ τὰς ξυμφορὰς, οἵ τε Ἀργεῖοι ἄριστα ἔσχον τοῖς πᾶσι, etc. [89] See a previous note, p. 56. [90] Thucyd. v, 50. Λίχας ὁ Ἀρκεσιλάου Λακεδαιμόνιος ἐν τῷ ἀγῶνι ὑπὸ τῶν ῥαβδούχων πληγὰς ἔλαβεν, ὅτι νικῶντος τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ ζεύγους, καὶ ἀνακηρυχθέντος Βοιωτῶν δημοσίου κατὰ τὴν οὐκ ἐξουσίαν τῆς ἀγωνίσεως προελθὼν ἐς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἀνέδησε τὸν ἡνίοχον, βουλόμενος δηλῶσαι ὅτι ἑαυτοῦ ἦν τὸ ἅρμα.
- 43. We see bycomparison with this incident how much less rough and harsh was the manner of dealing at Athens, and in how much more serious a light blows to the person were considered. At the Athenian festival of the Dionysia, if a person committed disorder or obtruded himself into a place not properly belonging to him in the theatre, the archon or his officials were both empowered and required to repress the disorder by turning the person out, and fining him, if necessary. But they were upon no account to strike him. If they did, they were punishable themselves by the dikastery afterwards (Demosth. cont. Meidiam, c. 49). [91] It will be seen, however, that the Lacedæmonians remembered and revenged themselves upon the Eleians for this insult twelve years afterwards during the plenitude of their power (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 2, 21; Diodor. xiv, 17). [92] Thucyd. v, 51, 52. [93] Thucyd. v, 48-50. [94] Plato, Symposion, c. 35, p. 220. δεινοὶ γὰρ αὐτόθι χειμῶνες, πάγου οἵου δεινοτάτου, etc. [95] Thucyd. v, 52. Isokratês (De Bigis, sect. 17, p. 349) speaks of this expedition of Alkibiadês in his usual loose and exaggerated language: but he has a right to call attention to it as something very memorable at the time. [96] Thucyd. v, 52. [97] Thucyd. v, 53, with Dr. Arnold’s note. [98] Thucyd. v, 54. ᾔδει δὲ οὐδεὶς ὅποι στρατεύουσιν οὐδὲ αἱ πόλεις ἐξ ὧν ἐπέμφθησαν. This incident shows that Sparta employed the military force of her allies without any regard to their feelings, quite as decidedly as Athens; though there were some among them too powerful to be thus treated. [99] Thucyd. v, 54. Ἀργεῖοι δ’ ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν (the Lacedæmonians), τοῦ πρὸ τοῦ Καρνείου μηνὸς ἐξελθόντες τετράδι φθίνοντος, καὶ ἄγοντες τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην πάντα τὸν χρόνον, ἐσέβαλον ἐς τὴν Ἐπιδαυρίαν καὶ ἐδῄουν· Ἐπιδαύριοι δὲ τοὺς ξυμμάχους ἐπεκαλοῦντο· ὧν οἱ μὲν τὸν μῆνα προυφασίσαντο, οἱ δὲ καὶ ἐς μεθορίαν τῆς Ἐπιδαυρίας ἐλθόντες ἡσύχαζον. In explaining this passage, I venture to depart from the views of all the commentators; with the less scruple, as it seems to me that even the best of them are here embarrassed and unsatisfactory. The meaning which I give to the words is the most strict and literal possible: “The Argeians, having set out on the 26th of the month before Karneius, and
- 44. keeping that dayduring the whole time, invaded the Epidaurian territory, and went on ravaging it.” By “during the whole time” is meant, during the whole time that this expedition lasted. That is, in my judgment, they kept the twenty-sixth day of the antecedent month for a whole fortnight or so; they called each successive day by the same name; they stopped the computed march of time; the twenty-seventh was never admitted to have arrived. Dr. Thirlwall translates it (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 331): “They began their march on a day which they had always been used to keep holy.” But surely the words πάντα τὸν χρόνον must denote some definite interval of time, and can hardly be construed as equivalent to ἀεί. Moreover the words, as Dr. Thirlwall construes them, introduce a new fact which has no visible bearing on the main affirmation of the sentence. The meaning which I give may perhaps be called in question on the ground that such tampering with the calendar is too absurd and childish to have been really committed. Yet it is not more absurd than the two votes of the Athenian assembly (in 290 B.C.), who being in the month of Munychion, first passed a vote that that month should be the month Anthestêrion; next, that it should be the month Boêdromion; in order that Demetrius Poliorkêtês might be initiated both in the lesser and greater mysteries of Dêmêtêr, both at once and at the same time. Demetrius arrived at Athens in the month Munychion, and went through both ceremonies with little or no delay; the religious scruple, and the dignity of the Two Goddesses being saved by altering the name of the month twice (Plutarch, Demetrius, c. 26). Besides, if we look to the conduct of the Argeians themselves at a subsequent period (B.C. 389, Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2, 5; v, 1, 29), we shall see them playing an analogous trick with the calendar in order to get the benefit of the sacred truce. When the Lacedæmonians invaded Argos, the Argeians despatched heralds with wreaths and the appropriate insignia, to warn them off on the ground of its being the period of the holy truce,—though it really was not so,— οὐχ ὅποτε κάθηκοι ὁ χρόνος, ἀλλ’ ὅποτε ἐμβάλλειν μέλλοιεν Λακεδαιμόνιοι, τότε ὑπέφερον τοὺς μῆνας—Οἱ δ’ Ἀργεῖοι ἐπεὶ ἔγνωσαν οὐ δυνησόμενοι κωλύειν, ἔπεμψαν, ὥσπερ εἰώθεσαν, ἐστεφανωμένους δύο κήρυκας ὑποφέροντας σπονδάς. On more than one occasion, this stratagem was successful: the Lacedæmonians did not dare to act in defiance of the summons of the heralds, who affirmed that it was the time of the truce, though in reality it was not so. At last, the Spartan king Agesipolis actually went both to Olympia and Delphi, to put the express question to those oracles, whether he was bound to accept the truce at any moment, right or wrong, when it might suit the convenience of the Argeians to bring it forward as a sham plea (ὑποφέρειν). The oracles both told him that he was under no obligation to submit to such a pretence; accordingly, he sent back the heralds, refusing to attend to their summons, and invaded the Argeian territory. Now here is a case exactly in point, with this difference; that the Argeians, when they are invaders of Epidaurus, falsify the calendar in order to blot out the
- 45. holy truce whereit really ought to have come: whereas when they are the party invaded, they commit similar falsification in order to introduce the truce where it does not legitimately belong. I conceive, therefore, that such an analogous incident completely justifies the interpretation which I have given of the passage now before us in Thucydidês. But even if I were unable to produce a case so exactly parallel, I should still defend the interpretation. Looking to the state of the ancient Grecian calendars, the proceeding imputed to the Argeians ought not to be looked on as too preposterous and absurd for adoption, with the same eyes as we should regard it now. With the exception of Athens, we do not know completely the calendar of a single other Grecian city: but we know that the months of all were lunar months, and that the practice followed in regard to intercalation, for the prevention of inconvenient divergence between lunar and solar time, was different in each different city. Accordingly, the lunar month of one city did not, except by accident, either begin or end at the same time as the lunar month of another. M. Boeckh observes (ad Corp. Inscr. t. i, p. 734): “Variorum populorum menses, qui sibi secundum legitimos annorum cardines respondent, non quovis conveniunt anno, nisi cyclus intercalationum utrique populi idem sit: sed ubi differunt cycli, altero populo prius intercalante mensem dum non intercalat alter, eorum qui non intercalarunt mensis certus cedit jam in eum mensem alterorum qui præcedit illum cui vulgo respondet certus iste mensis: quod tamen negligere solent chronologi.” Compare also the valuable Dissertation of K. F. Hermann, Ueber die Griechische Monatskunde, Götting. 1844, pp. 21-27, where all that is known about the Grecian names and arrangement of months is well brought together. The names of the Argeian months we hardly know at all (see K. F. Hermann, pp. 84-124): indeed, the only single name resting on positive proof, is that of a month Hermæus. How far the months of Argos agreed with those of Epidaurus or Sparta we do not know, nor have we any right to presume that they did agree. Nor is it by any means clear that every city in Greece had what may properly be called a system of intercalation, so correct as to keep the calendar right without frequent arbitrary interferences. Even at Athens, it is not yet satisfactorily proved that the Metonic calendar was ever actually received into civil use. Cicero, in describing the practice of the Sicilian Greeks about reckoning of time, characterizes their interferences for the purpose of correcting the calendar as occasional rather than systematic. Verres took occasion from these interferences to make a still more violent change, by declaring the Ides of January to be the calends of March (Cicero, Verr. ii, 52, 129). Now where a people are accustomed to get wrong in their calendar, and to see occasional interferences introduced by authority to set them right, the step which I here suppose the Argeians to have taken about the invasion of Epidaurus will not appear absurd and preposterous. The Argeians would pretend that the real time for celebrating the festival of Karneia had not yet arrived. On that point,
- 46. they were notbound to follow the views of other Dorian states, since there does not seem to have been any recognized authority for proclaiming the commencement of the Karneian truce, as the Eleians proclaimed the Olympic and the Corinthians the Isthmiac truce. In saying, therefore, that the twenty-sixth of the month preceding Karneius should be repeated, and that the twenty-seventh should not be recognized as arriving for a fortnight or three weeks, the Argeian government would only be employing an expedient the like of which had been before resorted to; though, in the case before us, it was employed for a fraudulent purpose. The Spartan month Hekatombeus appears to have corresponded with the Attic month Hekatombæon; the Spartan month following it, Karneius, with the Attic month Metageitnion (Hermann, p. 112), our months July and August; such correspondence being by no means exact or constant. Both Dr. Arnold and Göller speak of Hekatombeus as if it were the Argeian month preceding Karneius: but we only know it as a Spartan month. Its name does not appear among the months of the Dorian cities in Sicily, among whom nevertheless Karneius seems universal. See Franz, Comm. ad Corp. Inscript. Græc. No. 5475, 5491, 5640. Part xxxii, p. 640. The tricks played with the calendar at Rome, by political authorities for party purposes, are well known to every one. And even in some states of Greece, the course of the calendar was so uncertain as to serve as a proverbial expression for inextricable confusion. See Hesychius—Ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡμέρα; Ἐπὶ τῶν οὐκ εὐγνώστον· οὐδεὶς γὰρ οἶδεν ἐν Κέῳ τις ἡ ἡμέρα, ὅτι οὐκ ἑστᾶσιν αἱ ἡμέραι, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἕκαστοι θέλουσιν ἄγουσι. See also Aristoph. Nubes, 605. [100] Thucyd. v, 55. καὶ Ἀθηναίων αὐτοῖς χίλιοι ἐβοήθησαν ὁπλῖται καὶ Ἀλκιβιάδης στρατηγὸς: πυθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι· καὶ ὡς οὐδὲν ἔτι αὐτῶν ἔδει, ἀπῆλθον. This is the reading which Portus, Bloomfield, Didot, and Göller, either adopt or recommend; leaving out the particle δὲ which stands in the common text after πυθόμενοι. If we do not adopt this reading, we must construe ἐξεστρατεῦσθαι, as Dr. Arnold and Poppo construe it, in the sense of “had already completed their expedition and returned home.” But no authority is produced for putting such a meaning upon the verb ἐκστρατεύω: and the view of Dr. Arnold, who conceives that this meaning exclusively belongs to the preterite or pluperfect tense, is powerfully contradicted by the use of the word ἐξεστρατευμένων (ii, 7), the same verb and the same tense, yet in a meaning contrary to that which he assigns. It appears to me the least objectionable proceeding of the two, to dispense with the particle δέ. [101] Thucyd. v, 56. [102] Thucyd. v, 37.
- 47. [103] Thucyd. v,58. Οἱ δὲ Ἀργεῖοι γνόντες ἐβοήθουν ἡμέρας ἤδη ἐκ τῆς Νεμέας, etc. [104] Thucyd. v, 60. Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι εἵποντο μὲν ὡς ἡγεῖτο διὰ τὸν νόμον, ἐν αἰτίᾳ δὲ εἶχον κατ’ ἀλλήλους πολλῇ τὸν Ἆγιν, etc. [105] Thucyd. v, 60. Ἀργεῖοι δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔτι ἐν πολλῷ πλέονι αἰτίᾳ εἶχον τοὺς σπεισαμένους ἄνευ τοῦ πλήθους, etc. [106] Thucyd. v, 60. [107] Thucyd. v, 62. [108] Thucyd. v, 64. ὅσον οὐκ ἀφέστηκεν, etc. [109] Thucyd. v, 63. [110] Thucyd. v, 64. ἐνταῦθα δὴ βοήθεια τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων γίγνεται αὐτῶν τε καὶ τῶν Εἱλώτων πανδημεὶ ὀξεῖα καὶ οἵα οὔπω πρότερον. The out-march of the Spartans just before the battle of Platæa (described in Herodot. vii, 10) seems, however, to have been quite as rapid and instantaneous. [111] Thucyd. v, 64. ξυνέκλῃε γὰρ διὰ μέσου. [112] The Lacedæmonian kings appear to have felt a sense of protection in encamping near a temple of Hêraklês, their heroic progenitor (see Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 1, 31). [113] Thucyd. v, 65. See an exclamation by an old Spartan mentioned as productive of important consequences, at the moment when a battle was going to commence, in Xenophon, Hellen. vii, 4, 25. [114] Thucyd. v, 66. μάλιστα δὴ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐς ὃ ἐμέμνηντο, ἐν τούτῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἐξεπλάγησαν· διὰ βραχείας γὰρ μελλήσεως ἡ παρασκευὴ αὐτοῖς ἐγίγνετο, etc. [115] Thucyd. v, 66. Σχεδὸν γάρ τι πᾶν, πλὴν ὀλίγου, τὸ στρατόπεδον τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων ἄρχοντες ἀρχόντων εἰσὶ, καὶ τὸ ἐπιμελὲς τοῦ δρωμένου πολλοῖς προσήκει. Xenophon, De Republ. Laced. xi, 5. Αἱ παραγωγαὶ ὥσπερ ὑπὸ κήρυκος ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐνωμοτάρχου λόγῳ δηλοῦνται: compare xi, 8, τῷ ἐνωμοτάρχῃ παρεγγυᾶται εἰς μέτωπον παρ’ ἄσπιδα καθίστασθαι, etc. [116] Thucyd. v, 66. εὐθὺς ὑπὸ σπουδῆς καθίσταντο ἐς κόσμον τὸν ἑαυτῶν, Ἄγιδος τοῦ βασιλέως ἕκαστα ἐξηγουμένου κατὰ τὸν νόμον, etc.
- 48. [117] Xenophon, Cyrop.iv, 2. 1: see Diodor. xv, c. 32; Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xiii, 6. [118] Thucyd. v, 67. [119] Very little can be made out respecting the structure of the Lacedæmonian army. We know that the enômoty was the elementary division, the military unit: that the pentekosty was composed of a definite (not always the same) number of enômoties: that the lochus also was composed of a definite (not always the same) number of pentekosties. The mora appears to have been a still larger division, consisting of so many lochi (according to Xenophon, of four lochi): but Thucydidês speaks as if he knew no division larger than the lochus. Beyond this very slender information, there seems no other fact certainly established about the Lacedæmonian military distribution. Nor ought we reasonably to expect to find that these words enômoty, pentekosty, lochus, etc., indicate any fixed number of men: our own names regiment, company, troop, brigade, division, etc., are all more or less indefinite as to positive numbers and proportion to each other. That which was peculiar to the Lacedæmonian drill, was, the teaching a small number of men like an enômoty (twenty-five, thirty-two, thirty-six men, as we sometimes find it), to perform its evolutions under the command of its enômotarch. When this was once secured, it is probable that the combination of these elementary divisions was left to be determined in every case by circumstances. Thucydidês states two distinct facts. 1. Each enômoty had four men in front. 2. Each enômoty varied in depth, according as every lochagus chose. Now Dobree asks, with much reason, how these two assertions are to be reconciled? Given the number of men in front, the depth of the enômoty is of course determined, without any reference to the discretion of any one. These two assertions appear distinctly contradictory; unless we suppose (what seems very difficult to believe) that the lochage might make one or two of the four files of the same enômoty deeper than the rest. Dobree proposes, as a means of removing this difficulty, to expunge some words from the text. One cannot have confidence, however, in the conjecture. [120] Thucyd. v, 69. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ καθ’ ἑκάστους τε καὶ μετὰ τῶν πολεμικῶν νόμων ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὧν ἠπίσταντο τὴν παρακέλευσιν τῆς μνήμης ἀγαθοῖς οὖσιν ἐποιοῦντο, εἰδότες ἔργων ἐκ πολλοῦ μελέτην πλείω σώζουσαν ἢ λόγων δι’ ὀλίγου καλῶς ῥηθέντων παραίνεσιν. [121] Thucyd. v, 70. Ἀργεῖοι μὲν καὶ οἱ ξύμμαχοι, ἐντόνως καὶ ὀργῇ χωροῦντες, Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ, βραδέως καὶ ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν νόμῳ ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα ὁμαλῶς μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοντες
- 49. προσέλθοιεν καὶ μὴδιασπασθείη αὐτῶν ἡ τάξις, ὅπερ φιλεῖ τὰ μεγάλα στρατόπεδα ἐν ταῖς προσόδοις ποιεῖν. [122] Thucyd. v, 67. Τότε δὲ κέρας μὲν εὐώνυμον Σκιρῖται αὐτοῖς καθίσταντο, ἀεὶ ταύτην τὴν τάξιν μόνοι Λακεδαιμονίων ἐπὶ σφῶν αὐτῶν ἔχοντες, etc. The strong and precise language, which Thucydidês here uses, shows that this was a privilege pointedly noted and much esteemed: among the Lacedæmonians, especially, ancient routine was more valued than elsewhere. And it is essential to take notice of the circumstance, in order to appreciate the generalship of Agis, which has been rather hardly criticized. [123] Thucyd. v, 72. (Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοὺς Ἀργείους) Ἔτρεψαν οὐδὲ ἐς χεῖρας τοὺς πολλοὺς ὑπομείναντας, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπῇσαν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι εὐθὺς ἐνδόντας, καὶ ἐστὶν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας, τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν. The last words of this sentence present a difficulty which has perplexed all the commentators, and which none of them have yet satisfactorily cleared up. They all admit that the expressions, τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ, preceding the infinitive mood as here, signify design or purpose; ἕνεκα being understood. But none of them can construe the sentence satisfactorily with this meaning: accordingly they here ascribe to the words a different and exceptional meaning. See the notes of Poppo, Göller, and Dr. Arnold, in which notes the views of other critics are cited and discussed. Some say that τοῦ μὴ in this place means the same as ὥστε μή: others affirm, that it is identical with διὰ τὸ μὴ or with τῷ μή. “Formula τοῦ, τοῦ μὴ (say Bauer and Göller), plerumque consilium significat: interdum effectum (i. e. ὥστε μή); hic causam indicat (i. e. διὰ τὸ μὴ, or τῷ μή).” But I agree with Dr. Arnold in thinking that the last of these three alleged meanings is wholly unauthorized; while the second, which is adopted by Dr. Arnold himself, is sustained only by feeble and dubious evidence; for the passage of Thucydidês (ii, 4. τοῦ μὴ ἐκφεύγειν) may be as well construed, as Poppo’s note thereupon suggests, without any such supposed exceptional sense of the words. Now it seems to me quite possible to construe the words τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι here in their regular and legitimate sense of ἕνεκα τοῦ, or consilium. But first an error must be cleared up which pervades the view of most of the commentators. They suppose that those Argeians, who are here affirmed to have been “trodden under foot,” were so trodden down by the Lacedæmonians in their advance. But this is in every way improbable. The Lacedæmonians were particularly slow in their motions, regular in their ranks, and backward as to pursuit, qualities which are dwelt upon by Thucydidês in regard to this very battle. They were not at all likely to overtake such terrified men as were only anxious to run away: moreover, if they did overtake them, they would spear them, not trample them under foot.
- 50. To be trampledunder foot, though possible enough from the numerous Persian cavalry (Herodot. vii, 173; Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 4, 12), is not the treatment which defeated soldiers meet with from victorious hostile infantry in the field, especially Lacedæmonian infantry. But it is precisely the treatment which they meet with, if they be in one of the hinder ranks, from their own panic-stricken comrades in the front rank, who find the enemy closing upon them, and rush back madly to get away from him. Of course it was the Argeians in the front rank who were seized with the most violent panic, and who thus fell back upon their own comrades in the rear ranks, overthrowing and treading them down to secure their own escape. It seems quite plain that it was the Argeians in front—not the Lacedæmonians—who trod down their comrades in the rear (there were probably six or eight men in every file), in order to escape themselves before the Lacedæmonians should be upon them: compare Xen. Hellenic. iv, 4, 11; Œconomic. viii, 5. There are therefore in the whole scene which Thucydidês describes, three distinct subjects: 1. The Lacedæmonians 2. The Argeians soldiers, who were trodden down. 3. Other Argeian soldiers, who trod them down in order to get away themselves. Out of these three he only specifies the first two; but the third is present to his mind, and is implied in his narrative, just as much as if he had written καταπατηθέντας ὑπ’ ἄλλων, or ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων, as in Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 4, 11. Now it is to this third subject, implied in the narrative, but not formally specified (i. e. those Argeians who trod down their comrades in order to get away themselves), or rather to the second and third conjointly and confusedly, that the design or purpose (consilium) in the words τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι refers. Farther, the commentators all construe τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν, as if the last word were an accusative case coming after φθῆναι and governed by it. But there is also another construction, equally good Greek, and much better for the sense. In my judgment, τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν is here the accusative case coming before φθῆναι and forming the subject of it. The words will thus read (ἕνεκα) τοῦ τὴν ἐγκατάληψιν μὴ φθῆναι (ἐπελθοῦσαν αὐτοῖς): “in order that the actual grasp of the Lacedæmonians might not be beforehand in coming upon them;” “might not come upon them too soon,” i. e. “sooner than they could get away.” And since the word ἐγκατάληψις is an abstract active substantive, so, in order to get at the real meaning here, we may substitute the concrete words with which it correlates, i. e. τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους ἐγκαταλαβόντας, subject as well as attribute, for the active participle is here essentially involved. The sentence would then read, supposing the ellipsis filled up and the meaning expressed in full and concrete words—ἔστιν οὓς καὶ καταπατηθέντας ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων φευγόντων (or βιαζομένων), ἕνεκα τοῦ τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους μὴ φθῆναι ἐγκαταλαβόντας αὐτοὺς (τοὺς φεύγοντας): “As soon as the Lacedæmonians approached near, the Argeians gave way at once, without staying for hand- combat: and some were even trodden down by each other, or by their own
- 51. comrades running awayin order that the Lacedæmonians might not be beforehand in catching them sooner than they could escape.” Construing in this way the sentence as it now stands, we have τοῦ μὴ φθῆναι used in its regular and legitimate sense of purpose, or consilium. We have moreover a plain and natural state of facts, in full keeping with the general narrative. Nor is there any violence put upon the words. Nothing more is done than to expand a very elliptical sentence, and to fill up that entire sentence which was present to the writer’s own mind. To do this properly is the chief duty, as well as the chief difficulty, of an expositor of Thucydidês. [124] Thucyd. v, 73; Diodor. xii, 79. [125] Thucyd. v, 73. [126] Thucyd. v, 75. Καὶ τὴν ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων τοτε ἐπιφερομένην αἰτίαν ἔς τε μαλακίαν διὰ τὴν ἐν τῇ νήσῳ ξυμφορὰν, καὶ ἐς τὴν ἄλλην ἀβουλίαν τε καὶ βραδύτητα, ἑνὶ ἔργῳ τούτῳ ἀπελύσαντο· τύχῃ μέν, ὡς ἐδόκουν, κακιζόμενοι, γνώμῃ δὲ, οἱ αὐτοὶ ἀεὶ ὄντες. [127] Thucyd. v, 72. [128] Thucyd. i, 141. [129] Thucyd. v, 75. [130] Thucyd. v, 75. [131] Aristotle (Politic. v, 4, 9) expressly notices the credit gained by the oligarchical force of Argos in the battle of Mantineia, as one main cause of the subsequent revolution, notwithstanding that the Argeians generally were beaten: Οἱ γνώριμοι εὐδοκιμήσαντες ἐν Μαντινείᾳ, etc. An example of contempt entertained by victorious troops over defeated fellow- countrymen, is mentioned by Xenophon in the Athenian army under Alkibiadês and Thrasyllus, in one of the later years of the Peloponnesian war: see Xenophon, Hellen. i, 2, 15-17. [132] Thucyd. v, 76; Diodor. xii, 80. [133] Thucyd. v, 77. The text of Thucydidês is incurably corrupt, in regard to several words of this clause; though the general sense appears sufficiently certain, that the Epidaurians are to be allowed to clear themselves in respect to this demand by an oath. In regard to this purifying oath, it seems to have been essential that the oath should be tendered by one litigant party and taken by the
- 52. other: perhaps thereforeσέμεν or θέμεν λῇν (Valckenaer’s conjecture) might be preferable to εἶμεν λῇν. To Herodot. vi, 86, and Aristotel. Rhetoric. i, 16, 6, which Dr. Arnold and other commentators notice in illustration of this practice, we may add the instructive exposition of the analogous practice in the procedure of Roman law, as given by Von Savigny, in his System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, sects. 309-313, vol. vii, pp. 53-83. It was an oath tendered by one litigant party to the opposite, in hopes that the latter would refuse to take it; if taken, it had the effect of a judgment in favor of the swearer. But the Roman lawyers laid down many limits and formalities, with respect to this jusjurandum delatum, which Von Savigny sets forth with his usual perspicuity. [134] Thucyd. v, 77. Ἐπιδείξαντας δὲ τοῖς ξυμμάχοις ξυμβαλέσθαι, αἴ κα αὐτοῖς δοκῇ· αἰ δέ τι καὶ ἄλλο δοκῇ τοῖς ξυμμάχοις, οἴκαδ’ ἀπιάλλειν. See Dr. Arnold’s note, and Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. ch. xxiv. vol. iii, p. 342. One cannot be certain about the meaning of these two last words, but I incline to believe that they express a peremptory and almost a hostile sentiment, such as I have given in the text. The allies here alluded to are Athens, Elis, and Mantineia; all hostile in feeling to Sparta. The Lacedæmonians could not well decline admitting these cities to share in this treaty as it stood; but would probably think it suitable to repel them even with rudeness, if they desired any change. I rather imagine, too, that this last clause (ἐπιδείξαντας) has reference exclusively to the Argeians, and not to the Lacedæmonians also. The form of the treaty is, that of a resolution already taken at Sparta, and sent for approval to Argos. [135] Thucyd. v, 79. Αἰ δέ τινι τᾶν πολίων ᾖ ἀμφίλογα, ἢ τᾶν ἐντὸς ἢ τᾶν ἐκτὸς Πελοποννάσου, αἴτε περὶ ὅρων αἴτε περὶ ἄλλου τινὸς, διακριθῆμεν. The object of this clause I presume to be, to provide that the joint forces of Lacedæmon and Argos should not be bound to interfere for every separate dispute of each single ally with a foreign state, not included in the alliance. Thus, there were at this time standing disputes between Bœotia and Athens, and between Megara and Athens: the Argeians probably would not choose to pledge themselves to interfere for the maintenance of the alleged rights of Bœotia and Megara in these disputes. They guard themselves against such necessity in this clause. M. H. Meier, in his recent Dissertation (Die Privat. Schiedsrichter und die öffentlichen Diäteten Athens (Halle, 1846), sect. 19, p. 41), has given an analysis and explanation of this treaty which seems to me on many points unsatisfactory. [136] All the smaller states in Peloponnesus are pronounced by this treaty to be (if we employ the language employed with reference to the Delphians
- 53. peculiarly in thePeace of Nikias) αὐτονόμους, αὐτοτελεῖς, αὐτοδίκους, Thucyd. v, 19. The last clause of this treaty guarantees αὐτοδικíαν to all, though in language somewhat different, τοῖς δὲ ἔταις κατὰ πάτρια δικάζεσθαι. The expression in this treaty αὐτοπόλιες is substantially equivalent to αὐτοτελεῖς in the former. It is remarkable that we never find in Thucydidês the very convenient Herodotean word δωσίδικοι (Herodot. vi, 42), though there are occasions in these fourth and fifth books on which it would be useful to his meaning. [137] Thucyd. v. 81; Diodor. xii, 81. [138] Compare Thucyd. v, 80, and v, 83. [139] The instances appear to have been not rare, wherein Grecian towns changed masters, by the citizens thus going out of the gates all together, or most part of them, for some religious festival. See the case of Smyrna (Herodot. i, 150), and the precautionary suggestions of the military writer Æneas, in his treatise called Poliorketicus, c. 17. [140] Thucyd. v, 80. Καὶ ὕστερον Ἐπιδαυρίοις ἀνανεωσάμενοι τὰς σπονδὰς, αὐτοὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἀπέδοσαν τὸ τείχισμα. We are here told that the Athenians RENEWED their truce with the Epidaurians: but I know no truce previously between them except the general truce for a year, which the Epidaurians swore to, in conjunction with Sparta (iv, 119), in the beginning of B.C. 423. [141] Thucyd. v, 81. Καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ Ἀργεῖοι, χίλιοι ἑκάτεροι, ξυστρατεύσαντες τά τ’ ἐν Σικυῶνι ἐς ὀλίγους μᾶλλον κατέστησαν αὐτοὶ οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐλθόντες, καὶ μετ’ ἐκεῖνα ξυναμφότεροι ἤδη καὶ τὸν ἐν Ἄργει δῆμον κατέλυσαν, καὶ ὀλιγαρχία ἐπιτηδεία τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις κατέστη: compare Diodor. xii, 80. [142] Pausanias, ii, 20, 1. [143] See Herodot. v, 87; Euripid. Hecub. 1152, and the note of Musgrave on line 1135 of that drama. [144] Thucyd. v, 82; Diodor. xii, 80. [145] Diodorus (xii, 80) says that it lasted eight months: but this, if correct at all, must be taken as beginning from the alliance between Sparta and Argos, and not from the first establishment of the oligarchy. The narrative of Thucydidês does not allow more than four months for the duration of the latter.
- 54. [146] Thucyd. v,82. ξυνῄδεσαν δὲ τὸν τειχισμὸν καὶ τῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ τινὲς πόλεων. [147] Thucyd. v, 82. Καὶ οἱ μὲν Ἀργεῖοι πανδημεὶ, καὶ αὐτοὶ καὶ γυναῖκες καὶ οἰκέται, ἐτείχιζον, etc. Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 15. [148] Pausanias, ii, 36, 3. [149] Thucyd. i, 107. [150] Thucyd. v, 83. Diodorus inaccurately states that the Argeians had already built their long walls down to the sea—πυθόμενοι τοὺς Ἀργείους ᾠκοδομηκέναι τὰ μακρὰ τείχη μέχρι τῆς θαλάσσης (xii, 81). Thucydidês uses the participle of the present tense—τὰ οἰκοδομούμενα τείχη ἐλόντες καὶ κατασκάψαντες, etc. [151] Thucyd. v, 116. Λακεδαιμόνιοι, μελλήσαντες ἐς τὴν Ἀργείαν στρατεύειν ... ἀνεχώρησαν. Καὶ Ἀργεῖοι διὰ τὴν ἐκείνων μέλλησιν τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει τινὰς ὑποτοπήσαντες, τοὺς μὲν ξυνέλαβον, οἱ δ’ αὐτοὺς καὶ διέφυγον. I presume μέλλησιν here is not used in its ordinary meaning of loitering delay, but is to be construed by the previous verb μελλήσαντες, and agreeably to the analogy of iv, 126—“prospect of action immediately impending:” compare Diodor. xii, 81. [152] Thucyd. vi, 7. [153] Thucyd. v, 115. [154] Thucyd. vi, 105. The author of the loose and inaccurate Oratio de Pace, ascribed to Andokidês, affirms that the war was resumed by Athens against Sparta on the persuasion of the Argeians (Orat. de Pac. c. 1, 6, 3, 31, pp. 93- 105). This assertion is indeed partially true: the alliance with Argos was one of the causes of the resumption of war, but only one among others, some of them more powerful. Thucydidês tells us that the persuasions of Argos, to induce Athens to throw up her alliance with Sparta were repeated and unavailing. [155] Thucyd. v, 83. [156] Dr. Thirlwall (History of Greece, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 360) places this vote of ostracism in midwinter or early spring of 415 B.C., immediately before the Sicilian expedition. His grounds for this opinion are derived from the Oration called Andokidês against Alkibiadês, the genuineness of which he seems to accept (see his Appendix ii, on that subject, vol. iii, p. 494, seq.).
- 55. The more frequentlyI read over this Oration, the more do I feel persuaded that it is a spurious composition of one or two generations after the time to which it professes to refer. My reasons for this opinion have been already stated in previous notes, nor do I think that Dr. Thirlwall’s Appendix is successful in removing the objections against the genuineness of the speech. See my preceding vol. vi, ch. xlvii, p. 6, note. [157] Aristophan. Pac. 680. [158] Thucyd. viii, 73. Ὑπέρβολόν τέ τινα τῶν Ἀθηναίων, μοχθηρὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὠστρακισμένον οὐ διὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀξιώματος φόβον, ἀλλὰ διὰ πονηρίαν καὶ αἰσχύνην τῆς πόλεως. According to Androtion (Fragm. 48, ed. Didot.)—ὠστρακισμένον διὰ φαυλότητα. Compare about Hyperbolus, Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11; Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 13; Ælian. V. H. xii, 43; Theopompus, Fragm. 102, 103, ed. Didot. [159] Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 13; Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11. Theophrastus says that the violent opposition at first, and the coalition afterwards, was not between Nikias and Alkibiadês, but between Phæax and Alkibiadês. The coalition of votes and parties may well have included all three. [160] Thucyd. iii, 91. [161] In reference to this argumentation of the Athenian envoy, I call attention to the attack and bombardment of Copenhagen by the English government in 1807, together with the language used by the English envoy to the Danish Prince Regent on the subject. We read as follows in M. Thiers’s Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire:— “L’agent choisi étoit digne de sa mission. C’étoit M. Jackson qui avait été autrefois chargé d’affaires en France, avant l’arrivée de Lord Whitworth, à Paris, mais qu’on n’avoit pas pû y laisser, à cause du mauvais esprit qu’il manifestoit en toute occasion. Introduit auprès du régent, il allégua de prétendues stipulations secrètes, en vertu desquelles le Danemark devoit, (disoit on) de gré ou de force, faire partie d’une coalition contre l’Angleterre: il donna comme raison d’agir la necessité où se trouvoit le cabinet Britannique de prendre des précautions pour que les forces navales du Danemark et le passage du Sund ne tombassent pas au pouvoir des François: et en conséquence il demanda au nom de son gouvernement, qu’on livrât à l’armée Angloise la forteresse de Kronenberg qui commande de Sund, le port de Copenhague, et enfin la flotte elle-même— promettant de garder le tout en dépôt, pour le compte du Danemark, qui seroit remis en possession de ce qu’on alloit lui enlever, dès que le danger seroit passé. M. Jackson assura que le Danemark ne perdroit rien, que l’on se conduiroit chez lui en auxiliaires et en amis—que les troupes Britanniques payeroient tout ce qu’elles consommeroient.—Et avec quoi, répondit le prince indigné, payeriez vous
- 56. notre honneur perdu,si nous adhérions à cette infame proposition?—Le prince continuant, et opposant à cette perfide intention la conduite loyale du Danemark, qui n’avoit pris aucune précaution contre les Anglois, qui les avoit toutes prises contre les François, ce dont on abusoit pour le surprendre—M. Jackson répondit à cette juste indignation par une insolente familiarité, disant que la guerre étoit la guerre, qu’il falloit se résigner à ces nécessités, et céder au plus fort quand on étoit le plus foible. Le prince congédia l’agent Anglois avec des paroles fort dures, et lui déclara qu’il alloit se transporter à Copenhague, pour y remplir ses devoirs de prince et de citoyen Danois.” (Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, tome viii, livre xxviii, p. 190.) [162] Plutarch, Alkibiadês, c. 16. This is doubtless one of the statements which the composer of the Oration of Andokidês against Alkibiadês found current in respect to the conduct of the latter (sect. 123). Nor is there any reason for questioning the truth of it. [163] Thucyd. v, 106. τὸ δὲ χωρίον αὐτοὶ ᾤκησαν, ἀποίκους ὕστερον πεντακοσίους πέμψαντες. Lysander restored some Melians to the island after the battle of Ægospotami (Xenoph. Hellen. ii, 2, 9): some, therefore, must have escaped or must have been spared. [164] Such is also the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 348. [165] Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Thucydid. c. 37-42, pp. 906-920, Reisk: compare the remarks in his Epistol. ad Cn. Pompeium, de Præcipuis Historicis, p. 774, Reisk. [166] Plutarch, Alkibiad. 16. τοὺς Ἀθηναίους ἀεὶ τὰ πραότατα τῶν ὀνομάτων τοῖς ἁμαρτήμασι τιθεμένους, παιδιὰς καὶ φιλανθρωπίας. To the same purpose Plutarch, Solon, c. 15. [167] Compare also what Brasidas says in his speech to the Akanthians, v, 86 ἴσχυος δικαιώσει, ἣν ἡ τύχη ἔδωκεν, etc. [168] See above, vol. v, ch. xliii, pp. 204-239, for the history of these events. I now take up the thread from that chapter. [169] Mr. Mitford, in the spirit which is usual with him, while enlarging upon the suffering occasioned by this extensive revolution both of inhabitants and of property throughout Sicily, takes no notice of the cause in which it originated, namely, the number of foreign mercenaries whom the Gelonian dynasty had brought in and enrolled as new citizens (Gelon alone having brought in ten
- 57. thousand, Diodor. xi,72), and the number of exiles whom they had banished and dispossessed. I will here notice only one of his misrepresentations respecting the events of this period, because it is definite as well as important (vol. iv, p. 9, chap. xviii, sect. 1). “But thus (he says) in every little state, lands were left to become public property, or to be assigned to new individual owners. Everywhere, then, that favorite measure of democracy, the equal division of the lands of the state, was resolved upon: a measure impossible to be perfectly executed; impossible to be maintained as executed; and of very doubtful advantage, if it could be perfectly executed and perfectly maintained.” Again, sect. iii, p. 23, he speaks of “that incomplete and iniquitous partition of lands,” etc. Now, upon this we may remark:— 1. The equal division of the lands of the state, here affirmed by Mr. Mitford, is a pure fancy of his own. He has no authority for it whatever. Diodorus says (xi, 76) κατεκληρούχησαν τὴν χώραν, etc.; and again (xi, 86) he speaks of τὸν ἀναδασμὸν τῆς χώρας: the redivision of the territory; but respecting equality of division, not one word does he say. Nor can any principle of division in this case be less probable than equality; for one of the great motives of the redivision was to provide for those exiles who had been dispossessed by the Gelonian dynasty: and these men would receive lots, greater or less, on the ground of compensation for loss, greater or less as it might have been. Besides, immediately after the redivision, we find rich and poor mentioned, just as before (xi, 86). 2. Next, Mr. Mitford calls “the equal division of all the lands of the state” the favorite measure of democracy. This is an assertion not less incorrect. Not a single democracy in Greece, so far as my knowledge extends, can be produced, in which such equal partition is ever known to have been carried into effect. In the Athenian democracy, especially, not only there existed constantly great inequality of landed property, but the oath annually taken by the popular heliastic judges had a special clause, protesting emphatically against redivision of the land or extinction of debts. [170] Thucyd. vi, 17. [171] Diodor. xi, 86, 87. The institution at Syracuse was called the petalism; because, in taking the votes, the name of the citizen intended to be banished was written upon a leaf of olive, instead of a shell or potsherd. [172] Diodor. xi. 87, 88. [173] Diodor. xi, 78, 88, 90. The proceeding of Duketius is illustrated by the description of Dardanus in the Iliad, xx, 216:—
- 58. Κτίσσε δὲ Δαρδανίην,ἐπεὶ οὔπω Ἴλιος ἱρὴ Ἐν πεδίῳ πεπόλιστο, πόλις μερόπων ἀνθρώπων, Ἀλλ’ ἔθ’ ὑπωρείας ᾤκουν πολυπιδάκου Ἴδης. Compare Plato, de Legg. iii, pp. 681, 682. [174] Diodor. xi, 76. [175] Diodor. xi, 91, 92. Ὁ δὲ δῆμος ὥσπερ τινὶ μιᾷ φωνῇ σώζειν ἅπαντες ἐβόων τὸν ἱκέτην. [176] Xenophon, Hellen. i, 5, 19; Pausanias, vi, 7, 2. [177] Mr. Mitford recounts as follows the return of Duketius to Sicily: “The Syracusan chiefs brought back Duketius from Corinth, apparently to make him instrumental to their own views for advancing the power of their commonwealth. They permitted, or rather encouraged him to establish a colony of mixed people, Greeks and Sicels, at Calé Acté, on the northern coast of the island,” (ch. xviii, sect. i, vol. iv, p. 13.) The statement that “the Syracusans brought back Duketius, or encouraged him to come back, or to found the colony of Kalê Aktê,” is a complete departure from Diodorus on the part of Mr. Mitford; who transforms a breach of parole on the part of the Sikel prince into an ambitious manœuvre on the part of Syracusan democracy. The words of Diodorus, the only authority in the case, are as follows (xii, 8): Οὗτος δὲ (Duketius) ὀλίγον χρόνον μείνας ἐν τῇ Κορίνθῳ, τὰς ὁμολογίας ἔλυσε, καὶ προσποιησάμενος χρησμὸν ὑπὸ τῶν θεῶν ἑαυτῷ δεδόσθαι, κτίσαι τὴν Καλὴν Ἀκτὴν ἐν Σικελίᾳ, κατέπλευσεν εἰς τὴν νῆσον μετὰ πολλῶν οἰκητόρων· συνεπελάβοντο δὲ καὶ τῶν Σικελῶν τινες, ἐν οἷς ἦν καὶ Ἀρχωνίδης, ὁ τῶν Ἑρβιταίων δυναστεύων. Οὗτος μὲν οὖν περὶ τὸν οἰκισμὸν τῆς Καλῆς Ἀκτῆς ἐγίνετο· Ἀκραγαντῖνοι δὲ, ἅμα μὲν φθονοῦντες τοῖς Συρακοσίοις, ἅμα δ’ ἐγκαλοῦντες αὐτοῖς ὅτι Δουκέτιον ὄντα κοινὸν πολέμιον διέσωσαν ἄνευ τῆς Ἀκραγαντίνων γνώμης, πόλεμον ἐξήνεγκαν τοῖς Συρακοσίοις. [178] Diodor. xii, 8. [179] Diodor. xii, 29. For the reconquest of Morgantinê, see Thucyd. iv, 65. Respecting this town of Trinakia, known only from the passage of Diodorus here, Paulmier (as cited in Wesseling’s note), as well as Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Römer, b. x, ch. xv, p. 446), intimate some skepticism; which I share so far as to believe that Diodorus has greatly overrated its magnitude and importance. Nor can it be true, as Diodorus affirms, that Trinakia was the only Sikel township remaining unsubdued by the Syracusans, and that, after conquering
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