essence of the story. According to Herodotus[1013] Cypselus was the child from the cypsele in which as an infant his mother had concealed him from his would-be murderers. [Sidenote: which makes Cypselus the child from the cypsele.] If we are to believe Plutarch, the story of the cypsele could still in his days be traced back to the days of Periander[1014]. It is easy to point out[1015] that we are here up against a widespread story of which different versions have been attached to such different names as Sargon of Akkad (_c._ 3800 B.C.[1016]), Moses, Romulus and Cyrus[1017]. But even if we accept a common origin for all these stories, we are not very much further on. We should still have to determine why and how Cypselus found a place in the series. [Sidenote: What is a cypsele? Not, in spite of some ancient and modern authorities, either an ark or a wooden chest.] But it must not be too hastily assumed that the cypsele of Cypselus has anything at all to do with the ark that Pharaoh’s daughter found on the banks of the Nile[1018] or the “alueus” discovered by the shepherd Faustulus on the banks of the Tiber. In both these cases[1019] the vessel could float and was discovered by a river side. Cypselus was not discovered. That is the whole point of the story. He was not exposed in a river or sea like Romulus or Perseus. And it is more than doubtful whether a cypsele has any connexion whatever with an alueus or ark. It is true that they are more or less identified by our ancient authorities. Pausanias[1020], who wrote his guide to Greece in the second century A.D., professed to have seen at Olympia the very cypsele in which Cypselus had been hidden and from which he was said to have got his name. It was a coffer (λάρναξ) of wood and ivory elaborately carved. The description leaves no doubt that it was of archaic Corinthian workmanship of the time of the tyrants or not much later[1021]. But it is extremely doubtful whether this carved box was a cypsele or had any original connexion with the cypsele story. Plato[1022], Aristotle[1023], and Plutarch[1024] all refer to the dedications of the house of Cypselus without alluding to this object. Herodotus says nothing about the cypsele having been dedicated. For Strabo[1025] the chief dedication of Cypselus was a “golden hammered Zeus.” Dio Chrysostom[1026] (about 100 A.D.) refers to what Pausanias calls the cypsele of Cypselus, but describes it simply as the “wooden box (ξυλινὴ κιβωτός) dedicated by Cypselus.” From Pausanias himself it is plain that the object was not by any means what the Greeks of his time understood by a cypsele. His statement[1027] that the ancient Corinthians called a coffer a cypsele raises a suspicion that nobody else ever did. It is probably only an inference drawn by the traveller from the fact of this particular coffer being so called by the guides at Olympia[1028]. [Sidenote: Meanings of the word “cypsele” given by the ancients.]