Droop Cups and the Dating of Laconian Pottery

It has been thought desirable that, as I was perhaps mainly responsible for the dates originally suggested for the Laconian vase series and repeated in the final publication of the Orthia Sanctuary, I should give my view on Professor Ure's suggestion that these should be modified.My view is that they must be modified to some extent, if Professor Ure's evidence is sound, which I have no reason to doubt, but much less than he appears to suggest. I do not think it is necessary to put the end of Laconian IV back from 500 B.C. to 560 B.C., but its beginning we must put back from 550 B.C. by about twenty years.The dates originally suggested for Laconian IV (550–500 B.C.) and Laconian V (500–425 B.C.) are certainly contradicted by the date (560 B.C.) now assigned by Professor Ure to a grave at Rhitsona which contained one of the group of Attic cups that copy, as Professor Ure agrees with me in thinking, the form of stem usual in the Laconian V kylix.