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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
It is more than half a century since P. Boudreaux equipped the Cynegetka of the Syrian author now sometimes called Pseudo-Oppian with a proper text and apparatus criticus. The Halieutica of Oppian is still without either. Onemight think the latter poem hardly worth the aureus for every line with which Marcus Aurelius is reported in the Life of the author to have rewarded it, or hesitate to say, with St Jerome, that O. Alieutica miro splendore conscripsit, but it is better constructed and far better written than the Cynegetica; it was more admired by later poets, and some might account it the more interesting poem. It would appear from R. Keydell's survey of Oppianic literature down to 1929 that R. Vári published between 1908 and 1926 in Hungarian journals and an Italian Festschrift some papers on the manuscripts of Hal.;
page 60 note 1 I am indebted to Professor D. L. Page, who has kindly read this paper, for a number of valuable suggestions.
page 60 note 2 Published rather inconveniently in Bibl. de l'école d'hautes etudes, 1908.Google Scholar
page 60 note 3 Chronici Canones, p. 288Google Scholar, Fotheringham.
page 60 note 4 See RE 18. 702, 707.Google Scholar
page 60 note 5 Bursians Jahresber. 230. 44.Google Scholar
page 60 note 6 The title-page announced versiones metrica et prosaica, plurima anecdota et index graecitatis. Of these the book contains only a sixteenth- century verse translation of Cyn. by D. Peiper but on the last page G. H. Schaefer promised the rest in another volume, which seems never to have appeared.
page 60 note 7 This is a brochure of fifty-four pages printed by Arminius [H. A. T.] Koechly in 1838 as a birthday-tribute to Hermann, whom it addresses in terms well the other side of idolatry. It was Koechly's first publication, and though Lehrs accepted too many of its suggestions, it is a creditable performance for a young man of 23. In contrast to the optimism of Schneider, who, in 1813, ventured to pronounce satis nunc utrumque carmen emendatum, Koechly said larga manet futuro Oppianicorum editori missis.
page 60 note 8 It was judiciously reviewed by Harrison, Ernest (C.R. xliv. 82Google Scholar) but Mair died too soon after its publication to profit from these or other criticisms.
page 61 note 1 Some are mentioned in Bussemaker's, Scholia in … Oppianum, p. vii (Didot, 1849).Google Scholar Lehrs was to have edited the scholia and this hotchpotch of notes and glosses was compiled after his death. It is not useless but cannot be called an edition of the scholia.
page 61 note 2 Mair shows no direct acquaintance with Koechly's brochure and it is not among the four works listed as ‘Other Oppianic Literature’ on his p. lxxviii.
page 61 note 3 I cannot otherwise account for 
(in place of 
) at 1. 414, which was noted also by Keydell. In 3. 248 I should have supposed 
to be a misprint but Mair seemingly tries to translate it.
page 61 note 4 The Real-Encyclopädie is sometimes a little coy in disclosing the sort of facts he is likely to want. Not every inquirer who has, for instance, drawn 
blank will turn at once to Artischocke or Schwarzgrundel.
page 62 note 1 The sea-urchin's spines would be better matched by the oyster's ‘beard’ (
A.P. 9. 86Google Scholar, crinis Plin. N.H. 32. 61Google Scholar, cirri Mart. 7. 20Google Scholar) but I can think of no adj. which might embody that idea nearer than 
or possibly 
.
page 62 note 2 For 
as an equivalent for 
or 
, a sense neglected in LSJ, see, e.g., Call. H. 1. 95 f.Google Scholar, Theocr. 7. 33, 17. 95, 25. 24, in, Ap. Rhod. 2. 1095, 1182.
page 62 note 3 Cf. 4. 97.
page 62 note 4 This verb gives pause also at 2. 281 (of wrestlers) 
, but I can see no link between the two passages.
page 63 note 1 See I. 244, 598, 614.
page 63 note 2 According to LSJ dub. in Orph. A. 823; prob. in Epigr. Gr. 1013. 5. ‘Prob.’, seems optimistic for only 
[ survives. On the other hand the doubt in Orph. A. is apparently due to a fiat of Pierson (Veris. 106) obeyed by Abel that 
must be written for 
.
page 63 note 3 So also Schneider and Lehrs, but Mair's mistake is curious for he was much more interested in fish than they and reports on an Angler which he had seen landed by fishermen at Largo in Fife. He (with Lehrs but not Schneider) makes the same mistake over the 
of the sting-ray which (2. 470) 
, springs from below the tail. The sting in fact extends along the dorsal surface of the tail.
page 63 note 4 O. and Aelian are not closely connected here (Hermes lxxii. 430Google Scholar), but it may be noted that the latter has (loc. cit.) 
.
page 64 note 1 See Bast in Greg. Cor. ed. Schaefer 780.
page 64 note 2 Page was inclined to see here the idiom illustrated by Pearson on Soph. fr. 800 (and more copiously by Headlam on Herodas 6. 14); and one could of course say 
Indeed Schneider in 1813 and Lehrs, who accented 
in an attempt to make it a demonstrative pronoun, plainly took this view; but in an unaccented and unpunctuated text 
would inevitably be taken for the def. art. and be attached as such to 
.
page 64 note 3 ‘A sort of small tunny or large mackerel’ (Thompson s.v.). It has, as O. says (557), formidable teeth.
page 64 note 4 Cf. 1. 393, 673.
page 65 note 1 Hal. 4. 495,Google ScholarIl. 2. 92Google Scholar, Theocr. 22. 32.
page 65 note 2 So Hal. 4. 653Google Scholar
of a bay or cove selected when the water is to be poisoned. Conversely 
in 1. 246 will be straight beaches.
page 65 note 3 Where see Leaf.
page 65 note 4 Il. 6. 234.Google Scholar
.
page 66 note 1 So also, Page tells me, C. Rittershusius in 1597.
page 67 note 1 Butler, A.J., Sport in Classic Times, p. 156Google Scholar (to which Page has drawn my attention): ‘the line is ingeniously set with a number of swivels’ (which, however, are not explained).
page 67 note 2 O. does not say, and may well not have known, how the larger disk was attached to the boatward end of the chain, but if it was suspended from it by two or more links fastened to its periphery and forming a sort of cage the result would be not unlike the box or barrel of a modern fisherman's swivel.
page 67 note 3 And may have laid the colour on rather thick. I have vaguely wondered, for instance, whether a bull's liver or shoulder (148) would really be a good bait for a whale.
page 67 note 4 The examples of 
in this sense cited by LSJ (Eur. Hel. 1453, A.P. 7. 287Google Scholar) are open to some doubt; 
, however, is commonly so used and many analogies may be found in the incomplete list in Gilder-sleeve, Gk. Synt. § 41.
page 68 note 1 Kühner-Gerth 1.53, Gildersleeve § 120.
page 68 note 2 Schneider's notes are 
alii, and 
. alii, 
Pal. 1 Turn. Mosq.
page 68 note 3 See RE 18. 590.Google Scholar
page 68 note 4 Probably communicated personally. Brunck had taken charge of Cyn. in Schneider's edition of 1776.
