Did Alcidamas invent the story of the contest of Homer and Hesiod? Martin West has argued that he did (CQ N.S. 17 (1967), 433 ff.). I believe that there are a number of reasons for thinking this improbable.

The stories of the deaths of Homer and Hesiod were traditional before Alcidamas. Heraclitus knew the legend of the riddle of the lice and Homer's death (Vors. 22 B 56), and the story of Hesiod's death was well known by Thucydides’ time (3. 96). The first attempt to record information about Homer's life is ascribed to Theagenes of Rhegium, in the late sixth century b.c. (Vors. 8.1). By that time it seems likely that there was already a considerable body of legends about the early poets. The pieces of hexameter verse in the Herodotean Life of Homer, some of which show detailed knowledge of the area around Smyrna in the archaic period, probably date from before 500 b.c.

In relating the stories of the poets’ deaths Alcidamas is recording the results of ἱστορ⋯α, and this is what he implies in Michigan papyrus 2754 (cf. West op. cit. 437). West's theory requires one to assume that he has incorporated with these traditions his own fiction of the contest. This seems to me to go against what we know in general about the activity of sophists such as Alcidamas. Although they were capable of inventing myths (such as Prodicus’ ‘ Choice of Heracles'), there is no evidence that they created such stories about earlier historical figures, rather than collecting popular legends about them, and using these for their own purposes. It is true that Critias (for example) used the evidence of Archilochus’ own poetry to draw conclusions about his life (Vors. 88 B 44). But this is not the same as inventing a story virtually from scratch. Hesiod's own testimony about his poetic victory (Op. 650 ff.), the original starting-point for the legend of the contest with Homer, did not on its own provide a basis from which such inferences could be drawn. It seems more likely that the legend is the product of earlier popular embroidery, at a time when speculation about these early poets’ lives was becoming common.

π⋯γχυ δ' εὔμαρες σ⋯νετον πóησαι | π⋯ντι το⋯το, sang Sappho (Fr. 16. 5–6 L–P); but, to judge from the controversies which have marked the scholarly discussion of her poem in the sixty-five years since its first publication, her confidence was at least premature. Some problems can indeed be considered to have been settled, either through new finds or through gradual consensus: thus the man of line 7 is Menelaus, not Paris, and few today would see in the poem merely an affirmation of exclusively feminine as opposed to masculine values. But to the twin questions of the function first of the story of Helen in the poem, and especially second of the words with which Helen is introduced — ⋯ γ⋯ρ πóλυ περσκ⋯θοισα | κ⋯λλος ⋯νθρώπων 'Eλ⋯να (6–7) — no satisfactory answer has yet been found. The strictures of Fränkel and of Page on this passage are well known; yet even where their judgements have not been simply taken over, the explanations that have been offered for these two distinct but closely connected problems fail to convince.

Any attempt to grapple with the issue of divine behaviour towards men in Aischylos or any other Greek thinker must begin with the question of expectations: what do the gods expect from men, and what, if anything, may men expect in return from the gods? A. W. H. Adkins has I think demonstrated clearly that in Homer at least the defining barrier between mortal and immortal is one of degree, not kind; the gods are gods not because of moral excellences or all-encompassing wisdom, but simply by virtue of their greater power. This power, and the capacity to defend it, is the essence of their τιμή, which they guard as jealously as any mortal ⋯γαθός. What is expected of men, therefore, is a healthy respect for divine τιμή, and an avoidance of any action, however innocent, which might seem to lessen divine status. Thus when Hermes in the first book of the Odyssey tells Aigisthos not to kill Agamemnon or to take his wife, he does so qua god, not moral adviser, and Aigisthos' transgression lies foremost in his rejection of that command. In the same way Hesiod's Prometheus offends (several times) against the prerogatives and τιμή of Zeus, and is appropriately punished; that he meant well is irrelevant to Hesiod, nor is there any interest in his rehabilitation. Examples in the lyric poets are by the nature of the genre less abundant, but we may certainly note Stesichoros 223 PMG, where Tyndareos' accidental slight of Aphrodite draws down the anger of the goddess on his daughters. Similar too is the fate of the daughters of Proitos, whose boast in Bakchylides 11 that their father is wealthier than Hera brings about their subsequent madness.

One of the best-known fragments of a lost Greek drama is Critias' fr. 43F19 Snell, an extended rhesis from the play Sisyphus in which the protagonist narrates how once upon a time human life was squalid, brutal, and anarchistic; as a remedy men devised Law and Justice; this expedient served to check open wrongdoing but did not hinder secret crimes; then some very clever man hit upon the idea of inventing gods and the notion of divine retribution; thus secret criminality was stopped by fear of the gods.

The prevalent understanding of Critias' motives is largely determined by the commonest interpretation of this fragment. Some authorities think the notion of divine justice as merely a human device designed to serve a socially utilitarian purpose is Critias' own invention; others regard this passage as wholly or in part a réchauffé of the ideas of others, such as Protagoras, Democritus, or Diagoras of Rhodes. With few exceptions, it has until recently been thought that Critias was, if not a sophist himself, at least a cynical disciple of Machtpolitik who differed from similar thinkers such as Thrasymachus and Callicles only in that he translated ideas similar to those these figures are made to express in the pages of Plato into brutal political action.

A handful of authorities have dissented from this view on the grounds that it is dangerous to attribute to a playwright sentiments placed in the mouths of his stage-characters (although to be sure, as we shall see, the theory that the views expressed in the fragment were the poet's own has ostensible ancient authority in the doxographic tradition). Recently the prevalent interpretation of fr. 19 Sn. has been subjected to additional criticism in two articles by German writers that may well be harbingers of a major reappraisal – long overdue, in the present writer's opinion – of Critias' beliefs.

Cicero, Lucullus 38: ‘…non potest animal ullum non adpetere id quod accommodatum ad naturam adpareat (Graeci id οỉκεῖον appellant)…’

From earliest childhood every man wants to possess something. One man collects horses. Another wants gold. Socrates has a passion for companions. He would rather have a good friend than a quail or a rooster. In this way, Socrates begins his interrogation of Menexenus. He then congratulates Menexenus and Lysis for each having what he himself still does not possess. How is it that one gets a friend, Socrates asks?

Since the nineteenth century many who have read these lines have found them repulsive. Scholars have damned the Lysis for its selfish egoism, for regarding persons as personal belongings. At the turn of the century some sought to discredit the dialogue as a forgery and a calumny. Others debated the dating of the dialogue as Socratic or Platonic, seeking whom to blame rather than whom to credit. And those who have regarded the dialogue as Platonic have tried to redeem it by detecting hints of Plato's theory of Forms. A few have attempted to salvage reputations by understanding the argument of the Lysis as a reductio of egoism, or else by invoking the loyalty of Socrates' friends and the history of Plato's friendship for Dion of Syracuse to speak up for their defence. Guthrie has condemned the dialogue as a failure of method and presentation (‘even Plato can nod’), and Vlastos has pronounced it a failure of love: ‘The lover Socrates has in view seems positively incapable of loving others for their own sake, else why must he feel no affection for anyone whose good-producing qualities he did not happen to need?’

The Lysis appears to make no positive contribution to the Greek tradition on friendship when compared to the Symposium or the Phaedrus. And in the subsequent tradition, whatever Aristotle might have borrowed from the dialogue he uses for his own purposes. Aristotle too is quite critical of specific points raised in the Lysis. Now it might seem that Aristotle made a place for the selfish love of the Lysis in his own theory, as an inferior grade of utility love. But even this cannot be so, if we are to agree with recent studies of Aristotle's ethics. According to Aristotle, if a client is friendly to his benefactor because of the latter's usefulness, this utilitarian motive must accompany a genuine concern (εὔνοια) for the benefactor's own interest in that relation, if they are to be friends. Inferior and genuine friendship may differ in purpose but not in regard for the well-being of the beloved. This respect for the object of one's love has no parallel in the Lysis, according to the standard reading of the dialogue.

In 1962 I offered an analysis of the Line and Cave which (1) maintained that the four main divisions of each are parallel and (2) interpreted the three stages of ascent in the Cave allegory as representing the three stages in Plato's educational programme: music and gymnastic, mathematics and dialectic. At that time a major portion of my task was to counter arguments which purported to show that the Line and Cave could not be parallel. The present situation is quite different since recent writers, for the most part, not only take the four main divisions of the Cave as parallel to those of the Line, but also accept the restriction of the Cave allegory to moral and mathematical education as a crucial step in the establishing of this fact. This last move, which is clearly in harmony with the form and content of the Republic, enables us to allow for the ordinary unenlightened man to be at the bottom level of the Cave without our having to suggest that he confuses the shadows of visual objects with their originals, which could well be the case if the Cave were taken to represent all sense perception as such.

Despite fairly general agreement on these basic points of interpretation there remains, however, a wide divergence of opinion as to the significance of the various levels of education or moral awareness portrayed by the Cave. In keeping with several recent papers on this topic I shall focus my attention on the bottom two stages of this allegory: the state (C1) of the prisoners viewing shadows on the cave wall and that (C2) of the released prisoners, still in the cave, but turned around and looking at the puppets which cast these shadows.

Nothing about Xenophon's Hellenica is more outrageous than his treatment of the relations of Persia and the Greeks. It was orthodoxy in the circle of Agesilaus that Theban medizing, barbarismos, had sabotaged the plans for a glorious anabasis (IV. ii. 3, V. ii. 35, III. v. 1 f.) and recalled him to the defence of his city (by the very route, ironically, taken by King Xerxes in 480 — IV. ii. 8 — the would-be avenger in the footsteps of the would-be enslaver). Not until the Thebans woo and win the fickle favour of the King (VII. i. 33 ff.), does anything like detail emerge. In the regrettable interlude, the less said the better. If the third speech of Andocides had not survived, there would have been some tangled theorizing about a note in Didymus (FGrH 328f 149), especially as regards ‘the ambassadors who in Sparta consented’, but sober historical judgement would never have transgressed so far from the text of Xenophon as to postulate a Peace Congress in Sparta as well as in Sardis in 392. Likewise, the merest chance of epigraphic survival assures us that the oaths, which the ‘Athenians and the Spartans and the other Greeks’ swore in 387/6, ‘the King swore’ (G.H.I. 118 lines 10 f.) — and so on. If we did not have the reflection of Ephorus in Diodorus, albeit a mirror cracked and blemished, we would be sadly astray in 375 and 371. When, however, the despicable Thebans become the King's favoured power, disgraceful scenes unfold. ‘Pelopidas very much had things his own way with the Persian; he could say that the Thebans alone of the Greeks had fought on the King's side at Plataea, that they had never afterwards campaigned against him, that the Spartans were at war with them because they would not join Agesilaus…etc.’ (VII. i. 34). A Persian is found at Thebes reading out the contents of a Royal Rescript, after displaying the Royal seal (ibid. §39); at Sparta twenty years before, such details had been left to the imagination.

The cause of Xenophon's method in this matter is not for the moment under discussion, but rather the consequence, viz. our uncertainty about what precisely the King's Peace said. There was a document, inscribed on stone pillars and displayed in the national shrines (Isoc. IV. 180, XII. 107). If ever a copy turns up, what can we expect to find? The measure of our uncertainty was provided by Wilcken, who produced a curious hypothesis which found little sympathy; that he could do so shows the state of the evidence. Some effort of the imagination is needed, and those who gravely disapprove of conjectures of what might have been the case need read no further. At the end one can be sure of very little. Conjectures, however, have been uttered, en passant, elsewhere. What may prove to be a chorus of disdain has begun. A formal confession may be welcome.

The neologism ‘sexist’ has gained entry to an Oxford Dictionary, The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English, third edition (1974), where it is defined as ‘derisive of the female sex and expressive of masculine superiority’. Thus ‘sexpot’ and ‘sex kitten’, which are still defined in exclusively feminine terms in the fifth edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1976), have finally met their lexicographical match.

This point about current English usage has of course a serious, and general, application. For language reflects, when it does not direct, prevailing social conceptions. Thus it is not accidental that there is no masculine counterpart to the word ‘feminism’. ‘Male chauvinism’, the nearest we have come to coining one, is more emotive than descriptive and so involves ambiguity; while ‘sexism’, even when it is given an exclusively masculine connotation, is still, formally, sexually neutral. ‘Feminism’, by contrast, unequivocally denotes the striving to raise women to an equality of rights and status with men.

It has been suggested, it is true, that there were inchoate feminist movements or tendencies in the ancient Greek world, for example in the Classical Athens of Aristophanes and Plato (where, as we shall see, they would certainly have been in place). But feminism in the modern sense did not really emerge before the eighteenth century; and in Britain, for instance, it was only with the passage in 1975 of the Employment Protection, Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts that women raised themselves on to an all but equal footing with their male fellows — at any rate in the technical, juridical sense.

In an earlier paper Christopher Tuplin and I attempted to establish the date and circumstances of the emergence of the concept of ‘the Greeks of Asia’ and the consequent appearance of ‘the freedom of the Greeks of Asia’ as a political slogan. It was there suggested that concept and slogan first crystallized shortly before the Peace of Antalcidas, and that the freedom of the Greeks of Asia first acquired its full force as a catchword when that freedom had been signed away, apparently for ever. The present paper traces the further history of the slogan, first under Alexander and the Diadochi, then at the time of the Roman conquest of the eastern Mediterranean. No attempt is, however, made to deal with every unanswered question raised by either Macedonian or Roman dealings with Greece.

The Greeks of Asia languished under Persia till the time of the Macedonian invasion. Yet when that invasion came, the freedom of the Greeks of Asia was to play little part in Macedonian propaganda, still less in Macedonian practice. The expedition was conceived by Philip as an act of revenge for the Persian invasions of Greece. This theme of revenge was taken up by Alexander at the time of his appointment to command, and recurs in his letter to Darius and his words to Parmenio after the taking of Persepolis. The even broader theme of a crusade of Greeks against Persians to achieve the conquest of Asia is still more frequent. It dictates the sedulous manufacture of parallels with the Trojan war and the inscription on the spoils sent to Athens after the battle of the Granicus; it was also used to justify Alexander's hatred of Greeks who fought on the Persian side.

By comparison with these motifs the freedom of the Greeks of Asia receives little attention. When Philip sent out his advance expedition under Parmenio and Attalus, his instructions to them were to free the Greek cities. But just how flexibly that order could be interpreted is shown by Parmenio's treatment of Grynium. Alexander too showed himself ruthlessly pragmatic in his attitude to Greek cities, until the appointment of Alcimachus to liberate the Aeolian and Ionian cities. Yet this development receives little attention in the sources, and the only trace of it in subsequent propaganda is the claim ascribed to Alexander when he was on his way from Miletus to Caria that he had undertaken the war for the sake of the freedom of the Greeks, the only occasion in the surviving evidence on which Alexander makes this assertion.

Catullus 68 has for generations been the site of hard-fought and inconclusive philological battles. This, it may be confidently predicted, will continue to be the case. The present contribution, therefore, can pretend to no more elaborate aim than the opening up of certain new fronts. It falls into two parts of unequal length: first (I) some general observations on the contents of the poem — or poems, for the Einheitsfrage cannot be evaded — and the underlying theme(s) thereof; second (II) a detailed examination of the source (A) and significance (B) of perhaps the most remarkable passage in an altogether remarkable piece of work, to wit the barathrum simile (107 ff.). The argument of I has, the reader will observe, a not inconsiderable bearing on that of IIB, though it is in no way dependent on the latter's acceptability. The argument of IIA, to the contrary, has no necessary link with those of I and IIB and may profitably (and justly) be judged by itself.

One of the major prophecies in the Aeneid is given to Aeneas in the underworld by Anchises, who had ordered his son to come to him to learn of his whole race and the city which would be given to him (5.737). In the prophecy (6.756–886), which covers more than a thousand years, Anchises identifies the spirits who will be born as his descendants, from Aeneas' son Silvius to the young Marcellus, and describes how they will win glory and world dominion for Rome. Aeneas sees the spirit of each man as he will appear in life, and hears Anchises' admonition to the Roman who embodies the race, in which he tells him how to rule the world (6.851–3). The speech is stirring, and one would expect that this vision of the future glory of his race would have some effect on Aeneas, but we may ask whether in fact it does.

First, consider Aeneas' behaviour during his meeting with Anchises. At their first encounter all he asks is to embrace his father (6.697–8). Next, when he sees the spirits near the river Lethe, he shudders and asks who they are. When Anchises tells him that they are waiting to be reborn and that he is eager to point out his descendants, so that Aeneas will rejoice to have found Italy, Aeneas shows no curiosity about the spirits, but protests against the idea that they should have to leave Elysium and go back to the life of the body.

The saga of Ceyx, king of Trachis, begins at Met. 11.266 and continues to 11.748. Ceyx' adventures form the longest single episode in the Metamorphoses (482 verses), slightly longer than the Phaethon legend (432 verses, Met. 1.747–2.400). Three metamorphoses take place in the course of the Ceyx narrative. The first is that of Ceyx' brother Daedalion who is transformed into a hawk. The second transformation occurs in the course of the exiled Peleus' visit to Ceyx when a wolf attacks Peleus' cattle and sheep and is eventually turned into stone. The third metamorphosis is that of Ceyx and his wife Alcyone into halcyons.

The linking together of these three metamorphoses was entirely an Ovidian invention: it had never been done before. It is therefore important to see the Ceyx story as a whole, as it was put together by Ovid. Attention naturally concentrates on the most interesting episode in it – the Ceyx–Alcyone – but the Daedalion and Peleus episodes are integral parts of the narrative and not separate legends. The story is framed by the contrasting transformations of the two brothers. The fierce and bellicose Daedalion becomes a bird of prey (Met. 11.344). The gentle and uxorious Ceyx becomes a happily paired halcyon (11. 741–8). It is ironic that we first meet Ceyx when he is mourning the transformation of his brother into a bird, since the same end awaits him. The brothers' characters are very different but their fates are similar. Ceyx' dealings with Peleus (11. 268–409) bring out the king of Trachis' hospitable, peace-loving, godly and husbandly qualities and give us a rounded and detailed picture of his personality to balance the developed character-study of his wife Alcyone which is to follow. The spotlight passes from Ceyx to Alcyone at Met. 11. 410.

Suetonius quotes at Tiberius 21. 4–7 a number of passages from letters of Augustus to Tiberius showing the high regard in which he professed to hold him, despite his reservations about the darker side of his character, once he had decided to adopt him ‘rei publicae causa’ in a.d 4. They seem to have attracted little critical comment, although Seager connects them with the handling by Tiberius of the Pannonian revolt in a.d. 6–9. suggesting that in view of their fulsome character they were probably written towards the end of this period, when the crisis was past, rather than earlier when Augustus may (Dio 55.31) have been critical of Tiberius’ caution in prosecuting the war. But he does not attempt a more detailed appraisal of the possible dates of the individual letters quoted. Sections 21. 4 and 5 in particular present interesting textual difficulties, mainly arising from the transmission of Greek in a predominantly Latin text: this article discusses these with a view to throwing greater light on the historical significance of the letters.

First, the text, to which I have appended a limited apparatus which concentrates on the points of greatest difficulty (the manuscript references are as in Ihm's edition).

When first confronted by the Historia Romana of Velleius Paterculus, it is easy for a reader to assume on the basis of the title and the surviving part of the text that it is a history of Rome, albeit a short one. In the following discussion I intend to demonstrate, first, why that initial assumption should be rejected and, secondly, how the work fits into the tradition of Roman historical writing.

The text of Quintus Curtius benefited greatly from Conrad Müller's edition of 1954 (Munich, with translation by H. Schönfeld). In particular, his thorough investigation of Curtius' rhythms enabled him to settle many hitherto doubtful points. Problems remain, unsolved or undetected. In Curtius, as in other prose texts, scribal omissions are a prolific source of corruption, sometimes productive of interpolation. Most of the following notes postulate corruptions of this type.

All is set for the Greeks' departure from Troy. As I understand the scene, the rowers have their oars strapped to their hands and are eager to start. A warning flare now shines out from the regia ratis and the actual signal to start is given by a trumpet-blast, either rhetorically viewed as addressed to the thousand ships from the flagship or sounded on each at sight of the flare (the point need not be too closely examined). The flagship then moves off and is followed by the fleet. Cf. the related passage, Tro. 1044–6 ‘cum tuba iussi dare uela nautae | et simul uentis properante remo | prenderint altum’.

428 laetum was conjectured by Leo in view of the difficulty of reconciling lentum (codd.), which would normally mean ‘listless’ or ‘sluggish’, and properanti in 426 (cf. properantes 422); note too 437 ff. ‘properat iuuentus omnis adductos simul | lentare remos…’ and the expression properante remo in Tro. 1045 (above). The simple correction laetum would appear both to remove the difficulty and to be entirely appropriate. Yet, though accepted by Peiper-Richter and Herrmann, laetum has come in for resistance: it is rejected by Moricca, Viansino, Giardina, and Tarrant. In defence of lentum Viansino compares Medea 623 portibus lentis, in which I find no relevance; F. Giancotti interprets that the men in their impatience to be off appear lenti to themselves; Tarrant renders ‘slow to respond’, explaining ‘the rowing of the men is uncoordinated after ten years' lack of practice’, but in 428 the rowing has not yet started, and note the harmony indicated in 437–9. lentum is alien to Seneca's spirited picture and seems to me indefensible; laetum, on the other hand, is both attractive in itself and supported by significant evidence, which I have not seen adduced.

Philo's attitude to the mythologizing activities of the Greeks is well known. In many passages he contrasts the practices of Greek writers unfavourably with that of Moses. In one passage (Conf. 2 ff.), for example, he condemns those who see the Tower of Babel story asa reflection of that of Otus and Ephialtes' assault on Olympus; the truth, he asserts, is quite the contrary — the Greeks have borrowed the story from Moses.

On the other hand, Philo is himself prepared on occasion to allegorize figures of Greek mythology, though never explicitly on a subject of central doctrinal importance. For instance, he appears to be acquainted with the allegorization of various parts of the Odyssey. In his treatise On Mating with the Preliminary Studies (Congr.), he makes use of the allegorization of the Suitors' mating with the handmaidens because they cannot gain Penelope, first employed, it seems, by the Cynic Bion of Borysthenes, but no doubt of wide currency by Philo's time, as a figure of those who cannot attain to Philosophy consoling themselves with ta enkyklia (e.g. Congr. 14–19). Again, the use here and there in his writings of compounds of the verb νήχω, ‘swim’, particularly ⋯νανήχομαι in connection with descriptions of our struggle through the storms and shipwreck of material existence, suggests his acquaintance with the allegorizing of Odysseus' shipwreck off Phaeacia in Odyssey V, where Homer employs this verb repeatedly. Other, more specificallegories include Scylla as ⋯ɸροσύνη a ‘deathless evil’ (Od. 12. 118), at Det. 178; Odysseus' escape from Charybdis (ibid. 219) at Somn. 2. 70, to symbolize our escape from the cares of mortal existence; and Castor and Pollux (Od. 11. 303) at Somn. 1.150, as an image of the life of the askêtês or prokoptôn.

The political and administrative requirements of the Roman state during the early years of the Principate demanded an increase in the annual number of consulars. When Augustus finally acted to remedy this situation in 5 b.c., he introduced a system of suffect consuls and thereby increased the number of consuls from the two per annum of the Republic to four. A regular practice became established whereby one or both of the ordinary consuls retired at the end of June to be replaced in office for theremainder of the year by a suffect consul. For the reigns of Gaius and Claudius additional suffects were included in many years and a new pattern can be seen to have emerged. It was usual now for each ordinarius to hold office for the first six months of the year except in some special cases where the ordinarii resigned at the end of two months and their place was taken by a pair of suffects who remained in office for the next four months to serve out the more regular tenure of the ordinary consuls. Under Nero, the innovation of this two-month ordinary consulship was not perpetuated and ordinarii usually remained in office for the full six months. Suffect consulships throughout the period a.d. 38–68 were held for periods of either two, four or six months.

The Civil War of a.d. 68/69 and the consequent changes of emperor broke the above pattern. For 69, there are no fewer than sixteen consuls known to have held office during the year. Such confusion, however, would not be unexpected given the startling events of this year. Of considerable importance to students of the early Empire, therefore, is the question of what happened to the system of allocating consulships during a particular year when the state had once again settled itself down to running in routine under the victorious Flavian emperors. The answer to this question will be of particular importance for prosopographers of the early Empire for whom chronology is the backbone of their investigations, since the fasti for the reigns of Vespasian and Titus are notable for the number of years in which the complete list of consuls is lacking.

Juvenal opens his eighth Satire with the question stemmata quid faciunt?, supplies an answer in line 20, nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus, and devotes the rest of the poem to exhorting his addressee to virtuous activity, both by negative exempla drawn from the degenerate nobility and by positive exempla drawn from the plebs, novi homines and the like. In lines 39–70 he addresses one particularly self-important noble and attempts to deflate his bombastic pride: in 56–67 he adduces an extended illustration from the animal world, apparently such as was common in the schools of rhetoric.

Among the works of Aelius Aristides is preserved an address to an unnamed ‘king’. The prevailing view in this century has been that it is addressed to a third-century emperor, and was attributed to Aristides in error. In an article published in 1972 (JRS 62 (1972), 134–52), I argued that the speech was genuine, and was delivered by Aristides in 144 before Antoninus Pius. In a recent article in this journal (CQ N.S. 29 (1979), 172–97), Stephen A. Stertz has undertaken to rebut this view, and advances a novel one: the speech is a school exercise written in the third or perhaps the fourth century, and does not refer to any particular ‘king’, not even necessarily a Roman emperor. Rather than attempt to answer all of Stertz's arguments, I have selected as samples one each from several diverse fields.

Manuscript tradition. In his first paragraph, Stertz suggests that the manuscript tradition of the Eis basilea itself impugns its authenticity. ‘The oration is entitled єἰς βασιλέα in three manuscripts and єἰς τόν αὐτοκρ⋯τορα in another. It has been pointed out that in the former group of manuscripts the title is not preceded by the words ⋯ριστε⋯δου λόγος, thus casting doubt on Aristidean authorship' (172). The accompanying footnote refers to Keil's apparatus ad loc, and the reader might infer that this argument is borrowed from Aristides’ foremost editor. What Keil said was: ‘Titulus εἰς βασιλ⋯α STC (ubi cum prima haec sit Aristidearum, praemittitur ⋯ριστε⋯δου λόγος): єἰς τòν αὐτοκρ⋯τορα U et in indice D m(anu) recentiss(ima).’