The history of Attic comedy after the fifth century is not simple. The comic fragments are obscure, because they are fragments: and the ancient interpreters, because they are determined to interpret. But the subject still remains interesting and important, especially in so far as it is concerned with Middle Comedy, which filled the gap between Aristophanes and Menander. Formally and materially, Menander was a modern, while Aristophanes was not: and it was during the fourth century that the ground was being prepared for the change. Now one of the most noticeable differences between Old and New Comedy was the altered position of the chorus; and although the very mixed assortment of facts available makes coherent conclusions difficult, I think it worth enquiring how much can be known of the chorus after Aristophanes.

In C.Q. XXVI. 45–51 I contended that in Aesch. Agam. 1227–30 Cassandra describes Clytemnestra in terms of a Greek proverb, the proverb of the Treacherous Hound; and I restored the passage thus:—

νεŵν δ' ἔπαρχоς 'Ιλ⋯оν τ' ⋯ναστ⋯της

оὐκ оἶδεν оἵα γλŵσσα μισ⋯της κνν⋯ς

λε⋯ξασα κα⋯ σ⋯νασα φα⋯δρ', оἷоν δ⋯κоς

Ατης λαθρα⋯оν δ⋯ξεται κακῇ τ⋯χνῃ.

In an interesting paper read some time ago to the Cambridge Philological Society (summarized in the Cambridge University Reporter of Feb. 16, 1932), H. J. M. Milne analysed the first Ode of Sappho (ποικιλόθρον' ⋯θάνατ' 'AΦροδίτα) and showed that it is constructed according to those principles of poetical form which we should expect to find in the work of so delicate a Greek artist. If more of these lyrics had survived in their entirety, the task of expounding the technique of Greek poetry would be simpler than it is, because naturally the principles are more easily grasped in a short lyric than in epic or drama.

(Lampon) προεστὠς τοȋς ⋯γ εμόσιν, ⋯πότε δικάζοιεν, ὑπεμνηατίζετο τ⋯ς δίκας εἰσάγων ὡς ἔϰων τάξιν, εἶτα τ⋯ μ⋯ν ⋯πήμειΦεν κτλ.

The words ὡς ἔϰων τάξιν do not give a satisfactory sense. The MS which Cohn-Wendland-Reiter designate A adds τοιάνδε after τάξιν. The methods of A's intelligent scribe are sufficiently exposed by Reiter. When through inadvertently omitting part of a sentence he could not understand the text, he freely altered and inserted words so as to make it intelligible. A man who was capable of this procedure was capable of inserting τοιάνδε after τάξιν in this passage. We may confidently say that τοιάνδε is based on no authority, an arbitrary addition of the scribe for the sake of making ὡς ἔϰων clear.

M. Marouzeau has re-directed attention to the peculiarity of Terentian versification by which a monosyllabic word (preposition, conjunction or interjection) is put at the end of the line, though it belongs, in point of sense, to the beginning of the next line. There is thus, for the copyist or ‘corrector’, a strong temptation to shift the little word to the beginning of the next line, or even to drop it altogether. Where scansion allows, the second course can be adopted without arousing any suspicions.

Panegyric IV (Nazarius), 24, 2: diducta acie inreuocabilem impetum hostis effundis, dein quos ludificandos receperas reductis agminibus includis.

Acidalius' correction ludificando is accepted in both the Teubner editions. The addition of the s would, of course, be an easy error, and quite characteristic of the MSS, of these authors. But there is no need for the correction, in view of the frequency; in the Panegyrici Latini, of the Gerundive as a Future Participle Passive, an unquestionable example of which occurs, in fact, in the last sentence of the chapter in question. ‘Quos ludificandos receperas’ means ‘whom you had admitted with the intention that they should be tricked,’ is equivalent in sense to ‘quos ludificaturus receperas.’ The Gerundive used as Future Participle Passive gives an appropriate picture of the purpose with which the manoeuvre described by receperas was carried out.

A word of apology may be due for the loose arrangement of this paper; but, as an orderly progress through the 600 odd pages of the Didot Scriptores Erotici was out of the question, I have simply taken a number of passages on which I had corrections to propose, appending to each a few lines of comment, and adding, where feasible, a selection of texts amenable, in my judegment, to the same or an analogous treatment. A reading cited with no mark of orgin may be taken as the consenting manuscript tradition (trivialities excepted); an asterisk denotes a conjecture of my own.