ὣς φάτο, τοῦ δ’ ἤκουσε Μέδων πεπνυμένα εἰδώς·
πεπτηὼς γὰρ ἔκειτο ὑπὸ θρόνον, ἀμφὶ δὲ δέρμα
ἕστο βοὸς νεόδαρτον, ἀλύσκων κῆρα μέλαιναν.

In the most recent edition of this play (Bristol Classical Press, 1987) M. M. Willcock places an obelus before montes with the comment ‘monies and acerui get in each other's way’. But in view of its metaphorical use elsewhere in Plautus (e.g. Aul. 701, Mil. 1065, Mos. 352), prima facie suspicion does not fall on montes.

Quei apice insigne Dial(is fl)aminis gesistei | mors perfec(it) tua ut essent omnia | brevia, honos, fama, virtusque | gloria atque ingenium. Quibus sei | in longa licuiset tibe utier vita, | facile facteis superases gloriam | maiorum. Qua relubens te in gremiu, | Scipio, recipit terra, Publi, | prognatum Publio, Corneli. ILLRP 311

For you who wore the distinctive cap of a Flamen Dialis, Death cut everything short — honour, fame and virtue, glory and intellectual ability. If you had been granted a long life in which to use these advantages, you would have far surpassed the glory of your ancestors by your achievements. Therefore Earth gladly takes you in her arms, Scipio — Publius Cornelius, son of Publius.

In a.d. 25, Aulus Cremutius Cordus, a Senator and a historian, was charged with ‘maiestas’. He committed suicide, and immediately his books, the ostensible source of the charge against him, were officially burnt. Some years later, Seneca referred in detail to these events in a philosophical study he had composed for Marcia, the daughter of Cremutius Cordus. Seneca wrote the work to console Marcia on the death of her son Metilius. In the Ad Marciam, Seneca notes in passing that the worksof Cremutius Cordus have been re-published.

There are two undoubted instances of this use of Neaera in Prudentius which are cited by Mr. Ullman in support of his contention that in Horace another proper name may be similarly employed. I imagine however that to an unprejudiced sense of Latin usage these instances will themselves seem to be strange and in need of explanation.

The events in Ionia during the first decade of the fifth century have been the subject of perennial controversy, largely because of the deficiencies of the account Herodotus gives us. The nature of these deficiencies, however, has for the most part been ignored, and the debate has centred itself on what we should add to and subtract from the account of Herodotus. Such an approach is dangerously subjective, and tends to produce an account of the ‘Revolt’ untenable in the light of our evidence. It would be very satisfying to prove that ‘widespread hatred of a despotic constitution’ indicates that ‘Ionia was seething with discontent’, causing ‘the Ionians’ great struggle for freedom, undertaken of their own free will'; can we justify such conclusions from the evidence?

Near the end of the first book of his De reditu the poet Rutilius is delayed in Triturrita, on the Tuscan coast, because of the dark and stormy weather. The South-West Wind with its dripping wings—says the poet in an Ovidian imitation—does not cease from summoning pitch-black clouds and obfuscating the sun's light for several days (631–2). Elegant images of constellations (633–8)—perhaps not just ornamental, but also indicating the dates and the duration of the delay—and the reference to the tempestuous sea and to two possible explanations of ocean's tides (639–44) round the first book off (1.631-9):

interea madidis non desinit Africus alis
continuos picea nube negare dies.
iam matutinis Hyades occasibus udae;
iam latet hiberno conditus imbre Lepus,
exiguum radiis, sed magnis fluctibus, astrum, 635
quo madidam nullus nauita linquat humum;
namque procelloso subiungitur Orioni
aestiferumque Canem roscida praeda fugit.

The phrase combining the terms κάλλ0ς and ἀπoρρoή to my knowledge does not occur anywhere else in the Greek Corpus in the context of contemplating a beautiful beloved. Achilles Tatius (second century a.d.) therefore must be making an allusion to Plato. This can hardly come as a surprise considering that Phaedr. 251, which describes the influence of the appearance of beauty on the soul of the lover, is one of the most famous and widely known Platonic passages. However, the context within which these two allusions to Plato are introduced deserves attention. Adding a certain learned touch to the description of erotic episodes in his novel, Achilles Tatius presents a ‘scientific’ explanation of the mechanism of visual perception. The consistency of both accounts suggests that he draws on some scholarly theory of vision which was part of his general educational background. But, unlike the above mentioned allusions, this theory is hardly Platonic.

The adjective ἱερός is a central term in Greek religion and is used in various contexts. Generally translated ‘sacred’, it indicates that an object has been conceded to the gods and is now in relation with them (relation of belonging, protection, etc.). It appears frequently in Greek inscriptions in the expression τὰ ἱερά, to designate sacred objects or, in a more abstract meaning, sacred matters.

The dating of Catalepton 9 has been the central issue of scholarship on that poem. The more particular questions of the poem's authorship, the identity of the addressee, and its chronological relation to other texts, both depend on and contribute to ascertaining the date of composition. The clearest exposition of the problem remains that by Richmond. Evidence provided by Catalepton 9 falls into two categories: literary and historical. Literary evidence encompasses two kinds of data: various formal features of the text and intertextual links with other poetry. While the poem's metre, language and style suggest a relatively early date of composition (before the Eclogues), the close textual parallels with the Eclogues, interpreted as borrowings from rather than sources of Virgil's poetry, point in the opposite direction. Historical indications are likewise ambivalent. On the one hand, it seems likely that the addressee is M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (cos. 31 b.c.) and, further, that the occasion of composition is his (only) triumph in 27 b.c. (Catalepton 9.3 uictor adest, magni magnum decus ecce triumphi). On the other hand, the allusions to his military achievements (4–5, 41–54) are both too vague and exaggerated, and, if taken literally, do not fit well our Messalla at any particular point of his career (nor any other known member of the family). Richmond, following Birt and followed by Schoonhoven, believed that at least some of the historical references are ‘intended to be prophetic’. More recently, Peirano has attempted to explain this lack of precision by arguing that Catalepton 9 is not a real-life panegyric but a later biographical fiction, the real focus of which ‘is to be found […] in the relationship that the poem constructs between Virgil and his patron’.

Normally, if A knows B, B knows A, and ‘Lake Garda knows me’ is a poetic way of saying ‘I know Lake Garda’. The exchange of subject and object elevates diction and sentiment, but it can also help with the metre, especially where nouns such as gloria. and femina are concerned. Thus in 1.8. 46 the poet says ista meam norit gloria canitiem when in strict logic he should have said istam mea norit gloriam canities. Similarly here what he really wants to says is qua dum iter faciam feminam nullam norim. He must have been aware that the relationship is reciprocal, and something like oblitusque mearum, obliuiscendus et illis may well have been in his mind. But his main desire was to forget and not to know anything of women any more.

As shown by Goodwin (Moods and Tenses, § 197, 208, and 216) and corroborated by A. C. Moorhouse (C.Q. xl (1946), 1), with the future whether indicative, infinitive, or participle is proved by manuscript authority to be a permissible, though comparatively rare, Attic usage. Moorhouse's case, moreover, is strengthened, rather than weakened, as he supposed, by the usage of Lucian, for, though the construction may be condemned in Solecist, §§ 2 and 8, there are considerably more examples of with the future in Lucian than Asinus

J. D. P. Bolton has argued in the C.Q. 1948 that although there is some confusion in the use of the term ‘quinquennalis’ in the first century A.D., the linguistic and literary evidence suggests that the Neronia (instituted by Nero in A.D. 60) was a four-yearly festival, that the celebration which Tacitus records in 65 was merely a postponement of part of the celebration due in 64, and that such a view is supported by the evidence of Nero's issues of Certamen Quinquennale semisses. Bolton divides these semisses into four main groups:

(i) Copper. With sc on reverse. Obverse: bare head of Nero; legend NERO (CLAVDIVS) CAESAR AVGVSTVS (GERMANIGVS) variously abbreviated.

In the for 1952 (Athens, 1955), pp. 33 ff., Nikolaos M. Kontoleon published a most interesting inscription from the shrine of Archilochos on Paros. It was inscribed, as preserved, on two orthostats, which probably formed part of the structure of the hearth or bothros where offerings to the hero were made. There is much of interest to scholars in this new discovery, which is very fully and carefully interpreted by Kontoleon, and has been further discussed by Werner Peck (Philologus, xcix [1955], 4 ff.). In this article the present writer wishes to confine himself to some comments on the new evidence about responses of the Delphic oracle supplied by the inscription. This material is all found on the first of the two orthostats, and falls into two categories: responses connected with the setting up of the shrine, and responses connected with the life of Archilochus.

[Plutarch] records that Augustus passed a winter on the island of Aegina, rather than in Athens, as a sign of his wrath toward the Athenians. Paul Graindor assumed that the most likely time for Augustus to have been angry with the Athenians was immediately after Actium, and so he dated [Plutarch]'s anecdote to the winter of 31/30 (Athènes sous Auguste [Cairo, 1927], p. 17). This is impossible.

In this celebrated sentence Thucydides gives his opinion more specifically than anywhere in the narrative of Books 6 and 7 on the reasons for the failure of the Sicilian expedition. Unfortunately, however, he expresses his views with some lack of clarity, and this has led to disagreement among modern scholars who have sought to determine precisely what he means. It is also unfortunate that he does not state the evidence upon which he bases his conclusion that the expedition failed because of struggles for political leadership at Athens. The main purpose of this paper is to consider the meaning and implications of this sentence, which can, I believe, be clarified by reference to other passages in which Thucydides uses when debating the causes of past actions. A closely allied problem, that of the relationship between this sentence and the narrative of Books 6 and 7, will also be discussed. A. W. Gomme has maintained that this relationship throws some light upon the date of composition of Books 6 and 7. There is no doubt whatever that the sentence was written at or after the end of the Peloponnesian war (ibid. 12), and if there are differences of outlook, even inconsistencies, between it and the narrative which show that Thucydides cannot have written, or at any rate conceived, both at the same time, he almost certainly wrote the narrative before the end of the war.2 In my opinion there is inconsistency on one point only, but here the inconsistency is sufficiently marked to suggest not only that Books 6 and 7 were written considerably earlier than 2. 65. 11, but that they were written within the next few years after the conclusion of the Sicilian campaign.