This paper investigates Neoplatonist literary criticism by framing the special interest in the target of each dialogue within the context of cosmo-literary theory. The starting hypothesis is that the themes of Plato's dialogues do not fully meet the expectations of a new didactics based on isagogical schemes as an image of Neoplatonic metaphysics. Among these schemes is the target of each dialogue, whose relation to the theme can be explained, in a fruitful and innovative way, through a cosmic analogy. Thus after examining the more or less explicit criticism of literary criteria of analysis by Plato's ancient exegetes, this article will focus on how Neoplatonists load the Greek term skopos (target) with metaphysical content and, accordingly, on how we should translate it in accordance with the commentators’ intentions. It will show that the target is the literary counterpart to the One, but that it should not be confused with the theme because the latter must be seen as the literary counterpart to the Intellect.

Recent discussion of the problems associated with glacie has been copious. It has arisen (C.R. lii. 56) out of Housman's note, which runs as follows: ‘glacie nemini, quantum scio, praeterquam mini et Schradero et Hadriano Valesio admirationem mouit: ceteris exploratum est frigore pisces maculosos fieri, eos praesertim qui torrentem cloacam, locum frigidissimum, penetrare soleant.’ In his 1931 reprint he added (p. xlvi): ‘Ruperti took exception to glacie, but only to its case’. Housman's ironically stated objection to the sense is indeed a formidable difficulty; though the other—the fact of the two ablatives and the vagueness of the former—is itself serious enough to provide an additional indication of corruption.

In a previous article I attempted to show the relationship between the most important MSS. of the Aethiopica, and to fix the basis on which the text ought to be built. The object of the present enquiry is to go more deeply into the history of the Xylander MS., which was only lightly touched upon then, and to estimate the value of another MS., which received no treatment at all.

This rather miscellaneous category is a fairly straightforward one and need not detain us long. Its distinguishing feature is that the trials comprised in it are not to be thought of as having been transferred to Athens from other cities where they might have been expected to take place, but were from their very nature triable only at Athens and nowhere else. They can be divided up in various ways. One possible method of classification would be to distinguish between trials which were essentially administrative decisions (appeals against assessments of tribute, for example) and those which were criminal prosecutions, whether of individuals or of cities collectively. (In the whole category we are now considering, it must be remembered, there are no cases which we should have called ‘civil’ as opposed to ‘criminal’.

In an earlier article I reported the text Ajax offered by the so-called ‘Roman’ family of Sophocles, the manuscripts G, R, and Q. My present purpose is to give collations of G, R, and Q for Philoctetes, with some introductory comments confined to this play; I hope I may be allowed to refer the reader to my previous article for a discussion of the general problems arising from a study of these manuscripts.

In the Classical Quarterly for April, 1927, I tried to show how Virgil, in his fourth Eclogue, introduced assonance and even rhyme to contribute in part to the ‘Sibylline’ atmosphere of the poem. Since then I have further investigated this question of assonance in Virgil's poetry, with what appear interesting results.

‘All the difficulties in the theory of forms arise from their separation.’ This recurrent criticism of Aristotle's is, of course, one of the principal obstacles in the way of any reconstruction of the Platonic metaphysic. To begin with, it is flatly denied by Plato himself in the use of such words as μέθεξις, παρoυσία and κoινωνία. It must also be rejected by the orthodox account of the Forms which takes them to be immanent, constitutive principles in the world of everyday life, like a Law of Nature or the Concrete Universal of Hegel. Finally, modern philosophy has made it clear that this view of universals is right and necessary if thought and language are to exist, and it is therefore tempting to attribute it to Plato.

A. C. Cassio has recently pointed out that Μαρικ⋯ς, the name which Eupolis applied to the demagogue Hyperbolus, is a transliteration of the Old Persian word . In fact, a Persian origin μαρικ⋯ς was suspected long ago. The seventeenth-century English scholar Edward Bernard, whose notes were used by J. Alberti in his edition of Hesychius, connected μαρικ⋯ς with the Modern Persian mardekeh, which literally means ‘a little man’ and has the connotation ‘a vile person’, ‘a scoundrel’. A. Meineke followed Bernard's derivation of μαρικ⋯ς from Persian, as did K. Latte in his recent edition of Hesychius. These references should be added to Cassio's citation of E. Maass' quotation of K. F. Geldner's opinion.

Despite the discredit into which the once famous theory of Niebuhr has long sincefallen, it is beginning to appear, both to historians and to students of literature, that Epic poetry was in full process of evolution at Rome before Livius Andronicus was inspired to translate the Odyssey. There is, indeed, ample evidence to warrant such a belief; our authorities may most conveniently be considered in two main divisions. The first calls for no more than the barest mention, for it is concerned with those Naeniae and Cantus Conuiuiales the existence of which is not seriously challenged by even the most conservative criticism. They are well attested, and the evidence for their extreme antiquity is familiar to every reader of Cicero. In passing we may mention also Saturnian epitaphs like those of the Scipios, and the Tituli Triumphales set up in the Capitol. Typical lines are: Fundit, fugat, prosternit maximas legiones, from the inscription of M'Acilius Glabrio, and Summas opes qui regum regias refregit (which, however, Diomedes appears to quote as from Naevius).

The old Analytical view that the union between the Journey of Telemachus and the rest of the Odyssey is post-Homeric, superficial, and incompetently effected is nowadays widely rejected, and rightly so. However, although many defences cumulatively, I believe, successful–of the content of the second divine assembly have been put forward in recent years, no adequate answer has yet been given to the objections raised against the allegedly anomalous language of Athene's speech of 5.7–20:

Plutarch of Chaeronea was a voluminous writer whose experience of the Graeco-Roman world of his own day was quite as comprehensive as his knowledge of earlier ages. The ancient historian is often daunted by the sheer bulk of Plutarch's work and prefers customarily to concentrate his attention upon the Lives, which, if not history, at least contain much historical matter.

The Epicurean Colotes, in a work entitled Περὶ τοῦ ὅτι κατὰ τὰ τῶν ἄλλων φιλοσόφων οὐδὲ ζῆν ἔστιν, cited two fragments of Empedocles in order to prove that the poet denied that existence exists (frr. B 8–9 DK = 12–13 Wright). Both are prominent in controversies about Empedocles’ physics and his usage of the term φύσις, but fr. 9 is very corrupt. To have any hope of restoring it, we will need to examine carefully Plutarch's explication de texte in his Adversus Colotem (10–12, 1111f–1113e). Although there have been two detailed treatments of this passage, neither has resolved the difficulties.

The most striking example of Roman intervention in the affairs of mainland Greece between the Achaean and Mithridatic Wars is provided by an inscription now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This stone bears the text of a letter to the city of Dyme in Achaea from a Roman proconsul named Q. Fabius Maximus, which describes his trial and sentencing of certain men of Dyme whom he had judged responsible for a recent disturbance in that city. One crux to be resolved is chronological: A date of c. 115 b.c. has long been generally accepted, but recently evidence from another, still unpublished inscription has been thought to point to the year 144. Further, the letter of Fabius Maximus has long been held to exemplify the close supervision that most scholars, regardless of their position on the vexed question of Greece's formal status after 146, assume was exercised over Greece by Roman commanders in Macedonia from the time of the Achaean War. The document has also often been cited to bolster the claim that Rome pursued in second-century Greece a conscious policy of suppressing democracy or the political aspirations of the lower class. This is not, of course, the place for reassessment of these old, complex controversies. My purpose here is rather to show that interpretation of the letter of Fabius Maximus has not always been sufficiently mindful of the many obscurities of the text and, consequently, of the events that lie behind it; too often the great lacunae in our knowledge have been filled with assumptions that beg the questions that are under debate.

The methods of assessing a writer's spirit vary in usefulness according to his genre. If he is a satirist much may often be learned through an examination of his names. This is certainly true of Horace, and one might have thought that in recent years a fair amount of attention would have been paid to this aspect of his work. Yet to the best of my knowledge no special study has been published in the present century. Certain points have been well noted by scholars like Vogel, Becher, and Marouzeau, and a few editions contain summaries of the material. The last detailed discussion, however, was that of Cartault, and one must admit that it was not wholly unbiased. So it seems reasonable to review the evidence again, making use of the work done by Marx, Cichorius, Münzer, and others. We do not have to inquire about all the characters in the Sermones; only satirical references need be considered, and even here there is room for selection, because some of the figures are so obscure that nothing helpful can be said about them.

In Satires 1.1 Horace asks the question why people are discontented and praise the fortunes of others, and he gives the answer that they are greedy. The precise connection between question and answer is however far from clear, and some commentators have felt that Horace has combined two separate themes of avarice and discontent without establishing a causal link between them. The great obstacle for critics who argue for thematic unity is to explain how it is that the malcontents of 1–19 are motivated by greed, for Horace is not explicit but merely asserts baldly that it is so (108–9), and leaves the reader to work out the logic. The direct method is to identify to some degree praise of the fortunes of others with an envious desire to outstrip them in wealth. In support we may quote two of the most influential recent interpreters of the Satires, to whom all interested in the poems owe a great debt: ‘It is avaritia that is at the bottom of the misguided yearning after other men's lot. All those people would not be prepared to have a change; rather will they, out of greed, put up with any toil or danger.’

Hanc quoque ‘iucunditatem’, si vis, transfer in animum (‘iuvare’ enim in utroque dicitur, ex eoque ‘iucundum’), rnodo intellegas inter ilium qui dicat

Tanta laetitia auctus sum ut nihil constet

et eum qui

Nunc demum mihi animus ardet,

quorum alter laetitia gestiat, alter dolore crucietur, esse ilium medium [Quamquam haec inter nos nuper notitia admodum est] qui nee laetetur nee angatur, itemque inter eum qui potiatur corporis expetitis voluptatibus et eum qui crucietur summis doloribus esse eum qui utroque careat.

Epicurus denies that human beings have natural parental love for their children, and his account of the development of justice and human political community does not involve any natural affinity between human beings in general but rather a form of social contract. The Stoics to the contrary assert that parental love is natural; and, moreover, they maintain that natural parental love is the first principle of social οἰκείωσις, which provides the basis for the naturalness of justice and human political community. The Stoics are, therefore, obliged to refute Epicurus’ denial of the naturalness of parental love in order to support their own theory of social οἰκείωσις; and we have good evidence for the arguments that they employed against the Epicureans on this account. Likewise, the Epicureans are obliged not only to defend their own position but also to undermine the competing Stoic theory of social οἰκείωσις; and the foundational premise of a natural bond between parent and child is an obvious target. However, beyond dogmatically restating Epicurus’ denial of natural parental love, the evidence for the Epicurean line of attack against the Stoics is currently unclear. In this paper I argue that we can go some way towards uncovering it via an analysis of some fragmentary passages from an unidentified work of the Epicurean Demetrius of Laconia (c.150–75 b.c.) that contain a puzzling discussion of Epicurus’ stance on parental love.