Modern interpretation tends to take E. Med. 639, ‘driving from the senses over a second bed’ (θυμ⋯ν ⋯κπλήξασ' ⋯τέροις ⋯π⋯ λέκτροις), found within the petition of the chorus that ‘dread Cypris never…inflict angry arguments and insatiate quarrels’ (637–40a), as referring to a second bed that might allure these women themselves rather than one that might allure their husbands. None the less, the latter interpretation seems to be recommended by both the contents and the context of the line; it is also consistent with Euripidean idiom. As to the context, v. 639 is found in the second stasimon. An examination of the attitude of the chorus toward Medea up to this point may guide us towards a fuller understanding of the phrase.

In her opening speech in the first episode (214ff.) Medea, who was betrayed by the husband for whom she left family and country (252ff.), persuades the already sympathetic chorus (136–8, 178f., 182) to side with her as underprivileged women in a world dominated by egocentric men (230ff.). In the first pair of strophes of the following stasimon (410–30) they accept Medea's division of human beings into ‘the female stock’ (419) and ‘the race of males’ (429) and sing of male perfidy and discrimination against women. They stress their own personal involvement by replacing ‘women’ with ‘I’ and ‘we’ in five of the seven references to the second sex (415 and 422 ‘my’, 423 and 430 ‘our’, 428 ‘I’).

It seems to have been assumed that Lucretius elides final s promiscuously, as Ennius does, at any part of the line. The following statement of facts will show that the truth is very different: I take all cases where the reading appears certain. (1) He has twenty-eight such elisions at the end of the fifth foot, including the emended ii. 623, 975, 986, v. 1410; (2) ten at the weak caesura of the fifth foot, including the emended iii. 198, 1016, v. 949, 1106. But except in these two positions the elison is quite rare and exceptional. I will begin the exceptions by giving (3) a peculiar group: ii. 5, omm' sit. 458, omnibu' sunt (Lamb.), 1079, aliquoiu' siet (Gronov.), iv. 493, coloribu' sint, 1152, corpori' sunt, 1268, opu' sunt, v. 456, minoribu' sunt, 1445, priu' sunt; all these are from the first four feet, but evidently to Lucretius a combination like opu' sunt is very different from, say, opu' fit. Indeed, I take it that opusit was to him just one word like necessest; the following s in sit and sunt helps, perhaps, and so the solitary instance in Catullus is before s; at any rate, this group is obviously exceptional. There remain (4) only two elisions at the end of the fourth foot, iv. 1035 and the emended vi. 972; two at the end of the second foot, immutabili' in i. 591, and immortalibu' in v. 53, both due to correctors and both words of a form which is rare at the opening of a line; one in weak fourth caesura, iii. 905; one at end of first foot, i. 978. You will hardly believe me, but those are all.

There is no established agreement concerning the meaning of πτυχαῖς. The scholiasts give three alternatives: (1) ταῖς ποισεσιν πε διαιρεῖται εἰς στροϕς κα ντιστρΦους κα πῳδς. To the same effect, but more comprehensively, Boeckh interprets: artificiosi flexus numerorum harmoniae saltationis. Similarly Donaldson, Paley, Fennell, and Mezger apply the expression to the artistic turns of poetry; and Gildersleeve's sinuous songs is explained to mean the same thing. Myers translated sounding labyrinths of song, which Sandys modified to sounding bouts of song; but I am not sure that I understand their metaphors. (2) Embroidery of song is apparently a suggestion of the scholiast, since he remarks that πτυχαῖς is suitably (οἰκεως) attached to δαιδαλωσμεν and ποικλλειν—ὥσπερ π κατασκευσματος. But we look in vain for a justification of πτυχα so employed. (3) Then comes the counsel of despair ὕμνων πτυχαῖς: τοῖς ὕμνοις κατ περΦρασιν, for which it is perhaps unnecessary to refer to Rutherford's Annotation, p. 250. I cannot think that anyone is really satisfied with such explanations, although there are no open notes of dissent. There must be some objection which I do not see to the rendering ‘glorious pages of minstrelsy,’ and yet πτυχ is well established in that connexion: Aesch. Suppl. 947 οὐδ' ν ββλων πτυχαῖς κατεσΦραγισμνα where Schuetz rightly finds a reference to charta papyracea )( πνακες. Everyone remembers Gray's ‘Knowledge … her ample page rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll.’

I take this opportunity of correcting a particularly reprehensible error of my own on p. 140 of my edition of these poems. At A.A. 1. 730 read ‘…hoc multri †non ualuisse† putant’; and at 11. 3-4 of the critical apparatus read ‘equidem multi <s> utique’ eqs. In other words, the manuscripts are unanimous in offering multi. I hope that Dr. Lenz will be glad to have this evidence of our common humanity (Maia xiii [1961], 131).

Vollmer, modifying the transposition by Fr. Jacobs of 61–74 after 24, placed these lines after 23; this finally put paid to the reading exordiar astus, which the authority of the Aldine edition had imposed on the early editors, and consequently v. 24 could no longer be taken as concluding the sense of the preceding lines.

IN the fourth book of Stobaeus’ Anthologium, in a section entitled, ‘The Virtue of Having Children’, there is preserved a passage from the writings of the first-century Roman knight and Stoic, Musonius Rufus. This passage is headed: ‘Whether all children born should be raised’,

Apollonius Dyscolus’ use of ambiguity in grammatical problem-solving has in recent years had the benefit of two scholarly studies. David Blank, in the course of his analysis of the Syntax as a whole (1982), has described the broad functions which Apollonius assigns to ambiguity. Jean Lallot's 1988 paper, ‘Apollonius Dyscole et l'ambigüité linguistique: problemes et solutions’, is devoted exclusively to the treatment of linguistic ambiguity in Apollonius’ work. Yet it is to be feared that the flood of light thrown by these scholars on what had been an unregarded corner of ancient grammar has shown up rather more than Apollonius would have cared to admit, both about the nature, and about the prospects for success, of the enterprise on which he was engaged. At the same time, certain structural features of ancient grammar, at least of the ancient grammar which Apollonius himself constructed, have come into sharper focus: features clear enough with the benefit of hindsight, but glimpsed, it appears, all too dimly by Apollonius himslf. It is now worryingly clear not only that ambiguity was ambiguous for Apollonius, but also that the ambiguity of ambiguity represented a genuine threat to the coherence and value of his work. In this paper I set out to justify both these claims.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the variations in Cicero's treatment of Clodius in his speeches and to suggest reasons why these variations occur. The treatment of five principal themes will be considered: (1) Clodius' relationship with Gabinius and Piso; (2) Clodius’ alleged link with Catiline and/or surviving Catilinarians; (3) the Bona Dea affair; (4) Clodius’ alleged incest with one or more of his sisters; (5) Clodius’ supposed insanity, which clearly exceeded the tribunician norm.

Probably no part of the Iliad has given rise to more discussion than the apparent contradiction between Books 9 and 16. In the former, Agamemnon's embassy offers Achilles the restoration of Briseis and ‘handsome gifts’ in recompense for taking her: in the latter Achilles tells Patroklos to obey his battle-orders exactly, ‘so that you may win me great renown and glory from all the Danaans, and they shall restore the lovely damsel and also give splendid gifts’ —just as though he had not refused precisely these things only the night before

In PCPhS 213 (NS 33, 1987), 92–104 at 93–6, Oliver Taplin suggests that the Getty vase published by J. R. Green in 1985 represents not Aristophanes' Birds but the first version of Clouds. The purpose of this note is to offer some support for this, while perhaps raising further problems.

These notes have been interrupted by the war, and the appearance of Wilamowitz's Platon (Berlin, 1919) makes it desirable to resume them on a slightly different plan. That work has an appendix entitled Textkritik (vol. ii., pp. 323 sqq.), which cannot be passed over in silence, since the writer's reputation and the air of authority he assumes might easily mislead those who have no first-hand knowledge of Platonic textual criticism. I hope to show that most of his conjectures are wrong, and that many of them suggest doubts as to his knowledge of Platonic Greek.

Against prevailing interpretations, this article contends that Plato's Sophist and Statesman accord the sophist a kind of ‘knowing-how’ (epistêmê). In Soph. 233c10‒d2, the Visitor and Theaetetus agree that the sophist has not truth but a δοξαστικὴ ἐπιστήμη. This phrase cannot mean ‘a seeming knowledge’, for –ικός adjectives formed from verbs express the ability to perform the action denoted by the verb—here, δοξάζω. Although not a first-order, subject-area knowledge, sophistry is a second-order knowledge of how to form and use judgements (doxai). Other acknowledgements of the sophist's epistêmê and the ascription to him of τέχνη, ‘craft/expertise’, confirm that the Visitor's conclusion is not to be dismissed as irony. To critics who argue from the Gorgias and from other works that Plato must consider the Visitor's conclusion an error, the author replies: 1) other dialogues do not control the Visitor dialogues; 2) the Visitor does not validly demonstrate that the sophist lacks all knowledge; 3) by admitting sensibles into Being, the Visitor and Theaetetus allow the objects of epistêmê to include things in the embodied world, even likenesses. Non-philosophers’ epistêmê in the Visitor dialogues is not implicated in the difficulties that critics have raised about epistemology in the so-called Two Worlds dialogues. On this new ontology, even the sophist, if guided by philosophical rulers, can benefit citizens by employing his elenctic expertise as Socrates did, aiding their growth toward virtue.

The name Iphianassa occurs only once in Latin literature—in the proem to De Rerum Natura (= DRN). Here Lucretius illustrates the evils of religion with a description of Iphianassa's sacrifice at Aulis (1.80–101):

illud in his rebus uereor, ne forte rearis
impia te rationis inire elementa uiamque
indugredi sceleris. quod contra saepius illa
religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta.
Aulide quo pacto Triuiai uirginis aram
Iphianassai turparunt sanguine foede
ductores Danaum delecti, prima uirorum.
cui simul infula uirgineos circumdata comptus
ex utraque pari malarum parte profusast,
et maestum simul ante aras adstare parentem
sensit et hunc propter ferrum celare ministros
aspectuque suo lacrimas effundere ciuis,
muta metu terram genibus summissa petebat.
nec miserae prodesse in tali tempore quibat
quod patrio princeps donarat nomine regem.
nam sublata uirum manibus tremibundaque ad aras
deductast, non ut sollemni more sacrorum
perfecto posset claro comitari Hymenaeo,
sed casta inceste nubendi tempore in ipso
hostia concideret mactatu maesta parentis,
exitus ut classi felix faustusque daretur.
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

While it is no secret that Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica explores civil-war themes at great length, the conflicts arising on the island of Peuce between the Colchians and the Argonauts and within the Argonautic party itself in the epic's final book (8.217–467) have been overlooked in critical studies of Valerian civil war. This article argues that Valerius presents the conflicts on Peuce as examples of civil war—emphasizing the bonds of kinship between the conflicting parties and illustrating effects of this discord using imagery of stasis and cosmic dissolution associated with civil war in the wider Latin literary tradition—and thus invites reflection on the development and manifestation of internecine strife within the Argonautica.

It is, I think, a fair presumption to suppose that there was some bond uniting all the different aspects of Pythagoras' thought, a bond strong enough to satisfy Pythagoras himself, but loose enough for the to be able, later, to cast off the religious and mystical doctrines without endangering the rest.

A change in the form of narrative presentation divides Heliodorus’ Aethiopica in two halves, the first embracing Books 1–5, the second Books 6–10. The shift has been described in different terms: Keyes notes that, whereas the first part uses an in medias res opening, the second follows by and large chronological order. Morgan ascribes to the first half a ‘hermeneutic impulse’ that gives way to an ‘end-directed’ drive in the second half. Using Sternberg's concept of narrative time, one could say that by and large the first five books are dominated by curiosity, the second five books by suspense: after trying to fathom the prehistory, the reader then directs her attention to the further development of the plot. The shift, however, concerns not only the orchestration of time, but also the stance of the narrator: while Hefti juxtaposes the net of embedded narratives in the first five books with the predominance of the primary narrator in the last five books, Futre Pinheiro considers the shift in terms of ‘showing’ and ‘telling’. The difference between the two halves of the Aethiopica thus hinges on the central narratological categories of time and voice.

Active in Alexandria during the second half of the third century, Dioscorides is the author of some forty epigrams preserved in the Anthologia Palatina. Five of these epigrams are concerned with Greek playwrights: three dramatists of the archaic and classical periods, Thespis, Aeschylus and Sophocles, and two contemporary ones, Sositheus and Machon. Dioscorides conceived four epigrams as two pairs (Thespis and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Sositheus) clearly marked by verbal connections, and celebrates each playwright for his original contribution to the history of Greek drama. Thespis boasts to have discovered tragedy; Aeschylus to have elevated it. The twin epigrams devoted to Sophocles and Sositheus present Sophocles as refining the satyrs and Sositheus as making them, once again, primitive. Finally, Machon is singled out for his comedies as ‘worthy remnants of ancient art (τέχνης … ἀρχαίης)’. Dioscorides’ miniature history of Greek drama, which is interesting both for its debts to the ancient tradition surrounding classical playwrights and for the light it sheds on contemporary drama, clearly smacks of archaizing sympathies. They drive Dioscorides’ selection of authors and his treatment of contemporary dramatists: both Sositheus and Machon are praised for consciously looking back to the masters of the past. My focus is on Sositheus and his ‘new’ satyr-play. After discussing the relationship that Dioscorides establishes between Sophocles’ and Sositheus’ satyrs, and reviewing scholarly interpretations of Sositheus’ innovations, I will argue that Dioscorides speaks the language of New Music. His epigram celebrates Sositheus as rejecting New Music and its trends, and as composing satyr plays that were musically old fashioned and therefore reactionary.

Among the many points of interest in N.G. Wilson's admirable new text of Aristophanes is his handling of the closing scene of Lysistrata, and in particular the question of the heroine's role in that scene. In the new OCT we find the short speech 1273–8 ascribed to Lysistrata, while the apparatus notes ‘legato tribuunt quidam’ (in other words, to one of the Athenian males already on stage). The song which follows (1279–90) is also given to Lysistrata, but the apparatus comments ‘quis canat incertum est.’ Finally Lysistrata is presumed to speak the single line 1295 inviting the Spartan ambassador to sing a fresh song.

This article argues that the word ψυχαγωγία and its cognates which are found in the writings of Philodemus retain a semantic connection to the domain of magic and are best translated in terms of ‘enchantment’ rather than the more generic sense of ‘entertainment’.