In my article ‘Two Textual Problems in Euripides’ Antiope, Fr. 188' (C.Q. N.S. xvii [1967], 41 ff.), in which I compared the debate of Amphion the unpractical musician and his industrious brother Zethus to the fable of the cicada and the ant, I drew attention to a passage of Olympiodorus' commentary on the Gorgias (p. 161, Norvin) which had been overlooked in the testimonia to Euripides' play, and which begins

‘Ivravit in mea uerba tota Italia sponte sua et me belli quo uici ad Actium ducem depoposcit.’ In these words the Emperor Augustus clearly meant to suggest that the war in which he got rid of Mark Antony was none of his making, but was imposed upon him by the free and self-determined action of the Italian nation. Modern historians have unanimously refused to regard Augustus as a passive instrument in the hands of the Roman people at large; yet they have generally accepted his account of the oath-taking of 32 B.C. as the outcome of a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm in his behalf, which they interpret as the reflex result of the nation's resentment against Antony's un-Roman and treasonable behaviour.

There is a suspicion in the minds of a number of Virgil's modern commentators that Corydon, the lover-shepherd of the second Eclogue, is himself a slave, and that the dominus of his beloved Alexis (who may be the Iollas of line 57) is his master too.1 It is the purpose of this note to show that the suspicion is baseless.

None of the ancient commentators appears to know of such an interpretation. This should be significant in that they probably shared the poet's assumptions about literary decorum. We can gather how Virgil viewed the function of slaves in poetry of an exalted genre by looking at the Aeneid and the Georgics. The essential considerations were set out by W. E. Heitland in Agricola (1921), pp. 218-41. Virgil was less ready to introduce slaves into his epic than Homer had been. More startling is the complete silence of the poet in the Georgics on the use of slave labour in contemporary farming. Literary decorum induces this reticence; slaves are too mean to have a voice or place in epos. How do matters stand with pastoral?

The longest extant fragment of the Arimaspea consists of six lines quoted by ‘Longinus’ in On the Sublime 10. 4. He does not mention its author by name but contents himself with a guarded reference to 6 , as if he himself had doubts about the authenticity of its ascription to Aristeas of Proconnesus.

The discovery and identification by G. Muzzioli of ten leaves from a Beneventan manuscript of the Apologia of Apuleius in the Biblioteca Comunale of Assisi (now numbered 706 in that library) was communicated to the Comitato Consultivo of the R. Istituto di Patologia del Libro on 30 March 1942, and published in the same year in the Institute's Bolletino, iv. 1 (1942), 13, 14.

The most recent work dealing expressly with adoption in Greece is Wentzel's article in Hermes lxv (1930), 167–76, ‘Studien über die Adoption in Griechen-land’. Her article ranges widely over the whole subject and includes a list of all the inscriptions known to her which refer to adoptions, as well as a list of the adoptive formulae found in these inscriptions. In the present article I shall deal more fully with these formulae.

Astronomy has been known to profit on occasion from the observations of amateurs; and so perhaps, in its less technical passages, could the Astronomica. I venture to dispute the emendations of Mr. Shackleton Bailey (hereinafter S.B.) in the first two items of his learned Maniliana (C.Q., N.S. vi. 81).

In my previous article I argued that certain of the later MSS. of the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, and especially those which I call Class I., are to a large extent descended from a lost copy of F, made before the rent was torn in Book VIII., and therefore before the writing of ϕ; and I inferred that it was likely that the evidence of these MSS. would prove a valuable addition to that of ϕ in places where F is now illegible. In the following pages I shall prove that this hope has been fulfilled.

I refer to the editions of the third book of Columella by S. Hedberg (Uppsala, 1968) and J. C. Dumont (Paris, 1993).

… nullus tamen uel iniquissimus locus non maiorem quaestum reddet quam acceperit inpensam: siquidem, ut cultoris neglegentia sex milia seminum intereant, reliqua tamen decem milia tribus milibus nummorum libenter et cum lucro redemptorum erunt… 3.3.12–13

In the discussions and debates about the precise nature of Melanthios’ abuse of Eumaios and Odysseus at Od. 17.215–32 and especially the meaning of μoλoβρóν at 219, an important point appears to have been missed.

In 191O Wilamowitz suggested that the account of the election of the first Magnesian officials (Laws 751 a–755 b) is a conflation of two originally separate sets of proposals. After long neglect his arguments have been resurrected, with one major modification and in more detail, by Morrow. I intend to argue that both commentators are fundamentally mistaken, and that, properly interpreted, the passage yields limited but valuable information about Plato's plans for coping with the problems of founding a state from scratch. These plans are not simply of theoretical interest: as D. A. Russell has remarked, the Laws is our best guide to the policies and practices of the constitutional advisers sent out by the Academy.

Critics comment on the simplicity of the jest here, not without reason.1 But the levity also has some sophistication, of a literary kind. For a start,andare aptly long and are carefully left to the end of their clauses and lines for maximum effect. In addition, these striking words, which appear for the first (and last) time in Sappho, may well have been deliberate adaptations of two adjectives which had previously occurred only in Homer,2 and they would in any case have called to mind the Homeric ones, because of their close similarity and because there are no other variants of these compounds in surviving literature down to the time of the j poetess.3 At Odyssey11.312 the poet had said of Otus and Ephialtes and at Iliad 7.220, 222, 245, 266 and 11.545 he had described the shield of Ajax asSo, given the epic flavour of Sappho′s epithets, it was amusing of her to include them at all in such a light and frivolous context. There is also pawkiness in the poetess′s application of these terms I with their Homeric tinge to quite different and very mundane objects; and the humour is increased when one takes into account the associations that these words had (in connection with the feet of a human she uses an adjective that recalls the extent of the whole bodies of two Giants; and with reference to the sandals of an ordinary man she uses one which conjures up the huge shield of a hero).This strikes me as an early instance of witty adaptation of epic diction such as is found in Anacreon 358 and 417 PMG.4

Since Teuffel's Römische Literatur (at least the edition of 1910) mentions s.v. Varius (६ 223, 2) the famous entry in the Monte Cassino MS. (Paris Bibl. Nat. Lat. 7530) incipit thvestes varii, but ignores its occurrence in a Benevento MS. (Rome, Casanat. 1086 or A III. 11), it may be well to give some account of the latter codex. For I read with amusement a recent article in this journal in which the writer severely censured Mr. Garrod's ignorance of the entry in Paris 7530, but revealed his own ignorance by assuming that it was the scribe of the Paris MS. who had the lost tragedy of Varius before him.

Claudian's carm. min. 50 which is addressed ‘In Jacobum Magistrum Equitum’ has recently been the subject of a detailed study by J. Vanderspoel. In it he reviews what little we know about the career of Jacobus using as his second source in this matter the letter of Vigilius, bishop of Tridentum, to John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, the heading of which reports that the relics of the martyrs Sisinnius, Alexander and Martyrius reached Constantinople ‘per Jacobum virum illustrem’. Whilst I am willing to accept the argument that the relics must have been delivered by about A.D. 400, if not earlier, and that Jacobus received the office of magister equitum subsequent to this, I have some misgivings about the treatment afforded the earlier career of Jacobus, and it is to this matter which I wish to draw attention here.

The Ionian war was more complex than any previous war in which Greeks had fought one another. Various factors contributed to its complexity. One of them was the uneasy partnership between Peloponnesians and Persians, which seldom functioned to the complete satisfaction of the former and was at times almost in abeyance. Other factors were the oligarchical revolution at Athens, which nearly plunged the Athenians into civil war, and the chameleon-like behaviour of Alcibiades, who within a brief period lent his services first to Sparta, then to Persia, and finally to Athens, though at all times serving primarily his own interests. Yet another factor was the multiplicity of Greek states directly or indirectly involved in the war. In addition to those of the Greek homeland and of Italy and Sicily which supplied contingents to the Peloponnesian expeditionary forces in Asia, all the members of the Delian Confederacy included at any time in the Ionian, Hellespontine, and Carian districts, numbering more than 150, must have been affected to some extent by the war, though only a fraction of them played an active part in it. The aim of this paper is to consider the attitude of Asiatic Greek cities towards the war and the extent of their involvement in it.

In the course of a wider study of stylistic development in Cicero's speeches1 an examination was conducted into the clausal and phrasal structure of a chronological cross-section of the speeches. The examination revealed some clearly distinguishable developments in the orator's maturing style.

This paper is restricted to an examination of one aspect of his stylistic development, namely his use of abundantia of phrases. The term abundantia has a long history, but in Cicero's rhetorical treatises it is almost synonymous with amplitudo and copia.

On the analogy of the colloquial register in some modern languages, where narrative and argument may be punctuated by oaths and exclamations (sometimes obscene or blasphemous) in order to maintain a high affective level and compel the hearer's attention, it is reasonable to postulate that Attic conversation also was punctuated by oaths, that this ingredient in comic language was drawn from life, and that the comparative frequency of ║ (|) M M (M) Δ in comedy is sufficiently explained thereby. There are obvious affinities between some passages of comedy, relaxed conversation in Plato and Xenophon, and the forceful, man-to-man tone which Demosthenes sometimes adopts to such good effect (e.g. xxi 209). Compare, for instance, Ar. V. 133 f. ἔστιν δ' ⋯νομα ⋮ τῷ μ⋯ν γέροντι ⋮ Φιλοκλέων / να⋯ μ⋯ Δία, τῷ δ' υἱεῖ κτλ., where the oath is a response to imagined incredulity, and X. Smp. 4.27 αὐτ⋯ν δ⋯ σέ, ἔɸη, ⋯γὼ εἶδον να⋯ μ⋯ τ⋯ν Ἀπόλλω, ὅτε κτλ. (‘Oh, yes, I did!’).

It is also important that the commonest oaths fit, in most of their forms, the end of an iambic trimeter: (να⋯) μ⋯ τ⋯ν Δία, ν⋯ (τ⋯ν) Δία,ν⋯ τούς θεούς, μ⋯ τοὺς θεούς. Add that in Aristophanic dialogue (by contrast with Menander) over half the iambic trimeters end with major pause, and half the remainder with minor pause, and we can see why Δ / established itself early as a distinctive comic pattern. Out of 105 examples of M M (M) Δ cited from comedy in Section II above, 59 have the oath at verse-end.

In the case of πάνυ, which was almost exclusively Attic and — to judge from its great rarity in tragedy — felt by Athenian poets to be prosaic, we lack evidence on its functions in the colloquial register; it may or may not have served as affective punctuation. In prose, we have to reckon with the fact that π Mπ and Mπ π constituted a genuine stylistic choice (cf. n. 32) as far back as the evidence will take us, since the two earliest instances in prose are [X.] Ath. 2.3 πάνυ δι⋯ χρείαν and ibid. 3.5 πολλ⋯ ἔτι πάνυ. The oath, as treated by the comic poets on the basis of colloquial usage, is bound to have served as a model for πάνυ, exerting an influence which pulled πάνυ to the end of the verse, but there was also a powerful metrical constraint. As a dibrach ending in a vowel which could not be elided or enter into crasis, πάνυ was especially appropriate for verse-end. That in itself was enough both to establish Mπ π as the dominant pattern in comedy and to promote Mπ … π. Out of the total of 104 examples of Mπ (…) π in comedy, 93 have πάνυ at verse-end, which makes Mπ (…) π / one of the hallmarks of comic style. Mπ … π does not occur in prose in association with any other feature identified as colloquial, but it should be noted that Aiskhines and Demosthenes are much fonder of Mπ π than other prose authors. In some cases one can see that the order Mπ π avoids a succession of short syllables (e.g. D. xviii 130, liv 1) or hiatus (e.g. D. xxx 36) or both (e.g. D. xliii 10), but there are other cases in which it has the opposite effect (e.g. D. xxiv 140, xliii 53). The possibility of comic influence on oratorical language cannot be dismissed out of hand. It is also possible that someone will find positive determinants which will explain all the cases of Mπ π in prose.

σɸόδρα, which, like πάνυ, is peculiarly Attic, is metrically more tractable than πάνυ, since it can be elided; even so, out of the 80 comic examples of Mσ (…) σ no less than 58 have σɸόδρα at verse-end, and of those 58 there are 22 at major pause, 8 at presumed major pause and 9 at minor pause. The comic treatment of σɸόδρα is thus comparable with the treatment of πάνυ, and Timokles (CGFP) 222(b).4 τηρεῖν…σɸόδρα is in fact the closest analogy we have to Ar. Pl. 234 f. ἄχθομαι…πάνυ.

δέ and γάρ are a different matter, and in some significant respects different from each other. Postponement of δέ is especially prominent in Aeschylus (45 examples, including a few in which the text is suspect) and then abundant in fourth-century comedy. It is much less common in Euripides (18 examples), rare in Sophocles (6) and Aristophanes (6), and virtually limited in prose to the categories which I labelled (l)–(3). There is as yet no evidence to associate postponement of δέ with colloquial language; on the contrary, it seems to have begun as a feature of poetic language and to have been taken up and exploited by fourth-century comedy. If, in addition to being Aeschylean, it was colloquial in the fourth century, what happened to it afterwards? Except for such an isolated and inexplicable case as Diod. xx85.1 (v.l.!) — in a military narrative — it is not a feature of the Koine at literary, documentary or subliterate level.

Postponement of γάρ was no doubt encouraged by postponement of δέ, but it is not itself notably poetic (20 examples in tragedy, of which only three come in my class (5)). One can see how it could possibly have developed in the spoken language of the fourth century, extending the function of γάρ as an explanatory particle (rather on the lines of γε) in a way which makes it comparable with the English ‘you see’ in (e.g.) ‘He didn't dare pick it up. He hurt his back last year, you see’. For an extension of this kind we may compare the current extension of the English genitive affix in (I heard both examples a year or two ago) ‘Then the girl whose place she was taking's mother turned up’ and ‘The man that Christopher liked's Introduction is much better’. Moreover, postponed γάρ appears in a segment of conversation constructed in indirect speech by Theophrastus in Char. 8.9 τ⋯ πρ⋯γμα βο⋯σθαι γάρ (p C N γάρ). Again we must ask: what happened to it afterwards? A couple of cases in Theophrastus' botanical works (CP iii 11.3 and HP iv 6.1) could be a reflex of the influence of comedy on literary language at Athens. The influence was plainly short-lived, since it did not affect the Koine.

It is not hard to see why serious poetry in the fifth century and earlier should have experimented occasionally with the postponement of δέ and γάρ: treatment of M M q as a valid alternative to M q M is metrically very convenient. No poet, however, could afford to use common words in a bizarre, un-Greek way merely to save himself time and trouble in constructing a verse. Linguistic innovation is normally analogical, proceeding by extension from a starting-point already there, and the most obvious starting-point for postponement of δέ and γάρ is constituted by my class (3). This consideration provides comic postponement with a pedigree, but does not deny it individuality. The remarkable scale and frequency with which comedy exploited a phenomenon which tragedy used with restraint and prose hardly at all gives comic postponement the right to be regarded as a quite distinctive artificial feature of comedy.

The most recent attempt to explain Aristotle's use of in Poetics 13 is that of T. C. W. Stinton (CQ N.S. 25 (1975), 221–54). Stinton insists that must not be restricted to any one definition, but should be understood to include a ‘range of applications’ embracing both moral error and ‘ignorance of fact’ (p. 221).

It is a view commonly held by Tibullus' commentators and critics that the poet's art consists essentially in the more or less skilful weaving together of disparate themes into a single elegy. Leo, for example, talks of Tibullus' imagination which ‘ihn selbst und somit den Hörer gleichsam unwillkürlich von Bild zu Bilde reisst’’;