In his speech against Meidias Demosthenes describes the arrogant and proud behaviour of his opponent in which Meidias persists in spite of the popular vote condemning him. Whenever there is voting, Demosthenes says, Meidias is put forward as a candidate; he is the proxenos of Plutarch, he knows everything, the city is too small for his aspirations. This illustration of the enormous popularity of an Athenian politician shows his predominant influence in the two spheres of domestic and foreign policy. The main line of this foreign policy —the passage is obviously intended as an accusation—is expressed by the relationship of proxenia and xenia between Meidias and Plutarch, the leading politician of Eretria who, pro-Athenian at first, changed his attitude and almost brought disaster on the Athenian army intervening in Euboea.

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.

At the end of the dialogue Theages, after a general review of the prophetic power given by Socrates quotes the words of Aristides to himself—130 d—e:

The extravagant claim here made for the influence of Socrates as conveyed through physical proximity and contact is one of the chief reasons for regarding the dialogue as spurious, giving as it does a later and a distorted development from suggestions made by Plato and Xenophon themselves.

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.

Cynthia's apparition is upbraiding Propertius ior having forgotten her so soon. In spite of their former love, he had not been present at her death, and, because of his neglect, her funeral had been a mean affair, lacking not merely any signs of affection, but any semblance of ordinary decent feeling. In a succession of couplets tracing the regular stages of a Roman funeral from the deathbed to the final rites of the cremation, this lack of respect and affection is particularized: no loving voice had been heard in her dying moments (23–24); her body had been laid out to await the funeral with little thought for what was seemly at such a time (25-26); on the day of the funeral Propertius had not put on mourning or shown signs of grief (27–28); the funeral procession had moved with indecorous haste to the city gate (29–30); Propertius had not been present at the cremation, and no perfumes had been poured on the flames (31–32); no customary final offerings had been made to the ashes (33–34).

Persius places these words in the mouth of his interlocutor, who states one of the traditional arguments against satire in the contrived manner typical of our poet. The passage may be translated: ‘What need is there to rasp upon tender little ears with biting truth? Be careful that the thresholds of the great do not perhaps grow cold towards you; here there is the nasal sound of the canine letter.’

The idea of the philosopher-statesman finds its first literary expression in Plato's Republic, where Socrates, facing the ‘third wave’ of criticism of his ideal State, how it can be realized in practice, declares2 that it will be sufficient ‘to indicate the least change that would affect a transformation into this type of government. There is one change’, he claims, ‘not a small change certainly, nor an easy one, but possible.’ ‘Unless either philosophers become kings in their countries, or those who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiendy inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless, that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together, … there can be no rest from troubles for states.’

Herodotus has told us some queer tales but it is always unsafe to discredit them merely because they seem strange to us. Who would have thought that his story of the bald-headed Argippaioi who sat under trees judging the Scythians was literally true until the recent discovery in Russia of a felt wall hanging providing a contemporary illustration of these queer tribunals ?

Vocem in v. 514 is generally taken to mean ‘voice’ on this basis there are two possible interpretations— (a) that Allecto shouted through the bucina, or (b) that two actions are implied, an alarm call on the bucina followed by a shout, (a) is, owing to the structure of this type of instrument, physically impossible; this may or may not be regarded as an objection, (b) presents less difficulty, but it seems strange that, if two actions are involved, Vergil should have joined cornuque recuruo syntactically with the wrong one of the two; in sense it would belong with pastorale canit signum.

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.

The links between Eileithyia, an earlier Minoan goddess, and a still earlier neolithic prototype are, relatively, firm. The explanation is as simple as it is important. The continuity of her cult depends upon the unchanging concept of her function. Eileithyia was the goddess of childbirth; and the divine helper of women in labour has an obvious origin in the human midwife. To Homer she is ‘goddess of the pains of birth’. When Leto gave birth to Apollo in Delos, was in attendance, and so were a number of other goddesses who bathed the god-child and wrapped him in his swaddling-clothes.

In a recent issue of this journal (C.Q., N.S. vii [1957], 47–52) Professor P. Thielscher criticizes my hypothesis concerning the manuscript tradition of the Silvae of Statius (see C.Q., N.S. iii [1953], 69–78). He censures me for what he calls my ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’. Here are my answers.

The rhetorical treatises of Aristotle and Anaximenes, in discussing the introduction of a speech, recognize that a speaker may encounter prejudice on the part of his audience for some reason or other; perhaps because of his own character or reputation, or because of the nature of the case he is pleading, or because his opponent has already won their approval. Anaximenes describes a speaker in this situation as and he and Aristotle give advice on countering such if they have arisen (Arist. Rhet. 3. 15; Anax. Rhet. ad Alex. 29 fin., 35 init., 36 init.). Rather more than two centuries later we find the early Latin rhetoricians expounding the doctrine of insinuatio for dealing with such a situation; they distinguish between principium, the ordinary direct introduction, and insinuatio, the ‘subtle approach’ (Caplan, in his Loeb translation of the ad Herennium, p. 13).

In his choice of quotations concerning fate and the good ordering of events Stobaeus (Eel. 5. 10–12) gives in succession three passages which the manuscripts ascribe to the Peleus of Euripides and the Phaedra of Sophocles, but as Wilamowitz and Nauck saw, all three form a single piece, and the ascriptions to Euripides and Sophocles do not concern them. The text so recovered may be presented as follows

All we know of this law is to be found in Cicero's Pro Cluentio. Elsewhere we have only one passing reference to it. However, this speech seems to give us the main clause of the bill as it appeared after incorporation in the Lex Cornelia de sicariis el veneficis: ‘Qui tribunus militum legionibus quattuor primis quive quaestor, tribunus plebis’ —deinceps omnes magistratus nominavit—‘quive in senatu sententiam dixit dixerit, qui eorum coiit, coierit, convenit, convenerit quo quis iudicio publico condemnaretur de eius capite quaerito.

In the Classical Quarterly, xlix (July–October 1955), Mrs. A. D. Ure mentions a Corinthian pyxis which had been previously published by her in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxix. 19 f. (Figs. 2a and 3). This vase, at first believed to be of Boeotian origin, appears to come from Corinth, as subsequently shown by Mrs. Ure in J.H.S. lxxii. 121. Its subject is quite well known, consisting of an unbearded figure dressed in a fawn-skin with two horns growing from its head, and sitting on what very probably is a heap of corn. In his right hand he is holding a staff thickened at the head, and in his left a stick terminating in forklike prongs. The figure is flanked on the right by a small animal (pig) and on the left by a basket of fruit.