In this passage the Sausage-Seller is commenting disparagingly on the boast of Paphlagon/Cleon that he has done far more good for Athens (‘the city’) than Themistocles ever did. In lines 814–16 the Sausage-Seller seems to allude to certain laudable actions on the part of Themistocles, which greatly benefitted the city, and in 817–18, by contrast, he sets against these an allegedly deleterious recent proposal/ activity of Paphlagon/Cleon.

The grammarians of antiquity, unlike some of their modern counterparts, seem to have had little interest in investigating ‘what every speaker knows’, at least as a largescale project, consciously articulated and embarked on. The object of such a project would be to determine what constitutes such knowledge—or mastery, or cognition, or whatever name it is given—in actual speakers. An alternative goal would be an account of something knowledge of which would count as knowledge of the language in question, even if this is not what actual speakers know. No ancient author seems to have set himself either task; indeed, the whole question of what it is to know a language seems to have been raised only very occasionally in classical antiquity. (Protagoras’ allusion to a ‘teacher of Greek’ in Plato's dialogue (327e2–328a1) is probably the best known of these rare discussions.) Kaimio is surely justified in making the still more sweeping observation that ‘The concept of language knowledge was rather vague amongst ancient peoples’ (1979: 316).

In the collection of oracular responses included in Book 14 of the Palatine Anthology, the oracle which bears the number 77 is introduced by the lemma χρησμòς ⋯ν τοῖς θησ⋯ως β⋯οις ⋯ναφερόμενος its text is as follows:

The same oracle, with the same introductory formula, is also quoted as a scholium in the margin to the text of Herodotus 1.65.3 (the famous oracle given to Lycurgus that will be discussed below) in the manuscript Flor. Laur. 70.3; first discovered by Jacob Gronovius, it can now be read in the editions of Stein, Rosen and Asheri.

Amongst the numerous difficult passages of the anonymous Constitution of the Athenians the present one, as a whole, has particularly tenaciously resisted attempts at interpretation or elucidation in spite of progress made as to a number of details. One major obstacle to a real understanding of this sentence (but by no means the only one) is the corrupt phrase in the final clause.

What merit should we find in Heliodoros' novel? Towards its end Hydaspes, agonizing over whether to save Charikleia from human sacrifice, sees before him an internal audience stirred by π⋯θη (emotions, feelings) equal to his and ‘weeping through pleasure and pity at Fortune's stage-management’ (10.16.3). This is a popular audience, a demos, evincing a popular reaction, but one which Heliodoros anticipated and doubtless welcomed. Their reaction is characterized by simple, direct emotions and some limited awareness of the larger processes that have been going on in this novel. For them this is a world of τ⋯χη (Fortune) and amazement. Does the novel invite any deeper critical reaction than this?

The phrase κατ⋯ Σαρπηδ⋯νιον χ⋯μα πολ⋯ψαμμον at Aeschylus, Supplices 869–702 is explained by a scholiast (Σ Aesch. Supp. 869–70 Smith) as κατ⋯ τ⋯ν Σαρπηδον⋯αν ἂκραν referring to a promontory in Cilicia. All modern commentators on this passage seem to have accepted the scholiast, and in the 1940 edition of LSJ ‘promontory, spit of sand’ are given as translations of χ⋯μα in this passage.

Andocides is generally not considered one of the best orators. To point up his flawed style, scholars have discussed a notoriously vindictive and humorous section in Andocides 1: in 124ff. Andocides describes the profligate lifestyle of his prosecutor, Callias III the Ceryx, the son of Hipponicus II and dadouchos of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

The difficulty in this antistrophe is found mainly in its last line and is caused by ⋯κε⋯νου which, as it stands, does not make sense and is also unmetrical (⌣––, instead of the required –⌣–, cf. the last line [172] of the strophe). It is noticeable on the other hand that the basic meaning of the antistrophe is not really affected by omitting †⋯κε⋯νου†, and it looks as though the scholia did not pay any attention to it in commenting (on ἕτερον ⋯ν κάρᾳ) as follows: .

It is perhaps significant that one of the more informative texts on ancient shipbuilding predates the period in which Greco-Roman shipping flourished. It is Homer's description of how Odysseus built a ship () on the island of the nymph Calypso, with which he intended to return to his native island of Ithaca (Od. 5.244–57). The text is of exceptional interest because it gives as early as the eighth century B.C. a stepby- step description of the tenon-and-dowel ‘shell-first’ method typical of Greco- Roman ship-building, which has been so amply confirmed in the last few decades by underwater archaeology in the Mediterranean.

At Catullus 63.5, OGR read:

deuoluit iletas acuto sibi pondere silices. The gist of this (‘he rolled down from (?) himself flints with sharp mass’) is improbable, and in particular the form iletas is a non-existent word and two syllables too long for the metre.

Thucydides' account (8.50–1) of the Athenian general Phrynichus' secret correspondence with the Spartan admiral Astyochus is both troubling and obscure. It may be summarized as follows: Phrynichus, having eloquently opposed Alcibiades' efforts to be recalled from exile and fearing that a repatriated Alcibiades would take vengeance on him, wrote to Astyochus revealing Alcibiades' pro-Athenian (anti-Spartan) activities. Astyochus handed the letter to Alcibiades, who then wrote to the ranking Athenians on Samos concerning Phrynichus' ‘treason’ and demanded his execution. Phrynichus then wrote again to Astyochus, now proposing to make it possible for the Spartans to destroy the whole Athenian force at Samos.

Here Gellius, also the target of poems 74, 80, 89, 90, 91 and 116, is accused of incest with his mother, sister, and aunt. This accusation is coupled with the only extended mythological reference to be found in the group of short Catullan epigrams 69–116:2 not even Tethys or Oceanus can wash out Gellius' crimes. This notion that large bodies of water are unable to wash away the stain of crime is of course a topos going back to Greek tragedy, but the individual naming of the two sea-deities seems to make a point—a literary point which is relevant to the invective of the poem.

The epigram is remarkable for its metre as well as for the amount of erudition it displays. Thoenias of Sicyon was already known as a later representative of the school of Lysippus; that Dionysodorus was a fellow-citizen of his has not emerged so far, but he is mentioned by Polybius as an admiral and an emissary of Attalus. ‘Frisky’ is known to us from an epigram by Dioscorides, where he guards the tomb of Sositheus, and from a passage of Nonnus; Cornutus, N.D. 30 classified Scirti along with Satyrs and Silens. But the poet remains unnamed: Dionysodorus, a military man, can hardly be credited with such a piece of refined Hellenistic versification.

I offer here two emendations of the text of the Odes, in two passages that make perfectly good sense, offer Latin that is unexceptionable, and have apparently never been questioned.

Dilts (Teubner, 1974) prints ⋯c⋯ᾳ πομπῇ (⋯c⋯αν πομπ⋯c codd., corr. Faber). Hercher before him (Teubner, 1866) adopted the conjecture θε⋯α πομπή (Davis). Several pieces of evidence tell in favour of the latter text.

The verb consisto (‘stop’) can be used in the context of stopping to exchange greetings and conversation with an acquaintance accidentally encountered: ‘confabulatum consistere’, as it is defined in the Thesaurus (IV, 464.67–76). That this sense of consisto was common parlance in the late Republic is clear from its occurrence five times in Plautus and three times in Cicero, both in the speeches and in a letter.

The purpose of this note is to revive Servius Auctus' interpretation of Aeneid 8.363, which has been overlooked or dismissed without argument by recent scholars. It concerns the identification and location of Evander's regia. The relevant lines are worth quoting in full (359–67):

There has been general agreement amongst scholars this century that the building is to be understood to be occupying the same place—or thereabouts—as that later to be taken by Augustus' house. It is now established that this was on the South-West of the Palatine.

‘Some of Martial's shortest epigrams are also the obscurest’, observes P. T. Eden, apropos of 1.102. This two-line poem has certainly generated a remarkable diversity of interpretations. All the critics are agreed that the portrait of Venus owned by the courtesan Lycoris (‘Venerem tuam, Lycori’) is in some way botched or unattractive, but, beyond this, their explanations differ widely.

As the majority of the editors read the text of Catullus 61.90–6, it contains a couple of emendations, among which the most significant is the addition of the line prodeas nova nupta after v.90 in order to complete the strophe.