The character of Hippolytus, as it is drawn by Euripides, usually receives but half-hearted praise. His coldness, inherited, no doubt, from his Amazon mother, and his consciousness of virtue, inevitably allied to priggishness in the eyes of a society which tolerates any extreme of self-depreciation, are not attractive. It is, perhaps, more surprising that no surprise seems to be provoked by the dramatic portrayal of a disposition unique in Greek literature. The association of holiness with a life of celibacy is so familiar from the history both of Christianity and of other faiths that it seems natural to us that one who aspires to the highest purity, like Hippolytus, should allow no place in his life for sex. Hippolytus is pure, we are apt to imagine, for the same reason that a monk is pure, because such purity is pleasing to the god whom he serves and favourable to the life of the spirit.

The construction of ἄν with the future has been hotly denied as impossible, so far as Attic Greek and indeed post-Homeric Greek generally are concerned. The opponents of the construction have had among their number such scholars as Dawes and Cobet; and of late, it seems, editors of texts generally. The view of Cobet is given on p. 469 of his Miscellanea Critica, with reference to Demosth. 9. 70 (128) πάλαι τις ⋯δέως ἂν ἴσως ⋯ρωτήσων κάθηται. Cobet, who has been followed by later editors, altered ⋯ρωτήσων (the universal reading of the codd.) to ⋯ρωτήσας, commenting ‘ubi semel Constiterit ⋯δέως ἂν ⋯ρωτήσω, ⋯δέως ἂν πεύσομαɩ aut simile quid pro ⋯ρωτήσαιμι vel πυθοίμην recte dici, turn demum librorum lectioni acquiescemus. quod equidem nunquam futurum esse satis scio.’ This view, which must of course be understood as excepting Homer from its scope, is nothing more than a blank denial of the possibility of the construction. We see more of an argument in Kühner-Gerth (Griech. Gramm. ii. 1. 209), where it is remarked that the construction, frequent in Homer, was later given up because ἃν with the optative was sufficient to express a future possibility; and that possibly emenders have done right to alter passages in Attic which contain it. This is not expressed with any great certainty. Nevertheless it has become to such an extent the prevailing view among editors that in modern texts it is extremely rare to find the construction allowed to remain.

The transition from the Athenian Peripatos of Aristotle to the Alexandrian Museion of Callimachus has often attracted notice. So closely akin was the organization of scholarship in the two centres of learning, so definite was the personal connexion between the two, that it seemed possible to trace an uninterrupted line of succession from the older to the younger school. That Callimachus the scholar worked in the Aristotelian tradition appeared obvious: ‘he might be called a Peripatetic in the same sense as his pupils, but with more justification’ (Wilamowitz, Hellenist. Dicht. i. 214). Regarding Callimachus the poet and literary critic the picture seemed less clear. The non-classical character of his poetry had often been emphasized, and cannot be overlooked. But quite recently an attempt has been made to turn Callimachus into an Aristotelian even by virtue of his literary criticism. The alleged harmony of this development rouses suspicion and calls for inquiry. In the following pages I have tried to collect and discuss what material I could find for the relation of Callimachus to Aristotle and his school. I hope to show that such influences as there were are of a different and more subtle nature, and that this poet, if any, was his own Longinus.

Of all the dialogues that may be said to be in Plato's normal style, the Republic seems to be the richest in imagery. The Phaedrus may contain more of such figurative language, but its whole atmosphere and style are so artificial as to place it outside comparison. The Republic stands, in this respect as in philosophic content, between the relative plainness of the earlier works and the didactic heaviness of the Laws, which is relieved by proverbial, rather than by imaginative, illustration.

Of all the themes treated by the mimes, perhaps the one that gave the most delight to their audiences throughout the centuries was that of adultery. References to it, from various parts of the ancient world, are found from the first century before Christ to the sixth century of the Christian era, and in many cases it is spoken of as a theme typical of the mime as a whole. There does not seem to be satisfactory evidence of its existence in a genuinely dramatic form at an earner date. It is reported that the μαγῳδoί, among other impersonations, mimicked the behaviour of μoιχoί, but their performance, so far as can be discovered, was purely a piece of imitative buffoonery. When the theme of adultery was treated by Greek mimes of a later date, the approach seems to have been rather a psychological study of the adulteress than an attempt to bring out the dramatic possibilities inherent in the situation. This is certainly the case with Herondas' fifth mime, which portrays a lady jealously in love with a slave. Evidence from sources bearing a close relationship to the mime is equally negative. Thus a well-known Egyptian papyrus contains a song, written perhaps in the third or second century B.C., in which Helen complains of Menelaus' indifference to her after bringing her back from Troy; but this is far from constituting a variant on the adultery theme. The wall-song in Marissa, which was composed in the middle of the second century B.C., does indicate a situation in which a woman is trying to keep her lover's presence outside the house from the knowledge of another man with whom she is consorting inside.

The two epigraphical monuments which have preserved parts of the treaties of alliance between Athens, on the one hand, and Rhegion and Leontinoi, respectively, on the other, must be studied together, for both treaties had their old preambles erased in 433/2 and their validity reaffirmed as of that year. The new preambles, both dating from the same day, were inscribed in the erasures and juxtaposed, somewhat awkwardly, before the body of the old texts thatstill remained.

It is, I think, generally believed that the last oracle delivered at Delphi was that given to Oreibasios announcing the inability of Apollo to prophesy there again. This oracle begins with the line: εἴπατε τῷ βασιλ⋯ϊ· χαμα⋯ π⋯σε δα⋯δαλος αὐλ⋯ and has been translated by Swinburne as The Last Oracle. Of it Myers wrote: ‘(It is) the last fragment of Greek poetry which has moved the hearts of men, the last Greek hexameters which retain the ancient cadence, the majestic melancholy flow.’ But there is evidence which suggests that this was, in fact, not the last prophetic utterance of the Pythian god, and no ancient authority implies that it was.

βρυχεδαν⋯ς (of a locust's greed, cf. βρο⋯κος, βρο⋯χος): πολυφ⋯γος, οἰ δ⋯ μακρ⋯ς. For μακρ⋯ς read μ⋯ργος.

ζ⋯γγος· ⋯ τ⋯ν μελισσ⋯ν ἦχος, κα⋯ τ⋯ν ⋯μο⋯ων. L. and S. translate literally, ‘humming of bees, etc.’; but to buzz or hum is not a common property of insects, it is peculiar to a few. For τ⋯ν ⋯μο⋯ων I suggest τ⋯ν μυι⋯ν. ζ⋯γγος refers especially to the buzz, or ‘ping’, of a mosquito (μυῖα), LL. zanzara; cf. Cassiodorus (cit. Forcellini, ed. De Wit) ‘Ciniphes genus est culicum, fixis aculeis permolestum, quas vulgus consuevit vocare zinzalas’; and in the Appendix, De Wit adds: ‘zinzala; parva musca, id est culex; unde zinzalarium, conopeum ad eas arcendas, Gloss. Ugut. (Hinc vulgo apud nostrates la zenzaliera)’—i.e. a mosquito-net. Culex, by the way, is an interesting and a homely word; we lack mosquitoes in Scotland, but we know the angry bite of a ‘horse-fly’ and call it a ‘cleg’.

This famous decree, which is the earliest Athenian decree preserved on stone, is printed e.g. by Hiller in IG. i. no. i, and with a materially different text by Tod in SGHI. no. II. A small new fragment was published in Hesperia, vii. 264. Restorations continue to differ widely and fundamentally. In Hesperia, x. 301–7, Meritt has discussed recent suggestions, and has submitted his own text on p. 307; on p. 305 is a drawing by Raubitschek of the whole monument on the basis of Meritt's text.

There is preserved in Suidas' Lexicon a story about Polycrates of Samos and the island of Delos. It is offered by the lexicographer as an explanation of the phrase τα⋯τ⋯ σοι κα⋯ πύθια κα⋯ δ⋯λια (s.v. and sub nom. πύθια κα⋯ δ⋯λια), when used in a colloquial sense to mean ‘it's all the same to you’. Polycrates had instituted a festival on Delos and asked the Pythia whether to call it by the one name or the other. The phrase, which was supposed to have been the Pythia's reply, was taken to mean that it was all the same to Polycrates whatever he called it, and the death of Polycrates, coming soon after, was interpreted as the fulfilment of the prophecy. Suidas cites Epicurus and Menander for the phrase itself, which was therefore in familiar use by the end of the fourth century B.C. As for the story about Polycrates, it is quite likely that Suidas' ultimate source was some writer of about that period, such as Demon, περ⋯ παροιμι⋯ν. It is very much in the manner of his fragments.

The basis of Plato's style being for the most part informal conversation, certain elements natural and appropriate to this atmosphere may be looked for and found. These include: (1) colloquialisms in the accepted sense—short phrases, or special uses of words, associated with informal or comic style; (2) phrases of poetic type, probably quotations or adaptations, used frequently with burlesque effect; (3) proverbial or semi-proverbial matter; (4) word-play of various types. The above groups overlap at certain points, but the classification may serve fairly well to set forth the material in question.

It is universally agreed that Plato inherited from Socrates, and consistently maintained to the end, the doctrine that no man does evil of set purpose—οὐδε⋯ς ⋯κὼν ⋯μαρτ⋯νει—but because he mistakes evil for good. All moral evil, therefore, for Plato, involves ignorance. There are, however, two passages, one in the Sophist, the other in Laws ix, which on the face of them appear to recognize a type of moral evil in which ignorance is not involved, a type which is indeed contrasted with that arising from ignorance. These passages have not, of course, been overlooked by scholars: they are regularly referred to in the best-known accounts of Platonic ethical theory; yet I do not think they have been sufficiently considered, nor is a clear answer forthcoming to the question whether or no in these later dialogues Plato really intends, as he seems to intend, a modification of his earlier ethical doctrine. My purpose is to show that he does not, and to account if possible for his apparent inconsistency.

κάτοπτρον, which is in all the manuscripts, was emended by Canter to κάτοπτον, and this emendation, or Headlam's κατόπτην, has been received by subsequent editors. Those who read κάτοπτον have been in the habit of taking the word to mean here ‘looking down upon’, and in support of this interpretation they sometimes adduce a scholium in M, κατόψιον. This does seem to prove that the scholar, whose note is copied in our scholium, found κάτοπτον in his text. Presumably he took Σαρωνικο⋯ πορθμο⋯ κάτοπτον to signify ‘descried from the Saronic gulf’, having very possibly in his mind the phrase in Euripides, Hippolytus 30, where the temple of Cypris is said to be κατόψιον γ⋯ς τ⋯σδε, visible from Troezen. At least we ought not without proof to lay to his account what appears to be the solecism of regarding κάτοπτον as if it meant ‘looking down upon’. Headlam's κατόπτην has at least an active force, but I cannot find that it means ‘one who looks down upon’, if that is the sense desired; it is a ‘spy’ or an ‘inspector’. And, at the end of all discussion, when one asks what in fact is this peak or headland that ‘looks down upon the Saronic crossing’, then commentators take refuge in silence or tend to contradict one another. An emendation that nobody can be sure he understands can hardly be regarded as satisfactory. It may be feared that what has happened is this. In order to get rid of κάτοπτρον, which appeared to them devoid of meaning, editors have introduced into the text a word which does not mean what they want it to mean, and which, if it had that meaning, would still present us with a picture which no man can recognize.

In my first study of the borrowings from Athenian sacred treasure to finance the Archidamian War I assumed, in common with others, certain irregularities in the stoichedon order of IG. i. 324. The text has subsequently been amplified and improved by Tod, notably with the addition of one amount of interest due to Athena (line 101) and of the total amounts of principal credited to the Other Gods (line 119) and to all the gods (line 122). This further expansion, however, has introduced additional irregularities, the restoration [τάδε τοῖς ἂλλοις θεοῖς ⋯ϕέλοσι τόκο ⋯]ν ἒνδεκα ἒτεα[ιν:…] being too long by one letter in line 120 and the restoration [τάδε ἂπασι τοῖς θεοῖς ⋯ϕέλοσι τόκο ⋯ν] ἒνδεκα ἒτεσ[ιν:…] being likewise too long in line 123.