In a well-known passage of Plato's Protagoras the sophist of that name is made to suggest that what makes a society or community of human beings possible is their possession of δίκη and αίδώϧ, which are given to them by Zeus. But though all men have these qualities, they are not ‘natural’ in the way that ugliness or beauty of face is natural. They are acquired; and Protagoras gives a detailed description of how they are inculcated, first by parents, then by schoolmasters, and then by laws. The view that these qualities are peculiar to men was, of course, not a new one. Already in the Works and Days Hesiod writes,

And again the age of lawlessness and violence is described as

Homeric studies today are flourishing, but admirers of Homer as poetry are a rather baffled lot. Homerists may devote themselves to Linear B, Mycenaean warfare and weaponry, formulary modifications, linguistic features, Yugoslav parallels, and other such topics; but anyone who prefers to concentrate on Homer himself and offers an interpretation of some part of the Iliad or Odyssey is liable to meet with the rejoinder that literary standards must not be applied to an oral poet.

The Iliad is rich in references to stories that have only incidental relevance to the main narrative. These digressions, as they are often called, have usually been assumed to reflect a wealth of pre-Homeric legend, some of which must a have been embodied in poetry. The older Analysts tended to explain the digressions in terms of interpolation. Whether regarded as genuinely Homeric or as interpolated these myths were considered as something existing in an external tradition. More recent scholars have been prepared to admit that Homer may invent from time to time. For example, Sir Maurice Bowra observes that ‘the poet seems sometimes to invent a detail which looks as if it referred to some story outside his immediate subject but is in fact an invention brought to serve a passing need’.

Histories of literature tend to treat Stesichorus as just one of the lyric poets, like Alcman or Anacreon. But the vast scale of his compositions puts him in a category of his own. It has always been known that his Oresteia was divided into more than one book; P. Oxy, 2360 gave us fragments of a narrative about Telemachus of a nearly Homeric amplitude; and from P. Oxy. 2617 it was learned that the Geryoneis contained at least 1,300 verses, the total being perhaps closer to two thousand. Even allowing for the shorter lines, this was as long as many an epic poem. Indeed, these were epic poems, in subject and style as well as in length: epics to be sung instead of recited. What was behind them ? Who was this Stesichorus, and how did he come to be, in Quintilian's phrase, ‘sustaining on the lyre the weight of epic song’ ?

The biographical problem must be tackled first. The question of Stesichorus’ historical setting and date is confused by legendary elements as well as by contradiction in the sources. On the whole scholars remain spellbound by the specious precision of the Suda's dates (632–556), although it has long been realized that they are founded on nothing but the assumption that Stesichorus was younger than Alcman and older than Simonides. There have been excellent discussions by Wilamowitz and Maas, but they seem to have had little influence.

These seem to be regarded as quite a different type of building from houses.

The terminology used of them is to a large extent distinct. The only case of extensive overlapping has probably a special stylistic reason.

The main words involved are κλισίη (soldiers' hut or herdsman's cottage), αύλή (yard or farmyard), μσσαυλος (animal enclosure), and σταθμός/–οί (the whole complex of farm buildings). The evidence is scanty: in the Iliad there are a number of passages relating to soldiers' huts, and a few mentions of farms in similes and in the Shield section. In the Odyssey there is Eumaeus' farm. This is virtually all. There is also, inevitably, a dearth of archaeological evidence for country buildings, since the remains of these are apt to be less noticeable, and often less durable, than those of large settlements.

The narrative of Thucydides on the period from the Peace of Nicias to the Athenian expedition to Sicily (5. 25–116) has been less intensively studied than any other part of the History. It is true that the Melian Dialogue, which contrasts so sharply with the rest of the fifth book, has accumulated a large bibliography. The problems arising from the campaign culminating in the battle of Mantinea have also received a considerable amount of attention. On the other hand, the accounts of negotiations and intrigues, mostly in the Peloponnese, which occupy much of the fifth book, have tended to be ignored, being thought to be obscure, confusing, and tedious. Scholars interested in the history of the period have experienced difficulty in tracing a coherent pattern in its catalogue of diplomatic manœuvres and in establishing the motives which prompted them. Scholars interested in the historical technique of Thucydides have been disappointed, even repelled, because his facility for mastering his material seems to have to a large extent deserted him.

1. In his recent edition of the De Mysteriis, Mr. D. M. MacDowell has advanced the hypothesis that Andocides, contrary to the generally accepted view, was not guilty of mutilating the Hermae, but guilty of parodying the Mysteries; that, even after he had told what he knew about the former affair, he was kept in prison until, eventually, he confessed to the latter, incriminating, amongst others, his father Leogoras, to gain immunity for himself; and that finally, released and repentant, he helped his father to avoid prosecution. These conclusions are reached in an ingeniously argued series of appendices, in which the author displays a refreshing scepticism towards the evidence of Thucydides.

. ‘This saying is obscure’, as Marcovich observes, and much πολυμαθίη has been expended on it, which would have amazed and dismayed Heraclitus. Perhaps, as so often, we are being too clever, and overlooking the obvious, to which Heraclitus keeps trying to bring us back (‘the sun is a foot wide’—fr. 3 DK). Why do souls smell in Hades ? Well, ‘it is death to souls to become water’ (fr. 36 DK), ‘it is death for souls to get wet’ (fr. 77 DK). It seems to be generally agreed that Heraclitus thought the soul to be, in principle, fire. And what happens when fire gets wet ? A lot of smoke. ‘And if all things became smoke, the nostrils would discern them’ (fr. 7 DK). That is to say, in a place of quenched souls (Hades), it is the sense of smell that has to come into play. And perhaps that is what we were looking for.

This passage has been used—and abused—for the study of Athenian female initiations, or, more cautiously, of the practice of the arkteia at Brauron. As it is, it poses more problems that it solves. Most of all, it complicates the question of the age of the arktoi. In fact the scholium seems prima facie to contradict the text, when on v. 645 it says that the ‘bears’ were not more than ten years and not less than five years old, while the accepted text of Aristophanes decisively implies an age greater than ten years. The situation is even more obscured by another indication pointing towards an association of the arkteia with the age of ten, the equation of the verb dekateusai with arkteusai.

Commentators on the Trachiniae, when dealing with Heracles' second request of Hyllus, normally take it that the dying hero asks his son to marry Iole, Heracles' concubine.

Such a request on the part of any Greek in Heracles' situation would be puzzling. It is specially so on the part of Heracles, who has not been notable in the drama up to this point for tenderness to his womenfolk, having given no consideration to Deianeira's sentiments in the matter of his liaison with Iole, and less to Iole's, in that he has sacked her city, slain her kinfolk, and enslaved herself. Albrecht von Blumenthal expresses the bewilderment which all who have read the passage in this light must initially have felt: ‘Warum Herakles den widerstrebenden Sohn zur Erfüllung dieses mit hellenischer Sitte unvereinbaren Vermächtnisses durch die schrecklichsten Drohungen zwingt, ist ein noch nicht enträtseltes Geheimnis des Sophokles.’ Explanations must be sought.

Iphigenia at aulis presents many problems to the literary and textual critic. Among these the problem of the prologue is as clear-cut as it is controversial. It may be summarized as follows:

(1) Our text opens abruptly with an anapaestic dialogue between Agamemnon and the Retainer (1–48), instead of the usual monologue in trimeters.

In reply to a question from the Retainer, Agamemnon launches into a long iambic narrative (49–114), describing much that the Retainer must know already, and with no sign, for more than sixty lines, that the Retainer is being addressed. Moreover 49 {Ἐγ⋯νοντο ۸ήδαι…) reads like the first line of a conventional opening monologue.

The pluralis inapposite, sinceωμος applied to a band of revellers is a collective noun and, however many times the band accompanied Dionysus, it is still the sameωμος and not a plurality ofωμοι. Dobree's and Bothe's κώμοις must face the same objection, unless it is understood as ‘songs’ (as at 492–3 ), in which case it becomes a feeble anticipation of οιδᾶις in 40. Florens Christianus' κμοί is negligible. Porson suggested κώμωι but left it unclear whether he interpreted Bακχίωι as adjective or noun. Bάκχιος is used adjectivally not more than once or twice in over thirty Euripidean examples (eight in this play), and the satyrs cannot be said to have accompanied a Bacchicωμος, for theωμος was constituted of the satyrs themselves. And yet Bακχίωι interpreted as a noun would produce an intolerably unstylish collocation of independent datives. Unimpeachable sense and style, and a strong candidate for corruption, would be furnished byωμος (, ‘serving alongside Bacchus as his revelling train’).

As to the wearing of a leather phallus by fifth-century comic actors, Pickard- Cambridge wrote: ‘Aristophanes’ resolution (Nu 537 ff.) to avoid such indecencies does not seem to have lasted long.’ One year would not have beenlong; and Beare, who resumed Thiele's position, and Webster, who supported that of Körte, carried on a controversy on the matter without reference to what I believe is a relevant, if misunderstood, text.

Several of the treatises and lectures that make up the Hippocratic corpus begin with more or less extended statements about the physical composition and operation of the world at large, and approach the study of human physiology from this angle. We see this, for example, in De Natwra Hominis, De Flatibus, De Carnibus, De Victu; it was the approach of Alcmaeon of Croton, Diogenes of Apollonia, and according to Plato (Phaedr. 270 c) of Hippocrates himself.

The work known as De Hebdomadibus would appear to be a prime example of the type. The first twelve chapters are cosmological. They are dominated by two ideas: that everything in nature is arranged in groups of seven, and that the human body is constructed on the same pattern as the whole world. In the later part of the book (13–52) we pass to the subject of fevers, their causation and treatment. But as Roscher observed, the cosmology and the pathology do not belong together.

The establishment of the Campanian nation (Diod. 12. 31. 1).

Carthaginian expedition to Sicily (Livy 4. 29. 8).

(Coss. T. Quinctius L. f. PoenusCincinnatus, Cn. Julius Mento: 43 1/30 B.C.). Insigni magnis rebus anno additur nihil turn ad rem Romanam pertinere visum, quod Carthaginienses, tanti hostes futuri, turn primum per seditiones Siculorum ad partis alterius auxilium in Sicilian! exercitum traiecere.

Socrates, in the Republic (509 d–511 e), uses the symbol of a divided line to illustrate the distinction between the Visible and Intelligible Worlds, and between the kinds of perception appropriate to each. This paper will present a new hypothesis: that the proportions of the line are derived from optical theory.

The construction of the Divided Line is described as follows: Socrates asks his interlocutors to represent the Visible and Intelligible Worlds by a line divided into two unequal segments. (See Diagram I, below, where line AA' is divided at C.) The ratio in which the division is to be made is not specified, and it seems that any ratio is acceptable provided that one segment is longer than the other. Socrates then tells them to cut each part again according to the same ratio as the original division. (In Diagram I, below, AC is divided at F, and CA' is divided at F'.) After describing the division of the line thus into four parts, Socrates goes on to explain the philosophical significance of each part. For the purposes of this paper the following brief identification of each segment of the line will suffice.

IT may be taken as a great verity of Greek syntax that ἄν is not construed with the present or the perfect of the indicative. Exceptions are either apparent, needing explanation, or errors in transmission, requiring correction. There are no discordant voices in the expert choir on this point, all say the same. As usual the collections of examples are most copious in Kühner-Gerth, other authorities attempting only to adduce a few new examples. Since these are so readily available there is no need to review all the pertinent passages here. The apparent exceptions are either cases of confusing word-order or anacolutha. Confusing word-order occurs for example when ἄν attaches itself to a verb of speaking (µαι), or to a negative when it belongs logically elsewhere in the sentence. The anacolutha are principally formulaic in character, as when kaν єi is used simply as ═ kαiє and so brings an extra ἄν into the sentence which may seem to belong to an indicative.

AT Historia Animalium 561b27, during the course of his account of chick embryology, Aristotle notes (Bekker's text):

.

D'Arcy Thompson (Oxford, 1910) translated this passage as follows:

About the twentieth day, if you open the egg and touch the chick, it moves inside and chirps, and it is already coming to be covered in down when, after the twentieth day is past, the chick begins to break the shell.

Aristotle believed that there were actually only three colours present in the rainbow, : of these, the first is produced by the dulling of white light when it is reflected in or obscured by a dark medium such as smoke, cloud, or water, and exemplified in the redness of the sun as seen through haze around the horizon. Successive failures of sight weaken the colour further, first to πράσινov and then to άλoυργóν. Between the first two colours a fourth, ξανθóν, is often apparent, being the result of the juxtaposition of the two colours. This last statement, where it has not been ignored as one of the inexplicable or misguided things Aristotle says from time to time, has met with considerable criticism

‘There are important differences between Aristotle's account of homonymy and synonymy on the one hand, and Speusippus' on the other; in particular, Aristotle treated homonymy and synonymy as properties of things, whereas Speusippus treated them as properties of words. Despite this difference, in certain significant passages Aristotle fell under the influence of Speusippus and used die words “homonymous” and “synonymous” in their Speusippan senses.’