The difficulty of τєἠν at 8 is notorious, and it has never been answered. The word refers back to Apollo, who has been invoked in the first line, but ‘it is not in accord with epic convention that, after the invocation, reference should be made to it’ (Seaton, CR xxviii [1914], 17). I suggest that we simply should not expect Apollonius to conform to the conventions of older epic: he does not do so in a number of other important respects. One is reminded here of the nervous restlessness of Callimachean poetry, particularly Cer. 25. There the goddess is addressed out of the blue with τìν δ’ αύτᾳ, and emendation is unconvincing. Perhaps τєἠν in Apollonius is even more abrupt than the example in Callimachus. Yet Apollonius seems on many occasions to carry further the devices of his master. The astonishing parenthesis at 1. 623 f. is a good example (for Callimachus see Lapp, De Call. Cyr. Tropis et Figuris (1965), 52 f, F. Bornmann, Call. Hymnus in Dianam, 1–li).

Vahlen (Beiträge zu Ar. Poetik (1914), 21–4) regards this as one of the most obscure passages in the treatise. But he himself has furnished the material for an understanding of it, and perhaps a little more can be done.

One of the most enigmatic figures in Macedonian history is Alexander of Lyncestis, son of Aeropus and son-in-law of the great Antipater. During the reign of his royal namesake he achieved sensational prominence, deposed from his command of the élite Thessalian cavalry under suspicion of treasonable correspondence with the Persian court. Still more sensational, however, is his involvement in the murder of Philip II. Our sources are unanimous that together with his brothers, Heromenes and Arrhabaeus, he was party to the murder, but secured pardon by his immediate recognition of Alexander as king.The immediate recognition is certain, the participation in the murder much less so.

Professor Trypanis has recently (Class. Philol. 65 [1970], p. 51) suggested changing àνούαтον into àνούтαтον. Since the problem has not been dealt with atisfactorily by any commentator,1 I should like to clarify the matter by demonstrating that the text is sound: the adjective àνούαтον is, in fact, not only morphologically impeccable, but, in particular, singularly pointed. From the morphological point of view, the Hinterglied ούαтος is paralleled (and therefore supported) by δολιχούαтος (Opp. Cyn. 3. 186), μονούαтος (A.P. v. 135. 1), and χρυσούαтος (Hom.,fr. 17 Allen): these adjectives occur in hexameter poetry, and each of them is attested once, exactly as is the case with Theocritus‘ àνούαтος.

The point brought out by àνούαтον is extremely felicitous: statues of Priapus could be either of an elaborate type, in which the god was represented as having two protruding physical features, namely his ears3 and his mentula, or of a more uncouth type, which consisted of a ‘truncus dolatus’, i.e. a truncus whose only protuberance was the ‘mentula edolata’. The statue described by Theocritus belongs to the latter type: it is uncouthly hewn and devoid of one of the two protruding features {à½οÍαтοт), but (àλλà) it does possess the other one.

In his illuminating discussion of ‘the Caspian question’ Sir William Tarn, basing his case mainly on Aristotle, Meteorologica, 2. 1. 10 and Strabo, 11. 7. 4, argued that Alexander knew of the existence of the Aral Sea. Tarn's conclusion, however, was soon challenged by Professor Lionel Pearson, who disagreed in particular with Tarn's interpretation of the passage in Strabo. But, although he undoubtedly succeeds in showing that some of Tarn's arguments are not valid, Pearson fails, as it seems to me, to disprove his main contention. Indeed, Pearson misunderstands the line of Strabo's argument and is led to propose an unnecessary emendation of the text.

SOME years ago Giangrande acutely suggested1 that we should read at the beginning of this line έσтààθη δ’ φθοολλος in place of Buttmann' proposal έσàκη δ’ θολλος accepted by Pfeiffer. Giangrande' emendation received upport from Meillier, who wrote:2 ‘Giangrande … a trouvé de bonnes raisons pour conserver έσтààθη … et propose έσтààθη δ’ φθοολλος.’ No one seems to have realized that there is a metrical difficulty involved in Buttmann' emendation—an ironic fact, as his original intention was, of course, to restore the metre of the line. According to Buttmann' text, the first five feet of the line, in terms of dactyls and spondees, emerge as S S D S D. Callimachus does not seem to use this formation either in the elegiac metre of this hymn or in his Epigrams.3 The figures given by Beneke, based on Schneider' text, need correction in that there is only one example of an S S D S D line in the Epigrams of Callimachus (51. 3), not two.

That such hexameters occur in the Aitia6 is of no consequence. Callimachus clearly regarded the distichs of the Aitia as bound by less strict metrical rules than the distichs of the Epigrams and Hymn 5, as his employment of σπονδєιàζονтєς indicates. From all the above it follows that Giangrande' restoration is the more convincing as it is the first to be metrically acceptable.7

Gow and Page are of the opinion that Planudes’ àένναος in the fifth line of this epigram may be not his conjecture but the true reading, and reject Jacobs' commonly received emendation àєί λáνος, with κηρο in the following line. But I have no doubt that for the two words μέν àλανóς (the μέν is unobjectionable but not obligatory) we should read μєμαλαγαγμένος for ó μєμαλαγαγμένος κηρóς is the regular gloss1 on the waxy substance called μàλθα or μàλθα which was used in Athens—at the time of Sophocles himself2—particularly for spreading on wooden writing-tablets. It was surmised by Schwabe that μàλθη had been the word glossed in Ael. Dion.

Two entries in Pollux are especially important for establishing the use ofmaltha. In 10. 58–9, describing it as ό ένών т πινακίδί κηρϳς, he quotes passages from Herodotus (7. 239), Cratinus (fr. 204), and Aristophanes (fr. 157) referring to the soft wax which could easily be scraped from writing-tablets to erase writing. In 8. 16 he says it is the wax spread on the dicasts’ πινáκιον тιμηтικóν, from scratching on which the ‘long line’ of condemnation it will be remembered that Athenian philheliasts got wax under their finger-nails (Ar. Vesp. 108 and schol.).

Propaganda and history are often inseparable. Most governments are in a position to control the dissemination of evidence, and if an event is embarrassing or damaging, the relevant evidence is certain to be distorted or withheld. Moreover the writers of history, however innocent their motives, cannot disregard the official apologia of their rulers. One notes with interest that the learned authors of the official Soviet history of the world portray the invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September 1939 as a crusade of liberation. Of course it might be true that the people liberated by the Red Army were glad to be rid of ‘the arbitrary despotism of the Polish Pans’ and that in the subsequent elections there was absolute freedom of choice and overwhelming support for union with the Ukraine, but the fact remains that it was impossible for membersof the Moscow Academy to contradict their government's justification of the invasion.

In a masterly study of the language and motifs of Theocritus’ Thalysia, Dr. G. Giangrande has demonstrated that what the poem relates is the mock-investiture of Simichidas, the naïve young townsman and littérateur, performed with almost malicious irony by the goatherd Lycidas, who sees through, and ridicules, Simichidas’ rustic and poetic pretensions.1 My object in this paper is to examine, in the light of Giangrande's findings, some aspects of the presentation of Lycidas; this examination will, I believe, enable us to bring the poem into still sharper focus.

In a previous paper (CQ.N.S. 17 [1967], pp. 91 ff.) I have shown that this is the correct reading, and that the variant єλєν is a clumsy attempt made by a copyist (or ancient critic) who did not understand Apollonius. Since my elucidation of the matter has now been questioned by Campbell (CQ 19 [1969], pp. 274 f.), I find it necessary to return to Apollonius’ line in more detail, and I shall endeavour to demonstrate geometrico more that (a) my explanation of the poet's words is right because supported by the use of Homeric Wortgut made by Hellenistic poets; (b) Campbell's contention is wrong in that it starts from a false assumption and rests on basic methodological errors.

In 88 B.C. the dying embers of the Social War kindled an even more dangerous civil war. Violence with gangs was no longer the final solution in Roman political struggles, but war with a regular army took its place. The link between the two wars and the critical escalation of political conflict was created by the tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus. Most modern accounts differ little in describing the sequence of events in his tribunate, though they vary in the interpretation of his motives and policy. They agree because they accept the common basis to the narratives of Appian, Plutarch, and Velleius as true, even though they usually discard the Tendenz in these authors, through which Sulpicius is portrayed as an unscrupulous man who put his services at Marius’ disposal. It is the aim of this paper to propose that the wheat in these authors cannot be so easily separated from the chaff: that in fact the bias, which is most obvious in Plutarch’s Lives, and there can be largely ascribed to the influence of Sulla’s fjown memoirs, has not only distorted motives but misplaced and misrepresented facts. Important inconsistencies in Appian, when taken in conjunction with the little information we have outside these sources, suggest a different outline for Sulpicius’ tribunate—one which involves more uncertainties than the commonly accepted view, because it is obtained by rejecting the validity of more of our scanty source material, but which may enable us to judge more fairly not only Sulpicius and Marius but also Sulla himself.

Winfried bühler's edition of Moschus’ Europa [Hermes, Einzelschrift 12 [1960]) has had the rare accolade of unstinted praise from reviewers in all languages. And deservedly so. Its text is eminently sound, its commentary relevantly erudite and richly instructive particularly about Moschus’ stylistic debts and paternities. Bühler's review of the Europa saga in ancient literature supersedes all that was written previously. And finally, his detailed collation of the nine independent manuscripts of the text establishes for the first time the full evidence for a completely effective stemma which few will challenge and none substantially alter.

In the accompanying paper I have attempted a new collation of the manuscripts of Moschus’Europa, in order to correct some errors and omissions that may be detected in the critical apparatus of Winfried Büihler’s excellent edition of this work (Hermes, Einzelschrift xii [1960]). Büihler’s textual decisions, for instance, are refreshingly free from slavish preconceptions and inert prejudice. When he prints an emendation or opts for the daggers of despair, he is usually right. The occasions when he rejects the manuscript tradition without overriding justification are rare. At 77 there is probably no need to posit corruption in δήγάρ At 127 κóλου foreshadows with typical Hellenistic ambiguity the verb λοώθηin 129.2 It is possible that there are two other places also where the manuscript tradition has wrongly been suspected: κυανin 47 and ϊαρόν in 60.

uenena magnum fas nefasque, non ualent

conuertere humanam uicem.

In his article entitled ‘Two Horatian Problems’ (CQ, N.S. xvii [1967], 327–31) Dr. Guiseppe Giangrande argues persuasively on palaeographical and other grounds for the reading miscent in place of magnum. ‘In conclusion,’ he summarizes, ‘the emendation proposed here solves all the difficulties which have puzzled scholars so far and at the same time is capable of a palaeographical explanation’ (loc. cit. 328).

It is generally supposed that on the publication of the Annales Maximi in the Gracchan period (if not already at some point before their formal publication) historians, or some historians influential on the tradition, eagerly made use of this new source of material. The yearly lists of publicly expiated prodigies in Livy and related authors are usually considered to form the best evidence for this view. For given the elder Gato’s remark about the famines and eclipses of sun and moon recorded on the tabula dealbata which is said to have formed the basis of the published work, and given the only two fragments of the latter dealing with the republican period, that from Cicero recording an eclipse (perhaps of 400 B.C.) and that from Aulus Gellius about lightning striking the statue of Horatius Codes (the date is undetermined but a hostile Etruria is presupposed), no one can doubt that prodigies were indeed to be found in the Annales Maximi. It is of course agreed that the lists given by Livy and others include only an incomplete selection of each year’s prodigia and that they are deformed by repetition and errors. But in fact certain features of these lists suggest, at least, that rewriting and corruptions go pretty deep; even, perhaps, that it was not the Annales Maximi at all from which they were drawn. It is the purpose of this paper to draw attention to these disquieting peculiarities, and to the even more disquieting consequences that follow.

When Propertius tells Cynthia in 2. 29A that, on his drunken way to another woman (line 14) the previous night, he was seized and hauled back to Cynthia by a band of Cupids, it is fairly clear that the poet is giving dramatic embodiment to the erotic commonplace that the lover fired by wine is unable to stay away from his mistress but is dragged back to her perforce by love.

The nature of the drama in which the topos is embodied is, however, not at all clear. Most commentators have seen it as nothing more than a fantasy or fairy-tale having no connection whatsoever with real life. Two, while recognizing that elements of fantasy are present, nevertheless have felt that the action of the drama is derived from real life with the Cupids playing a real-life role.

I believe that those who have seen 2. 29A as merely fantasy are incorrect. This is not to say that pure fantasy does not occur in Propertius’ work. But when it does it takes place in a dream or fantasy landscape. In 2. 29A the scene is the streets of Rome and this realistic setting suggests that, as in another realistic setting (3. 1. 9–12) Propertius although giving rein to his fantasy links it with reality by taking on himself the role of triumphator, so here it is more likely that the characters in a drama with a real setting will have real-life roles to play.

Towards the end of his list of colonial foundations, writing with apparent precision, dating the event not only by the consuls of the year but back from his time of writing, and using it as a means of fixing the colonization of Eporedia, Velleius Paterculus records the foundation of Narbo Martius: ‘Narbo autem Martius in Gallia Porcio Marcioque consulibus abhinc annos circiter centum quadraginta sex, deducta colonia est. Post duodeviginti annos in Bagiennis Eporedia Mario sextum Valerioque Flacco consulibus.’ If this is the offering of a gift horse, it has not always been graciously received. Velleius’ date has been questioned and rejected in a searching article by Mr. H. B. Mattingly, and more than once Mr. Mattingly's conclusions have been quoted with approval by Professor E. Badian. Mr. Mattingly began his attack by casting doubt on the authority of Velleius’ list as a whole: Velleius did not consult Livy at first hand, or any semi-official list, but used sources of differing value, one of them perhaps Greek. Nor is his testimony really confirmed by any of the later writers who seem to agree with him: they lazily follow him without looking for independent evidence.