The greatest contribution which Rome made to the history of the world is perhaps to be found in her government, in her solution of political problems, and in the machinery she devised to carry out the hundred and one duties that fall to the lot of executive powers. No one institution of Rome is so interesting and intriguing in its origin and development as the Senate, which from the early days of the Republic down to the foundation of the Empire played an enormous part in moulding the whole political life of Rome; and even when the golden days of senatorial authority were over, its name and tradition remained to exercise a great influence and fascination on succeeding times. When we read of the Senate and its part in Roman history we try to think of parallels in our own government, and the first thing that suggests itself to us is the Houses of Parliament and more particularly the House of Commons. But there are so many differences between the two that it is worth while briefly to describe the Senate and in so doing compare it with our own system.

Juvenal is here alluding to two passages of Horace's hexameter poetry in particular. First, by listing various alternative genres (epic, comedy, elegy, tragedy) before stating his own preference for writing satire (19 hoc campo), Juvenal recalls Horace's use of the same technique at S. 1.10.40ff. Second, Juvenal has borrowed several words, phrases, and ideas from Hor. Epist. 2.2.90–105

When we think of the philosophers of the first and second centuries of the Christian era the names that occur to our minds are almost certainly those of Stoics - Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. It would not occur to many to include Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom. Plutarch is generally regarded primarily as the author of Lives, while Dio Chrysostom is more often thought of as an orator. But these two have a philosophic approach also, which tends to be overlooked because it cannot be labelled as belonging to any one philosophical school. Both are eclectic and adhere to no single philosophical line; both adopt reasonableness and common sense as their guides. Their aim is to give useful, practical advice to men and communities on how to survive in the present world and to maintain moral principles. They are first and foremost moralists.

I have been invited to write an article on the subject of the pronunciation of Latin. I put this fact in the forefront, for I do not wish it to be supposed that I am a fanatic who seeks every opportunity of bombarding an unwilling audience with his one fixed idea. As a matter of fact, my main feeling in the matter is that a completely undue importance has been attached to the question, and that it is the so-called reformers and not their opponents who are responsible for this tedious discussion. Having made this apology I will state my case with what brevity I can.

The historical evidence yielded by the coins of Greece and Rome is abundant, concise, essentially practical, and easily assimilated. Comparison of this evidence with what is provided by other branches of historical research is out of place, and seldom profitable: it is enough to point out the fundamental difference between coin-evidence and that which is furnished, for example, by works of art or inscriptions. A people's artistic or literary achievement is mainly a free expression of individual tendencies: though Phrynichus offended an influential section of public opinion with his play on the Sack of Miletus, and though Pericles was able to yoke Pheidias to his imperialist policy, it is true to say that such achievement was generally the result of free minds working their will. Artistic evidence for history is therefore ‘unofficial’, or informal. It is, of course, all the better for that; yet it must lack the precision which we look for in inscriptions—let us say, in an Athenian list of tribute-payments, or in a municipal charter under the Roman Empire. Inscriptions, indeed, are very often the product of private enterprise—the wish to record family honours, to mourn the dead parent, wife, or child, or to bless the emperor of the day; but they include a large class in which the information given is official in its purpose, and therefore full and accurate.

Stage properties in Greek tragedy are used economically, a fact which enhances the significance of their dramatic function. Oliver Taplin has amply demonstrated how their appearance on stage is not an adventitious means of lending life to a character or situation but rather a device by which the dramatist underlines some essential aspect of the scene in which they occur or theme in the play as a whole. Economy of props in tragedy is in marked contrast with their multiplicity in Aristophanic comedy. When it comes, therefore, to interpreting the poet's artistic intention in a particular tragedy, the props list may prove a useful critical instrument, as I hope will be evident from this study of their use in Euripides' Electra.

Just as(pace Blaydes and Dawe) ὒβριζ φυτει τ⋯ραννον, Sophokles' Oidipous continues to beget misunderstanding. One can guarantee that any conversation about the play will soon produce any one of at least four large-scale misconceptions regarding it. One of these is discussed here, not so much for the purpose of dispelling it, as in the hope that such discussion will lead to some general conclusions about the dramatic technique of the Greek tragedians.

How to begin is not the least of the dramatist's problems. It is essential, in the construction of any play, not only to establish at the start a suitable mood, but to make clear, without undue delay, the place, personalities, and general antecedents of the plot. Of the two methods of doing the latter that offer themselves—that by which such information is contained in a ‘prologue’ or set speech, and that by which it is introduced in the course of the action—the former is simpler for the author, and, for the spectator too, it may be more convenient to have these details given once and for all. But it tends to artificiality, and the impression is often created that here is something outside the plot, a mere introduction to the play rather than a part of the play itself. In Greek tragedy the method was of course much used by Euripides, and he has perhaps been over-criticized for it, both in his own time and since. But later writers have not shunned it, and its final development is found in the splitting-off of the initial ‘address’ and its assignment to an extraneous speaker dubbed ‘Prologue’ or ‘Narrator’. This has at least the merit of logical clarity. But, while a definite line cannot be drawn between them, the more informal method must be accounted artistically superior. This was especially that of Sophocles, and his opening scenes (or ‘prologues’ in the technical sense), in both their informational and other aspects, are worth attention in themselves, as well as being indicative of his general approach to his art.

quotiens magni alicuius <viri> mors ab historicis narrata est, totiens fere consummatio totius vitae et quasi funebris laudatio redditur. hoc, semel aut iterum a Thucydide factum, item in paucissimis personis usurpatum a Sallustio, T. Livius benignus omnibus magnis viris praestitit; sequentes historici multo id effusius fecerunt.

The Andromache of Euripides has not had a good press. Sandwiched between more immediately attractive plays such as Medea and Hippolytos and the more controversial dramas such as Elektra and Herakles, it has for the most part languished in obscurity with the other less appealing plays of the 420s (e.g. Herakleidai, Hekabe). More than one critic has been overtly hostile, and what interest has been shown has tended to focus on its odd tripartite structure, the elegiacs unique to tragedy in Andromache's lament (103–16), 1 the possibility of its production other than at Athens (Σ ad v. 445, evidence of a most doubtful kind), and the two well-known anti-Spartan diatribes (445–63, 595–604).