The two passages in question are I. the discussion of Justice in Bk. V. chs. I-II, and in particular the definition and subdivisions of Corrective Justice (ch. II 1130b 30–1131a 9); and II. the discussion of the voluntaryand προα⋯ρεσɩς in Bk. III chs. II-II. My object is to show that each is better understood if it is seen in the light of contemporary legal ideas and practice.

In describing the account of the εἷδη in the Phaedo, Burnet says, ‘they are explained in a peculiar vocabulary which is represented as that of a school. The technical terms are introduced by such formulas as “we say”’. Similarly Taylor has written of the ‘characteristic technical nomenclature’ used in the dialogues, of the ‘technicalities’ of the theory of εἷδη, of ‘the technical phrases of the Phaedo’ The validity of such language has been taken for granted by both these and many other Platonic scholars. But the assumption which it represents—that Plato employed certain words in a significance peculiar to his use of them—carries such wide implications for the history and interpretation of his philosophy that it can hardly be accepted without further investigation. In this article I shall examine the evidence in fifth- and early fourth-century literature about these words which Plato or Socrates is alleged to have transformed into ‘technicalities’: first, εἷδος and ἰδ⋯σ, which I shall assume to be more or less synonymous; second, the various terms used to describe the relation between εἲδη and particulars—,μετέχειν, κοινωνεἶν,παρεἶναι, ⋯νεἶναι,μιμησις,⋯μοιωαις, and so on.

The most famous and successful teacher of rhetoric at Athens in the fourth century was Isocrates, and he claimed for rhetoric an educational importance which Plato considered to be unmerited and misleading. He made rhetoric the basis of his whole educational system and claimed to teach his pupils to become not only good rhetoricians but good citizens. Plato attacked both aspects of this theory of education. In the Gorgias he exposed the claim of rhetoric to be considered valuable as an instrument of education by showing that rhetorical excellence had no necessary connection with moral excellence. In the Protagoras he exposed the inconsistency of those who claimed to teach men to be good citizens—to teach πολιτιк⋯ τ⋯?νη—without an absolute standard of moral values. Even if we believe that in the Gorgias and the Protagoras, as in other dialogues, Plato is representing faithfully the constructive views of the historic Socrates, we can hardly believe that he was unaware of the contemporary relevance of those views, and it is significant that he thought fit to publish them in the form of an attack on a teacher of rhetoric and an attack on a teacher of <ολιτικ⋯ τ⋯ϰνη At any rate it is reasonable to suppose that the Athenian reading public would expect to find such a contemporary relevance and that they would interpret these attacks as being, in some measure at least, directed against Isocrates.

This pretty little work of the obscure Tymnes has recently been examined by A. Wilhelm in the course of a learned attempt to explain the puzzling phrase πολλ⋯ πολλ⋯ν (if that is how it should be divided and accented). With the result of his research in general I am not now concerned and the interpretation of this epigram does not greatly affect the value of his conclusions; but it seems worth while to point out what I believe to be the right explanation of a curious and much-emended phrase in the second couplet.

Fragments of mummy-cartonnage, formerly in the collection of University College, London, now on permanent loan to the Ashmolean. Parts of two columns of a papyrus-text of a Greek Tragedy: head and foot of both columns partly preserved. The lines of col. ii are not quite straight opposite those of col i. There were eighteen or nineteen lines in col. i, nineteen in col. ii, the last line of col. ii being slightly below the level of the last line of col. i. The text was written in the third century B.C, perhaps before 250 B.C. The hand is similar to that of P. Petrie I Plate V. No Lesezeichen of any kind are visible. [Fragment (a) = 6·9×7·1 cm.: (b)=6·7×10·9 cm.: (c) = 4·2×14·2 cm. Height of column of writing =14·7 cm. Existing margins = 2·5 and 2·3 cm. Probable height of roll = 20/21 cm. (P. Petrie I, of same age and similar hand, is 21 cm. high). Fr. (a) = col. i, 1–6 + col. ii, beginnings of 2–4: fr. (b) = col. i, 9–18 + col. ii, beginnings of 9–14, 16–19: fr. (c) = col. ii, middle of 1–15.]

The language of Greek Tragedy can be considered as a whole by virtue of the characteristics which distinguish it from that of other branches of Greek literature, and the resemblance between the three tragedians in this respect is more noticeable than the differences. Still, if we compare Aeschylus and Euripides it is impossible not to feel a marked change of tone, in λ⋯ξις as in δι⋯νοια and ἤθη. As in E. the familiar legends are frequently set in a more everyday atmosphere and the characters cast in a less heroic mould, it is natural that the tone of the language should be lowered, partly by the frequent use of distinctively prosaic expressions and partly by the introduction of what appear to be colloquialisms. This change of tone in language was at once noted by Aristophanes and is referred to by Aristotle as an innovation of E. On the other hand E.'s style presents a certain anomaly, since while deliberately securing a closer approximation to the language of prose and ordinary conversation he also shows a poetic and archaizing tendency in the use of Aeschylean and Homeric words and forms not found in Sophocles. This may be due to a reluctance to depart too far from the poetic tradition of Greek tragedy, and possibly to a scholar's interest in the language of Aeschylus and Homer, in a minor degree a foreshadowing of the learned archaism of the Alexandrian poets.

The method of approach to detailed criticism of prose-writers and poets adopted by Dionysius is in a large measure comparative. The procedure of comparison is threefold: firstly, the bringing together of passages from authors to elicit points of resemblance or of difference between their styles secondly, the assumption of the existence of common critical standards for all works of art, whether literature, painting, or sculpture thirdly, the use of metaphor and simile to illustrate matters of criticism which need the assistance of some visual or mental image to make clear the exact meaning of the point of criticism. The metaphorical vocabulary is the richer for the greater preoccupation of Dionysius with aesthetic appreciation than with philosophical analysis; and any seeming differences in technical vocabulary are compensated by the freedom with which his vocabulary in general draws on the Greek of his own and earlier times. The following list gives some of the more interesting metaphorical expressions used in the rhetorical works, with notes on their meaning and, in some cases, with illustrations of the use of the same or similar terms in other Greek critics and in the volumes of scholia.

In attempting to date the Shield several complementary methods are possible. Roughly these may be classed as literary, historical and archaeological. The literary method indicates that the Shield comes late in the Hesiodic corpus: in particular the use of the F is careful. The historical method suggests a preciser upper limit. Wilamowitz believed that the point of lines 393–401, which give the season in which the combat between Herakles and Kyknos took place, can only be that a commemorative festival was held—at the temple of Apollo at Pagasae, since the scene is laid in Apollo's sanctuary. Mazon continues that the reputation of the temple dates from the end of the Sacred War and the establishment at Pherae of a dynasty with close connections with Delphi (which Kyknos was in the habit of defrauding): he therefore sets the terminus post quern at about 590. This argument is attractive and possible. Several scholars have attempted to secure a lower limit from the last sentence in Hypothesis A: κα⋯ Στησ⋯χορος δ⋯ φησιν ' Hσ7iota;⋯δου εἶναι τ⋯ πο⋯ημα. But as Wilamowitz observes, we do not know whether the poem in which this mention came (plausibly a Kyknos) was a genuine work of Stesichoros. Certainly it need not make the Shield much earlier than the Stesichorean poem, since our ‘Hesiod’ wrote his epyllion for incorporation in the Ehoiai which was attributed to the genuine Hesiod, and an insertion into such a work could have been very quickly accepted. Mazon's lower limit of 560 is then on insecure grounds. Thirdly there is the possibility that analysis of the decoration of Herakles' shield might give useful comparisons to the conclusions of archaeologists on the chronology of Greek art. It is this method that I shall attempt.