In this article I shall argue that Od. 11.92, omitted by nearly all our MSS., is an interpolation. This position is far from being a new one, but a return to the question may perhaps be justified by the fact that the line was defended by M. van der Valk in 1949, printed by W.B. Stanford in his text without comment in 1959 and unquestioningly accepted as genuine by D.J. Stewart in 1976. However, the main purpose of this article will be to emend the V scholium on Od. 11.91 and to show that – whatever its precise text – it provides further testimony against line 92.

A curious scene (fig. 1) decorates the Attic lekythos BS 423 in the Antikenmuseum at Basel. It was drawn not long before 480 B.C. by the Diosphos Painter, a fairly prolific craftsman who rarely devoted to his pictures as much care and imagination as he did in this case. Specializing in the decoration of small vases such as lekythoi, alabastra and small neck-amphorae he is among those conservative painters in Athens’ Kerameikos of the earlier fifth century who continued to use the old black-figure technique which most workshops had by then abandoned in favour of the new red-figure technique invented around 530 B.C. But while the bulk of his work is in black-figure, most of his better pieces are in so-called Six’s technique. This technique is named after the Dutch scholar Jan Six who first studied it and involves drawing the figures on an all-black background by combining incised lines and added colours (mostly white, but for more elaborate scenes also pink and red). Of East Greek origin it came to Athens at the same time red-figure was invented, probably introduced by Nikosthenes whose workshop appears to have been instrumental in its promotion during the last decades of the sixth century. To take full advantage of the possibilities offered by it was, however, left to the Sappho and above all to his colleague, the Diosphos Painter, who improved its decorative appeal by achieving a more balanced distribution between added colours and incised lines. Substantial parts of his pictures are left in incised outline, without any colour added, and he is particularly fond of compositions in which an all-black figure drawn in pure outline contrasts with one that is painted in added white.

Oracles, and especially the Delphic oracle, are notorious for the ambiguous and deceptive nature of their responses. Fontenrose has recently suggested that this notoriety is undeserved, firmly labelling ‘quasi-historical’ the celebrated anecdotes of Herodotus on which, above all, the reputation of the Delphic oracleis based. I do not intend to enter into controversy on the historical Delphic oracle; this paper deals exclusively with the literary Delphic oracle, enshrined in the pages of Herodotus; of its reputation there can be no doubt.

The year 1960 was something of a vintage for Greek word order; at least four relevant books appeared, the most specific being that of Jonas Palm, the most general that of Dover. Dover in his opening chapter shrewdly points out the dangers in customary procedure for the examination of the topic. Heeding his warning, I hope that I have steered a safe course between the Scylla of the particular and the Charybdis of the general, and that I have not been sailing in circles.

One of the remarkable features of ancient Greek is its tendency to use the optative with ἂν in circumstances in which English would use a more direct statement or question with present or future indicative. When judged in relation to time (as has been usual for several centuries) this optative is in some circumstances seen to have past reference, but there was from Homer through to the classical period a growing tendency for such ‘past’ potentials to be expressed by means of the past tenses of the indicative. My studies in Greek aspect have led me to discount the time element in considering the ancient Greek verb, and I have stated in my Greek Grammar for Students that even in potential statements using the indicative the distinction between the imperfect, aorist and pluperfect tenses ‘is purely that of aspect, the time reference being understood from the context’. In this paper I wish to explore this area a little more and to make some suggestions about some uses of the imperfect tense which I now see are related to the development of potential expressions.

Emphasizing what he saw as the weakness and docility of the Spartan assembly M.I. Finley wrote:

‘I will put the question very bluntly. Can we imagine that the obedient, disciplined Spartan soldier dropped his normal habits when he was assembled not as a soldier but as a citizen, while he listened to debates among those from whom he otherwise was taught to take orders without questioning or hesitation?‘

In the negotiations which were concluded by the Peace of Philocrates, Philip hoped to gain control of the Greek states so that he could invade Persia with his own kingdom secure from invasion by powerful enemies in his rear. Elimination of the Thebans as a leading state was an essential step in his plan, because he could foresee that the only combination sufficiently strong to thwart him would be Athens and Thebes. For this reason he insisted on an alliance with the Athenians as a necessary condition for the peace: he hoped that on the basis of this alliance the Athenians would send hoplites to Thermopylae who would aid him both in the suppression of his Theban allies and in the expulsion of Phalaecus and his mercenaries from the forts. He expected that, when the Thebans learned that the tyrant and his troops were to be punished severely and the Phocian people treated leniently, the Thebans would be provoked into attacking him and the Athenians would come to his aid by taking them in the rear.

The relationship of the ancient historian to his sources has not infrequently been compared to detective work. When the problem in hand is to discover the circumstances surrounding a murder, it is little wonder that ancient historians delight in retreading the same ground, encouraged by the absence of a final solution. There are a number of such mysteries thrown up by the world of antiquity, some more mysterious than others. Often there is the problem that at least one major suspect in some sense succeeded the victim in power, a dual problem in fact, since if guilty, the successor could cover up his tracks, if innocent, but nonetheless beneficiary of the death, he would incur suspicion anyway. I use the masculine pronouns, but female involvement is frequent — think of Livia and Agrippina. The case in hand is such as to excite curiosity: there seems to be an amount of evidence sufficient for a solution and the involvement of Alexander III raises tantalizing questions. Nor do we lack modern parallels to add spice to our investigation. The attempt to explain the assassination of President John Kennedy continues. Was there one gunman or, as now seems likely, two at least? Does that point to a conspiracy? There are further and more remarkable suggestions which, whatever their validity or otherwise, show a similarity with our case.

In part I of a recent article entitled ‘Entertainment in the Prytaneion at Athens’ Michael Osborne deals with the rationale of invitations extended by the Athenians by decree, whether for a single occasion (δεῖπνον, ξἐνια) or as a permanent award (σίτησις). The present paper is concerned only with the former, and will address itself in particular to two interrelated matters: I. the eligibility of benefactors (as opposed to envoys) to receive invitations; and II. the differentiation between citizens and foreigners as regards the type of entertainment provided.

It seems that not just anyone, however qualified by age and distinction, could sue for plebeian office. I have interpreted the lex Atinia (perhaps about the time of the Hannibalic War or shortly thereafter) as removing the prohibition on members of the senate becoming tribunes. That regulation, I would conjecture, had been operative since the early days of plebeian consulates, reflecting perhaps a tension between the popular office and the aristocratic council. But at the same time that this restriction was probably becoming out-moded or dysfunctional, another, more peculiar one was still alive and well.

The force of example is nowhere greater than in the adaptation of institutions observed abroad and modified for local conditions. Is it not possible, that in addition to his Stoic mentors, in addition to the radical ideals of Agis and Cleomenes, Tiberius Gracchus may have had the practical inspiration of a contemporary system of land settlement before him? It is my suggestion that Ptolemaic Egypt offered Roman agrarian reforms in the second century B.C. an example worthy of imitation, either in part or whole, and that such nobiles as M. Aemilius Lepidus, Laelius, Aemilianus and, not least, Tiberius Gracchus himself were attracted by the way the Ptolemies ran the rural sector of their economy.

In 125 B.C. the Latin town of Fregellae rebelled against Rome and was captured and destroyed by the praetor L. Opimius. A year later Fabrateria Nova was founded near the site of the defunct municipality. There has been a tendency, especially among English-speaking scholars, to treat the revolt as an isolated event; David Stockton, for example, has recently stated that ‘no other community joined in the revolt.. .’ Such views have gained wide currency, possibly because our sources for the event are diverse and rather unattractive; there is, however, evidence to suggest that the insurrection was more widespread than Stockton (inter alios) would have us believe. We need to re-examine this anti-Roman outbreak in such light as might be shed on the matter by certain neglected source material.

The hunt for Virgil’s sources has been, by unspoken agreement among Latinists, largely abandoned. This regrettable development may in part have been a by-product of the justifiable revulsion against the excesses of Quellenforschung as practised c. 1880-c. 1930 (everyone read Posidonius and Varro; no-one else was read), in part by the opening of alluring new vistas in Virgilian studies, where apparent progress might be made without the need of painstaking consultation of HRR,GRF,FGH,FHG and similar collections. It has therefore escaped notice that just as the detailed examination of Virgil’s use of Homer (Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer) or even of the Homer scholia (Schlunk, Virgil and the Homeric Scholia) can lead to immensely valuable advances in our understanding of the poet’s compositional techniques, so the survey of Virgil’s prose sources and the analysis of how he handles the material available to him can be employed to precisely comparable ends. It is the purpose of this paper to indicate some ways in which such a survey may be put into effect.