My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate, if possible, the essential unity of many phenomena which are common throughout the field of human civilization. While the occurrences of these phenomena are widely separated in place and time, it would be best if we tried to explain them by ascribing them to a common origin. Where today we find similar elements in the folklore of races dwelling far apart, these were once the common property of peoples living in close contact with one another. After examining some of the most characteristic phenomena from the point of view of geography, anthropology, material and intellectual culture, I shall then try to demonstrate this point by means of archaeological evidence. For this purpose I shall isolate a single popular belief, namely that fertility may be ensured by means of the rite of swinging. This belief is well attested in classical Greece, as part of many religious rites and traditions, and is known as αỉώρα, the ‘swing’.

The study of verbal nouns in Homer is of considerable importance for the understanding of the development of Greek language and thought and hence of methods of expression in the languages of Western Europe. Verbal nouns function primarily in much the same way as verbs, i.e. they express the same ideas as do verbs, and on the other hand they play similar parts in the structure of the sentence to other nouns. From this second aspect there evolves the tendency to particular reference, the ‘concrete’ use. The two functions of verbal nouns are a commonplace of semantic studies. In English we can say (1) in the building of houses=when one is building houses, (2) he came out of the building, and, in the plural, an important step, these buildings are to be demolished. The suffix -ing would be the nearest equivalent to -σις, capable like it of construction from any verb. The particular interest of nouns in -σις and -τύς in Homer is that the secondary type of use is still very rare, for example these nouns hardly ever occur in the plural, and thus the development of the ‘concrete’ use can be observed at a very early stage. The only functionally similar nouns in Homer, of types still in ‘free’ use, are those in -θμóς and -σἰη, which for reasons of space will be mentioned only incidentally, as their use impinges on that of the two other classes.

The most vivid general impression which results from reading the inscriptions of the Greek cities within this part of the Seleucid dominions—of the Koina into which these cities still grouped themselves for half-religious, half-political purposes, and texts of the royal letters and decrees addressed to these recipients–is that all these cities were in a constant ferment of anxiety and activity concerning the retention of their much-prized ‘autonomy’. To seek fresh promises and guarantees on this score was perhaps the main purpose of their frequent and costly embassies to the king during the Seleucid period, and the embassies always seem to have involved the bestowal of ‘crowns’ (that is, gold wreaths) in addition to the numerous complimentary titles and honours–divine and otherwise, temples, monthly (sic) royal birthdays and the like–which they constantly begged him to accept.

IO nutricis ΞΨPph. σχAГσχ altricis F var. δ | limina pulliae Ξ (acc. R1) σχГPph.? limen apulliae Turicensis, δ2, qui ambo ad Q pertinent limen apuliae ΨγEM Pph.? provinciae nomen pro nutricis posuit σχAГ; cf. σχAГ ad v. I8 I. Dauniae Paldamus

Thus the text and apparatus of Klingner’s 3rd Teubner edition (1959).

On the evidence of the MSS., the Teubner editor is clearly right in printing nutricis, limina and Pulliae. It remains to explain how the false readings arose and to justify the text as written by Horace, which some have found objectionable. On this a little new evidence can be adduced, but a preliminary review of the problem may be helpful.

69 amisso … renato Breiter, amissis … renatis Ω inter ren et atis lacunam indicaui et expleui 72 poterat discernere iam apud Scaligerum, poterant discernere Ω, impar discernere Bentleius, discernere nescia Housmannus

‘Before them men were ignorant and lacking in the power of penetration. They observed only the outward appearance of things and did not know the reasons for phenomena. It was with bewilderment that they observed intently the light of the sky, so strange an object to them. At one time they grieved for it as if they had lost it forever, at another were joyful as if it had been born anew. They were unable to discover why the sun rises so often (putting the stars to flight) or to discern the true cause of the variation in the duration of night and day and in the length of shadows cast by objects, a variation which really depends on how near or far away the sun is.’

The quaestiones perpetuae, although added to, refurbished and furnished with a definitive procedural code by Augustus, did not fare very well in the Principate or in the sources. Our view is constantly obscured by the senate and the emperor’s court, and by the praefectus urbi whenever he chooses to put in an appearance. The broad outlines are reasonably clear: Augustus sent down to the Principate a fully-formed and fully-functioning system of jury-courts, but by some time in the third century the whole system had collapsed and the bulk of the jurisdiction previously exercised by the quaestiones perpetuae was in the hands of the praefectus urbi, with a small but politically important minority of trials continuing to be brought in the senate or in the emperor’s court, as hitherto. So much for the general picture. There is less certainty about the various stages in the decline. It is clear that the problem cannot be considered as an organic whole, for different courts undoubtedly decayed at different times. Some courts, notably the quaestio maiestatis and the quaestio repetundarum, were not called upon to handle a large volume of day-to-day work at any time, and least of all when the senate and the emperor began making inroads into their spheres of competence. There is therefore no reason to assume a long currency for either of these courts, and the same can be said of the quaestio de ambitu, the quaestio de annona and the quaestio de plagiariis.