It is an almost universal principle that texts should not receive emendation until the reading of the MSS. has received careful consideration. An initial awkwardness may, after reflection, prove to be a poet's sacrifice of style to achieve some higher end – an allusion to traditional literature, a word-order reflecting the structure of his ideas, or the accurate expression of ideas which are not easily put into verse. The last reason is usually held responsible for the short-comings of Parmenides' poetry, while in his prologue, with which I am here concerned, sacrifices of the first kind may also be expected, as literary allusions have been proved plentiful and significant. In a previous publication I have also argued for a carefully contrived word-order at B8.53, hinting that this may also be the case at B1.3. If my hunch were correct, then it would involve restoring the manuscript reading in that line.

In this paper I wish to argue as follows. Plato held, and stressed very strongly from the start, that the Forms are not subject to change. He seemed to hold that in this lies their main contrast with the sensible world. But at times, particularly in the middle dialogues, he was inclined to argue that the inferiority of the sensible world lies elsewhere; namely, in the fact that its objects are the bearers of opposite (contrary or contradictory) properties. I will argue, first, that this latter claim in its simplest and most direct form is inconsistent with other important claims made by Plato; second, that recent attempts to make the argument tighter and more consistent are unsuccessful. I will end by trying to show that what remains of the ‘argument from opposites’ when a number of necessary qualifications have been made, still leads to a clear and useful distinction between Forms and particulars.

In his article ‘Clouds, Mysteries, Socrates and Plato’ (Antichthon 4 [1970], 13-24), Professor A.W.H. Adkins starts from the agreed fact that certain passages of the Clouds compare entry to the phrontisterion to initiation to mysteries. He argues from this (and here I should not necessarily disagree with him) that Socrates was in the habit of using initiation-language when speaking of philosophy and that Aristophanes, shocked by such blasphemy, ‘used it as one more weapon against Socrates and the New Thought in his Clouds’ (24).

Justice is a theme common to both of Sophocles' Oedipus plays, but it is subjected to scrutiny from two quite different viewpoints. The mythical Oedipus was pre-eminently suited to be an example of the workings of universal justice, as Sophocles conceived it, both because his crime and its discovery might be presented as a vivid dramatic event, and because Oedipus' very existence confronted the starkest questions of justice and morality, innocence, guilt and criminal intent. So rich was this broad theme that Sophocles treated it on two occasions, far removed from each other in time and spirit, yet the dramatist was able to derive new elucidation of the universe in his second encounter. But critics generally are unwilling to face the issues of justice and guilt squarely. The O. T., especially, gives rise to much embarrassment or plain evasion, yet only by facing Sophocles' actual presentation of the problem and assessing it on Sophocles' own terms can we arrive at a satisfactory response to the predicament of Oedipus – a response which will affront neither our intellect nor our morality.

Our level of tolerance of solar and lunar symbolism is now much lower than it was when devotees went questing in the fields of mythology in the nineteenth century. Should a scholar now appear automatically to equate an epiphany of Apollo with the rising of the sun, he will find it hard to carry conviction, and rightly so. At the other pole is the thesis of J.E. Fontenrose, recently accorded the accolade by G. Karl Galinsky as neither to be ‘ignored nor disputed’. He argues that, while Diana was clearly identified with the moon in Roman literature of the first century B.C. because of her association with Hecate in the triformis dea, Apollo was never equated with the sun until the Imperial period.

A. H. McDonald's contribution to the study of Rome's reconquest of Gallia Cisalpina raises several important questions concerning that momentous development. Momentous it surely was, for it brought under Roman rule a territory which was to be one of the heartlands of Roman, indeed western, culture in later ages. Another look at some aspects of the conquest and reconquest may thus be forgiven.

Essential to a recent interpretation of Propertius iii 11 are the ideas that ‘the opening verses … establish clearly an erotic context for the rest of the poem’, and that ‘the statement that, with Augustus, Rome had nothing to fear from Cleopatra personally (55) can have nothing to do with her military resources … The victory celebrated here is that of Augustus over Cleopatra as over an enchantress, powerful in love.’ These assessments are based on the opinion, several times repeated, that Propertius' introduction of himself as the elegiac lover in vv. 1-8 necessitates our viewing everything in the poem thereafter as coloured by this fact.

Perhaps the most important military development of the Flavian period was the establishment of the vast provincial complex of Galatia/Cappadocia. As a result the entire aspect of Roman Asia Minor was changed. Instead of a weak agglutination of unarmed provinces with client kingdoms at the periphery there emerged a single huge province extending from the borders of Asia as far as the Euphrates, all of it under a consular legate with a subordinate of praetorian rank. Central Anatolia could at last be treated as a unity. Accordingly in the 70s and 80s A.D. a network of military roads sprang up, leading from Pisidia in the west and Lycaonia in the south to the Euphrates frontier and to the Pontic coast. Then as now the military area was to the east. Two legions had permanent camps at Satala in Lesser Armenia and at Melitene oh the Euphrates; and there was a chain of subsidiary fortresses manned by legionary vexillationes or auxiliary cohorts, which extended as far as Dioscurias, halfway up the eastern coast of the Black Sea.

Some thirty-five years ago, Passerini discussed the career of this eminent Flavian senator, inspired, it would appear, by the discovery of an inscription revealing his hitherto unknown legateship of Spain; but the possibilities of this inscription were not fully explored. A re-evaluation of Clemens' career seems desirable.