No one can write an adequate commentary on a Greek play, or even edit it adequately, without producing it in his mind; that is to say, he must see in his mind's eye the exact location, movement and gesture of every character at every moment, arid must hear in his mind's ear the exact tone of every word. Admittedly, we do not know so very much about the appearance of the theatre in the fifth century B.C., or about the actors' costumes, or about Greek gestures; even our knowledge of the pronunciation of Greek at the relevant period is imperfect; and our ignorance of delivery and acting styles is total. Therefore, when we produce a play in our imagination we can hardly fail to import much which would be recognized as grossly erroneous if our evidence were suddenly to be increased. Yet, as so often happens in the study of the ancient world, we are confronted with a choice of risks. We can take the risk of an imaginative reconstruction which may be factually wrong but is at least reconcilable with all the evidence we have and is kept reconcilable, by modification, with whatever fresh evidence comes to light from time to time; or, alternatively, we can take the risk of missing the point of what the dramatist is saying and therefore of importing the wrong point. Even if we are not temperamentally disposed (as I am) in favour of the former risk, we are virtually forced to take it when we have committed ourselves to editing a text. The punctuation of a dramatic text is a matter for producers, not grammarians; a comma gives one instruction to the actor, a colon gives a different instruction—and few editors are likely to practise ars nescienti so pertinaciously as to refrain from giving the actors any such instructions at all.

Towards the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius Oppian of Cilicia wrote a didactic epic of some 3,500 lines on sea-creatures and the methods of catching them, entitled Halieutica. This literary, rather than scientific, enterprise was hardly an original one, for Athenaeus, whose Deipnosophistae must have been published not long after the death of Commodus in A.D. 193, tells us that he was acquainted with five such hexametrical Halieuticas, those of Caecilius of Argos, Numenius of Heracleia, Pancrates of Arcadia, Poseidonius of Corinth, and lastly Oppian, whom he describes as τὸν ὀλίγῳ πρὸ ἡμῶν γενόμενον Όππιανὸν τὸν Κίλικα. The wider context of Oppian's work is that whole tradition in Greek of didactic epic as a merely literary exercise, which for us begins with Aratus in the early third century B.C., but which seems more precisely to have been initiated by Aratus' teacher Menecrates of Ephesus, who about 300 B.C. turned to the old Hesiodic tradition with the composition of an Erga. Aratus too was reviving an old tradition that seems to have flourished in the sixth century B.C. of versifying astronomical and meteorological lore. As is well known, his Phaenomena and also probably the Diosemeia are essentially a verse paraphrase of a treatise by Eudoxus, a treatise which already in Aratus' time did not provide the most up-to-date and reliable information. Later, whether only shortly or more than a century later, Nicander of Colophon likewise adapted, certainly in his Theriaca and perhaps also in his Alexipharmaca, the technical prose writings of a poison-expert Apollodorus. These are but two examples, and, as far as we can tell, typical ones, of what was done by a large number of poets from Aratus' time onwards for a considerable variety of poetically unpromising subjects, which, apart from astronomy, poisons and fishing, we know included astrology, medical prescriptions generally, hunting, agriculture, bee-keeping, geography, stones and the flights of birds, whilst the poetic treatment of yet other subjects, such as dicing, ball-games and swimming, is recorded by Ovid (Trist. 2. 471 ff.).

The first part of Plutarch's Alcibiades, down to the point at which preparations for Sicily begin (17.1), has only the roughest chronological framework. It is largely made up of anecdote and reflection, and the order seems to be determined mainly by literary considerations. Hence its special interest for the study of Plutarch's methods. Why is the material arranged as it is? And what, if any, is Plutarch's original contribution? These are dangerous questions—the first because it is human to claim the presence of design where there is really only accident, and the second because to answer it properly would require unattainable completeness in our knowledge of the sources. Nevertheless, it is perhaps worth making the attempt.

For centuries after the death of Alexander the cult of the Egyptian gods, and of Isis in particular, was widespread in the Mediterranean. The fact is of considerable importance in the history of religious ideas; yet it has not received much special attention. Perhaps this is not altogether surprising. The range of the search is wide and the task daunting. The subject of Isis–Hellas is unclaimed by Egyptology. For its proper exploration the classical scholar must delve into many fields. Besides the epigraphical and numismatic evidence many literary texts have to be read. Sculpture, painting, magical amulets and papyri can all be turned to account. Some fresh approach may suddenly throw the Isiac faith into a strange light as when Merkelbach four years ago found links between its mysteries and the romantic tales by such writers as Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. Abundant proof for the existence of the Egyptian cult on the Greek mainland and in the Aegean and Asia Minor has been brought forward by Rusch, Brady and Magie. Yet we have to bear in mind how strong it also became during the Imperial Age in Italy, as was shown years ago by Lafaye and more recendy by the Dane Alfoldi and the Vietnamese Tran Tam Tinh. No wonder then that a comprehensive and definitive work on Isis in all her countless guises (Isis Myrionymos) has still to be written.