‘It is supposed’, declared the poet Wordsworth in 1802, ‘that by the act of writing in verse an author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association; that he not only thus apprizes the reader that certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held forth by metrical language must in different eras of literature have excited very different expectations.’ For his own era of literature Wordsworth proposed a language derived from the ‘simple and unelaborated expressions’ of the ‘language really spoken by men’, at the expense of ‘devices to elevate the style’ and ‘what is usually called poetic diction’.

The locus classicus for the didactic aspect of Greek tragedy is, of course, Aristophanes' Frogs, especially the passage at 1009–10 where Aeschylus and Euripides agree that (we) tragic poets are valued ⋯τι βελτ⋯оυϲ…πоιо⋯μεν τοὺϲ ⋯νθρώπουϲ ⋯ν ταῖϲ π⋯λεϲιν. But how seriously should we take this? It is comedy, after all.

Rem tene, the elder Cato advised the aspiring orator, verba sequentur. The advice applies equally to the textual critic. Of those who have attempted to emend, repunctuate, or defend this passage, few seem to have been troubled by any doubts about the firmness of their grip on the res, the precise point Poseidon is making. The usual view of what Poseidon means is that those who sack cities are foolish because such an act results in their own subsequent destruction, presumably because they desecrate temples and thereby offend the gods. Poseidon's words are cited as encapsulating the ‘moral’ or ‘lesson’ of the play, that the destruction of others and their cities brings the victor no advantage but only his own ruin, that the sacking of cities is always and everywhere an act of criminal folly. Yet there are several features of the lines themselves that are hard to square with this reading, and the context, Poseidon's monologue and his dialogue with Athena, suggests a slightly different view of the lesson to be read from the coming destruction of the Greeks.

Murray's edition of Medea (1902) made use of five manuscripts: BAVLP. Page (1938) added a sixth, the Jerusalem palimpsest, H. But Medea is preserved in six more manuscripts (I do not count apographs), which Murray and Page cite rarely or never. I investigate here the value and affiliations of these six and of a fragmentary seventh (F), which they do cite. The seven manuscripts are:

O (Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana, 31. 10), late twelfth century2

C (Vatican, Vaticano greco 910), fourteenth century; lacks 880–4, 1050 to the end3

D (Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana, 31. 15), fourteenth century4

E (Athos, Μον⋯ 'Ιβ⋯ρων 209, formerly 161), early fourteenth century; lacks 731–825, 1029–1133, 1339 to the end5

F (Venice, Bibl. Nazionale Marciana, gr. 468), c. 1300? Only the hypothesis and lines 1–426

The two slaves, Xanthias and Sosias, posted by their master's son to guard his ‘sick’ father Philocleon, challenge the audience to guess the nature of the mysterious and strange disease &nuó&sgr&ogr&nu ⋯&lambda&lambdaó&kappa&ogr&tau&ogr&nu, 71) on account of which the father must be kept inside the house. When the correct answer to the riddle is finally disclosed, Philocleon is revealed to beis revealed to be φιληλιαστ⋯σ (88), namely a man ‘who loves to be a juror’ and to spend his days in the law-courts passionately pursuing the infatuation of which his son tries to cure him by locking him up away from the law-courts and from his fellow jurors. The joke owes its comic effect to incongruity, termed the ‘humour of inappropriateness’ by MacDowell, who writes: ‘It is funny when addiction to being a juror is called a disease (87–88), because “disease” is a word which is not generally applied to such conditions’. It should, however, be stressed that in order to create this sense of incongruity the previously mentioned diseases must form a class with certain common characteristics fundamentally different from those of Philocleon's, thus gradually moulding the audience's expectations and channelling them in a completely different direction.

In recent years considerable attention has been focused on the question whether Plato ever uses arguments he knows to be sophistical, especially whether he puts such arguments into the mouth of Socrates. Though differing views have been held, at the present time the majority of scholars seem to believe that Plato does not. Though I disagree with this position, I will not attack it directly in this paper. Instead I will discuss what I take to be an important preliminary matter, establishing criteria that can be employed in order to assess the claim that one of Plato's characters does or does not argue sophistically. Since the case of Socrates is by far the most important, I will limit discussion here to the question whether Socrates ever uses sophistry.

In a well-known passage Aristotle ascribes to Plato, or as some think to his followers, the dictum, ⋯ γ⋯ρ ⋯ριθμóς ⋯στιν ⋯κ ⋯νòς κα⋯ τ⋯ς ⋯ορίστον (Met. 1081a, 14), ‘Number is (formed) from the one (unit, monad) and the undetermined (indefinite, unbounded) dyad (duality)’, but what this apparently simple statement means has remained a mystery until modern times. In other passages Aristotle expands it to explain that the indefinite duality is a duality of the great and small, e.g., ὡς μ⋯ν οὔν ὕλην τò μ⋯γα κα⋯ τò μικρòν εἶναι ⋯ρχ⋯ς, ὡς δ' οὐσίαν τò ἔν. ⋯ξ ⋯κείνων γ⋯ρ κατ⋯ μ⋯θεξιν το⋯ ⋯νòς εἶναι τοὺς ⋯ριθμο⋯ς (Met. 987b20–22). ‘As the matter (of number) he posits the great and small for principles, as substance the one; for by the mixture of the one with them he says numbers (arise).’ This identification of the dyad with the great and small, elsewhere called τò ἄνισον (‘the unequal’) and τò ἄπειρον (‘the unbounded’), gives a first clue to its nature. In a notable article in Mind 35 (1926), 419–40, continued in vol. 36, (1927), 12–33, and amplified by D' Arcy Wentworth Thompson in vol. 38 (1929), 43–55, A. E. Taylor first suggested a connexion between the indefinite duality and the modern theory of continued fractions. In the light of subsequent research in the history of Greek mathematics it may now be asserted with a high degree of confidence that his conjecture was almost certainly correct; but it was then no more than a conjecture, and when he looked for confirmation he looked in the wrong direction.

In CQ n.s. 26 (1976). 62–84 I argued that the defeat of Sparta in 371 B.C. was not due to the pursuit of unwise policies towards the other Greek states. Unwise policies there had been. Sparta being by no means superior to Athens in the formulation of foreign policy, but these did not affect the position on the eve of Leuctra when, with Thebes politically isolated, and with some of the Boeotians disaffected, Cieombrotus at the head of a numerically superior Spartan and allied army was poised for the, destruction of Theban power; a triumph of policy it must have seemed. Sparta failed for military reasons. Her army was unequal to the military genius of Epaminondas.

The second chapter of book three of the De anima marks the end of Aristotle's discussion of sense-perception. The chapter is a long one and apparently rambling in subject matter. It begins with a passage that is usually taken as a discussion of some sort of self-awareness, particularly awareness that one is perceiving, although such an interpretation raises some difficulties. This paper reconsiders the problems raised by supposing that the question discussed in the first paragraph is ‘how do we perceive that we perceive?’, and suggests an alternative interpretation which would solve many of the difficulties and have the additional merit of restoring unity to the sequence of notes which go to make up the whole chapter.

‘Menander has set up a confrontation between this law [the law about epikleroi] and love… He wants the audience to regard the law as stupid and wrong… Surely one of Menander's purposes in writing this play was to make the Athenians consider seriously whether the law ought to be changed.’ Thus Professor D. M. MacDowell in the concluding paragraph of his article ‘Love versus the Law: an Essay on Menander's Aspis’. A similar view was already implicit in E. Karabelias' treatment of the play as indicative of the general attitude to this law in Athens in Menander's day: ‘A n'en point douter, l'épiclérat est ressenti, á l'epoque de Ménandre, comme une anomalie intolérable pour les mceurs de la societe athénienne à la fin du ive s.av.n.è L'épiclérat est odieux et ridicule… L'hostilité envers l'épiclérat est done un signe des temps’. And Professor E. G. Turner has written: ‘it is hard to imagine that the institution of the epiclerate emerged in good standing from this derisory treatment’.

As is well known, Epicurus and his followers held that the universe was infinite and f that its two primary components, void and atoms, were each infinite. The void was infinite in extension, the atoms were infinite in number and their total was infinite also in extension. The chief Epicurean proofs of these infinities are found in Epicurus, Ad Herod. 41–2, and in Lucretius 1.951–1020. As far as I can see, both the commentators to these works and writers on Epicurean physics in general have neglected to take into account some material pertinent to these proofs, material found in Aristotle and especially in his commentators Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius, and Philoponus. In this article I wish to compare this neglected information with the proofs of infinity found in Epicurus and Lucretius and to discuss their authorship.

A vast amount has been written on the relationship between Terence's and Menander's Eunuchus. On some points a good measure of agreement has been reached, but much remains in dispute. In an important article W. Ludwig convincingly demonstrated the inner unity of Terence's plot, against earlier theories of large-scale ‘contaminatio’ The nature of the changes made by Terence in introducing two characters from Menander's Colax (30–3) is now fairly clear, although argument is possible over details. The changes are numerous but relatively small and do not affect the main lines of Menander's plot. In this paper I shall argue that Terence made similar changes in two other parts of the play, and that these caused certain anomalies which have prompted theories of more drastic Terentian change.

Some say that only 30 were seized, and that the Curiae were named after them, but Valerius Antias [fr. 3P] says there were 527, Juba [FGrH275F23] that there were 683. They were virgins, which was Romulus' main justification: no married women were taken – except one, Hersilia, by mistake - since it was not in wanton violence or injustice that they resorted to rape, but with the intention of bringing the two peoples together and uniting them with the strongest ties. As for Hersilia, some say she was married to Hostilius, a very distinguished Roman, others that she was married to Romulus himself and even bore him children: one daughter, Prima, so called from the order of birth, and a single son, whom Romulus named Aollios after the crowd of citizens under his rule, though he was subsequently called Abillios [i.e. Avillius]. Many authors, however, contradict this account, which is given by Zenodotus of Troezen [FGrH 821F2].

Quid enim? si Daphitae fatum fuit ex equo cadere atque ita perire, ex hocne equo, qui cum equus non esset nomen habebat alienum ? aut Philippus hasne in capulo quadrigulas vitare monebatur? quasi vero capulo sit occisus. Quid autem magnum aut naufragum illum sine nomine in rivo esse lapsum – quamquam huic quidem his scribit in aqua esse pereundum? ne hercule Icadii quidem praedonis video fatum ullum; nihil enim scribit ei praedictum: quid mirum igitur ex spelunca saxum in crura eius incidisse? puto enim, etiam si Icadius tum in spelunca non fuisset, saxum tamen illud casurum fuisse, nam aut nihil est omnino fortuitum aut hoc ipsum potuit evenire fortuna. (Cicero, De Fato 5)

‘sed ad hunc bolum ut pervenias, opus erit tibi aut epulum aut triumphus alicuius, ut tune fuit Scipionis Metelli, aut collegiorum cenae, quae nunc innumerabiles excandefaciunt annonam macelli.’ Varro, RR 3. 2. 16. (‘But to make such a haul as this, you will need a public banquet, or somebody's triumph, like Metellus Scipio's then, or the dinners of the collegia, which are innumerable just now and send the price of provisions in the market blazing up.’)

Among the difficulties in Propertius is the question whether to retain ‘cecinit’ in 3. 3. 7 or to adopt the conjecture ‘cecini’.

Propertius dreamed that he was reclining upon Helicon in a grove by Hippocrene and that he was able to compose a Roman historical epic:

Visus eram molli recubans Heliconis in umbra,

Bellerophontei qua fluit umor equi,

Reges, Alba, tuos et regum facta tuorum

(Tantum operis) neruis hiscere posse meis,

Paruaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora

Vnde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit,

Et cecinit Curios fratres et Horatia pila

Regiaque Aemilia uecta tropaea rate

Victricesque moras Fabii pugnamque sinistram

Cannensem et uersos ad pia uota deos

Hannibalemque Lares Romana sede fugantes,

Anseris et tutum uoce fuisse Iouem,

Cum me Castalia speculans ex arbore Phoebus

Sic ait…

According to the paradosis 7–12 constitute a summary of Ennius' Annales. In that I case Propertius' failure to observe historical sequence (the Gaulish attack of 387 coming after the Second Punic War) is peculiar; nor is it defended securely by I supposedly parallel passages. More damaging, however, is that 8 must describe the triumph of L. Aemilius Paullus in 167, two years after the accepted date of Ennius' death. Hertzberg and Postgate claimed that it alludes to the defeat of Demetrius of I Pharos by a L. Aemilius Paullus in 219 (Polyb. 3. 16. 18, App. Illyr. 8); this is unlikely for some of the same reasons as the rival theory of Butler and Barber, which has found many adherents, that it refers to the victory over Antiochus' navy by L. Aemilius Regillus at Myonnesus in 190.

It is often claimed that in the ancient world character was believed to be something fixed, given at birth and immutable during life. This belief is said to underlie the portrayal of individuals in ancient historiography and biography, particularly in the early Roman Empire; and tc constitute the chief point of difference in psychological assumptions between ancient and modern biography. In this article, I wish to examine the truth of these claims, with particular reference to Plutarch and Tacitus.

In Aristophanes' Wasps (673–5), Bdelykleon tells his jury-mad father that because the allied states are aware that the ordinary Athenian juror is an exploited creature, deliberately kept poor by the demagogues in whose hands the real power lies, σ⋯ μ⋯ν ⋯γο⋯νΤαι Κ⋯ννου ψ⋯φον, Το⋯τοισι δ⋯ δωρоφоρоῡσιν. The scholia see that Κόννου ψ⋯φον must mean ‘something worthless’, but they add on the authority of Kallistratos and Euphronios that Ar. has altered the original phrase:

ΚαλλĺστραΤος παροιμ⋯αν φησ⋯ “Κόννου θρῖον”, παρ՚ ἣν παίζει Εὺφρόνιος δ⋯ ὅτι ⋯λέΧθη δι⋯ τ⋯ ⋯δύν τινα τ⋯ν Κόννον εἶναι. … ψ⋯φον δ⋯ εἶπε δι⋯ δι⋯ τ⋯ περ⋯ δικαστο⋯ λ⋯γειν. (Σ Wasps 675b+c ed. Koster)

We cannot tell whether Euphronios was commenting on κóννον θριον or κóννον ψ⋯ϕον, since although he was writing before Kallistratos, the latter need not have been the first to cite the phrase κóννον θριον in connection with our passage; indeed, the credit for first noting its relevance may belong to Euphronios himself. I shall be reverting to Euphronios' interpretation of the phrase presently.

So van Leeuwen prints the lines, following Cobet and Meineke in athetizing 16. Nor is it difficult to find grounds for the exclusion; τòν ἒποϕ is (virtually) repeated at 47; the following three words smell of the scholiast; the last three resemble the end of 13. The line taken as a whole seems to play little if any role, and indeed to lack meaning, even if line 47 is some way away and it is a little odd that the three separate elements meld into a perfectly acceptable comic trimeter (but compare Wasps 1293). Conjectures are not lacking for the replacement of ⋯κ τ⋯ν ⋯ρν⋯ων by something which gives more sense; Köchly's ἂνθρωποσ ποτ' ὢν may be taken as typical in both meaning and style.

In a recent publication of four new inscriptions from Larisa in Thessaly, Kostas Gallis has revealed the helpful presence of a Syrian astrologer in that area of Greece toward the middle of the second century B.C. (or a little later). In honouring this man the Larisaeans identify him, in one of the new texts, as 'αντíπατροσ 'αντιπ⋯τρον 'ιεροπολíτησ τ⋯σ ∑ελευκíδοσ, πεπ∨λιτ*ogr;γ7rho;αϕημ⋯νοσ [δ⋯] ⋯ν 'ομολíω υπ⋯ρχων χαλδαῖοσ ⋯στρονóμοσ, ⋯νδημ⋯ν τἦμ⋯ν ⋯ρò ρρóνων. The Chaldaean astrologer Antipater is accordingly a native of Syrian Hierapolis who acquired the citizenship of Homolion, in the area of Thessalian Magnesia. He evidently spent considerable time in Larisa.