No ancient has told us in any surviving writing when Iambulos lived. Lucian says no more than that he composed a work obviously fabulous but quite amusing; Diodoros of Sicily, the only other author to mention him at all, earns our gratitude by excerpting his romance, apparently under the impression that it was sober fact. Moderns are accordingly vague in dating him. It is obvious that he must be earlier than or contemporary with Diodoros, whose historical work mentions no date later than 54 B.C, but his allusions to events of his own life indicate that he was old enough to take an intelligent interest in the world as early as about 60 B.C, and still alive as late as (perhaps) 21 B.C. Kroll contents himself with indicating that Iambulos is later than Megasthenes, which gives us a range of close on 250 years. I think, however, that we may reduce this very considerably and place Iambulos, if not in any definite year, at least within a period of less than a century.

In a recent paper (C.Q. XXXII pp. 65–74) I attempted to show that Plutarch founded his Timoleon upon a Hellenistic biography and made direct use of Timaeus only for the major episodes, where the material contained in this biography was insufficient. The Pelopidas is similar in colouring to the Timoleon, both belonging to what might be described as the ‘chivalrous hero’ class of Plutarch's Lives. Yet this similarity does not originate from the use of similar authorities; for in writing the Pelopidas he was compelled by the nature of the sources available to him to adopt an entirely different process of composition. The bulk of the Life is, as I hope to show, directly derived from the work of a fourth-century historian, and a considerable amount of supplementary material is added from miscellaneous sources.

17A. οἱ δ νν τν νθρώπων σοφο ἓν μν, ὅπως ἂν τχωσι, κα πολλ θττον κα βραδὐτερον ποιοσι το δοντος, μετ δ τ ἓν ἄπειρα εὐθς τ δ μσα ατος κφεὺγειοἷς διακεχώρισται τ τε διαλεκτικς πλιν κα τ ριστικς μς ποιεῖσθαι πρς λλλους τος λγους.

The publication of Dr. Warren E. Blake's edition of the romance of Chariton has at last made it possible to know what the tradition of the text amounts to and form some opinion of its principal weaknesses. That these include lacunae will be obvious to anyone who even glances through his apparatus criticus; I think there are at least three which neither he nor any of the former editors has noted. The supplements I propose are of course mere examples of how they might be filled; their existence seems pretty certain, but no more than the general sense of what is missing is likely to be got unless some new papyrus or other unexpected find puts us in possession of more evidence.

In a recent note (Rev. de Phil. 1936, 208) Mr. T. B. Allen had corrected a reading of J. B. Cramer (Anecdota Oxoniensia II 56) βρβειος οὐρ to προβτειος., but in a footnote he adds ‘When I made this correction I was not aware of the word πρβειος. Liddell and Scott and Sophocles share my ignorance. I found it in the Anecdota of Boissonade III 408: κ δ τν κρεν ρνιθας σθειν κα πρβεια κα περιστερς sim. 410, 412, 419. Boissonade quotes the word from a similar treatise by Hierophilus, and the 1851 edition of Stephanus reproduces his note.’ This trisyllabic word πρβειος is obviously a ‘Reimbildung’ to ἄρνειος, μσχειος, ταρειος etc., and its occurrence clears up a papyrus reading which has long puzzled me. In P. Lond. 113, 10, 13 [VII] we read πρωβαων δερμτων, which Preisigke lists as ‘πρβαιος=προβτειος’ Until reading Allen's note I had supposed that the loss of the syllable -ατ- in προβτ-ειος, was a haplography induced by the following δερμ-τ-ων but there are now grounds for regarding the formation as genuine. Only the variation of the adjectival suffix -ειος × -αιος presents a difficulty. In clearing this up we shall be able to lay a number of ghost-words which have spooked in the second edition of Mayser's Grammatik der ptolemäischen Papyri.

Aristotle is asking why the heaven revolves in one direction rather than the other. His answer is based on his earlier proof that the Universe has a top and a bottom, a right and a left. The upper region, as the place of divinity, is prior or superior to the lower; so upward motion is prior to downward motion. Right is similarly prior and superior to left. The present problem can be solved by supposing that the world has also a front and a back, and hence a forward motion, which will be prior and superior to backward motion. Since Nature always follows the best course, the reason for the direction of the heaven's revolution will be that that direction is forward and therefore better.

After the Jewish War Josephus was taken to Rome by Titus and then enjoyed the favour of Vespasian (Vit. 422–3). The first task set him was to write a history of it in Aramaic for the ‘upper barbarians’, by which he means Parthians, Babylonians, Jews beyond Euphrates and Adiabenians (B.J. I 3, 6). For his work he doubtless had access to the ‘commentarii’ of the emperor. This task may not have taken him long, but the translation into Greek (B.J. I 3) which we possess took longer, and was finished before the emperor's death, but after the dedication of the Forum Pacis (B.J. VII 158). In its leisurely composition he tells us later (c. Ap. I 50) that he had ‘certain assistants’ in the Greek language. As the work is quite uniform and smooth in style, we can only assume that J. turned his Aramaic into Greek himself to start with, and then placed the MS in the hands of assistants who systematically revised it, rewriting where necessary. No other hypothesis is possible; for no assistant could have been found sufficiently familiar with both Aramaic and literary Greek—at least it is highly improbable—and we have no reason to disbelieve J. when he says he translated his original treatise.

Since geography was one of the accepted branches of Ionian Ίστορíη, it is not surprising that geographical description and discussion should play so large a part in the work of Herodotus. Nor is it surprising that, since he covered so much ground, he should occasionally borrow information from his predecessors. Apart from particular passages where comparison with the fragments of Hecataeus shows that he borrowed from this author's Periegesis, there are numerous others which, although strictly relevant fragments are lacking, by their style and manner betray the influence of Hecataeus. The so-called ΛιβυκῸσ λΌγος for example, in Book IV is full of the conventional formulae familiar to anyone who has studied the fragments; consequently Jacoby is prepared to say that it provides even more valuable material for the method and style of Hecataeus than the treatment of Egypt in Book II, where more specific evidence of borrowing is available. There are countless other passages and isolated sentences where the style suggests, if not actual dependence on the text of Hecataeus, at least adherence to the Hecataean tradition of geographical description.