With B. M. Pap. 273 (described and in part published by Kenyon in the Album Gratulatorium in honorem H. van Herwerden, Utrecht, 1902, pp. 137–142), which consists of a number of fragments from a papyrus book containing an unknown epic on the subject of Dionysus and his Indian expedition, is bound up a small fragment, evidently by a different hand. This (Pap. 273b) I have recently identified as from the Phaenomena of Aratus; and I therefore publish it here. Apparently no papyrus fragment of this poem has yet been discovered; there is, however, at Berlin (Pap. Ber. 5865) a portion of a commentary on Aratus, which has been published by Maass in his Commentariorum in Aratum Reliquiae, Berlin, 1898, pp. 556–558.

Professor Tucker in the C.R. vol. xi. pp. 341 sqq. has revolutionized our notions of ‘doubtful syllables’: we have now learned that such syllables are normally short, and that lengthening is the licence.

The vexed question of the exact significance of the name of Mavortius in the old Putean MS. of Prudentius (Par. Put. 8084) has again been called into court in the recent discussions of the Mavortian recension of Horace, and is fully treated in Dr. Bick's Horazkritik seit 1880, pp. 31–35. As Dr. Bick has done me the honour of subjecting my former articles on the question to his criticism, I feel called upon to say something in defence of the view I maintained. I willingly grant him that perhaps I laid too strong a stress on the connection of the question with Horatian criticism; but I do so, I fear, not as a convert to his arguments in favour of the view that Put. is merely a copy of a MS. that had Mavortius' autograph written in it, and that therefore that name is part of a lost subscriptio, but precisely for the contrary reason, that I consider I was too much influenced by former advocates of that view. That there is no ground for assuming the name to be part of a lost subscriptio I am more than ever convinced, and my object here is to endeavour to show that the whole argument based on a false premise.

Cicero, in his letters (Fam. 9, 22), writes the following sentence (§ 2): memini in senatu disertum consularem ita eloqui: ‘hanc culpam maiorem an illam dicam?’ potuit obscenius? ‘non’ inquis ; ‘non enim ita sensit’ Wherein does the coarseness lie? Critics (cf. Tyrrell in his edition of the letters) find in (il)lam dicam a word ‘ landicam,’ which they define by ‘clitoris’. But possibly culpam is, whether by equivoque or by definition, the offending word (cf. Shuckburgh's translation, 3, p. 295, where, after characterizing the interpretation just mentioned as far-fetched, he suggests an equivoque between culpam and culleus).

Are not the editors rather too easy-going, when they admit on the authority of Hephaestion these spondaic endings? In the second passage nothing is easier than to invert the order of ⋯λλ⋯ντας and τ⋯κωνας, reading oὔτ' ⋯λλ⋯ντας πoιηησóμεθ' oὔτε τ⋯κωνας, for oὔτε … oὔτε seem also required. Cratinus is not quite so easily corrected, but one may perhaps suppose that he really wrote something like ⋯ να⋯ς ⋯μ⋯ν ὡς πειθαρχ μ⋯λλoν τoῖς πηδαλ⋯oισι. If it were not for the poetical character of line I (πóντoν, αὖραι, ⋯ρ⋯μαι), we should doubt whether we ought not to write ἵ να for ὡς, but it may be right, though obviously the first and second lines have no immediate connexion. The spondaic ending is made even less probable than it would otherwise be by the fact of the fifth and sixth feet also being spondees.

It is universally held and in all classical Greek Grammars taught that in their numeral system, the ancient Greeks denoted the figure for 6 by the digamma or vau, that for 90 by the koppa, and that for 900 by the sampi or sanpi. On a closer examination, however, this doctrine proves erroneous and requires correction.

In Grenfell and Hunt's Hibeh Papyri, Vol. I, recently published, there is an interesting but obscure fragment, composed of sayings apparently ascribed to the famous poet. I submit two or three suggestions on them.

This account of the verb forms in Plautus proceeds in the same direction as my earlier papers on noun, adjectival, and adverbial forms (Classical Review, July, December, 1902, July, 1903). I feel strongly that something is needed on Plautine forms that shall be more complete and accurate than anything that yet exists. The statements that one meets with, that this or that form is “common,” or “regular,” in Plautus, are frequently misleading, or even incorrect, and are usually unsatisfying. I do not think it is of much import whether a word occurs fifty times or fifty-five, but it often is important to know whether it occurs fifty times, or five, or once, or not at all.

In 1871 it might well have been said that no Latin author was in worse need of a critical recension than Lucilius, and again in 1904 that none was in worse need of an exegetical commentary. The one want was supplied in 1872 by the edition of Lucian Mueller, and now Mr Friedrich Marx, by the publication of his second volume in 1905, has supplied the other. Both works deserve praise, both deserve thanks, and both deserve more thanks than praise ; for while gratitude is earned simply by the element of good which a book presents to us, admiration must depend on the greater or less predominance of the good element over the bad.

These lines conclude the speech of Pompey to Cornelia when she met him on the shore of Lesbos after the disaster of Pharsalia. This speech Mr. Heitland in his excellent Introduction to Haskins' Lucan has stigmatised as ‘abominable’.1 So far as the bulk of the speech is concerned a plea may perhaps be urged in mitigation of this judgment. Cornelia has completely broken down at the sight of her unfortunate husband, and his first object should be to restore her to herself. For this purpose, as all, not excluding Lucan, know, a tone of sharp chiding would be most effectual, and we learn from the sequel that it succeeded : ‘uocibus his correpta uiri uix aegra leuauit | membra solo’ (86 sq.). For the crude brutality of the statement in the last four words there is however no excuse. But happily it is not to be charged to Pompey or to Lucan, but to the editions. We should punctuate:

quod defies, illud amasti?

2. Vv. 155 sqq.

tanto deuinxit amore

hos pudor hos probitas castique modestia uoltus

quod submissa nimis nulli grauis hospita turbae

stantis adhuc fati uixit quasi coniuge uicto.