Every living science, especially in its early stages, is compelled to devise fresh terms, either by coining new words or by giving new meanings to old ones. Unless and until these fresh terms become absorbed in the vocabulary of everyday speech, their unfamiliarity makes them a target for the shafts of the humourist. There can be no doubt that in the late fifth century B.C. literary criticism (using the expression in its widest sense, to include all methodical investigation of literary technique) was still a new science. We can trace its beginnings in the treatises of the Sophists, many titles of which have been handed down to us. Strepsiades' lesson in metric, though of itself amusing enough, would certainly gain in topical appropriateness if enacted at a time when such investigations were not only much in the air, but were still novel. And the whole ‘Agon’ of the Frogs, the character of which is forecasted in lines 796–802, depicts in the strongest colours the contrasted views of technician and inspirationist. We should therefore naturally expect a play of such a kind, written at such a time, to be full of technical jargon, barely understood by the ‘man in the street,’ and forming the object of his half-contemptuous amusement. That is, I believe, exactly what we do find, to an extent insufficiently recognized. Professor Radermacher, in his recent edition of the Frogs, has rendered valuable service by pointing out the frequent occurrence in that play of technical terms which meet us later in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and other critics. But I believe that technical language lurks unsuspected in many other passages, though the precise meaning may often be beyond recovery.

Among the conundrums relating to Roman ritual which Plutarch set himself to solve was this: ‘Why do they part the hair of brides with the point of a javelin?’ To this question Plutarch offers a number of answers, all based on the assumption that the spear was symbolical. Professor Rose in his discussion of the passage makes short work of these fumbling guesses, and points out that the original purpose of the spear was magical.

There is no little division of opinion regarding the provenance of the Bacchanalian rites which were suppressed with much cruelty by the Senate in 186 B.C. Since the Dionysiac orgies were native to Phrygia, and since Livy tells the story in question immediately after describing the immoral practices that were brought back from Asia by the returning army of Manlius Vulso in 187, it has frequently been assumed that Anatolia was the source of these rites. Reitzenstein and Cichorius, in discussing a recently-found decree of Ptolemy IV. regarding an inquisition into Dionysiac rites in Egypt, both assume that the Roman cult had come from the Orient. Carcopino, in a recent discussion of the ‘Underground Basilica’ at Rome, suggests that the objectionable element of the cult was the Pythagorean club, which might become a political menace. Other scholars, remembering Livy's statement that one of the priests of the cult had operated in Etruria before coming to Rome, have tried to find traces of Dionysiac rites on Etruscan monuments.

τοὐτων σὲ οὓτωσ ἐχóντων χρὴ σοκεῖν ἐνεῖναι πολλά τε καì παντοῖα ἐν πᾶσι τοῖσ συγκρινομἐνοισ καὶ σπέρματα π;άντων χρημ;άτων καὶ ἰσέασ ἕχοντα καὶ χροιὰσ καὶ ἡσονάσ. καὶ ἀνθρώπονσ τε συμπαγῆναι καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ξᾦα ὄσα Ψυχὴ;ν ἔχει. καὶ τοἶσ γε ἀνθρώποισιν ευναι καὶ πόλεισ συνῳκημένασ καὶ τὰ ἂλλα σᾦα óσα κατεσκνασμενα, ωσπερ παρ' ημíν, και την γην αυτοισι πυειν πολλὰ τε και παντοιων εκεινοι τα ονηιστα συνενεγκὰμενοι εíσ την οικησιν χρωνται. ταυτα μεν ουν μοι λέλεκται περι τἦσ ἀποκρισιοσ, xsὄτι οửκ ὄν παρ' ἡμíν μóνον ἀποκπιθεíη, ἀλλὰ καì ἄλλη.

There is still something to be said about these figures for the Athenian hoplite force, the more so as the most reasonable discussion of them, Meyer's, is spoilt by some unsound inferences and has in consequence not found support. Their difficulty is apparent: a muster πανσημει in 338 meant calling up all classes up to the age of 50 (Lycurg. c. Leocr. 39), and since Socrates fought at Delion and Amphipolis when he was in his late forties, and not at Mantineia when he was over 50, we may assume that it meant the same in the fifth century; we also assume (though this is by no means proved) that ‘the youngest’ are those in their nineteenth and twentieth years, as in the fourth century, certainly after the reform of the Ephebeia, perhaps earlier (Aeschin. II. 167); military service ceased at 60. But how could the number of men in these twelve classes, 19-20 and 51-60, stand in the proportion of 13: 17 (16,000 less 3,000 metics, 13,000 plus 1,000 cavalry and 3,000 metics) to the men between 21 and 50 ? They could not be more than a third, and might be less. (Beloch, 1923, tries to make the problem more difficult by the arbitrary assumption that the 13,000 citizen hoplites are all the men of 21-60, instead of 21-50. Meyer, who accepts Thucydides’ figures, forgets that there must have been ‘oldest and youngest’ metics, besides the 3,000 who marched into Megara. Busolt and Meyer also argue that the classes 51-60 will have suffered specially heavy losses in the battles of 459-445, while the eight youngest classes would have seen no fighting;

MS. 124 in the library of St. John Baptist College, Oxford, is a quarto of 154 pages, written in two or more hands of the fifteenth century. Its provenance is unknown, and, as it has been carefully and ruthlessly rebound at some time in the nineteenth century, it is impossible to derive any information from the binding. After an unusually elabbrate alphabetical index it bears on folio 11 an inscription in a seventeenth-century hand as follows: ‘Libellus Thomae de Walsingham De generacione naturaque deorum simul cum interpretatione Ouidii Metamorphoseon Simoni Priori Sancti Albani dedicatus.’

AugustWilhelm vonSchlegel, who did so much to rend the already torn artistic reputation of Euripides in the early nineteenth century, is singularly lenient in his criticism of the Hecuba.

His adverse comment is limited to three points only: The first, that ‘the two actions of this piece—the sacrifice of Polyxena and the revenge on Polymestor on account of the murder of Polydorus—have nothing in common with each other but their connexion with Hecuba’; the second, that ‘the second half destroys the soft impressions of the first in a highly repulsive manner’; and the third, that it is ‘not very suitable that Hecuba should display such presence of mind in her revenge.’ In this leniency he differs from one of the latest modern English critics, Professor G. Norwood,2 who does not hesitate to condemn the play as ‘on the whole poor and uninteresting,’ ‘far below the best of Euripides' work’; and from his great predecessor, J. J. Reiske, who condemned the play on ten distinct counts, all different from those that form the basis of SchlegeFs own argument.

In Plutarch's two narratives (Vita Pelopidae XIII. and De genio Socratis) of the recapture of the Cadmea by the Thebans, 379/8 B.C. (winter), he speaks of three harmosts as in command of the Spartan garrison. This is the only instance in Spartan history where more than one harmost is mentioned as exercising authority in the same city, and it suggests the question: Was Thebes for some reason receiving different treatment from the other cities where we hear of harmosts in residence ?

It seems worth while giving some account of this MS., because in recent years it has been said to contain certain pieces of the Moralia which it does not, and not to contain others which it does.

At the foot of the first page of the text the MS. carries the pontifical shield with the arms of the Medici, and from this it is reasonable to suppose that there was a time when it belonged either to Leo X., who was Pope from 1513 to 1521, or to Clement VII., who was Pope from 1523 to 1534. This being so, 1534 is established as the terminus ante quem of its writing. Towards the end of this century, about 1598, it was acquired by the Spanish Cardinal Saverio de Zelada. In 1801 the Cardinal Archbishop Antonio de Lorenzana bought in Rome a certain number of Greek and Oriental manuscripts which had formerly been in the collection of Cardinal Saverio de Zelada, and placed them in the Chapter Library at Toledo. Included with these was this MS. of the Moralia, which remains there to this day.

Sophocles, Antigone 853–856, Jebb's text:

προβᾶσ' ἐπ' ἔσχατον θράσους

ὑψηλὸν ἐς Δίκας βάθρον

προσέπεσες, ὦ τέκνον, πολύ.

In considering the question as to the order of composition of different portions of Aristotle's works it is necessary to start (as Jaeger did in his study of the genesis of the Metaphysics) with some idea as to his method of composition.

On looking at the surviving works one sees at a glance that at some date and by some hand they have been carefully arranged as a continuous series. Internal references forward and backward are frequent. The author refrains as carefully as Euclid does from anticipating ‘earlier’ discussion the answer to a question which will arise ‘later.’ The forward references are merely promises that a question will be discussed. These multitudinous cross-references are so interwoven with the thought and the argument that there is little doubt that in the main they are due to Aristotle himself. On the other hand, the short transitional statements with which the ‘books’ as we have them close must always be accepted with some reservations. The book is a device of the ancient bookseller, not the unit of composition. Of course, where they could, the editors have made the ends of books correspond with important breaks in the argument; but wholly artificial book-endings do occur. There is, e.g., the end of N.E. θ, which corresponds to no important stage in the thought; and here the editor or bookseller has merely emphasized the artificiality of the division by inserting the wholly inappropriate clause, περὶ μὲν οὖν τούτων ἐπὶ τοσοῨτον εἰρήσθω

Terence was studied, though not so much as Virgil, in monastery-schools. Their magistri bestirred themselves to get aid for pupils. Some famous magister— we know not who—had written, between the lines or in the margins, interpretations of difficult words in at least the three opening plays of the MS. which he used—Andr., Ad., Eun.—if not in all. These interpretations (glossae) were collected from his MS. and found their way into many monastery-libraries. Goetz has published these glossae collectae of Terence from a tenth (?) century MS. (Vat. lat. 1471) in Vol. V. of his Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, pp. 529–539; Mr. Austin (Class. Quart. XIX. 104) has added more from a Leyden MS. (67 F), written apparently in Belgium or Holland, c. 800–815 A.D. (see Palae. Lat., Part V.). Probably Dr. Theander will add a further batch from a Paris MS. (Bibl. Nat. lat. 10588, ‘saec. IX. in.’).

To the instances of non-syllabic ε after -ιλ- or -υλ- which were given in Class. Quart. XVII. 196 (cf. Schwyzer, Exempla 251B 17, note), two more may be added:

(1) Σιλεωνίας, Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca 783 (Cnidos), occurs in a trochaic line, and is scanned Cup – Cup –. Kaibel calls it a ‘nomen suspectum’; but in the re-edition in Anc. Gr.Inscr.in the British Museum, No. 796, the reading is defended by a comparison with Σιλώνιος in C.I.G. 1577. 3 = I.G. 7. 2429 (Thebes).

Inthe Classical Quarterly for July-October, 1924, the late Mr. H. G. Evelyn White sought (1) to establish that the vulgate of Hesiod is a conflation of two or more versions; (2) to point out the inference to be drawn, and to suggest a date for the formation of the received text. To establish his first point in respect of the Works and Days he gives a list of eighteen passages where he suspects the hand of a conflator.

ProfessorLinsay has called my attention to the need for an examination of these compounds, with a view to ascertaining whether they are ever used in the Singular by Latin writers, or always in the Plural.

From a scholium, probably by Donatus, on Aen. X. 173:

(Ilua) insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis, has come a gloss which appears in the Ansileubus Glossary (just published in Vol. I. of Glossaria Latina, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1926) in two forms:

FR 205 Frofra (!): insula Tirreno mari in quo (qua) ferrifodina <e> exercentur, RU 77 Rufa: insula Tirreni maris in qua ferrifodina exercetur.

Modern editors take λάθρη (or P.'s λάθρια γελάοϖα as = ‘smiling secretly’— hiding the smile she felt inclined to show. This involves the two difficulties (1) the γελάοισα of 1. 95; (2) the expression βαρùν δʼἀνὰθυμòνἔΧοισα. To take first: If Aphrodite came smiling it is absurd to say in the next line that as matter of fact she was hiding her smiles. This has led to Ahlwardt's quite unjustifiable ἁδέη, accepted by Hiller.

Probably few scholars would now doubt that at least the bulk of the matter both of Servius' commentary on Virgil (S) and of the additions to it which were first printed by Daniel (D) descends from Donatus. The problem of these additions has been approached by a number of writers from different directions, and different lines of evidence have been found to converge on one conclusion. An important contribution to the discussion has recently been made by J. J. Savage in a thorough study of the multifarious scholia contained in the well-known Bernensis 165 and some other Virgil manuscripts.1 He shows that some of these scholia go back to a commentary which was fuller than that of Servius, and which moreover was related both to S and to D.2 Other fragments of such a commentary are to be found by those who have the patience to sift the rubbish of the Latin glossaries,3 and also, among other sources, in Isidore, who is all the more useful for his habit of verbal transcription.4 When material of this kind is found, there is a strong temptation to say ‘Here is Donatus,’ and one can hardly doubt that that is where much of it ultimately comes from; but the question how far we may assume that the words of Donatus are directly reproduced can hardly yet be regarded as satisfactorily answered. I have before ventured to doubt whether Donatus was the immediate source of D.5 Professor Rand and Mr. Savage think that he was, that the compiler of SD supplemented S with material which S had not reproduce from Donatus the statement to which S had objected.

In the Classical Review (1925, p. 118) I quoted, for Petronius 77. 6 ‘assem habeas assem valeas,’ a proverb (from Mayor on Juv. 3. 143, addenda) unnoticed as far as I know by other scholars—‘quantum habebis tantus eris; frange lunam et fac fortunam’—and suggested that we should invert and correct—‘frange lunam [et] fac fortunam; quantum habebis tanti eris’—thus getting an accentual trochaic tetra-meter, with rhyme in the first half (the type dealt with by Usener, Kl. Schriften 2. 256, and Lorenz, preface to his edition of the Pseudolus, p. 39), which could be added to the popular trochaics collected in Baehrens' Poet. Lat. Fragmenta.