Before Odysseus and his companions cross over to the land of the Cyclopes, they land on an island, which is described in unusual length and detail (9.116–41). It is inhabited only by wild goats; no hunters disturb them. It possesses neither flocks nor cultivated land, sown or ploughed, since no men live there. The Cyclopes, while nearby, have no ships, nor are there shipwrights who might build ships on which men travel to every city. The island could be made to flourish, for the soil is rich and would bear all things in season. In addition, it contains well-watered meadows, good for vineyards, and a fine protected harbour which requires no mooring.

The Homeric Scholia are not the most obvious source for literary criticism in the modern sense. And yet if one takes the trouble to read through them one will find many valuable observations about poetic technique and poetic qualities. Nowadays we tend to emphasize different aspects from those which preoccupied ancient critics, but that may be a good reason for looking again at what they have to say.

Among the departures from the direct tradition in Thucydidesü quotation of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo at 3.104, perhaps the most interesting is line 171. The MSS of the Hymns give ET-iotacism). The majority of Thucydidesü MSS give , but is corrected by a second hand in FJ and by the first hand in H to . Each tradition exists in blissful ignorance of the other. In Aristidesü quotation of lines 169–72 ( 559D, p. 245 Keil), the MSS in general agree with the direct tradition of the Hymns: ( A) (. DU). But the reading in R is a correction. The original reading, which has been erased, was . Aristides, who as his introductory remark shows ( in Aristides clearly comes from Thucydidesü ) is quoting from Thucydides, appears to have read in his text of Thucydides, but this has been replaced at some stage in the tradition by ; the MSS tradition of Aristides has been ’corrected’ from the direct tradition of the Hymns. If Aristides had in his text of Thucydides, the corrected reading of FJH is not the

In a recent article in this journal M. L. West made the plausible suggestion that some features of the parodos of Aeschylusü Agamemnon, including the famous simile of the vultures deprived of their young, display the influence of Archilochusü celebrated epode in which Lycambes was admonished with the tale of the fox and the eagle. I think a passage in the Choephoroe confirms his view.

One of the Oresteiaüs most characteristic traits is the manner in which themes and images recur during the trilogy. The simile of the vultures at Ag. 48 ff. and the omen of the eagle and the hare at 112 ff. are conspicuously placed and vividly drawn, and we are not surprised to find a resumption of this imagery in the Choephoroe, when the eagleüs nestlings, Electra and Orestes, are reunited and plan their revenge (Cho. 246–51, 255–9). Here we find the image reversed: the young have lost their parents, not the parent-birds their young as at Ag.

When Kleomenes seized the Athenian Akropolis (in 508/7 BC), he was forced to surrender and leave Attika. Why was he wearing a very short cloak? Wilamowitz (in his note ad loc.) thought it was because he had to give up part of his clothing when he surrendered. But in fact Spartans always wore scanty clothing; being unwashed for six years cannot have been a condition of surrender after a siege lasting only two days (Hdt. 5.72.2); and clearly the whole of 278–80 is not an account of the conditions of surrender, but an expression of the Athenians' amusement or disgust at the normal appearance of Spartans.

Whether Meletus, the accuser of Socrates, is to be identified with Meletus, the accuser of Andocides and participant in the arrest of Leon of Salamis (And. 1.94), has recently been discussed, with inconclusive results, by H. Blumenthal. The strongest argument against the identification, it may be thought, is that Socrates mentions the arrest (32 c 4-e 1) without implicating Meletus. I propose to argue that the Meleti are one, that there is a veiled allusion to Meletus in this passage and that Socrates effects this allusion in two ways.

There is no hint in either work that any of the information contained in this reconstruction of family relationships might be open to serious question. It is the purpose of this note to suggest that this is none the less the case.

The problem concerns the supposed wives and children of Isokratesü adoptive son Aphareus. The information presented on this subject depends on two passages of the pseudo-Plutarchan Vitae Decem Oratorum. The first (838B/C) is a list of members of the family buried in Kynosarges, which mentions Isokratesü

Neither the chronology nor the interpretation of the history of the years 375 to 371 BC is yet settled. The date of the peace that followed the Athenian naval victory over Sparta at Alyzeia in Scirophorion 375 is put variously in the second half of 375 or 374 or even in spring 374. The status of the Boeotian cities at the time of the peace as well as the role of the King and the participation of Thebes are controversial, and this affects the interpretation of the peace itself.

It has frequently been recognized that the collection and use of accurate military intelligence was of fundamental importance for the success of Alexander's campaigns. No intelligent strategic or tactical decision can be made by any commander without advance knowledge of an enemy's location, strength, his capabilities and weaknesses, and the geography of the projected campaign. However, an analysis of the procedures Alexander used to obtain and evaluate intelligence has never been undertaken. This neglect is probably the result of the scattered and unsatisfactory nature of the references to Alexander's intelligence procedures in our ancient sources.

Eventually and inevitably the study of a Roman comedy leads to the question of its relationship to the Greek model and to the nature of the original play. In recent years Terence's Adelphoe has stimulated numerous publications on the Menandrian comedy and on the changes which were made by the Latin dramatist. Greatest attention has been paid to the ending of the Greek play. This article, however, will examine the first two ‘acts’ of the Terentian comedy and will offer a reconstruction of its primary model that differs from those that have been proposed in the major studies on this problem.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the principal lines of approach which have been taken to the career of Appius Claudius Caecus in the hope of formulating a view of the censor which is neither over-dramatized nor, on the other hand, so muted as to deny recognition to those aspects of his political behaviou which so greatly exercised his contemporaries. In so doing, I will argue that previous studies of Appius' career have sought in the wrong places for an explanation of the political rivalry between him and his opponents and I will offer an interpretation of his censorial acts—and of one of them in particular—which, I believe, may account for this rivalry.

The aim of this article is to offer what I consider to be necessary substantiati for the view that the description of the walk which acts as a frame for the singing contest in Id. 7 is based on a precise knowledge of the geography of t island of Cos and that the poem thus displays a topographical realism unique Greek pastoral.

For we see that many happenings must be united for things, that they may be able to beget and propagate their races; first that they may have food, and then a way whereby birth-giving seeds may pass through their frames, and issue from their slackened limbs; and that woman may be joined with man, they must needs each have means whereby they can interchange mutual joys.

Agr. 2.53. ‘Te volo curare ut mihi Sinopae praesto sis auxiliumque adducas, dum eos agros quos <tu> tuo labore cepisti ego mea lege vendam.’ an Pompeium non adhibebit? in eius provincia vendet manubias imperatoris?

An interesting phrase in a letter of Caelius to Cicero in 51 BC, especially relevant to the standing of injured socii or their non-Roman representatives in the quaestio de repetundis at this time, has been frequently misinterpreted by commentators on Cicero. Caelius is telling Cicero of the outcome of the condemnation of C. Claudius Pulcher after his governorship of Asia and the effect this had on an associate of Claudius, M. Servilius.

Two minuscule codices carrying collections of grammatical and rhetorical treatises and extracts from such treatises, one written at Monte Cassino between A.D. 779 and 796 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. Lat. 7530 (CLA V 569)), the other at Benevento towards the middle of the following century (Rome, Bibl. Casanatense 1086), contain among their uncial tituli the three words INCIPIT THVESTES VARII. There follows in both codices a twenty-four-word sentence stating the full name of Varius, the literary character of the Thyestes, an aesthetic judgement on the work, the date of a public performance in a Roman theatre, and the price paid: Lucius Varius cognomento Rufus Thyesten tragoediam magna cura absolutam (Quicherat: absolute codd.) post Actiacam uictoriam Augusti (Mommsen: aug … Par.: augusto Par., Cas.) ludis eius in scaena edidit pro qua fabula sestertium deciens accepit.

When I refer to ‘modern editors’ I mean the following: (i) S. G. Owen, who edited the Tristia thrice (Tristium libri v, Oxford, 1889; in Postgate's Corpus poetarum Latinorum, 1894; Oxford Classical Text, 1915) and produced a small commentary on the first book (Oxford, 1885) and a large one on the second (Oxford, 1924); (ii) C. Landi (Corpus Paravianum, 1917); (iii) R. Ehwald-Fr. W. Levy (Teubner, 1922); (iv) A. L. Wheeler (Loeb edn., 1924); (v) J. André (Budé edn., 1968); (vi) Georg Luck (Heidelberg, 1967 (text and translation), 1968–72 (commentary on Books 1–2), 1977 (commentary on 3–5)).

In his Gallic War Caesar tells us that the Roman Senate had frequently recognized the Aedui as ‘brothers and kinsmen’. This statement, though prima facie rather odd, is fully supported by Caesar's contemporaries, Cicero and Diodorus Siculus, and a number of later authorities. Ihm was of the opinion that the Aedui were recognized as ‘fratres consanguineosque’ because they were the first tribe in Gallia Comata to enter into alliance with Rome. However, no ancient authority supports this view and it is hardly sufficient to explain the notion of blood relationship implied by these titles.

Under cover of gentle rebuke Pliny lent encouragement to an author still reluctant to publish, although hendecasyllable verses from the versatile consular had announced the book. Ever considerate and helpful, he confesses to Suetonius Tranquillus that he is himself prone to be dilatory:

Sum et ipse in edendo haesitator, tu tamen meam quoque cunctationem tarditatemque vicisti. proinde aut rumpe iam moras aut cave ne eosdem istos libellos, quos tibi hendecasyllabi nostri blanditiis elicere non possunt, convicio scazontes extorqueant (5.10.20).

In discussing the atomists' theory of vision modern accounts have quite neglected to take into account two sections of Alexander of Aphrodisias on this topic. Nearly identical in length and content, they contain objections to the atomist theory of vision by means of the (henceforth ‘idols’). In form they consist of a series of questions purporting to contain atomist doctrine. Each question is followed by objections to its subject-matter. Most of the questions contain doctrine known to us already from other sources.