Priscian tells us in his dedicatory introduction that he took his material from many Latin sources—collectis etiam omnibus fere quaecunque necessaria nostrorum quoque inueniuntur artium commentariis grammaticorum. This can hardly mean that he owed everything to his predecessors. At any rate it is unlikely that he copied all his illustrative quotations from earlier grammarians. The problem is one which, for our purpose, does not need to be solved. We can make Priscian responsible for every quotation (unless, of course, we suspect that copyists have had a hand in introducing variations), because he had the opportunity of correcting or commenting on such borrowings as he incorporated in his work. If he could acquiesce in a garbled version of a line, we must take the fact into account in appraising his value as a witness to the text of Terence. And we must assume that the Terence text of his day did not differ from the versions which he quotes. Nowhere does he hint at a discrepancy. This assumption, it will be understood, has reference only to the points of diction for which we are tolerably sure that we have Priscian's attestation, and not to minor details which did not interest him at the moment, and in which we can prove that he was far from conscientious.

The discussion of the construction with usus est is conventionally bound up with that of opus est, and comparatively little attention has been given to the problem presented by the use of the ablative case with the former phrase.

The tendency to pass lightly over this matter is due doubtless to the manifest etymological connexion between usus and utor, which leads to the assumption that the verbal noun would naturally follow the syntax of the verb.

Ennead VI. 4. 1 (Volkmann's edition, p. 363, 1. 7): καὶ ὅμως ἐν μὲν ταῖς ποιότησι τὸ αὐτὸ μεμερισμένον θεωρεῖται, ἐπί δὲ ψνχῆς τὸ αὐτὸ οὐ μεμερισμένον κ.τ.λ. As there is no antithesis to justify ὅμως (praeterea, Ficinus) we should read ὅλως, which neatly sums up the argument: ‘in a word, while in qualities the same thing is seen as divided, in soul the same thing is not divided,’ etc.

The earlier part of this paper yielded the result that the assertion ‘A portion of everything in everything’ has no place or function in the explanation of any sort of apparent ‘becoming’ or change. This conclusion is important because, ever since Aristotle, it has been assumed that the assertion was made in order to explain away becoming and change. But if (as I have shown), according to the best evidence, becoming and such sorts of change as Anaxagoras considered can be explained away without using the assertion at all, it follows that the motive for it must be sought, not in the processes of apparent becoming and change, but in the permanent constitution of the ungenerated and unchanging things which figure as elements in the system. A visible mass of gold or of flesh is formed by the aggregation of smaller particles of gold or of flesh, and it is infinitely divisible into parts, every one of which is gold or flesh. But what is the constitution of a piece of gold of whatever size, and how does it differ from the constitution of a piece of flesh? The proposition we have so far successfully excluded comes in here as part of the answer to this question.

One of the most recent writers on the early history of Rome has shown that the framework of the traditional story is perhaps to be trusted, even though there are many details, inconsistent and self-contradictory, which are obviously to be rejected. In view of this fact, it might be worth while to reconsider the Coriolanus story, the prevailing opinion concerning which is that vouchsafed by Mommsen many years ago: ‘die Erzählung ist ein spät, in die Annalen eingefügtes, darum in alien Stücken denselben ungleichartiges und widersprechendes Einschiebsel.’ The reasons for arriving at such an opinion are sufficiently obvious to warrant their receiving but the barest recital. First, it is incredible that the Volsci would either choose a renegade Roman to be their general, or, even if they did, allow him at the last minute to rob them of the fruits of victory. Secondly, inconsistencies in the version of the story which we possess induce us to suspect its historicity; for example, Dionysius of Syracuse is made to send corn to the starving Romans'—yet Dionysius lived some hundred years later; a youthful Coriolanus is represented as having considerable influence in the senate—yet in those early days the senate was essentially a gathering of venerable men; the Roman populace learns immediately the gist of Coriolanus' remarks in the senate—yet senate meetings were held in secret; Volsci are allowed to attend the ‘ludi’ and to meet at the Spring of Ferentina—yet in the fifth century none but Latini could do this; the Roman Marcius is given an honorific cognomen, Coriolanus, because of his behaviour at the capture of Corioli—yet such cognomina were not granted until the third century or even later and even then only to the general and not to the subordinate; the plebs is represented as wielding great power in the assembly1—yet we know that in the fifth century it did nothing of the kind.

Although much has been written in the attempt to date individual plays of Plautus—too often, unfortunately, an attempt to make bricks without straw—little has hitherto been done to determine the approximate chronological sequence of the plays as a whole. Yet this appears the most obvious necessity if any advance in scientific criticism is to be made. Not till this is done can we see the bearing of the innumerable facts which have accumulated in the extensive Plautine literature of the last fifty years. No one would dream of a scientific criticism of Shakespeare which did not take into account the chronology of the plays. This is equally true (for example) of Tennyson and Browning, though the method has not yet been as systematically applied to literary as to musical criticism. Think of a writer on Bach or Mozart, Beethoven or Schumann, who mixed up indiscriminately early and later work! If we could only arrange Plautus' plays in something like chronological order, a flood of light would be thrown on details of technique which at present escape us; the utility of the Lexicon Plautinum would be doubled.

As I had rejected en bloc references to Bacchanalia as indications of date, it was a mere chance which led me, after the above had left my hands, to look up Cas. 980 ‘ nunc Bacchae nullae ludunt,’ quoted in Schanz, R. Lit.3, p. 78 (q.v.). As this affords an excellent opportunity of testing my conclusions, perhaps a word or two will not be out of place.

The Gods and Typhon.—The story of how the gods took bestial shape to hide from the fury of Typhon is several times told in Hellenistic and Latin authors. There seems no room for doubt that it is an aetiological myth, intended to explain the cult of beasts in Egypt, and also, in one or two versions, the sacredness of fish in Syria. That in one form, that given by Antoninus Liberalis, it goes back to Nikandros (presumably the Ετεροιούμενα) is reasonably certain. The doubtful point, to my mind, is whether it can be traced much further, and, in particular, whether it was known to Pindar, as is commonly assumed. The authority for supposing that he knew and referred to it is a single passage of Porphyry, de abstinentia III. 16 (= Pindar, frag. 91, Bergk). It runs: Πίνδαρος δὲ ἐν προσοδίοις παντας τοὺς θεοὺς ἐποίησεν ὃτε ύπὸ Τυϕῶνος ἐδιώκοντα οủκ ἀνθρώποις όμοιωθέντας ἀλλὰ τοις ἂλοις (ἀλόγοις Wesseling) ζῴοις έρασθέντα δἐ Πασιϕάης Δία γενέσθαι μἐν ταῦρον νῦν δὲ ἀετὸν και κύκνον.

In making the following suggestions I have assumed the chronological possibility of allusions in the Aetia Prologue on the one hand to the quarrel with Apollonius Rhodius, and on the other to Arsinoe II. (obiit 271–270 B.C.). That such a combination is possible is maintained by Rostagni in Rivista di Filologia, 1928, pp. 1 sqq. The textual supplements offered here, while intended to support the double hypothesis, differ from his in some points; notably in regard to the question of where the allusion to Arsinoe is to be introduced into the text of Callimachus (see below). It need hardly be said that the supposed allusions to the queen and to the rival poet do not necessarily stand or fall together. In the case of the former it might not be altogether incredible (pace R.) that such an allusion should have been made after her death; whilst the most obvious consequence in regard to Apollonius would be that, if a date before 270 B.C. be accepted for the Prologue, his birth would have to be placed as early as possible—say, 295–290 B.C. However this may be, it is here sought to complete, in the above sense, certain passages in the Prologue (P.) with the aid of the British Museum Scholiast (S.). In regard to the latter a fresh study of the original text by the editor (Mr. H. J. M. Milne) has been utilized, to say nothing of his valuable suggestions and criticisms; in the case of P. the facsimile in Ox. Pap. XVII. is depended upon. The silence of S. on some of the supposed points may fairly be adduced in objection to them; but it may be noted that he does not comment on Πυγμαίων (P. 14), and that his exposition, where it can be checked, seems to be somewhat hasty and unbalanced. Further, we do not know what may have preceded the portion of his work which has survived.

The recent paper of J. Harward (Classical Quarterly, XXII., pp. 143–154) on the seventh and eighth Platonic Epistles deserves an answer. He suggests that Plato's statement at the beginning of the seventh Epistle, that he had received a communication from the friends of Dion, is a literary fiction. Supposing then that this suggestion is correct, he maintains the view that Plato, having no knowledge of the death of Dion's son before his father's assassination in 354 B.C., refers to him as Hipparinus without qualification in the seventh Epistle (324a), and as Dion's son, giving no name, in the eighth Epistle (355e).

Hiller vonGaertringen says of this inscription: ‘Lapis in obscuro loco collocatus est. In ectypis nihil fere dispeximus … Lectio e Koehlero et Velseno componenda est.’ I did not find the stone till my last morning in Athens: it is E.M. 6600; it is extremely illegible, and I had not time to move it to a really good light. But there are a few things to add, and the length of line can, I believe, be determined.