The identification of Daphnis with Julius Caesar, supported in most detail by Servius of the ancient commentators, has in general been either casually accepted or arbitrarily rejected by modern criticism without serious effort to ascertain how far the probabilities point one way or the other.

The notes which follow are concerned almost entirely with questions of metre and rhythm; and since the lyric forms of Simonides are, nearly every-where, ‘systematic’ and not stichic, it is not easy to speak of these without involving oneself—and the reader—in problems of a nature somewhat controversial. In particular, it is impossible to avoid the use of the terms ‘logaoedic’ and ‘dactylo-epitritic’; and it is impossible to use these without explaining what sense one attaches to them. I will begin, therefore, by discharging this necessary, but tiresome, duty. I call it tiresome, because in the country of Bentley and Porson and Elmsley and Gaisford no one any longer cares to scan Greek verse. The history of metrical study in England in the last century begins with Jebb's Sophocles (which popularized a German metric already discredited in Germany), and ends with chapter VI. of Mr. Norwood's Greek Tragedy. People ask why the classics are dying. It is because the wrath of God is coming upon the children of Jebb and Mr. Norwood.

In discussing the origin and history of Orphism, it is usual to treat it rather as a system of belief than as a ritual. The former aspect of it probably was more salient in later times, yet it is certain that the Orphic movement began rather as a ritual with strong emphasis on purification and a rule of life. Its theological and traditional aspect developed only gradually, and the greatest characteristic of this development was always its readiness to incorporate elements possibly alien to the original Dionysos mystery, till it finally takes all Greek religious tradition within its scope. It was early influenced by Eleusinian ideas, and exerted a mutual influence on the cults and myths of the Kabeiroi and those of Sabazios. Whether its own ritual was affected by these latter to the same degree as its mythology we cannot say with certainty, but it may at any rate be affirmed that Orphism was an eclectic type of religion from the beginning. This was indeed only natural to such a system which depended for its teaching on wandering priests, and may never have possessed any kind of temple. It may also be safely said that neither the rite nor the central beliefs of Orphism were nearly as much affected by these borrowings as its mythology. It took over the names and some of the legends of strange deities and grafted them on to its own system. The ritual may have remained in all essentials the same, as did the eschatology.

What the nineteenth century knew of attamen or at tamen it did not learn from dictionaries. The two last revisions of Forcellini, Corradini's and De-Vit's, provided eight examples between them, of which three were false. Klotz added one, Georges two, Smith two: one of these five was false, and two more lie under much suspicion. Freund gave no instance whatsoever. In preparing his first volume, which appeared in 1834, he turned, like a good compiler, to the first volume of Hand's Tursellinus, published in 1829. What he found there, on p. 450, was ‘de at tamen uide in tamen’; so he sat down quickly and wrote ‘attamen adv., s. tamen’. But Hand's Tursellinus, which never reached tamen, had proceeded no further than multum when Freund in 1840 produced the last volume of his dictionary; so he did not redeem his promise, and when you got there the cupboard was bare. This perfidy was faithfully imitated by the English and American dictionaries of Andrews, White and Riddle, Lewis and Short. To all intents and purposes one was left to depend on one's own reading and on the observations of Madvig at Cic. de fin. pp. 286 and 425 and opusc. I p. 491.

In the last issue of the C.Q. Mr. Powell has called attention to my emendation ἔρρε κακῇ γ;λνῃ, which he finds a difficulty in accepting, because he cannot find any formula of imprecation corresponding to the formula of blessing, τχγαθῇ. He would, therefore, if I am not mistaken, take refuge in a suggestion of Mr. T. C. Snow's, which maintains the traditional vocative, while at the same time annexing my new explanation. Evidently my exposure in Homerica (Pref. p. 9) of the futility of the long-established ‘poor puppet’ has taken effect, and I am glad of it, for it simplifies matters considerably, if the only question between Mr. Powell and myself is whether ‘O evil eye’ or ‘with the evil eye’ is the better.

As the later phases of Greek thought are at last beginning to receive in England and Ireland the attention they merit, it is hoped that the following critical notes on Plotinus may be of interest to a few readers. Some involve points of doctrine; others are intended to illustrate certain shortcomings of the German school, who have hitherto been practically the sole workers in the textual field.

In a past number of this journal Mr. E. Harrison has raised an interesting problem in connexion with the Corinthian War. According to Diodorus, the fortress of Heracleia in Trachis passed out of the hands of Sparta into those of Thebes and her allies in the spring campaign of 394 B.C. Yet in the summer of that year the Spartan king Agesilaus made his way through the adjacent pass of Thermopylae without let or hindrance. Since it is hardly credible that the Thebans should have let Agesilaus through of set purpose, the question arises whether Diodorus can be right in asserting that Heracleia had already been lost to Sparta at the time of Agesilaus' passage.

The etymologies of Homeric words have been considered too much in the light of later Greek. The following suggestions are, so far as I am aware, new. I express them briefly for economy of space.

'Аχαα;ιο, τριχικες, Δαναο, “λληνες.

It is a familiar statement that, when in a primitive Latin word of the scansion the ––≏ first syllable is long by position before a geminated consonant (as in *mammilla, *offella, *farrina), the tendency is to omit one of the consonants and produce the scansion ∪–≏ (as in mamilla, ofella, farina). No such shortening occurs in words of the same scansion when the initial syllable is either naturally long or made long by other groups of consonants.

In a recent article (C.Q. XV. 192–194) attention was drawn to those quotation items (labelled DE GLS) in the Liber Glossarum which cannot be traced to any one of those authors, such as Isidore and Augustine, whose work formed the basis of the Lib. Gloss.

In App. Verg. Priap. 3, 3, the most recent editor adopts the form fomitata, first proposed by I. Voss, a form which seems to derive its only authority from a passage in Paulus' abridgement of Festus (Paul. Fest. 66, 9). Though there is some variation in the MSS. of the Priapeia (formitata, formicata, formata, formidata), the first four letters are in every case the same—namely, form-. Again, in Ps.-Placidus (22, 26) the MSS. give formitat, but Goetz (Thes. Gloss, s.v.) prints this as fo[r]mitat. The reading formitata was upheld by Skutsch, who quoted the form formitare as a parallel to exitare in Catull. 17, 24, which all recent editors have changed to excitare.

In Class. Quart. XV. 193 Dr. Mountford discussed a quotation from the Grammarian Caper in the Liber Glossarum (s.v. Lacteus), and referred it to an item culled from Vergil Scholia by the Abstrusa Glossary. Since Keil in his edition of this grammarian (Gram. Lat. VII.) did not know of this glossary evidence to Caper's text, it may be worth mention that another Caper quotation appears in Lib. Gloss., s.v. Kaluus (properly Kalua or Calua). It is taken from the first sentence of p. 100 of Keil's edition, and shows that the words caluaria singulare have dropped out of the three Caper MSS. used by Keil, after plurale est, though they have left a trace in a variant (caluaria for calua) in two of the trio. And it testifies (rightly or wrongly) to the name of the historian who used caluaria ‘a skull.’ Here is the gloss as it stands in the two chief MSS. of the Liber Glossarum:

Kaluus:

кραѵоѵ uocatur, licet Celio et Varro kaluariam dicant; nam caluariae plurale est, kaluaria singulare.

In a recent article1 mention was made of a MS. (Cod. Vat. Reg. 215) from which Goetz printed selections in Vol. V. (pp. 583–6) of the (Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, and one of its entries was discussed. This so-called glossary, which, as was indicated in the article in question, appears in reality to be a collection of notes, arranged in alphabetical order, from the lectures delivered by Martin the Irishman at Laon in the middle of the ninth century, is preserved in another MS. now in the British Museum2 (Royal 15 A XVI. foil. 74r sqq.). This MS. was not used by Goetz. On fol. 81 appears the following entry:

‘Moechus est adulter alterius t[h]orum furtim polluens; inde a m <o>echo dicitur m[o]echanica ars, ingeniosa atque subtilissima et p<a>ene quomodo facta uel administrata sit inuisibilis in tantum, ut etiam uisum conspicientium quodam modo furetur, dum non facile penetratur eius ingeniositas quali ingenio artis candelabrum illud Theodosianum factum legitur.’