Sisenna Historiarum lib. iii: Lucium Memmium, socerum Gai Scriboni, tribunum plebis, quern Marci Livi consiliarium fuisse callebant et tune Gurionis oratorem … (Nonius 393L, s.v. ‘callet’).

Erat Hortensius in bello primo anno miles, altero tribunus militum, Sulpicius legatus; aberat etiam M. Antonius; exercebatur una lege iudicium Varia, ceteris propter bellum intermissis; cui frequens aderam, quamquam pro se ipsi dicebant oratores non illi quidem principes, L. Memmius et Q. Pompeius, sed oratores tamen, teste diserto utique [Jahn: MSS. uterque] Philippo, cuius in testimonio contentio et vim accusatoris habebat et copiam. Reliqui qui turn principes numerabantur in magistratibus erant cotidieque fere a nobis in contionibus audiebantur … (Cicero, Brutus 304–5).

Dr. G. S. Kirk has suggested (C.Q. N.S. xiii [1963], 51–52) that the last line of this fragment represents the bridegroom as being ‘fantastically ithyphallic’. This seems quite likely; but it would be more so if a parallel for the unusual use of the expression ‘a great man’ that it involves could be adduced.

There can, I think, be little dispute that the most exciting plays about Philoctetes are those which have been described by Bowra, Kitto, and now B. M. W. Knox. It is a matter for regret that we must choose between them, or even reject all of them, since only one play is in question, the Philoctetes of Sophocles. My purpose, however, is not to compare the merits of these rivals, but something more restricted and rather duller. I shall make use of them in reexamining the difficulties raised by Sophocles' handling of the prophecy of Helenus, for it is to these that they largely owe their origin.