The modern admirers of Horace who take him seriously as a moralist are inclined to attribute an undue degree of originality to his views on the moral function of poetry. The conception of the poet as teacher was, of course, the traditional Greek view. But Professor A. Y. Campbell thinks—in spite of ‘passages from Strabo and Plutarch’ —that this conception ‘after the days of Plato and Aristophanes lapsed as completely as did the production of the sort of literature that had justified it.’ Strabo and Plutarch, he asserts, merely provide evidence that the older Greek view revived; the forces inspiring this ‘revival’ were ‘not Greek, but Roman.’ ‘The Greeks got it from the Romans, Strabo from the spirit of the Augustan age.’

The question as to who were teh class of Equites called ‘Illustres,’ or in Greek πɩπανεɩî—as to whether, indeed, such a class existed apart from the ordinary ‘Equites Romani’—is a very puzzling one, and no agreement has yet been reached on the matter.

Our information about the early stages of Greek music is so slight that these references of Aristides Quintilianus (p. 28, Meibom) to an the Pseudo-Plutarch to a scale employed by the legendary figure Olympus take on an immense value for us. The dialogue itself is an unskilful patchwork, but the author's sources are often good. These particular passages are almost certainly both derived with small alteration from Aristoxenus, in whose time the traditional music ascribed to Olympus was still in use. For the elucidation of the scale's history and structure we have three1 pieces of evidence to help us. There is the first passage mentioned above, which deals with the discovery of the enharmonic genus by Olympus, which is connected, at first sight obscurely, with the Spondeion scale; and the second passage, which discusses the scalar limitations of theσφoνδειξων τρόφoς with especial reference to an elementary polyphony. There are also the ancient scales quoted by Aristides Quintilianus (ed. Meibom, p. 21).

This equation was set up by Mr. Allen in the Classical Review XV. 8–9 (1901), and remained, as far as I know, for over twenty years without effect. I thought, therefore, when writing my External Evidence for Interpolation in Homer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925) that the article had provided its own corrective and needed no criticism. About the same time, however, Mr. Allen in his Homer: The Origins and the Transmission (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 2352, reiterated his opinion; and later still Mr. Sheppard, ib. XLI. 127–9 (1927), shows that he has been impressed by it. Under these circumstances, and because a good deal depends upon the interpretation of the word, a brief discussion now seems desirable.

The relation of the glossae breviores of Placidus, or rather Pseudo–Placidus, to Festus1 epitome of Verrius has been the subject of much discussion; but after Karl's detailed examination inDe Placidi Glossis (Comm. phil. I en. VII. 2), the view has generally prevailed that Ps.–Plac. is not dependent on Festus, and that any similarities between them are referable to the use of similar sources by Verrius and our compiler.

The appearance of P. Oxy. 2080 makes possible the solution of an old puzzle in the περ συντάξεωσ of Apollonius Dyscolus. Speaking of the inadmissibility of the definite article with λλήλων, Apollonius says (p. 60, Uhlig): κα προϕανέσ στιν κ τσ παρ πσι χρήσεωσ κα το συμπαρεπομένου λόγου. μετ ῥματοσ γρ διαβατικν προσώπων διάθεσιν σημαίνει,

λλήλουσ τρώσητε (Od. τ 12)

λλήλουσ δ' λήϊσαν

λλήλωѵ λεείνοντεσ βέλεα στονόεντα (Il. P 374).