In these notes I propose to discuss only those passages where I can offer either a new solution or new arguments in favour of a neglected one. Where I am wrong I hope to be told so before my proposals are enshrined in my text.

Nikostratos son of Dieitrephes is stated by Thucydides to have been a general in a number of years during the first half of the Peloponnesian War, ranging from 427 (Th. 3. 75) to his death in 418 (Th. 5. 74. 3). Nikostratos, a Skambonides by deme, is mentioned in Aristophanes as a member of the audience at the performance of the Wasps in 422 (Ar. Wasps 81).

The introductory ode of Horace's fourth book has been given comparatively little critical attention, although it might have been expected to arouse exceptional interest, being the first-fruits of the lyricist's autumnal harvest. The neglect is due partly to the poem's deceptive simplicity but much more to the unease which it arouses in Horace's admirers: Venus does not seem the most fitting deity for the poet laureate to invoke, and moreover this is not so much an invocation as an appeal to be left alone; the young man who is the subject of Horace's eulogy was hardly a person of much eminence at the time of writing, though he became prominent later and is now prosopographically well endowed; above all, there is the disturbing picture of the elderly poet testily acknowledging an amorous urge and surrendering his dignity in pederastic dreams.

The purpose of this article is to present arguments which indicate that PA 2. 16. 659b13–19 may not be authentic.

Professor Webster's attempt (C.Q. xlii, pp. 15 ff.) to prove that south Italian vases of the middle of the fourth century can be used as evidence of Athenian theatrical arrangements of half or three-quarters of a century earlier leaves me unconvinced. It, is true that, as he says, ‘the plays’ which the vases illustrate ‘come from Athens'— at least, most of them probably did: but (1) a number of scenes on the vases are not scenes presented in the plays at all, but are scenes suggested to the painter by descriptions in messengers’ speeches, or, quite possibly, by the story dramatized in the plays, but not by the Athenian poet's particular treatment of the story; (2) the plays —and the stories made popular by them—had been the common property of the Greek world for more than half a century, and there is no reason why Italian producers should have gone back to the original production in Athens, still less why Italian painters should have done so, even if they knew what the original production was like. (It is clear that Italian theatres of the fourth century were in various ways not like the fifth-century Athenian buildings.)

The text of Martial is fairly good, though not as good as many editors seem to think. We have three separate sources from which our manuscripts are derived, which are called by Lindsay in the O.C.T. AA, BA and O.1 All three sources seem to have suffered from editing, AA less than the others. In A.D. 401 one Torquatus Gennadius seems to have emended the text (feliciter as the ‘puff’ in some of the BA MSS. puts it). We do not know whether all three sources were affected by this recension: all we know is that the BA family are the only manuscripts that mention it. But there are many signs of recension discernible in the readings of the other families too, e.g. pas-sages which have evidently had grammar or syntax thrust upon them—and in these I do not include the now obscure allusions and the dead jokes past recall.

In the sixth mime of Herodas is described a visit by a woman called Metro to her friend Coritto. After an introduction ( I-I 7) largely taken up with abuse of Coritto's slave, Metro comes to the point: she asks, (18–19). Coritto is furious that knowledge of this precious possession has spread so far, and without answering the question asks where Coritto saw it: the reply is, (20–21). Coritto laments the faithlessness of those she thought her friends, but is consoled by Metro, who repeats her question. Coritto now reveals that the craftsman was Cerdon, and describes him and his works: and she was prevented from this last only by the presence of a neighbour's slave. Metro now asks how Coritto got to know Cerdon, and on hearing that it was through Artemeis, she declares her intention of going to see her, to learn more of Cerdon, and departs (95–98). The poem ends with Coritto giving orders for the door to be closed and the hens counted.

It has commonly been assumed that, on ancient Greek instruments of the lyre-type (lyre, barbitos, cithara), when a string had been tuned to a certain note, that note and that note only could be played, until the string was retuned; thus, that a separate string was required for each note of a given scale. This (which may be called the orthodox) view involves certain difficulties. The canonical number of strings was seven, and seven-stringed lyres and citharas continue to be represented in art throughout the classical period. But, with one note to each string, a seven-stringed lyre could not even play a complete diatonic octave.

Hamaker's conjecture κομâ (for τολμâ, sic) at Lysias 16.18 was adopted by Rauchenstein in his influential edition of 1869 and soon given powerful endorsement by Jebb and by Shuckburgh. Successive later editors and commentators have seen no reason to demur: Thalheim, Adams, Hude, Gernet and Bizos, Lamb, and finally Edwards and Usher all adopt κομâ, and, where they comment, unanimously cite Aristophanic parallels (especially Eq. 580) in support of a connection between longhaired affectation and ‘oligarchic’ affiliations; some also adduce the expression ảπ’ὂΨεως in justification. But this is an egregious instance of unwarranted tampering with a sound text. τóλμα is a quality conspicuously displayed by Mantitheus, on his own account of his character, words, and actions.

One of the best-known bits—perhaps the best-known bit—of the inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda is frs. 2–3, in which the author explains what motivated him to display Epicurean doctrines in epigraphical form.

The following notes refer constantly to E. R. Dodds' Bacchae (2nd ed., Oxford, 1960), which forms a valuable basis for study of the play; the passages discussed are those where I find myself in disagreement with Dodds' notes or with some new conjecture to offer, but everywhere my debt to the material he has assembled is very great. Recently W. S. Barrett's Hippolytos (Oxford, 1964) has illuminated a number of dark corners, providing a wealth of Euripidean parallels, metrical and linguistic; not least valuable is the light it throws on the variants of a better-transmitted play, and on the ancestry of our texts. I am grateful to my colleague J. W. Roberts for help and encouragement with the first draft of these notes. Subsequently Professor D. L. Page was kind enough to read parts of my manuscript, clarifying a number of metrical problems for me and adding several invaluable suggestions. Both he and Professor K. J. Dover have saved me from many errors; for those that remain the blame is mine alone

Suetonius says that Augustus was born on the ninth day before the Kalends of October (a. d. VIIII. Kal. Oct.), in the year when Cicero and Antonius were consuls (691 [63 B.C.]), a little before sunrise,1 and also that he was born under Capricorn.2 Mr. H. W. Garrod, in his recent edition of Manilius,3 maintains that the date which Suetonius gives belonged to the pre- Julian calendar, and corresponded with December 20 of the Julian. Remarking that, ‘ according to our present reckonings,’ the sun enters Capricorn on December 22, he adds that ‘the astronomers of Cicero's time placed the beginnings of the sign some 7 degrees in advance of our reckonings. If, therefore,’ he concludes, ‘ Augustus was born on Sept. 22 paulo ante solis exortum, Capricorn was his natal sign.’

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).

There are two ways in which the text as it stands has been construed: (1) Cypris came sweet and smiling (i.e. taking ἁδ. καì ἁ K. as=ἁ K. ἁδ. καì); (2) sweet Cypris also came smiling (i.e. taking ἁδ καì K. as=καì ἁ ἁδ. K.). Of these (1) is at least grammatical. The order of words, too, can be paralleled (Hiller cites 10. 34; 11. 58; 15. 79; 17. 93; 22. 25 and 68). But what I think cannot be paralleled is this curious conjunction of adj. and partic. (2) is frankly ungrammatical. Yet Legrand (Étude sur Théocrite, p. 309) adopts it, adding: ‘Il faut reconnaitre une construction incorrecte au moins dans ces quatre passages: 1. 95…; 1. 109 ὠραîος ξὤδωνις (=καì ό ὡραîος Aδωνις); 4. 49 ῥοικον τὸ λαγωβΌλον (=τò ῥοικον); 29. 33 τàν γένυν ἀνδρειαν (= τὰν ἀ. γένυν). Of the last three we can with confidence say that ὡραîος (if the line be genuine) and ἀνδρειαν are to be taken as predicative; in 4. 49 Legrand himself now (in his Budé edition) accepts the emendation τι for τΌ, as he does in the similar 15. 145 passage. There is not, in fact, sufficient, or indeed any, evidence to convict Theocritus of this solecism. Emendation has been rife, but unhappy. ‘Nescio an ipse rem acu tetigerim, legens ᾖνӨέ γε μὰν, ἀνíα δὲ, καì ἁ K. γ.,’ writes Briggs. We think he has not.

At the battle of Plataia, ‘Ελλησι μέν ισαμενàς ’AντιóΧoυ ἦν ‘θυóμενσ oὗτoς γàρ δ εἴπετo τŵ στρατεúματι τoúτω μάντις τàν ༐óντα ’Hλεîoν καì γένεoς τoû ’Ιαμιδέων κλυτιάδην Λακεδαιμóνιoι ༐̌oιήσαντo λεωσøέτερoν (HerodotOS 9.33.1).

A word of apology may be due for the loose arrangement of this paper; but, as an orderly progress through the 600 odd pages of the Didot Scriptores Erotici was out of the question, I have simply taken a number of passages on which I had corrections to propose, appending to each a few lines of comment, and adding, where feasible, a selection of texts amenable, in my judegment, to the same or an analogous treatment. A reading cited with no mark of orgin may be taken as the consenting manuscript tradition (trivialities excepted); an asterisk denotes a conjecture of my own.

Servius was surely not the first to show discomfort with Vergil's choice of the word violaverit. Observing that the simile in lines 67–8 derives from Homer (Il. 4.141), he seems to be apologizing for Vergil when he explains that the poet's violaverit translates Homer's νι⋯νη. And discomfort there should be. The notion of ‘tainting, spoiling, damaging, defiling’ that violare should carry seems out of place both for the ivory-image and for the picture of the beautiful girl. Modern commentators have been no less troubled than Servius. Unwilling, however, to see Vergil as blindly enslaved to Homer, they have offered another explanation: violare here is tied to the violentia of her lover Turnus. ‘Vergil connects the violentia of Turnus with the staining of the ivory in the simile used to describe Lavinia's blush.’ should like to add a third explanation for Vergil's choice of violare.

The object of this note is to draw attention to a piece of evidence about the history of the Greek theatre which appears to have gone unnoticed, yet may be of some importance. Aelian in his Historia animalium 11.19 reports the fate of Pantacles the Lacedaemonian, who refused to allow some actors on their way to Cythera to pass through Sparta. Later, when performing official duties as ephor, he was torn to pieces by dogs.

The Greater Alcibiades has been dismissed as spurious by a great many scholars including most of the major Platonists, and for a variety of reasons. Many of these reasons are to my mind extremely weak, and would apply with equal force to some of the undoubtedly genuine dialogues: Bluck has argued that nearly all can be met by supposing that Plato wrote it for some special purpose, for instance as a reply to Polycrates' attack on Socrates. It is noteworthy that several scholars, while rejecting die work, do so with reluctance and a hint of misgiving. Shorey, for instance, sees touches worthy of Plato himself, and de Strycker thinks the work may actually have been revised by Plato.

We can, I think, be certain of one thing only – that when Herodotus wrote these two passages he intended to keep the promises which he was making. In addition it is perhaps reasonable to assume that his account of the capture of Nineveh, which he promises merely would as a decisive event in Assyrian history have been included in the mentioned in 1.184. Even this however must be a mere conjecture, for although Herodotus normally makes promises and keeps them, in these two cases the details promised are nowhere to be found in the Histories as we have them.