Was there a second legion in Palestine at all ? Mommsen has raised a doubt. In his note on C.I.L. iii 6641 ‘M. Iunio Maximo Leg. Augg. Leg. X Fr….’ he says ‘Quo tempore titulus positus est (about 200 A.D.) provinciam Palaestinam una sola legio obtinuerit necesse est X Fretensis; nam Augustorum vocabulum legatis legionis non solet addi nisi simul provinciae praesunt. Legio VI Ferrata quamquam a Dione (lv 23) in Iudaea collocatur, vide ne castra habuerit in Batanaea (quo ducunt milites eius duo Capitoliade oriundi, C.I.L. vi 210 anni 208 et x 532) quae fuit sub legato Syriae Phoenices.’ On C.I.L. iii 6703 similarly he says ‘legatus legionis Augusti vocabulum raro adsumit’ But the title ‘leg. Aug.’ does seem to be used with sufficient frequency of a simple ‘legatus legionis’ to invalidate Mommsen's argument: e.g. Dessau 1026 ‘leg. Aug. leg. xi C. p. f.’; 1036, 1055, 1070, 1141 etc: and the soldiers of Capitolias might just as easily have served across the border in Palestine. Zangemeister, who first published the inscription of Iunius Maximus {Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins x 1887, 49–53) took the same view as Mommsen, that he was the provincial legatus; but later (ib. xi 138) he admitted that in that case the words ‘pro praetore’ would have been added.

Some scholars have seen in ‘fulminat’ an allusion to Callimachus' βροντ⋯ν οὐκ ⋯μ⋯ν, ⋯λλ⋯ Δι⋯c (fr. 1.20 Pfeiffer), and that is reasonable enough, since Virgil contrasts the warlike fulminations of Octavian with mocking disparagement of his own very different lifestyle (563–4 ‘illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti’). But it may have escaped attention that Virgil seems to be imitating some lines by another Hellenistic poet, Rhianus (mid to late third century B.C.); the parallel has thought-provoking implications.

‘Who wrote the scurrilous iambic poems of the first stanza?’, asks David West at the start of his commentary on the ode. ‘The culprit’, he declares, ‘must be Horace.’ This answer accords with that to be found in other commentaries: ‘my scurrilous verses’ (Page), ‘my scandalous lines’ (Gow), ‘my scurrilous iambics’ (Wickham), ‘my abusive iambics’ (Shorey), ‘miei ingiuriosi giambi’ (Colamarino and Bo), ‘my libellous iambics’ (Nisbet and Hubbard), ‘my libellous iambic verses’ (Quinn), ‘miei giambi ingiuriosi’ (Fedeli). What, then, are these iambic verses? Some earlier scholars suggested that Horace is referring to various of his epodes, such as those addressed to Canidia (5, 17); but our knowledge of Canidia (cf. also Serm. 1.8) indicates that she would scarcely make plausible the accent on beauty in the first line of the ode. Most commentators, at least since the latter half of the nineteenth century, have believed that Horace is referring to some iambics which he had targeted at the ode's addressee but of which we now have no further knowledge: Kiessling and Heinze, for example, refer to ‘the satirical poems which Horace … has levelled at her’, while in the most recent commentary in 2012 Mayer says that Horace ‘assures an unnamed young woman that it rests with her to put an end to his vituperative attacks’.

The Republic represents the good life as some sort of harmony or composition between the different interests of which the threefold nature of the soul makes it capable. The rational factor, τ λολιστικν, not only chooses which impulses shall be satisfied and which rejected but is credited also with impulses of its own, such as the desire for knowledge, to the importance of which the Republic testifies by various strands of argument. But in Plato's attempt to prove the goodness of this mixed life he may be thought to have relied too much on arguments about its pleasantness. If he had really meant from the first to prove against Thrasymachus that the just life is more prolific in pleasure1 than the unjust, he would have had to undertake the task of proving a necessary connection between just activities and pleasant states of feeling which could scarcely exist unless feelings were under the control of the will. If this had been his intention, the whole weight of the argument would rest on the two comparatively short passages in Book IX (581–3, 583–6) in which he makes first a dubious appeal to experience and then, by an equally dubious piece of metaphysics, attempts to reinforce his ethical conclusion by denying the reality of such pleasures as might tend to throw doubt on it.

This is one of the Horatian passages most tormented by the critics. Four points, I think, may now be safely regarded as established.

First of all, the lectio tradita can hardly be sound : those who have tried to defend it—their Nestor is Porphyrio himself—have encountered insuperable difficulties. Magnum—to use Kiessling—Heinze's word—is patently ‘sinnlos’. Secondly, none of the proposed conjectures really satisfies. Maga non, as Kiessling-Heinze rightly note, is excluded by metrical reasons alone, not to mention its stylistic harshness ; magica, favoured by Kiessling-Heinze, is scarcely better : the epithet is tautological after venena, and if we accept the emendation we are compelled to postulate a very awkward zeugma (cf. Kiessling-Heinze and Wickham ad loc.). Thirdly, the corruption is pre-medieval, because Porphyrio already read magnum : if we have to apply palaeographical methods for the solution of the problem, we must reason in terms of Roman cursive.

Heroides 9 takes the form of a letter sent by Deianira to Hercules as a reinforcement to the tunic smeared with Nessus' blood which she has already dispatched in the mistaken belief that it will revive the hero's love for her. In this epistle she tries to persuade her husband to give up his latest girlfriend (Iole) by showing him that she loves him, by arousing pity for herself, and by making him feel ashamed of his philandering and see that he thereby disgraces himself. Obviously there is pathos here, particularly as the deaths of Hercules and Deianira loom in the background, but there is also wit, irony, and (especially dark) humour, creating a piquant tonal mixture which has been almost entirely neglected by critics. They have seen the sadness, and some of the irony (which is taken to be purely tragic), but they have not grasped the facetious aspects, whereby our irreverent poet ensures that the piece does not lapse into mawkishness and engages the head as well as the heart.

Codex Louaniensis, or L, the best MS. of Caesar in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 10,084), which is assigned to the eleventh century, has been collated by Alfred Holder for his edition of the Bellum ciuile and by Mr. R. L. A. Du Pontet for his edition of the Bellum Alexandrinum and the Bellum Africanum; but for the Bellum Gallicum no collation has hitherto been available. Last year I made one, which I sent to Dr. Meusel. He urged me to publish it, remarking that it would be very useful, as ‘wir haben nun ein sichereres Urteil über die Familie φ.’ Relying upon Holder's collation, he had described L in his own edition of the Bellum ciuile (1906, p. viii) as ‘a twin-brother of Ashburnhamianus’ (S); and so it is in the Bellum ciuile, but, as he acknowledged after reading my collation, not in the Bellum Gallicum. The first folio, comprising i, I–6, §3 (… bono animo in), is by a later hand. The MS. is described in the Catalogue thus: ‘c. Jvlii Caesaris commentariorum libri. Desinit cum verbis “res eis suppeteret” in libro de Bello Africano, cap. 33. Codex membranaceus, sec. XL, sed folium primum a manu recentiori suppletum est. Folio [10,084.].’

The list of Apollo's virtues (ἀρεταί) in the second hymn of Callimachus describes, in the context of the appearance of the god, a mysterious healing substance which trickles from the hair of the patron of medicine (lines 45–6). Hymn 2.38–41:

αἱ δὲ κόμαι θυόεντα πέδῳ λείβουσιν ἔλαια⋅
οὐ λίπος ᾿Απόλλωνος ἀποστάζουσιν ἔθειραι,
ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὴν πανάκειαν⋅ ἐν ἄστεϊ δ᾽ ᾧ κεν ἐκεῖναι
πρῶκες ἔραζε πέσωσιν, ἀκήρια πάντ᾽ ἐγένοντο.

One of the most baffling inscriptions has come down to us from the so-called ‘Passage of the Theôroi’ at Thasos. Situated at the north-eastern entrance of the ancient agora, and consisting originally of two walls on either side of a path paved by marble, the monumental passage way had a long list of names inscribed on the inside of its western wall; this is the so-called ‘great list of Thasian theôroi’. Two of its constituent lists bear the headings ἐπὶ τῆς πρώτης ἀπαρχῆς and ἐπὶ τῆς δευ[τέρη]ς ἀπαρχῆς| οἵδε ἐθεόρεον. The meaning of the word aparchê and the nature of the theôroi in question have been the subject of disagreement among historians. The aim of this article is to contribute further suggestions to existing discussions.

At Pol. 7.12, 1331a19–20, Aristotle states it as a matter of fact that the citizenry of the best city should be divided into ‘public messes’ (syssitia). His primary concern in the rest of the chapter is to uncover the optimal way in which syssitia should be organized, and the way in which they should be situated in relation to other facilities, public buildings, agorai and temples in the city. The proposed plan is roughly as follows. Syssitia would be divided into three main sections. First, the syssitia of soldiers would be held at the guardhouses located at strategic points along the walls surrounding the city (1331a20–3). Next come ‘the most supreme syssitia of the magistrates’ (τὰ κυριώτατα τῶν ἀρχείων συσσίτια: 1331a24–5) and the syssitia ‘of the priests’ (τῶν ἱερέων: 1331b5). These would be held at a place appropriately having ‘an appearance directed at establishing virtue and [being] more strongly positioned than the neighbouring parts of the city’ (1331a28–30), that is, the highest place in the city. This envisioned acropolis would also house temples (1331a24–5). Situated below it would be the ‘free agora’, which would include gymnasia (1331a35–7) and would be generally directed at leisurely activity (1331b12). Finally, below the free agora, a ‘necessary agora’ and buildings of officials entrusted with legal, commercial and municipal duties would be established, at a location conducive to importing and exporting goods (1331b6–12).

This account of the verb forms in Plautus proceeds in the same direction as my earlier papers on noun, adjectival, and adverbial forms (Classical Review, July, December, 1902, July, 1903). I feel strongly that something is needed on Plautine forms that shall be more complete and accurate than anything that yet exists. The statements that one meets with, that this or that form is “common,” or “regular,” in Plautus, are frequently misleading, or even incorrect, and are usually unsatisfying. I do not think it is of much import whether a word occurs fifty times or fifty-five, but it often is important to know whether it occurs fifty times, or five, or once, or not at all.

It has long been noticed that Virgil's Eclogue 10, in which Gal I us plays so prominent a rôle, contains a combination of pastoral and elegiac elements. But this prompts the question: who was responsible for this combination? Was the fusion of pastoral and erotic-elegiac detail Virgil's own, or did Gallus himself write love-elegies with a strong pastoral colouring, a type of poetry which Virgil then echoed in Eclogue 10?

Over twenty years since the influential revisionist studies of Roussel and Bourriot, agreement on a satisfactory theory of the Attic genos seems as elusive as ever. Although they differed on details, these two scholars were agreed in their rejection of the old monolithic account of the genos as aristocratic family whose institutionalized control over state cults and phratry admissions in the historical period was a relic of a wider political dominance. Roussel and Bourriot instead proposed a tripartite model according to which the formal genos-kome—a more or less localized community similar to the later deme, with hereditary but socio-economically diverse membership, and enjoying, as a tighter community well placed to regulate its own admissions, automatic access to the wider phratry—was distinguishable both from aristocratic families, such as the Peisistratidai or Alkmeonidai, and priestly houses, such as the Kerykes and Eumolpidai of Eleusis. Subsequent discussion has moved in several directions. My analysis of the relationship between phratry and genos followed a broadly revisionist line. I found no good evidence for gene controlling the access to phratries of persons who were not genos members and presented a new interpretation of the crucial Demotionidai decrees in which, contrary to prevailing theories, neither of the two groups mentioned in them—the Demotionidai and the House (oikos) of the Dekeleieis—was a privileged subgroup dominating the whole. Rather, I suggested that the Demotionidai were a phratry in process of fission, the Dekelean House a product of this process. Others, however, have taken the debate in the other direction, as it were reprivileging the genos.