In C.Q. 1935, 72–82 and 150–163 I published some observations on Herodotus which were the by-product of a translation. Those which follow are the similar by-product of a lexicon. It says much for the delusive simplicity of Herodotus that it is still possible to reap a critical crop from an author who has been read by Reiske, Dobree and Cobet. Had van Herwerden not edited Herodotus, the harvest would have been twice as large.

The account of the death of Palinurus at the end of Aen. 5 raises to a higher level of importance a figure who has previously seemed very much a minor character in the Aeneid. This is achieved partly by the narrative brilliance of Virgil's account of his destruction by Somnus, and partly also by the atmosphere of solemn mystery which surrounds his fate. This solemn note is first struck in the passage which directly prepares the way for Palinurus' death. At Aen. 5.779 Venus, anxious that Juno's wrath may still prevent the safe arrival of Aeneas in Italy, appeals for help to Neptune. He reassures her. Aeneas will arrive safely. There is, however, one condition:

unus erit tantum amissum quem gurgite quaeres;

unum pro multis dabitur caput. (5.814–15)

The saga of Ceyx, king of Trachis, begins at Met. 11.266 and continues to 11.748. Ceyx' adventures form the longest single episode in the Metamorphoses (482 verses), slightly longer than the Phaethon legend (432 verses, Met. 1.747–2.400). Three metamorphoses take place in the course of the Ceyx narrative. The first is that of Ceyx' brother Daedalion who is transformed into a hawk. The second transformation occurs in the course of the exiled Peleus' visit to Ceyx when a wolf attacks Peleus' cattle and sheep and is eventually turned into stone. The third metamorphosis is that of Ceyx and his wife Alcyone into halcyons.

The linking together of these three metamorphoses was entirely an Ovidian invention: it had never been done before. It is therefore important to see the Ceyx story as a whole, as it was put together by Ovid. Attention naturally concentrates on the most interesting episode in it – the Ceyx–Alcyone – but the Daedalion and Peleus episodes are integral parts of the narrative and not separate legends. The story is framed by the contrasting transformations of the two brothers. The fierce and bellicose Daedalion becomes a bird of prey (Met. 11.344). The gentle and uxorious Ceyx becomes a happily paired halcyon (11. 741–8). It is ironic that we first meet Ceyx when he is mourning the transformation of his brother into a bird, since the same end awaits him. The brothers' characters are very different but their fates are similar. Ceyx' dealings with Peleus (11. 268–409) bring out the king of Trachis' hospitable, peace-loving, godly and husbandly qualities and give us a rounded and detailed picture of his personality to balance the developed character-study of his wife Alcyone which is to follow. The spotlight passes from Ceyx to Alcyone at Met. 11. 410.

Most ancient philosophers found access to the mental states of people other than the perceiver less problematic than the moderns did. But there is evidence, however scarce, that some groups of ancient sceptics raised questions which I shall call, for brevity's sake, doubts about other minds.

A. The Problem:

Since A. Gercke's fundamental work, there has been no complete reappraisal of the manuscript tradition of the Natural Questions, yet a reappraisal is long overdue. Gercke divided the manuscripts into two branches, Δ and Φ but this division has been seriously undermined from two quarters. First, H. W. Garrod questioned the status which Gercke assigned to Δ, arguing, quite rightly, that in every case where Δ has the truth against Φ, Δ's reading can reasonably be attributed to conjecture, which is known to be rife in Δ Certainly nothing is proved about Δ's integrity by the passages which Gercke adduced, such as the following (Δ's reading first):3

I first met Parmenides – together with Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and the other great Presocratics – in a German translation by Wilhelm Nestle, famous as the editor of the later editions of Zeller's magnum opus. I was 15 or 16 years old, and I was overwhelmed by the meeting. The verses that I liked best were Parmenides' story of Selene's love for radiant Helios (DKB 14–15). But I did not like it that the translation made the moon male and the sun female (these being their genders in German), and it occurred to me to give the couplet in German a title like ‘Moongoddess and Sungod’, or perhaps ‘Selene and Helios’, in order to rectify the genders. So I began fiddling about with the translations. The volume, which I still possess, shows many traces of this.

Whittaker, following Siebeck, pointed out the important role Plotinus assigns to the functions of imagination in psychic life. Imagination is the terminus ad quern of all properly human conscious experience; it is that faculty of man without which there can be no conscious experience. The sensitive soul is an imaginative soul below which there is Nature, or vegetative soul, which acts without being conscious. When the functions of reason are added to sensation to produce a rational human being, there is conscious discursive thought as well as conscious sensation; and since the sensitive soul cannot be responsible for the imaging of rational concepts, Plotinus asserts the existence of a conceptual imagination.

Although students of the fifth century A.D. have not been slow to recognize the merits of the ͉στορ⋯α Βυζαντιακ⋯ of Priscus, few efforts seem to have been made to under-stand this historian's methods of composition. The purpose of the present note is to indicate that the literary fashions of his time have exercised an unfortunate influence on at least one part of Priscus' work.

In Eum. 1028–9 the Furies mark their transformation into Eumenides by donning red robes over their black costumes (Cho. 1049, Eum. 352, 370) in imitation of the robes worn in the Panathenaea by metics (Phot. s.v. σκάφας = Men. fr. 166 Koerte; cf. Eum. 1011). Greek epic was sensitive to the symbolic value of clothing and Aeschylus had experimented in the Persians with the greater scope that drama offered for clothing-symbolism. Scholars have detected a wealth of associations in the Furies' robing-scene: this culmination of the trilogy echoes the red carpet upon which Agamemnon walks to his death in the first play, which is actually referred to as ‘garments’ (εἵματα Ag. 921, 960, 963), and the net in which Agamemnon is caught (Ag. 1126, 1382, 1580, Cho. 1000, Eum. 635), which is brought on stage in the middle play (Cho. 973–1006). Another series of stage-actions of equal importance in preparing for the robing of the Furies has not been so well explained.

A proper understanding of any military establishment is predicated on a sound understanding of the distinctions of its various components, including the relationship of elite units to those of lesser standing. The infantry of Achaemenid Persia has been given increased attention in recent years, especially in my three recent articles on (a) the permanent Achaemenid infantry, these being the 10,000 so-called Immortals (ἀθάνατοι) and the 1,000 Apple Bearers (μηλοφόροι), (b) the κάρδακες, whom I identified as a kind of general-purpose infantry of indeterminate ethnicity, and (c) the defensive equipment of Achaemenid infantry. In these articles, the Persian cavalry, or asabāra in Old Persian, was mentioned in passing, yet a thorough appraisal of elite Achaemenid cavalry is still required. For example, in his overview of Xerxes' army, Barkworth pays particular attention to the elite infantry, but the cavalry is mentioned only in passing, while Shabazi, in his entry on the Achaemenid army or spāda, does not mention elite cavalry at all. In a recent important study, Tuplin looked carefully at the evidence for Achaemenid cavalry and the degree of importance attached to cavalry among the Persians, but only mentioned what might be termed elite cavalry twice – he did not offer any in-depth commentary on their relationship to other cavalry units.

Only two articles in the past century have attempted reconstructions of this play: Gilbert Norwood in 1930 conjectured a basis in tragic burlesque, specifically a parody of Aeschylus’ Edoni, due largely to the presence of Dionysus and a chorus of Babylonians. An entirely different plot was proposed in 1983 by David Welsh, who took as his starting point Herodotus’ account of the fall of Babylon; he thought that the chorus, envisioned as a group of refugees from the Persian empire, reflected the recent arrival in Athens of the grandson of the Persian primarily credited with the capture of Babylon. Though commentators on Aristophanic comedy and politics often affect to be on firm footing about this play, the total dissimilarity of these two reconstructions actually highlights our ignorance.

In 428 b.c.e. the city of Mytilene launched a revolt against the Athenians and invited the Spartans to send them assistance. The plans for the revolt were reported to the Athenians (3.2), who sent a force against the city (3.3). The Mytilenians asked for help from the Spartans (3.4.5–6), but the fleet they sent arrived too late to help the city (3.26.4). The revolt appears to have been the initiative of the city's wealthier citizens: Thucydides reports (3.27–8) that heavy armour was not distributed to the people until Salaethus, the leader of the rebellion, realized that Spartan help would not arrive in time. Once the people received this armour, they refused to take orders from officials and held meetings, insisting that the government should distribute all available grain. If they did not, they threatened to negotiate on their own with the Athenians about surrender. The government was powerless to stop them and decided it was best to come to terms with the Athenians. It was agreed that the Athenians would have the power to act as they wished with the city and that the Mytilenians would have the right to send envoys to Athens to plead their case before the Assembly.

Tacitus' use and adaptation of phrases from earlier Latin writers is well known. By this means he adds to his own context something of the atmosphere belonging to the context from which the phrase is borrowed. So, for example, when at Ann. 4. 1 he describes Seianus in language modelled on Sallust's description of Catiline (c. 5), the reader is immediately made aware that he is to expect Seianus to display the same resolute villainy that Catiline had shown