All editors have taken the words to mean ‘thou wouldst anger a very st ne’. So did the scholiast.

Under cover of gentle rebuke Pliny lent encouragement to an author still reluctant to publish, although hendecasyllable verses from the versatile consular had announced the book. Ever considerate and helpful, he confesses to Suetonius Tranquillus that he is himself prone to be dilatory:

Sum et ipse in edendo haesitator, tu tamen meam quoque cunctationem tarditatemque vicisti. proinde aut rumpe iam moras aut cave ne eosdem istos libellos, quos tibi hendecasyllabi nostri blanditiis elicere non possunt, convicio scazontes extorqueant (5.10.20).

In all texts of the fragments of Parmenides printed in the last fifty years he begins his poem by speaking of ‘the way which’ (or, according to some, ‘the goddess who’) ‘carries through all towns the man who knows’ (). The more percipient critics have realized that is difficult or impossible to defend, for it makes no good sense and is incompatible with 1. 27, according to which the way is . In fact , which is alleged to be the reading of the best manuscript of Sextus' books Adversus Dogmaticos, has no manuscript authority at all.

Among the conundrums relating to Roman ritual which Plutarch set himself to solve was this: ‘Why do they part the hair of brides with the point of a javelin?’ To this question Plutarch offers a number of answers, all based on the assumption that the spear was symbolical. Professor Rose in his discussion of the passage makes short work of these fumbling guesses, and points out that the original purpose of the spear was magical.

In the fifth book of Livy there is a passage of which hitherto no good explanation has been forthcoming:

Romae interim multiplex seditio erat, cuius leniendae causa coloniam in Volscos, quo tria milia civium Romanorum scriberentur, deducendam censuerant; triumvirique ad id creati terna iugera et septunces viritim diviserant (Livy v, 24. 4: 395 B.C.). (Livy then goes on to describe the viritane division of the ager Veientanus.)

Some say that only 30 were seized, and that the Curiae were named after them, but Valerius Antias [fr. 3P] says there were 527, Juba [FGrH275F23] that there were 683. They were virgins, which was Romulus' main justification: no married women were taken – except one, Hersilia, by mistake - since it was not in wanton violence or injustice that they resorted to rape, but with the intention of bringing the two peoples together and uniting them with the strongest ties. As for Hersilia, some say she was married to Hostilius, a very distinguished Roman, others that she was married to Romulus himself and even bore him children: one daughter, Prima, so called from the order of birth, and a single son, whom Romulus named Aollios after the crowd of citizens under his rule, though he was subsequently called Abillios [i.e. Avillius]. Many authors, however, contradict this account, which is given by Zenodotus of Troezen [FGrH 821F2].

Students of the relations between Greeks and Persians in classical antiquity usually depend entirely on Greek authors, as there are no extensive narrative texts among the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, our extant Oriental sources for the history of the Persian empire. Hence modern scholars have raised the question of the reliability of the Greek sources and emphasized the need to reveal the ideology and presuppositions of the Greek writers. For, if language embodies social reality, the assimilation of information is conditioned by the character of the mind, individual or collective, which comprehends the data within its own terms of reference, fits them into its own set of concepts and records them in that form. Thus, it has been argued that ‘the impression we get of the Persians in the Greek authors is in some ways a deceptive one. Too much emphasis is laid on what is pejorative’, that the labelling of Persia ‘as an Oriental Monarchy: a state and society ruled less by rational actions than by the writing and caprices of its king and court… is to be traced back directly to the Greek sources on Persian history’; and that the ‘discourse of barbarism’ which projected upon the Persians ‘the opposite of qualities admired’ in the Athenian society, ‘is ultimately to be referred to the ideology binding together democratic Athens and her empire’.

The picture of L. Appuleius Saturninus' last days is usually derived from the straightforward narrative account found in Appian's Civil Wars, an account which modern analysis has shown to be flawed. That narrative may be glossed as follows. At the consular elections for the year 99, Saturninus (a tribune who had that year been elected to a third tribunate) and Glaucia (a praetor and candidate for the consulship) instigated the death of a more hopeful contender. Chaos followed. On the following day, when the People (demos) had made its intention to do away with the ‘malefactors’ absolutely plain, Saturninus, Glaucia and the quaestor Saufeius seized the Capitol with followers from the country. The Senate voted for their suppression and Marius invested the hill. With hopes of a safe conduct, the beseiged surrendered and Marius detained them in the curia. Those who feared that the seditiosi might escape rough justice broke in and killed, amongst others, ‘a quaestor, a tribune and a praetor, still decorated with the insignia of office. Many others also perished in the stasis, including another tribune, thought to be the son of Gracchus and being a tribune for the first time on that very day’: ταμίαν τε κα⋯ δήμαρχον κα⋯ στρατηγόν, ἔτι περικειμ⋯νους τ⋯ σ⋯μβολα τ⋯ς ⋯ρχ⋯ς. πολὺς δ⋯ κα⋯ ἄλλος ὅμιλος ⋯ν τῇ στάσει δι⋯φθαρτο κα⋯ δήμαρχος ἕτερος, ⋯ το⋯ Γράκχου παῖς εἶναι νομιζ⋯μενος, πρώτην δημαρχ⋯ν ⋯κε⋯νην ⋯μ⋯ραν.

The problems of this passage were concisely stated by M. Platnauer more than thirty years ago and his suggestions for their solution have been adopted and developed in A. S. F. Gow's magnum opus. Its authority—so the present writer suspects—is liable at this point to eclipse the meaning of the text

In assessing the value of any historical work it is necessary for the investigator to undertake the often frustrating and tedious task of Quellenforschung. In the case of the De Caesaribus the first substantial attempts began in Germany in 1873 and 1874 with the appearance of two important studies by A. Enmann and A. Cohn. Enmann sought to explain the mass of verbal similarities, numerous errors and shared idiosyncrasies to be found in Victor's De Caesaribus, Eutropius' Breviarium 7–10, and parts of the Historia Augusta by postulating a common source which has subsequently come to be known as the Kaisergeschichte. He was so convinced by his findings that he stated (p. 459), ‘Victor und Eutrop es beide als Haupt – wenn nicht als einzige Quelle benutzt haben’.

Working quite independently Cohn's examination of the first eleven chapters led him to conclude that from the beginning of Augustus' sole reign to the death of Domitian Victor, Eutropius and the Epitomator followed a common source which he entitled Suetonius auctus, an account excerpted from Suetonius with some new material added. Enmann, however, had already described the Kaisergeschichte's early chapters in this way and the two were readily identified.

One major problem remained. The traditional date of the completion of the HA was still believed to be 305/6; consequently if the K.G. had been used by its authors then the K.G. must have been written by that year. Nevertheless notable similarities between Victor and Eutropius continued apparently till 357 and Enmann therefore suggested a continuation of the K.G. until that date.

The name of Democritus can claim a place in any discussion of indivisibles. Yet its introduction in this paper seems to depend on the lucus a non lucendo principle; for Democritus did not believe in the existence of indivisible lines. Nowhere is the belief ascribed to him and in at least one place it is implicitly denied, the scholion on De Caelo 268a 1, which says he made his elements indivisible solids, as contrasted with lines or surfaces. Two passages, one from Plutarch, the other from Simplicius, will show why he could not believe in indivisible lines.

There is a persistent tradition of reading Propertius 1.10, according to which the Gallus addressed by the poem is the elegiac poet, and the poem itself is a description, not, or not only, of Gallus and his girl in bed but of Propertius reading Gallus’ love elegy.1 In CQ 39 (1989), 561–2, James O'Hara suggests that the phrase ‘in alternis vocibus’ in Prop. 1.10.10 is a hint at amoebean verse, and as such may refer to the amoebean elegiac experiments by Gallus which Fairweather argues are represented by the Qasr Ibrim papyrus. This may well be right. I suggest, however, that the primary metaphorical meaning of ‘in alternis vocibus’ is ‘in your elegiac verse’. Oblique hints at such a reading can be found in Ross (above n. 1), who describes 9f as ‘an extremely suggestive couplet’, and Hinds, in his discussion of alternus as a programmatic term in Ovid, Fasti 4.484.

Not a little speculation has been expended on the Genius in ancient and modern times. I propose very briefly to recapitulate the known facts about him, examine the chief explanations, and give what I consider the true one.

These lines, presented as they appear in the O.C.T., are among the most difficult and hotly disputed that Juvenal wrote. The poet defends his decision not to attack contemporary politicians directly: ‘expose a Tigellinus’, he says, ‘and you know what the consequences will be’. It has long been recognized that the consequences related are probably inspired by those suffered by the Christians in A.D. 64 during the reign of Nero, and so vividly described by Tacitus.

The purpose of this article is to illustrate through representative examples the principal ways in which Valerius Flaccus borrowed from Homer. Earlier articles1 examined Valerius' attitude towards Apollonius and his debt to Virgil. While not nearly as numerous as the Virgilian echoes, those from Homer are unmistakable, deliberate, sometimes erudite, or with a subtle twist. A convenient classification of them may be into (a) verbal usages, (b) situations, (c) similes. Although the last merges with the previous category, it deserves separate treatment, being greatest in size as well as complexity.

There has never been any doubt that an important part of Thrasyboulos’ forces in his campaign at Phyle and in the Peiraieus was non-Athenian. Lysias in his funeral oration, 2. 66 ff., gives fulsome praise to the xenoi who fought and died for the return of the democracy. Other honours paid to the living are recorded by Aeschines, 3. 187 f., and in the inscription I.G. II. 10, a decree followed by a list of names grouped by Athenian tribes, some of which are certainly non-Athenian. However, little has been said about who these people were, or why they chose to help the return.

An interesting phrase in a letter of Caelius to Cicero in 51 BC, especially relevant to the standing of injured socii or their non-Roman representatives in the quaestio de repetundis at this time, has been frequently misinterpreted by commentators on Cicero. Caelius is telling Cicero of the outcome of the condemnation of C. Claudius Pulcher after his governorship of Asia and the effect this had on an associate of Claudius, M. Servilius.

The time-limits imposed by the κλεψύδρα on speakers in Athenian trials have been much discussed, but a valuable distillation of the ancient evidence and modern interpretations of it has recently been made by P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (1981), pp. 719–28. He prudently states his own conclusions in a cautious manner, but I find them convincing. One khous of water took 3 minutes to run out; this is indicated by the length of time taken by the κλεψύδρα found in the Agora (first published by S. Young, Hesp. 8 [1939], 274–84), which holds 2 khoes and takes 6 minutes, and it is also consistent with the evidence of Aiskhines about the διαμεμετρημένη ⋯μέρα. In a ‘measured-through day’, used only for public cases, the total amount of time allowed for the speeches in a trial was 11 amphoreis (Ais. 2.126), equivalent to 132 khoes, taking 396 minutes; one third of this time was allocated to the prosecution, one third to the defence, and one third to the speeches on the assessment of the penalty (Ais. 3.197). Time taken for other proceedings, including the allocation of jurors to courts, voting, and payment of jurors at the end of the day (this last is not mentioned by Rhodes, but it was surely completed well before dusk, because the jurors had time to go shopping afterwards; cf. Ar. Wasps 303–11, 788–9), was additional.

The following fragment of a papyrus-roll, written in a hand which may be assigned to the second or third century a.d., was bought by Professor O. Guéraud from the antiquary Nahman on behalf of the Société Fouad de Papyrologie (P. Fouad Inv. no. 239). With singular generosity Professor Guéraud has resigned to us the right to publish the text, which we now present with the help of photographs and a transcript, with notes, made by Professor Guéraud. We gratefully acknowledge an obligation to Mr. D. S. Crawford also for assistance in obtaining the photographs.