To the editor of a classical text manuscripts are useful as they can be induced to yield the truth. The purpose of this article is purely practical: to discuss in moderate compass, though in greater detail than an O.G.T. preface seems to demand, how the manuscripts of these poems can be used to find out what Ovid wrote. His text has been transmitted to us in circumstances which defy the rigid application of this or that ‘method’ of recension; and his editors will sometimes be wise to recognize the limitations of the evidence and to cultivate a robust indifference to unnecessary detail.

These notes are a supplement to those which formed the second part of my ‘Hesiodea’. In part they result from re-examination of manuscripts and papyri undertaken for a projected commentary on the Theogony.

In discussing the text of Hesiod a prime necessity is a new system of sigla. Rzach's system has the grave disadvantage that in the three extant poems the same manuscript is denoted by different letters, and conversely the same letter denotes different manuscripts.

I take this opportunity of correcting a particularly reprehensible error of my own on p. 140 of my edition of these poems. At A.A. 1. 730 read ‘…hoc multri †non ualuisse† putant’; and at 11. 3-4 of the critical apparatus read ‘equidem multi <s> utique’ eqs. In other words, the manuscripts are unanimous in offering multi. I hope that Dr. Lenz will be glad to have this evidence of our common humanity (Maia xiii [1961], 131).

After the accusative the names of the officers of the Egyptian contingent are given in the nominative, with no connecting particle or relative and no main verb to follow. The editors offer various supplements for the sense, e.g. Dindorf ; but what we have here is not a simple case of ellipse but a harsh change in construction which it would be hard to parallel.

Among the Greek manuscripts in the Earl of Leicester's library at Holkham, which were recently acquired by the Bodleian Library throuth the generosity of the Dulverton Trust, is a volume containing eight of Aristophanes' plays. This manuscript (no. 88, formerly no. 269) is not included in the list of Aristophanes' manuscripts compilied by J. W. White, and it seems that no editor has ever consulted it. The object of this paper is to describe the manuscript, which will be called L, to prove that it is an almost complete copy of the Triclinian edition of Aristophanes,

In recent years the general view of the theology and morality of Aeschylus which we still find expressed in the most popular handbooks of Greek tragedy has come under fire; fire which its defenders have so far been unwilling or unable to return. That Aeschylus was a bold religious innovator propounding advanced doctrines can no longer be assumed without argument; neither can one take for granted that his outlook on morality in general and on justice in particular was as advanced as it was once usual to maintain.

Probably no Greek tragedy has proved as rich a source of perplexity, theory, and debate as the Antigone. A number of the formidable problems which various critics have seen in the play emerge from the two watchman scenes and the great ode which separates them. It will be argued here that these difficulties are the result of certain radical misunderstandings and are capable of straightforward solution.

In this passage transposition is surely necessary, as Leo saw. The only verb which can be supplied for Sarmata in 1. 71 is celant; but whereas the Hyrcanian forests may hide Diana's prey, the nomad Sarmatian can scarcely be said to do so; Sarmata requires some verb like nouit (68). Leo put 1. 71 after 1. 68. But in is not easy to see how uacuis …campis fell to two lines later. The transposition would be more easily explicable if Seneca, after 1. 66, wrote 69–70, then 67, 68, 71, i.e.

Pfeiffer accepts without hesitation Buttmann's correction , but Schneider (Callimachea, i. 353 ff.) has proved, with immense and unassailable erudition, that neither are touchable. Cahen, more prudently than Pfeiffer, leaves the lectio tradita in the text, naturally with a crux.

In an article (C.Q. xli [1947], 73 ff.) based on an unpublished paper by Professor Cornford, Mr. I. M. Glanville returned to the suggestion that the words at the beginning of Chapter 11 of the Poetics (1452a23), which are part of the definition of peripeteia, refer back to the phrase (52a4), thereby raising the question whose expectation it is to which events turn out contrary, that of the audience or of the characters in the play.

Professor Rudolf Keydell has recently given us a greatly improved text of Nonnus' Dionysiaca. But much remains to be done. Many problems are still unsolved: many a corruption may still lie unsuspected, since the manuscript on which we rely is one in which obvious corruption tends to be concealed by conjecture (see below on 25. 424–6).

The version given above is from Murray's Oxford text: the recent Budé text of Chapouthier concurs in accepting Kirchhoff's transposition. Other editors, such as Paley and Weil, have also given their approval to this proposed alteration, though Biehl regards it as superfluous. Most commentators are agreed, however, in considering that the choice must lie between the traditional line-order and Kirchhoff's transposition: few regard the papyrus line-order as either probable or even possible.

occurs in two classical contexts. They are: (i) Alc. 320 L.-P. (23 Diehl) (ii) Democr. 156 Diels (in Plut. Adv. Colot. 4, . Further, Diels adds two other passages showing Democritus' use of the word. Simpl. De Caelo, p. 294. 33 f. Heiberg (Diels, Frag. d. Vorsokr. ii. 93) Elm. Sec. Hipp. 1. 2 (Diels, op. cit., p. 97)

In a recent paper Mr. Balsdon has condemned the ‘political barrenness of Cicero's thought and the thought of his political friends’. The speech pro Sestio, we are told, with its stress on otium, implies ‘an acceptance of the existing political and social conditions, of what Cicero describes as otiosae dignitatis … fundamenta (98), which the principes must protect and defend’. Defence of these was ‘a placid acceptance of the existing régime’ and the appeal for otium ‘the retort of Maître Pangloss that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds’.

There are in iambic trimeters a number of examples of hiatus where is followed by forms of , mainly in Comedy but also (very rarely) in Tragedy. These are notable because they fall outside the usual range of hiatus in drama, which covers passages with interrogative (probably the most common) and , invocatory exclamations such as , and interjections. The use seems to deserve closer attention.

It is generally agreed that the Topics is one of Aristotle's earliest works. But after saying this most writers are unwilling to commit themselves any further and discuss the work, if they discuss it at all, with a vagueness about dating that leads them to do it less than justice. Part of the difficulty, no doubt, lies in the fact that the Topics consists of a central, early, core, surrounded by later additions, and cannot therefore be dealt with as a whole. The suggestions about its date that I wish to make now are concerned solely with what I take to be the original Topics—or such part of it as remains—which I believe can be delimited almost exactly.

It is, I think, a fair presumption to suppose that there was some bond uniting all the different aspects of Pythagoras' thought, a bond strong enough to satisfy Pythagoras himself, but loose enough for the to be able, later, to cast off the religious and mystical doctrines without endangering the rest.

It is not certain when or by whom and were first technically distinguished as genus and species. The distinction does not appear in Plato's extant writings, whereas Aristotle seems to take it for granted in the Topics, which is usually regarded as among his earliest treatises. In his dialogues Plato seems able to use interchangeably to denote any group or division in a diairesis, including the group that is to be divided.

The role and precise significance of Intelligible Matter in the philosophy of Plotinus has been neglected or dismissed with many questions unanswered. In view of the fact that, unless this role can be properly understood, the whole doctrine of the procession of the Second Hypostasis must remain mysterious, this paper is intended to shed light on two important aspects of that Hypostasis: the nature of Intelligible Matter itself and the relation of that Matter to the Forms.

Since is a good Greek word, most scholars have assumed that it must be retained, and that the corruption is confined to the unintelligible letters which precede it. Constans deleted these letters as the remnant of a gloss, Sternkopf emended them to velut; neither solution is satisfactory, since by itself, without an indication of the recipient, is hardly intelligible.