The record shows that Poseidon was once worshipped in every part of Greece as a god of general importance to the community. In the glimpse of Mycenaean ritual afforded by the Pylos tablets Poseidon is the chief deity, and the offerings and perhaps also the custom of ‘spreading the bed’ point to agrarian concerns. In each of the main districts of historical Greece he is rooted in tradition: Arcadia, that ancient landscape, is full of ancient cults of Poseidon; Ionia gathers to honour Poseidon Helikônios; ‘all Boeotia is sacred to Poseidon’, according to Aristarchus (Et. Magn. 5.Kypris), and here and in Thessaly he dominates mythical genealogy; the Dorian Peloponnesus is likewise ‘sacred to Poseidon’ (Diod. 15. 49. 4), and at his shrine on Calaureia, the seat of an early amphictyony, Mycenaean antecedents come into question – as at few other shrines in Greece. Yet much of the testimony is antiquarian and retrospective; Poseidon's pre-eminence is more of a memory than a reality. In such a well-documented city as Athens Poseidon has a very small place indeed in public festivities. In Greek literature his authority is slight and his powers are narrow, being virtually confined to earthquakes and storms at sea; he is chivvied by Zeus and flouted by Odysseus, and the reparation which Odysseus is required to make, of establishing Poseidon's worship among landsmen who take an oar for a winnowing fan, is a mocking and belated tribute to his former domain.

Most of the work done on tracing persistent themes and images in the Oresteia has failed to take account of the associations of the theme or image for the original audience. Some of these associations are with certain highly emotional rituals. In evoking the ritual the poet evokes also some at least of the emotion which generally accompanies its performance. I will take here as an example the association of the manner of Agamemnon's death, the fatal bath and the fatal robe, with the ritual of the funeral. This will I hope help to enrich our own emotional reaction to Aeschylus' presentation of this event, as well as to shed light on certain problematic passages.

The line in question occurs towards the end of Orestes' final exchange with Clytemnestra, after her attempts at self-defence have all met with rebuttal.

Question and quotation marks tend to proliferate in articles which ask whether Homer can provide any historical information about early Greek society. In this article ‘Homeric’ society will refer to the society which is portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey. ‘The World of Odysseus’ will refer to the recension of ‘Homeric’ society which appears in M. I. Finley's book of that name. Finley claims that ‘The World of Odysseus’ is a faithful account of ‘Homeric’ society and that the latter is a literary portrait of a real society that existed in Greece some time during the dark ages. As a result of Finley's influential book, ‘The World of Odysseus’, or something very like it, has found its way into most of the history books generally available in the classroom. In this article I wish to reconsider ‘Homeric’ society and to question the propriety of identifying it with either ‘The World of Odysseus’ or any real society.

We generally think of the poetry of Anacreon as coming from an entirely different world from that of the iambists, but among the extant fragments there is some indication to the contrary. With fr. 44 Gentili = 432 PMG iamb. 5 West, an epodic passage, we find Anacreon closest in form to the iambists. Here is the text with the full context from the Etymologicum Magnum (p. 523. 4; after West):

τò δ κνύςα ώς λÉγι ‘Hgr;ρωδιανòς ν τ καθολικ (1. 251. 7, 2. 901. 20 Lentz), εί μν πί τοű ϕυτοű, συγκοπή στιν πò τοű κóνυςα, οίον “χαμαίςήλοιο κονύςης” (Nic. Th. 70). εί δ πί τού παρɛϕθαρμÉνου καί ρρυσωμνου, οÙ συγκοπή οτιν, λλ' πò τοű κνύω, ϕ' οǘ κνύος ϕθορá οȋον “κατà κνύος Ȅχευεν, φίλωτο δ κáρηνα” (Hes. fr. 133.3/5 M—W). γίνεται κνύςα, ώς παρà’ ΑνακρÉοντι ν ίáμβω

κνυςή τις ñδη καί πÉπειρα γίνομαι

σ διà μαργοσύνην.

The word Eὐμεν⋯δες occurs six times in our texts of Greek tragedy (four times in Eur. Or., twice in Soph. O.C.) and once as a play title (Aesch. Eum.). This may make ‘Eumenides in Greek tragedy’ sound like a restricted subject, but it is one that has seldom been discussed as a whole, and scholars have tended to consider each of the three plays in question in the light of unargued assumptions about the other two, and about the nature and affinities of Eumenides in general. I shall begin with some introductory remarks on cults, since not all the information is readily available in reference books, and then discuss the three plays in turn, starting for convenience with the Orestes.

There is some audacity in adding to the formidable list of articles on Pythian 2, which raise the questions of the structure or thematic coherence of the ode, of its specific occasion and of its relation to Pindar's biography. In this paper my aim is the circumscribed one of showing how a correct analysis of the final section of the poem (lines 72–end) can lead us to a better understanding of the nature of Pindar's poetry, and of the way in which he adapts his laudatory stance to the circumstances and status of the addressee.

A few years ago, as part of an investigation of the authenticity of Prometheus Bound, I published figures for the occurrence of non-Aeschylean words in that play, as compared with two undisputedly Aeschylean plays (Th., Pers.) and with one Sophoclean play (Aj.) The figures showed that Prom, contained a greater number of words not found elsewhere in the surviving plays of Aeschylus (Eigenwörter); and also that, like Soph. Aj., but unlike the six undisputed plays of Aeschylus, it contained a relatively large number of Eigenwörter that occur more than once in the play, some of them quite common and familiar words. The discrepancy between Prom, and the two Aeschylean plays chosen for comparison was quite marked; and the high rate of repeated Eigenwörter for Soph. Aj. seemed to confirm that this criterion might be a good one for distinguishing unAeschylean characteristics in a non-Aeschylean play. But the sample was very small, and I was conscious that the criterion (or the particular application of it) was somewhat arbitrary; I was therefore not very confident of the value of my findings.

More Than a quarter of a century has elapsed since the publication of the Oxyrhynchus papyrus which Lobel identified as a fragment of Sophocles’ Inachus, and though it has revolutionised our knowledge of the play, it has proved an excellent example of the papyrological commonplace that each new discovery creates more problems than it solves. What could with reasonable confidence be inferred about the Inachus from the comparatively numerous ancient quotations and allusions is well summarised in Pearson's introduction: Inachus, Hermes, Argus, and (almost certainly) Iris took part in the action, but beyond the fact that the play told of Io's transformation and of blessings bestowed on Argos as a result of Zeus' visitation (not necessarily in that order) the development of the plot could only be conjectured. A majority of those who have discussed the play have shared Hemsterhuys' view that it was satyric, and the publication in 1933 of a Tebtunis papyrus preserving part of a dramatic composition dealing with Zeus’ love for Io and strongly suggesting a satyr-play was welcomed by many as confirmation of this conjecture. But the ascription of the Tebtunis fragment to Sophocles is far from certain, and its testimony will not allay the doubts of those who are troubled by the lack of direct evidence for satyrs in the Inachus and by the feeling that the importance of the moral and theological issues raised makes its theme unusually serious for satyric drama.

νδνουϲα μν Φυγι πολιτν ὧν Φκετο ϰθόνα, αὐτ τε πάνταξυμΦέρουϲ' 'Iάϲονι.

12 πολιτν Π1 codd. et Σ bv: πολίταιϲ V3, sicut coni. Barnes ϰθονοϲ Π1 gE; δ Stob. 4. 22. 30

The two Sophoclean passages by which Page supports his plea that 'πολιτν stands for πολίταιϲ…, being attracted by the following ὧν into the genitive case’ do not inspire much confidence, since both (as he acknowledges) are capable of being explained differently. Further, as a recent writer has remarked, ‘on cherche en vain la raison qui aurait pu inciter Euripide … à écrire πολιτν à la place de πολίταιϲ Le vers n' aurait rien gagné à cette substitution, sinon une obscurité inutile’ (G. Roux, REG 85 [1972], 40).

Troades has often been thought to lack any coherent structure, and this has been variously attributed to its being the last play of the trilogy and to Euripides' overriding concern to impress the horrors of war upon his fellow Athenians. More recently, however, attention has been drawn to how the constant presence of Hecuba gives unity to the play and to how it is articulated by the striking entries of Cassandra, Andromache, and Helen. Cassandra and Andromache enter in mock triumph, Cassandra waving torches in her ironical wedding song and Andromache on a waggon, while Helen is dragged out by force and her scene marked off by Menelaus' second prologue. All three women emerge from the tent, argue with Hecuba but fail to convince her, and depart for marriage in Greece. Andromache's ideal marriage to Hector (645–56) contrasts with Cassandra's perverted ‘marriage’ to Agamemnon and with Helen's destructive marriage to Paris. The departure of the Trojan women for marriage in Greece balances Helen's earlier departure from Greece for marriage in Troy.

Glyconic is one of the commonest verse-forms in tragic odes. Examples are abundant enough for its nature to be statistically understood. The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of tragic glyconic a little more thoroughly than current handbooks, 2 paying special attention to antistrophic responsion. The following topics are studied here: (1) aeolic base; (2) dragged close; (3) resolution; (4) compounds.

Interest in νομαστìκωμῳδєȋν began early. Even before the compilation of prosopo-graphical κωμῳδούμєνοɩ in the second century B.C., Hellenistic study of Aristophanes had devoted attention to the interpretation of personal satire. The surviving scholia contain references to Alexandrian scholars such as Euphronius, Eratosthenes and Callistratus which show that in their commentaries and monographs these men had dealt with issues of νομαστì κωμῳδєȋν Much material from Hellenistic work on Old Comedy was transmitted by later scholars, particularly by Didymus and Symmachus in their variorum editions, and was eventually embodied in the scholia, though of course in an abridged and sometimes distorted form. Many of our fragments of Old Comedy, preserved in the scholia or in medieval works of reference as parallels to passages in Aristophanes, are direct evidence of the long ancient tradition of interest in the genre's large element of personal satire. What we find in the scholia should not therefore be treated as representative only of the latest and most derivative stages of ancient scholarship. It is the purpose of this article to argue that the scholia on Aristophanes allow us to see that in matters of νομαστì κωμῳδєȋν certain assumptions about the nature of this type of comic material were persistently made by ancient scholars, and that certain interpretative habits were consequently developed from them. It is my further aim to suggest that this pattern of interpretation has been widely but unjustifiably perpetuated in later work on Aristophanes.

Aristophanes' last two surviving plays, Assemblywomen and Wealth, have long been regarded as something of an enigma. The changes in structure – the diminution in the role of the chorus, the disappearance of the parabasis, etc. –, as well as the shift of interest away from the immediacies of current politics towards broader social themes, can reasonably be interpreted as an early stage of the process that ultimately transformed Old Comedy into New, even if it is unlikely ever to be finally agreed whether Aristophanes was leading or following this trend. The decline in freshness, in verbal agility, in sparkle of wit, in theatrical inventiveness, which is perceptible in the earlier play and very marked in the later, may be put down to advancing years and diminishing inspiration. Such an explanation squares with the evidence of a marked decline in Aristophanes' productivity towards the end of his life. Whereas in the first seven years of his career (427–421) he seems to have produced, or had produced for him, not less than ten plays, and in the years 420–405 approximately another eighteen, the twenty years or so that followed Frogs yielded a further eleven at the very most unless some titles have been completely lost; and since it is not likely that after the outstanding success of Frogs, and the public recognition that followed it, Aristophanes would have experienced any difficulty in securing a chorus, the explanation can only be that he was writing less. But the truly puzzling feature of the two late plays we possess is the apparent sea-change in the author's social orientation. In his fifth-century plays, from Acharnians toFrogs, as has been shown (in my view conclusively) by de Ste Croix, Aristophanes reveals himself as one who instinctively speaks the language and thinks the thoughts of the well-to-do, even if at the same time he can laugh with the common man at ostentatious and useless wealth in the shape of Pyrilampes' peacocks, Leogoras' pheasants or the sultan-like garments of an Athenian imperial official – as one who was happy for the Demos to be sovereign so long as it was willing to be guided by the advice of its' betters', the καλоί тε κáγоθоί of (e.g.) Knights 738 or Frogs 727–9, and to leave them in the quiet enjoyment of their property. At first sight in Assemblywomen and Wealth this seems to have changed almost diametrically.

The reader of Demosthenes can hardly avoid the impression that there was something sadly awry with the Athenian naval system in the two decades prior to Chaeronea. The war in the north Aegean was essentially a naval war, and Demosthenes frequently enough blamedAthen's failure on her lack of preparation. ‘Why do you think, Athenians,… that all our expeditionary forces are too late for the critical moments?…In the business of the war and the preparation for it everything is in disorder, unreformed, undefined. So it is that some news arrives, we appoint trierarchs, we give them the opportunity legally to get others to act in their stead, we consider provision of money, then it is decided that the metics and those “living out” should go on the ships, then again you yourselves, then to allow substitutes, and during these delays^the cause for which we would have been sailing is lost before we have sailed] For we spend the time for action on preparations, but the critical moments for action do not last as long as our dilatoriness and cautious procedures’ (4. 35 ff.). This was spoken in 351 and it is much the same a decade later (8. 10 f.).

With the publication in 1974 of an inscribed ‘Orphic’ gold leaf from Hipponium (Vibo Valentia) in Southern Italy, and that in 1977 of another, now at Malibu, California, we have a relatively extensive series of gold leaves from graves bearing brief instructions concerning the afterlife. Whether these are Orphic, Pythagorean or whatever, will not be in question here; but the relation between the different texts constitutes a problem interesting in itself, whose dispassionate exploration may also contribute to the eventual understanding of the religious background.

It is generally agreed that the Protagoras recounts a single meeting which took place in the late 430s. If this is correct, then, as has long been recognized, the dialogue contains a number of disturbing anachronisms. It is the purpose of this study to question the supposition of a single dramatic date. I argue that Plato did not record the events of a single meeting in the dialogue, but that he drew upon the action and dialogue of more than one meeting in the course of Protagoras' visits to Athens. If it can be shown that this is the way in which Plato composed the dialogue, then he is not guilty of the glaring anachronisms in the Protagoras with which he is charged. At the end of this study I suggest a reason for Plato's choice of this method of composition. First, however, the evidence for Protagoras' visits to Athens should be considered.

The view that Pausanias 9. 13. 1–15. 6 is a simple epitome of Plutarch's lost Epaminondas, first advanced by Wilamowitz in 1874 and later elaborated by Wilamowitz himself and by Ludwig Peper, has commonly been accepted, with little or no further discussion, by students of Plutarch, Pausanias and fourth-century history. In a recent general reaffirmation of the thesis John Buckler does note that what Pausanias says about Mantinea is hard to square with Plutarchan evidence and he therefore admits some contamination of the hypothetical source with non-Plutarchan material. But Buckler's discussion of the matter within the framework of a book on the Theban hegemony is necessarily brief and somewhat unsystematic, and may be thought over-ready to assume Plutarchan connections where none can be demonstrated. The purpose of this paper is to show that the Wilamowitz/Peper hypothesis in its pure form (as accepted apparently by such authorities as Ziegler and Sandbach) cannot reasonably be sustained, that at the very least some degree of contamination must be presumed, and that the existence of a direct connection between Pausanias and Plutarch can hardly be regarded as established beyond reasonable doubt.

The discussion of mathematical knowledge and its relation to the construction of an appropriate diagram in Aristotle's Metaphysics Θ 9. 1051 a21—33 is an important, if compressed, account of Aristotle's most mature thoughts on mathematical knowledge. The discussion of what sort of previous knowledge one must have for understanding a theorem recalls the discussion at An. Post. A 1. 71 a 17–21, where the epistemological point is similar and the examples the same. The first example, that the interior angles of a triangle equal two right angles, appears no less than thirty times in the corpus (inter alia, An. Post A 5. 74a 16, 23.84 b 6–9, 24.86 a 22–30). The example of the angle inscribed in a semicircle being a right angle also occurs at An. Post. B 11. 94a 27–34, but in a very different context from its two companions. Illustrations of both theorems provided clear stock examples for Aristotle.

In one of the most disputed passages of Greek literature Plato in the Republic, 7. 528e–530c prescribes astronomy as the fourth study in the education of the Guardians. But what sort of astronomy? According to one school of thought it is a purely speculative study of bodies in motion having no relation to the celestial objects that we see. While this interpretation has rejoiced the hearts of Plato's detractors, who regard him as an obstacle to the progress of science, it has dismayed his admirers. Another school of thought holds that what Plato meant was that astronomers must get to know the real motions of the heavenly bodies as opposed to their apparent motions as seen by us on earth. The opposed interpretations may be set out in the following representative citations from Sir Thomas Heath and John Burnet.