Among the insinuations that Tacitus bequeaths to posterity in the negative segment of his post mortem of Augustus (Ann. 1.10) is the emperor's putative role as machinator doli in the death of the consul Hirtius during the fighting at Mutina in the spring of 43. The historian is thinking of a focal moment in the Aeneid when Sinon releases his fellow Greeks from within the wooden horse. I quote Aen. 2.264–7. Among the heroes who descend from the animal's belly are Ulixes, Neoptolemus

et Menelaus et ipse doli fabricator Epeos.

invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam;

caeduntur vigiles, portisque patentibus omnis

accipiunt socios atque agmina conscia iungunt.

primo pallentis hiatu

haeret adhuc Orci, licet has exaudiat herbas,

ad manes uentura semel.

Erichtho the Thessalian witch is conducting a necromancy: she has selected a corpse, applied her potions to it and invoked the powers of the Underworld to release its soul to deliver the prophecy. She specifies that this is a recent corpse whose soul has hardly entered the Underworld; hence she describes it as ‘still hesitating at the entrance to pallid Orcus’ chasm’ and as “a soul which will join the dead only once’. However, as Francken says, ‘“exaudire herbas” est absurda iunctura’. The problem lies in either noun or verb. The phrase must refer to Erichtho's magic; the choice is between spells and potion, herbas in the sense ‘Incantation’ is apparently unparalleled, but herbas as a reference to Erichtho's brew is perfectly acceptable, especially given the long description of her concoction of the revivifying potion and of her application of it to the corpse in the preceding lines, 6.667–84. Moreover, only a few lines later Lucan draws a contrast between uerba and herbae, spells and potion (6.768). If herbas is sound, suspicion falls on exaudiat; the occurrence less than ten lines earlier of the uncontroversial exaudite preces, 6.706, which suggests scribal repetition, strengthens the suspicion.

Manilius begins his first book with a brief summary of the early history of astronomy, leading to a sketch of the rise of civilization. In the following passage, printed as it is found in one of the principal manuscripts M, he describes the invention of language, agriculture and navigation:

1.85 tune et lingua suas accepit barbara leges,

et fera diuersis exercita frugibus arua,

et uagus in caecum penetrauit nauita pontum,

fecit et ignotis inter commercia terris.

The English critic Bentley first proposed emending the transmitted text of Troades 1109 from teget, the reading of all manuscripts, to leget. Bentley's suggestion subsequently gained wide acceptance and was printed in many later editions of the tragedies, including those of Leo (1878–9), Richter (1902), and Moricca (1917–23). More recent critics have favoured retention of the manuscript reading. Carlsson, for example, underlines the distinctive alliterative quality which the reading teget imparts to the line; and the latest commentator on the Troades has produced a spirited defence of the transmitted text:

Andromache has not yet realized the condition of the corpse, and is thinking, not of gathering up fragmented limbs, but merely of the formal requirements of burial. What Carlsson (I p. 50) defends on grounds of alliteration should be retained on grounds of sense: teget tumuloque tradet is a doublet of which the second part makes clear the religious meaning of the first, more general, word.

So the modern editions print the opening words of the work more popularly known as the Caesares. The Symposium begins with what I consider to be a playful encounter between the narrator and his interlocutor, in which the latter's expectations of seriousness in the myth which is to follow are frustrated. This playfulness has not been appreciated by Julian's commentators. I suggest that we have here a concealed trimeter which figures largely in the dynamics of this dialogue (the word δ⋯ is to be retained in Julian's text as necessary connective tissue):

γελο⋯ον οὐδ⋯ν σὐδ⋯ τερπν⋯ν οἶδ' ⋯γώ.

Among the accusations Procopius brings against Justinian in the Secret History is the following:

The matter of the kataskopoi is as follows. From ancient times many men were maintained at public expense. They would enter enemy territory and gain access to the palace of the Persians, either under the guise of trading or by some other ploy. After investigating everything thoroughly, they would return to Roman territory and be able to report all the secrets of the enemy to the government officials. Forewarned, they were on their guard and nothing unforeseen would take them by surprise.