Before Odysseus and his companions cross over to the land of the Cyclopes, they land on an island, which is described in unusual length and detail (9.116–41). It is inhabited only by wild goats; no hunters disturb them. It possesses neither flocks nor cultivated land, sown or ploughed, since no men live there. The Cyclopes, while nearby, have no ships, nor are there shipwrights who might build ships on which men travel to every city. The island could be made to flourish, for the soil is rich and would bear all things in season. In addition, it contains well-watered meadows, good for vineyards, and a fine protected harbour which requires no mooring.

If we divide up the action of the Odyssey into days,1 we find that we leaveTelemachus with Menelaus in Sparta on Day 6 (4. 624) and only return to him, still in Sparta, during the pre-dawn hours of Day 36 (15. 1), although at 4. 593–9 he told Menelaus he did not want to stay long.

The Homeric Scholia are not the most obvious source for literary criticism in the modern sense. And yet if one takes the trouble to read through them one will find many valuable observations about poetic technique and poetic qualities. Nowadays we tend to emphasize different aspects from those which preoccupied ancient critics, but that may be a good reason for looking again at what they have to say.

The papyrus fragments that belong almost certainly to Sophocles' Inacbos (P.Oxy. 2369 and P. Tebt. 692) have been admirably discussed by Pfeiffer andCarden.1 But one remarkable feature that has never been explained adequatelyis the apparent reference to a black Zeus. P. Oxy. 2369 contains a fragmentarydescription of a stranger turning Io into a cow with a touch of his hand and thenleaving the palace.

Among the departures from the direct tradition in Thucydidesü quotation of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo at 3.104, perhaps the most interesting is line 171. The MSS of the Hymns give ET-iotacism). The majority of Thucydidesü MSS give , but is corrected by a second hand in FJ and by the first hand in H to . Each tradition exists in blissful ignorance of the other. In Aristidesü quotation of lines 169–72 ( 559D, p. 245 Keil), the MSS in general agree with the direct tradition of the Hymns: ( A) (. DU). But the reading in R is a correction. The original reading, which has been erased, was . Aristides, who as his introductory remark shows ( in Aristides clearly comes from Thucydidesü ) is quoting from Thucydides, appears to have read in his text of Thucydides, but this has been replaced at some stage in the tradition by ; the MSS tradition of Aristides has been ’corrected’ from the direct tradition of the Hymns. If Aristides had in his text of Thucydides, the corrected reading of FJH is not the

Herodotus' extension of tisis from a merely ethical principle to an encompassing law of nature is now widely recognized. The unjust expulsion of Demaratus from the Spartan kingship obtains its clear revenge from both Leotychidas and Cleomenes (6.72.1, 84.3). Hipparchus' vision of a giant prophet who announces the universal penalty for human injustice (5.56.1) embodies a statement of the ethical law which Herodotus sees operating in the realm of animals as well as of men: for any act of injustice one must pay the penalty, (3.109.2). Herodotus similarly analyses the Persians' aim at Salamis: they sought to force the Greeks to ‘pay t n e penalty’ for the Greek success at Artemision (8.76.2, ).

In a recent article in this journal M. L. West made the plausible suggestion that some features of the parodos of Aeschylusü Agamemnon, including the famous simile of the vultures deprived of their young, display the influence of Archilochusü celebrated epode in which Lycambes was admonished with the tale of the fox and the eagle. I think a passage in the Choephoroe confirms his view.

One of the Oresteiaüs most characteristic traits is the manner in which themes and images recur during the trilogy. The simile of the vultures at Ag. 48 ff. and the omen of the eagle and the hare at 112 ff. are conspicuously placed and vividly drawn, and we are not surprised to find a resumption of this imagery in the Choephoroe, when the eagleüs nestlings, Electra and Orestes, are reunited and plan their revenge (Cho. 246–51, 255–9). Here we find the image reversed: the young have lost their parents, not the parent-birds their young as at Ag.

The basis of this article is a reconsideration of some old and familiar problems about Aristophanes' early career. In the course of trying to supply firm solutions to these problems I hope also to present evidence for an early and inconspicuous stage in Aristophanes' development as a comic dramatist, and as a reflection on the resulting picture I shall make some general observations on ou understanding of the relationship between the various activities involved in the creation of a comic production in the fifth-century theatre. Practically all the material I shall deal with comes from the plays themselves, and I should state at the start that I both work with and hope to justify the principle that Aristophai disingenuousness does not normally operate where hard facts of chronology, law and theatrical conditions are concerned.

When Kleomenes seized the Athenian Akropolis (in 508/7 BC), he was forced to surrender and leave Attika. Why was he wearing a very short cloak? Wilamowitz (in his note ad loc.) thought it was because he had to give up part of his clothing when he surrendered. But in fact Spartans always wore scanty clothing; being unwashed for six years cannot have been a condition of surrender after a siege lasting only two days (Hdt. 5.72.2); and clearly the whole of 278–80 is not an account of the conditions of surrender, but an expression of the Athenians' amusement or disgust at the normal appearance of Spartans.

(1) I do not think it is possible to show beyond reasonable doubt that the two slaves who open the play either must have been, or cannot have been, visually identifiable by portrait-masks or otherwise as Demosthenes and Nikias. I wish however to point out a piece of evidence that appears to have gone unnoticed.

Whether Meletus, the accuser of Socrates, is to be identified with Meletus, the accuser of Andocides and participant in the arrest of Leon of Salamis (And. 1.94), has recently been discussed, with inconclusive results, by H. Blumenthal. The strongest argument against the identification, it may be thought, is that Socrates mentions the arrest (32 c 4-e 1) without implicating Meletus. I propose to argue that the Meleti are one, that there is a veiled allusion to Meletus in this passage and that Socrates effects this allusion in two ways.

Euxitheus son of Thoucritus was struck off the lexiarchicon grammateion (or roll) of the deme Halimous (the Halimousioi), probably in the diapsephisis (revision) of 346/5 B.C. Speech 57 in the Demosthenic corpus (against Euboulides) is his reply to the demarch at the hearing of his appeal. This paper attempts (1) to correct the stemma given for him in J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600–300 B.C., pp. 94–5

There is no hint in either work that any of the information contained in this reconstruction of family relationships might be open to serious question. It is the purpose of this note to suggest that this is none the less the case.

The problem concerns the supposed wives and children of Isokratesü adoptive son Aphareus. The information presented on this subject depends on two passages of the pseudo-Plutarchan Vitae Decem Oratorum. The first (838B/C) is a list of members of the family buried in Kynosarges, which mentions Isokratesü

The most recent attempt to explain Aristotle's use of in Poetics 13 is that of T. C. W. Stinton (CQ N.S. 25 (1975), 221–54). Stinton insists that must not be restricted to any one definition, but should be understood to include a ‘range of applications’ embracing both moral error and ‘ignorance of fact’ (p. 221).

Neither the chronology nor the interpretation of the history of the years 375 to 371 BC is yet settled. The date of the peace that followed the Athenian naval victory over Sparta at Alyzeia in Scirophorion 375 is put variously in the second half of 375 or 374 or even in spring 374. The status of the Boeotian cities at the time of the peace as well as the role of the King and the participation of Thebes are controversial, and this affects the interpretation of the peace itself.

In Metaphysics Z 13 Aristotle argues that no universal can be substance. Prima facie, this appears to rule out the possibility that any universal can be substance, species as well as genera. Nevertheless, many commentators have denied that this chapter intends to rule out the possibility that any universal can be substantial. Aristotle, it is thought, cannot wish to deny that any universal can be substance because he believes that some universals are substances, viz. species.

Translation at this stage would be premature, but three variants in line 3 deserve notice, (a) Bury (iii.394) writes (b) Natorp (p. 292), followed by Brochard (p. 62 n. 4), suggested (which would yield a meiouric line), (c) Wachsmuth (p. 22) prints a colon instead of a comma after

It is not surprising that line 3 has attracted emendation. As it stands, it lacks a verb and has to modify an understood existential

It has frequently been recognized that the collection and use of accurate military intelligence was of fundamental importance for the success of Alexander's campaigns. No intelligent strategic or tactical decision can be made by any commander without advance knowledge of an enemy's location, strength, his capabilities and weaknesses, and the geography of the projected campaign. However, an analysis of the procedures Alexander used to obtain and evaluate intelligence has never been undertaken. This neglect is probably the result of the scattered and unsatisfactory nature of the references to Alexander's intelligence procedures in our ancient sources.

In the twentieth century the question of the relationship of Terence's Heautontimorumenos to its Greek original has been largely neglected or else dismissed on the grounds that it presents no major problem. It is true that, because of the new light which the discovery of the Cairo codex of Menander shed on the nature and role of the chorus in Greek new comedy, there was a flurry of activity concerning the difficult passage 167 ff.; but the far more fundamental problem of contaminatio in general and of the meaning and interpretation of lines 4 to 6 of the play's prologue has attracted comparatively little attention. H. Marti produced a two-part survey of work done on Terence in the years 1909 to 1959; in it he says that in the period under review the question of contaminatio in Heauton–in the sense of the fusion of two originals –has been totally abandoned, with the exception of one article by F. Skutsch in which he holds to his earlier views on the subject. Marti also refers to Kohler's earlier work on the same problem, and to the discussion to be found in Kuiper's more comprehensive work on Roman comedy, but that is all.

Eventually and inevitably the study of a Roman comedy leads to the question of its relationship to the Greek model and to the nature of the original play. In recent years Terence's Adelphoe has stimulated numerous publications on the Menandrian comedy and on the changes which were made by the Latin dramatist. Greatest attention has been paid to the ending of the Greek play. This article, however, will examine the first two ‘acts’ of the Terentian comedy and will offer a reconstruction of its primary model that differs from those that have been proposed in the major studies on this problem.