In the vast literature centering on the Itinerarium Egeriae (IE) there is a serious lacuna. No attempt has been made to analyse the circle of readers to whom this remarkable document was addressed and for whose sake Egeria recorded so faithfully every detail of her journey. Yet if a full understanding of the IE is to be achieved, some definition of the circle of Egeria and of its relations with the pilgrim is essential. In other words, who in the West at that point in the late fourth century, would have been so interested in Holy Land pilgrimage as to read attentively such a personal account as the IE? The following is a tentative essay to gauge the concerns, expectations and cultural background of Egeria's immediate circle of readers through her own emphasis on various aspects of her pilgrimage. In addition, the investigation will try to assess the place of pilgrimage in the life of western communities and the value of communications between the pilgrim on the road and the society back at home.

The following modern editions are referred to: Sillig (1851); Jan (1860); Mayhoff (1897); Bailey (K. C), The Elder Pliny's Chapters on Chemical Subjects (1929–32); Loeb editions (Rackham, Books 33–5 [1952]; Eichholz, Books 36–7 [1962]); Budé editions (Zehnacker, Book 33 [1983]; Le Bonniec, Book 34 [1953]; Croisille, Book 35 [1985]). Abbreviations include: Urlichs1 = K. L. Urlichs, Chrestomathia Pliniana (Berlin, 1857); Urlichs2 = K. L. Urlichs, Vindiciae Plinianae ii (Erlangen, 1866).

Among the artifacts produced by nineteenth-century Quellenforschung, few have exerted more influence or endured more censure than the lost Hellenistic epyllion which, as reconstructed by G. Knaack, told of the journey of Phaethon to the palace of the sun-god and his disastrous ride in the solar car. Relying chiefly upon the two versions of the story told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses (1.747–2.398) and Nonnus in the Dionysiaca (38.105–434), and applying techniques comparable to the stemmatic method of textual criticism, Knaack traced every shared feature of these two accounts to the inevitable lost Hellenistic ‘original’. Details from Lucian (Dial. Deor. 25) and Philostratus (Imag. 1.11), who were also presumed to have read this lost poem, helped to fill in the blanks. Knaack's thesis illustrates the extremes of which source criticism was capable at a time when it was naively assumed that Roman poets were capable of little more than literal translation of their Greek models. In the early part of this century, a reaction set in against Knaack's method, when it was alleged that there was no common source for the two poets and that Nonnus derived his account of Phaethon directly from his reading of Ovid. The case was first made by J. Braune, who examined four episodes common to both works – Phaethon, Cadmus, Actaeon, and Daphne – and argued that correspondences between the two are due to imitation of Ovid by Nonnus. Braune's arguments did not win complete acceptance; it is noteworthy that even his supporters were not entirely convinced by three of his four test passages, for which abundant evidence survives of sources earlier than Ovid.

The reputation Theologoumena Arithmeticae has acquired is largely that of being an odd, and frequently opaque, compilation of arithmological lore. As a sourcebook for this aspect of the Pythagorean tradition it is, of course, invaluable. However, its poor reputation is increased, and its historical value lessened, by the depredations time has wrought on the text. ThA was never great prose: it is a compilation, largely from the lost Theologoumena Arithmeticae of Nicomachus of Gerasa and from Anatolius' Peri Dekados; and the text which cannot be safely or conjecturally assigned to these two sources often reads like little more than the written-up notes of some student. However, the treatise contains passages of considerable lucidity, within the context of its peculiar framework.

In 1984 and 1985 Ralph Hall and I presented statistical methodologies, based on inductive statistics and the comparative method, to determine the rhythmical qualities of Latin prose from the third to early sixth century A.D. We continued our work with the publication of articles on the final clausulae in the legal codes and Augustine's letters and on rhythms in internal positions, while I produced studies of the clausulae in the Pseudo-Sallustiana and Ammianus.

In Eum. 1028–9 the Furies mark their transformation into Eumenides by donning red robes over their black costumes (Cho. 1049, Eum. 352, 370) in imitation of the robes worn in the Panathenaea by metics (Phot. s.v. σκάφας = Men. fr. 166 Koerte; cf. Eum. 1011). Greek epic was sensitive to the symbolic value of clothing and Aeschylus had experimented in the Persians with the greater scope that drama offered for clothing-symbolism. Scholars have detected a wealth of associations in the Furies' robing-scene: this culmination of the trilogy echoes the red carpet upon which Agamemnon walks to his death in the first play, which is actually referred to as ‘garments’ (εἵματα Ag. 921, 960, 963), and the net in which Agamemnon is caught (Ag. 1126, 1382, 1580, Cho. 1000, Eum. 635), which is brought on stage in the middle play (Cho. 973–1006). Another series of stage-actions of equal importance in preparing for the robing of the Furies has not been so well explained.

Anonymous, Vita Aeschyli 9 ( =TGF 3 T Al.30–32 Radt) preserves the following startling report concerning Aeschylus:

Some say that at the performance of the Eumenides, by bringing on the chorus one by one, as he did, he terrified the audience so that children swooned and fetuses were aborted.

Diggle has followed Stevens in rejecting 1279–82. Stevens' objections to these lines were that they ‘should [sc. directly] follow a striking demonstration that birth is more important than wealth in marrying and giving in marriage', and that the lines do not form an apt comment on the fates of Peleus and Neoptolemos. The cogency of these objections will be examined presently; but first a counter-objection will be presented against the hypothesis of interpolation.

C. Prien, Rh. Mus. 6(1848), 192f.: ‘…so habe ich vor Jahren schon vermuthet [but lot published, apparently] ὂρκιóν γ' αὶδουμένους mit Vergleichung der Stellen V. 650 = 680] ὂρκον αἴδεσθε und 680 [ = 710] αὶδουμένους τòν ὂρκον, ohne sie für evident usgeben zu wollen.’

Matt Neuburg, in CQ 37 (1987), 227–30, rightly objects that it does not make sense that Pentheus should be afraid of being laughed at by the Bacchants when he is disguised as a woman,1 and proposes a new emendation. Apart from possible objections to this, I do not believe that any change is necessary if the line is properly interpreted. The main point is that γγɛλν does not refer to laughter at Pentheus' appearance by the Bacchants or by anybody else. There is also something to be said about the implication of ν κρɛῖσσον.

ῶ φάτρασ θῄβησ ἔνοικοι, λεσσετ', οíδíπονσ ὄδε

ὄσ τά κλεíν' αíνíγματ' ἤδει και κράτιστοσ ἦν άνἠρ,

οὕ τíσ οὕ ζἠλῴ πολιτῶν ταῖσ τύχαισ ἐπἐβλεπεν,

εíσ ὄντ' ἑκεíνην τἠν τελενταíαν íσεíν

ἠμἐραν ἐπισκοποῦντα μνδἐν' ὄλβíζεη, πρíν άν

τἑρμα τού βíον περάσῃ μηδἑν ὰλγεινóν παθὡν.

The first of these is not a single disease but a group of three: ‘all the clinical and epidemiological evidence described by Thucydides’ (henceforward T) ‘can be attributed to infection with influenza virus complicated by a toxin-producing strain of noninvasive staphylococcus’ (A. D. Langmuir, T. D. Worthen, J. Solomon, C. G. Ray and E. Petersen, New England Journal of Medicine [henceforward NEJM] 313 [1985], 1027–30). This initial analysis is in fact supplemented (1028) by bullous impetigo in an attempt to explain the marked skin symptoms which are not ascribable to the other two diseases: streptococci produce flushes of the skin that end in desquamation – something which Langmuir et al. admit T would have described if present.

Plato's striking figure of the ‘child in us’ at Phaedo 77e5 takes on an added lustre when viewed in the light of the theory of explanation Socrates develops between lOObl and 105c7.

Socrates' theory aims to explain why certain objects have certain properties: why something is beautiful (στ…κσλν, 100c4) or tall (100e5–6), or when a body will be sick (νοσσɛι, 105c3) or alive (ζῷν ἔσται, 105c9–10). Explanation is called for, Socrates thinks, when an object has a property its title to which is insecure, in the sense (to judge from 102b8–c8) that the object's having the property is not guaranteed by its being what it is. Thus Socrates wants an explanation, for example, of a person's being tall (102cl–9) or – the case of especial interest in the Phaedo – of a body's being alive.

The messenger who reports the miracles from the mountains in Euripides' Bacchae (677–774) concludes with an injunction to Pentheus that he accept this god into the city (769–74):

τóν δαíμον' ούν τóνδ' ἂστισ ἔστ', ῶ δἑσποτα,

δἐχον πóλει τἦδ'-ὰσ τὰ τ' άλλ' ἐστíν μὰγασ,

κάκεíνó φασιν αύτóν, ἑγὡ κλύω.

Students of the Orestes are fortunate to have two excellent commentaries at their disposal, by C. W. Willink (Oxford, 1986) and M. L. West (Warminster, 1987). Neither will help them to understand this line, which is ‘the only allusion to Ganymede's horsemanship’ (Willink ad loc), because ‘no story of riding by Ganymede is known’ (West ad loc). But we are repeatedly reminded that the scene with the Phrygian (1369ff.) has far fewer affinities with tragedy than with comedy, and εύριπιδαριστοφαíζεται Comedy provides the clue, specifically at Ar. Vesp. 50If. and Lys. 676ff. The reference is to the variety of equestrianism for which Ganymede is far from unknown (he was too young to have established an association with any other kind). For Innoavvr) here describes a σχῆμα ἐρωτικóν and the line means Ganymedes concubinus, Iovis supini inguini insidens et equitans, sc. inter causas fuit malorum propter Iunonis invidiam Troianis immissorum.

At 10.17.6–16 Polybius relates how Scipio seized the opportunity offered by his capture of New Carthage in 209 B.C. to increase his fleet of quinqueremes by half as much again. There is a briefer passage on the same subject in Livy 26.47.1–3.

Polybius says that the total number of prisoners taken was nearly ten thousand, from whom Scipio separated two groups: first citizens, men and women with their young children, and secondly craftsmen. He freed the former, and made the latter, numbering about 2000, public slaves of Rome. In Livy's account women and children are not mentioned; the prisoners are said to be ten thousand free men. As in Polybius, the citizens are said to have been set at liberty and the two thousand craftsmen made public slaves. In Polybius Scipio is said to have selected from all those not in the first two groups ‘the strongest, the fittest looking and the youngest and mixed them up with his own crews. And making the whole body of oarsmen (ναται) half as many again as before he succeeded in manning the captured ships as well as his own στε τοὺς ἄνδρας κστῳ σκϕει βραχ τι λεπειν το διπλασους εἶναι τοὺς ὑπρχοντας τν προγενομνων, for the captured ships were eighteen in number and the original ships thirty-five’. The corresponding passage in Livy is as follows: ‘the remaining multitude [multitudinem, a word suggesting a larger number than the two former groups together] of young inhabitants and of strong slaves he handed over to the fleet to increase the number of oarsmen (remigum). And [an increase was needed because] he had added eight captured ships to the fleet’.

In her recent discussion of ILLRP 311 Kirsteen Moir draws attention to the discrepancy between the epitaph's apparent claim that young Publius had before him a brilliant career, had he but survived, and the description which Cicero provides of Africanus' son, Publius, who is usually identified, with varying degrees of conviction, as the subject of this inscription. As Moir points out, the son of Africanus, though remarkably erudite, was incapacitated by poor health from achieving the military and political distinction predicted by the necrology. Within the actual text of this inscription, one might add, there is another discrepancy: the Publius here commemorated was flamen Dialis, and the taboos which restricted the daily life of the priest of Jupiter effectively barred him, regardless of his powers or inclination, from fulfilling the promise voiced by his memorial. Moir proposes a solution which will solve both problems. She suggests that the gloria to which Publius could look forward was literary celebrity. The son of Africanus, after all, composed works known and read by Cicero a century later, works which documented his literary capabilities. Such attainment was well within the grasp of the flamen Dialis. And this interpretation of the inscription, if correct, would solve both discrepancies.

Of the four surviving fragments of Varius' De Morte1 perhaps the most widely discussed has been the first:

Vendidit hie Latium populis agrosque Quiritum

eripuit, fixit leges pretio atque refixit

This is imitated by Virgil, whose Sibyl says of a soul in Tartarus:

Vendidit hie auro patriam dominumque potentem

imposuit; fixit leges pretio atque refixit

Most commentators, quoting Cic. Phil. 12.5.12, connect both passages exclusively with Antony, and rightly point to Servius' words on v. 622, ‘possumus Antonium accipere’. What should be stressed, however, is that Servius also thinks the words ‘vendidit hie auro patriam’ have a general reference, but are at the same time designed to recall historical individuals, of whom he names two:

etiam haec licet generaliter dicantur, habent tamen specialitatem: nam Lasthenes Olynthum Philippo vendidit, Curio Caesari XXVII. S. Romam: de quo Lucanus <4.820> Gallorum captus spoliis et Caesaris auro.

In his reply to my previous article Professor Tatum has added some interesting material to the discussion and has made some points which invite further examination.

He rightly stresses that the statement in the added first line, that the dead man had been flamen Dialis, would have conflicted with the hopes expressed in the original epitaph if we think these hopes referred to success in war and politics. This objection would be equally relevant if the Publius of the epitaph were the grandson proposed by Sumner or any other young Scipio who, though robust enough for a public career, died prematurely.