The purpose of this essay is to elucidate certain difficulties in the text of the Eryxias and to make the author's position as a thinker clearer than it has hitherto been. The Eryxias is a work which has suffered severely from excessive partisanship. While German and Dutch scholars of the eighteenth century appear to have valued it highly—a great deal too highly—as a work of enlightened ethical purpose, the scholarship of the nineteenth century was almost unanimous in condemning it as an inept imitation of Plato's early writings. It soon became apparent, however, that it was not a mere imitation. The economist Hagen recognized in it traces of Stoic doctrine and proceeded somewhat hastily to the conclusion that the author was ‘a Stoic … who expressed the sentiments of his school in the form of a Platonic dialogue.’ Otto Schrohl of Göttingen, whose thesis is the most considerable work on the subject, is less emphatic in claiming the author as a Stoic, but nevertheless traces most of his ideas to Stoic and Cynic origins. This view is modified but retained in its essentials by Professor Souilhé in the Budé edition of Plato. While stressing the importance of the Platonic element, he agrees that the author's point of view has been influenced by Stoic and Cynic teaching, the influence of Cynicism being in his opinion predominant.

The history of Attic comedy after the fifth century is not simple. The comic fragments are obscure, because they are fragments: and the ancient interpreters, because they are determined to interpret. But the subject still remains interesting and important, especially in so far as it is concerned with Middle Comedy, which filled the gap between Aristophanes and Menander. Formally and materially, Menander was a modern, while Aristophanes was not: and it was during the fourth century that the ground was being prepared for the change. Now one of the most noticeable differences between Old and New Comedy was the altered position of the chorus; and although the very mixed assortment of facts available makes coherent conclusions difficult, I think it worth enquiring how much can be known of the chorus after Aristophanes.

In the April No., 1935, p. 66,1 asserted that Bechtel's proposal to read Kυλαιθίδος at Theocr. 5. 15 was prompted by Hdas 6. 55, which is now read otherwise. This is a mistake; it comes from 6. 50, where the papyrus is quite legible.

In C.Q. XXVI. 45–51 I contended that in Aesch. Agam. 1227–30 Cassandra describes Clytemnestra in terms of a Greek proverb, the proverb of the Treacherous Hound; and I restored the passage thus:—

νεŵν δ' ἔπαρχоς 'Ιλ⋯оν τ' ⋯ναστ⋯της

оὐκ оἶδεν оἵα γλŵσσα μισ⋯της κνν⋯ς

λε⋯ξασα κα⋯ σ⋯νασα φα⋯δρ', оἷоν δ⋯κоς

Ατης λαθρα⋯оν δ⋯ξεται κακῇ τ⋯χνῃ.

In an interesting paper read some time ago to the Cambridge Philological Society (summarized in the Cambridge University Reporter of Feb. 16, 1932), H. J. M. Milne analysed the first Ode of Sappho (ποικιλόθρον' ⋯θάνατ' 'AΦροδίτα) and showed that it is constructed according to those principles of poetical form which we should expect to find in the work of so delicate a Greek artist. If more of these lyrics had survived in their entirety, the task of expounding the technique of Greek poetry would be simpler than it is, because naturally the principles are more easily grasped in a short lyric than in epic or drama.

(Lampon) προεστὠς τοȋς ⋯γ εμόσιν, ⋯πότε δικάζοιεν, ὑπεμνηατίζετο τ⋯ς δίκας εἰσάγων ὡς ἔϰων τάξιν, εἶτα τ⋯ μ⋯ν ⋯πήμειΦεν κτλ.

The words ὡς ἔϰων τάξιν do not give a satisfactory sense. The MS which Cohn-Wendland-Reiter designate A adds τοιάνδε after τάξιν. The methods of A's intelligent scribe are sufficiently exposed by Reiter. When through inadvertently omitting part of a sentence he could not understand the text, he freely altered and inserted words so as to make it intelligible. A man who was capable of this procedure was capable of inserting τοιάνδε after τάξιν in this passage. We may confidently say that τοιάνδε is based on no authority, an arbitrary addition of the scribe for the sake of making ὡς ἔϰων clear.

It may be safely asserted that few of the fragments of Greek lyric poetry have excited more discussion than the so-called ‘Lament of Danae’ but it is curious, considering that we owe our knowledge of it to Dionysius's desire to set his readers a metrical puzzle, to see how little attention has been given to the metre of the fragment by the many scholars who have contributed to the literature of the problem since 1835. The purpose of the present study is to enquire into the scansion of the fragment, quoting parallels wherever possible from the extant remains of Simonides and, where these fail, from the works of other lyric poets.

I. The Antiope.—The papyrus fragments of theAntiope, written in a small and crabbed hand of the third century B.C., were first published by Mahaffy in vol. 1 of the Petrie papyri in 1891, a time when the study of writing on papyrus was in its early days and there was not the abundance of other literary texts to provide practice and comparison that there is to-day. An advance in the study of the text was made by Blass in 1892, whose readings were based on first-hand knowledge of the manuscript; he was followed by von Arnim, who in his text in the Supplementum Euripideum introduced several startling alterations, based on the autotypes alone (particularly unreliable where cartonnage is concerned, which is often blurred and occasionally distorted in the process of preparation) and very rarely justified by the papyrus. A landmark in the history of the text was reached when Hans Schaal published his dissertation De Euripidis Antiopa; not only had he studied the papyrus closely in London, but he was able to make use of several readings of Wilamowitz. Though he left some of the major problems unattacked, perhaps too readily, his text represents a great advance on that of his predecessors, and I have found his readings in the majority of cases where he differs from Mahaffy or von Arnim confirmed by the papyrus, and consequently I have taken his text as the basis of my collation. That there was still a little more to be deciphered was suggested to me by the late Dr. Hunt, and I am indebted to him as the instigator of these notes if there is anything of value in them.

‘A sweet life without lamentation’ renders Mr G. Thomson, who discusses the passage in C.Q. XXVIII 74 f. That is beyond question what this Greek will naturally and properly mean; if there were any doubt, his citations dispel it.

M. Marouzeau has re-directed attention to the peculiarity of Terentian versification by which a monosyllabic word (preposition, conjunction or interjection) is put at the end of the line, though it belongs, in point of sense, to the beginning of the next line. There is thus, for the copyist or ‘corrector’, a strong temptation to shift the little word to the beginning of the next line, or even to drop it altogether. Where scansion allows, the second course can be adopted without arousing any suspicions.

If only from a sense of duty, I have filled the evident lacuna, so as to safeguard the κα⋯ and furnish some little excuse for the copyist (ζ⋯σα κατώρυγμαι, βοηθεῖτε Reiske, ζ. τ⋯θαμμαι, β. Hercher). There remains, however, the melancholy fact that Callirrhoe was consigned to her living grave as a consequence, not of ⋯γων⋯α in any known or imaginable sense of the word, but of a profound swoon produced by a kick from Chaereas; whose foot, says Chariton in his best manner, εὐστ⋯χως κατ⋯ το⋯ διαφρ⋯γματος ⋯νεχθε⋯ς ⋯π⋯σχε τ⋯ς παιδ⋯ς τ⋯ν ⋯ναπνο⋯ν (I 4). I have therefore restored a common word for ‘unconsciousness’ (the sense is almost technical enough to deserve a place in the dictionaries): cf. II 5 γενομ⋯νην δ⋯ με ἄ φ ω ν ο ν ⋯ξ αἰφνιδ⋯ου πτώματος ἔθαψαν οἱ γονεῖς πολυτελ⋯ς, I 2 ἄφωνος εὐθὺς ἦν κα⋯ σκ⋯τος αὐτ⋯ς τ⋯ν ⋯φθαλμ⋯ν κατεχ⋯θη, I 4 fin. Καλλιρρ⋯η μ⋯ν οὖν ἄφωνους κα⋯ ἄπνους ἔκειτο νεκρ⋯ς εἰκ⋯να π⋯σι παρ⋯χουσα, and so frequently. The same change is imperative at Xen. Eph. III 6 σκηφαμ⋯νη δ⋯ ⋯φων⋯ᾳ (*: τῇ ⋯γων⋯ᾳ cod.) κατειλ⋯θαι, ⋯κ⋯λευσεν αὑτῇ τινι τ⋯ν ὕδωρ ⋯νεγκεῖν. The confusion is simple and occurs, for instance, at Max. Tyr. i, where Markland restored διαφων⋯ας for διαγων⋯ας. As for the sequence ⋯φων⋯ας … ἔρρηξε φων⋯ν, neither the author nor his readers could have even been aware of it: the weakness which deters the modern from the equivalents of ἔδωκεν ⋯ποδο⋯ναι (Lys. XX 7), συν⋯πεμψε παραπ⋯μψοντας (Luc.VH. i 27), παμμ⋯γεθες ⋯λ⋯κον, ταρτ⋯ρειον τ⋯ μ⋯γεθος (Philops. 24), χωρ⋯α δ⋯σιππα πρ⋯ς τ⋯ν ἵππον (Plut. Crass. 19), δυσδ⋯οδον ἔχει τ⋯ν π⋯ροδον (Polyb. V 7, 10), ⋯ποκατ⋯στησαν εἰς τ⋯ν ⋯ρχα⋯αν κατ⋯στασιν (XXIII 17), στελλομ⋯νῳ βασιλεὺς ⋯π⋯στειλεν (Procop. t. iii p. 96, 10–12 Haury), and all their numberless analogues, was to the Greeks foolishness. On that point the judgment of Chariton was as sound as that of Pascal.

Panegyric IV (Nazarius), 24, 2: diducta acie inreuocabilem impetum hostis effundis, dein quos ludificandos receperas reductis agminibus includis.

Acidalius' correction ludificando is accepted in both the Teubner editions. The addition of the s would, of course, be an easy error, and quite characteristic of the MSS, of these authors. But there is no need for the correction, in view of the frequency; in the Panegyrici Latini, of the Gerundive as a Future Participle Passive, an unquestionable example of which occurs, in fact, in the last sentence of the chapter in question. ‘Quos ludificandos receperas’ means ‘whom you had admitted with the intention that they should be tricked,’ is equivalent in sense to ‘quos ludificaturus receperas.’ The Gerundive used as Future Participle Passive gives an appropriate picture of the purpose with which the manoeuvre described by receperas was carried out.

The object of this paper is to show the predominance of the influence of geometrical ideas in Aristotle's account of first principles in the Posterior Analytics— to show that his analysis of first principles is in its essentials an analysis of the first principles of geometry as he conceived them. My proof of this falls into two parts. I. A consideration of the parallel between Aristotle's and Euclid's account of first principles. II. A comparison between the general movement of thought in the Aristotelian ⋯παγωγ⋯ and ⋯π⋯δειξις and in the δι⋯νοια and ν⋯ησις of the Platonic dialectic.