No reader of Herodotus would wish away the story of Arion's rescue by the dolphin (1. 23–4), or could imagine the story better told. The development of the story reflects epic models. At the outset we have the mention of a marvel, that of a man who rode on a dolphin's back; then the rapid narrative leading to the marvel itself, with much vivid detail lavished on the three central scenes (Arion's singing in his ceremonial robes, his leap into the sea, and the rescue itself); next the hurrying to the denouement, the confrontation between Arion and the sailors; and the ancecdote ends as it began, with an allusion to the man on a dolphin's back – this time in the shape of a bronze statue, still to be seen at Taenarum. The narrative contains everything needed to make it immediately comprehensible, but all superfluous elements have been suppressed. Even the initial reference to Arion as the leading lyre-player of his time is by no means an irrelevant detail: the fact is crucial to the way in which the anecdote is shaped, for this would have turned out quite differently, had Arion not been so famous for his skill.

As an ethical principle, philia represents a continuum of attachment that extends in a stable system of relationships from the self to one's immediate family and friends and then outwards to one's polis and one's race. Furthermore, shared attachment or philia also involves shared hostility or echthra, which can be as permanent as philia. But already in Sophocles' Ajax the idea of such fixed relationships is seen as old-fashioned and incompatible with practical life. In his pretended transformation from a rigid adherence to the principles of permanent philia and permanent echthra (particularly the latter) to the flexible morality of an ‘organization man’, the hero realizes that ‘we must hate our echthros only so far, since he may become our philos again later, and I am only ready to do so much to aid and assist aphilos, since he may not remain a philos forever…’ (672–81).

The definitive study of the Delphic Oracle by H. W. Parke and D. E. W. Wormell published over thirty years ago assembled all the information then known about it and discussed the various theories both ancient and modern about its operation where reliable information was lacking. In the presentation and evaluation of these theories, however, Parke and Wormell take no account of the methods and practices of state oracles in other cultures, even though such oracles may still be functioning today at the end of the twentieth century and so be able to provide contemporary and authenticated evidence of their workings, power and credibility. In Tibet, for instance, the State Oracle has a history going back over 800 years. It was originally sited at the monastery of Nechung (‘Small Place’) some four miles west of Lhasa, operating there until the Chinese annexation of Tibet in the 1950's, when the monk who acted as the mouthpiece of the oracle followed the Dalai Lama in his flight to northern India. The Tibetan State Oracle now functions in exile at Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh some 250 miles north of Delhi. Its operations show some striking similarities to those attested for Delphi, and although the distances in time and space (not to mention the differences in cultural and religious background) obviously preclude any links between Nechung and Delphi other than those of common human experience and psychology, the parallels may at times help to shed some illumination on a few darker or confused areas in our knowledge of Delphic practice. Analogy admittedly is not argument, and the individual reader must judge for himself the applicability of the evidence.

The plot of the Medea concerns infidelity, a woman discarded by her husband for another younger woman and a more ‘suitable’ match. Infidelity by the husband was not an unusual occurrence amid the material of Greek myths. In Sophocles' play The Women of Trachis the heroine Deianeira, and wife of Heracles, must reluctantly take into her household Iole, a beautiful slave-girl whom her husband has taken as his concubine. Although she is made to give voice to her regret and to her jealousy, she has no thought of harming the girl or her husband. That Heracles is finally injured is not the result of an intentional act of revenge on her part but a mistake set in train by the malevolence of someone else.

Fred Astaire once remarked of performing in London that he knew when the end of a play's run was approaching when he saw the first black tie in the audience. Perhaps this is an American's ironic representation of the snobbishness of pre-War London (though he was the American who sang the top-hat, white tie and tails into a part of his personal image). Perhaps it is merely an accurate (or nostalgic) picture of the dress code of the audiences of the period. The very appeal to such a dress code, however – in whatever way we choose to read the anecdote – inevitably relies on a whole network of cultural ideas and norms to make its point. It implies tacitly what is easily recoverable from other sources about the theatre of the period: the expected class of the audience; the sense of ‘an evening's entertainment’ – attending the fashionable play of the season, with all the implications of the theatre as a place not merely for seeing but also for being seen; the range of subjects and characters portrayed on the London stage of the period; the role of London as a European capital of a world empire (with a particular self-awareness of itself as a capital); the expected types of narrative, events, and language, that for many modern readers could be evoked with the phrase ‘a Fred Astaire story’. If we want to understand the impact of the plays of Ibsen or Brecht or Osborne or Beckett, it cannot be merely through ‘dramatic techniques’, but must also take into account the social performance that is theatre. Ibsen's commitment to a realist aesthetic is no doubt instrumental to the impact of his plays, but it is because his (socially committed) dramas challenged the proprieties of the social event of theatre that his first reviewers were so hostile.

The title of this paper will immediately make the informed reader ask himself ‘which of Ovid's three wives does he mean?’ Writing about the first two, however, would hardly be more than a paraphrase of the poet's own words:

paene mihi puero nee digna nee utilis uxor

est data, quae tempus per breue nupta fuit.

illi successit, quamuis sine crimine coniunx,

non tamen in nostro firma futura toro.

(When still almost a boy I was given a completely useless wife who was married to me for a short time. She was succeeded by a spouse who, although flawless, was still not going to remain faithful to me.)

Trimalchio's whole household and way of life is presented to us as though it were a stage-show, or so Petronius implies through Encolpius' remarks, strategically and thematically placed (cf. above, 83–4) at the opening. Still marvelling at the musicality of Trimalchio's household (cf. 197–8), he comments ‘you'd think it was the chorus of a pantomime, not the dining room of a paterfamilias’ (31.7); a page later (33.5) a basket of straw with a wooden hen is brought in and while two slaves search the straw for ‘eggs’ (to music) Trimalchio turns to look at his ‘show’ (hanc scaenam). Trimalchio himself sings a number from the mime Laserpiciarius (35.6) and mangles the songs of Menecrates (73.3, cf. 197). He claims (55.5, above, 80) to recite verses by Publilius Syrus, composer of mimes; his comoedi perform Atellan farce (53.13, above, 80) and Habinnas' slave executes a horrid medley of Atellana and Virgil (68.5, cf. above, 79). If we compare these references with those to music (197–8) simply in terms of bulk and scale, the theatre appears substantially less important, though we may note that all the references except the last (68.5) do refer to Trimalchio himself or to his slaves, thus perhaps serving as a deliberate element on Petronius' part to characterize and distinguish him.

Those of us who grope around in the mists of classical antiquity often come upon objects that remind us of the world we live in. There are analogies, always dangerous. There are many of the same words, or so it seems: arts, science, rhetoric, thesis, history, encyclopaedia. But they do not mean what we are used to. There are even historical continuities, but these also tend to be illusory.