‘Decline and Fall’ has been a favourite heading with historians ever since the modern world undertook to chronicle the history of the ancient. It is more than a heading; it is an attitude. Gibbon first popularized it, and the phrase enjoyed a steady prosperity until the archaeologists towards the end of the last century began to redress the balance by calling in more concrete evidence than the moralizings of philosophers. Here, as in other fields, ancient history owes a great debt to Mommsen. But the old attitude has been long in dying and is not yet dead. Gibbon in envisaging the whole history of the Roman Empire from the settlement of Augustus to the coming of the Ottomans was no doubt justified in using the title he did. But his manner left no doubt that even in the days of her first princeps Rome was declining and falling hard. And his attitude is followed consciously and unconsciously by many later historians who limited their surveys to the first two or three centuries of the Empire. In schools, though it may be the fault of curricular limitations and the setters of syllabuses, it is still hard for the pupil to avoid the impression that the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome ended abruptly at 323 and 31 b.c. respectively.

Latin and Greek text-books have changed much in recent years, but perhaps in no respect has there been so great improvement as in their illustrations. It is now well understood that ancient literature and history, if they are to make their appeal to boys and girls, must be made ‘real’. One approach to ‘reality’ is through the eye. For, while it is true that the study of the Classics fosters imagination by presenting a world which is far removed from our own, still imagination cannot be stimulated and guided only by the printed or spoken word; the word will be more ‘real’ if light is thrown upon it by pictures of all kinds.

‘Decline and Fall’ has been a favourite heading with historians ever since the modern world undertook to chronicle the history of the ancient. It is more than a heading; it is an attitude. Gibbon first popularized it, and the phrase enjoyed a steady prosperity until the archaeologists towards the end of the last century began to redress the balance by calling in more concrete evidence than the moralizings of philosophers. Here, as in other fields, ancient history owes a great debt to Mommsen. But the old attitude has been long in dying and is not yet dead. Gibbon in envisaging the whole history of the Roman Empire from the settlement of Augustus to the coming of the Ottomans was no doubt justified in using the title he did. But his manner left no doubt that even in the days of her first princeps Rome was declining and falling hard. And his attitude is followed consciously and unconsciously by many later historians who limited their surveys to the first two or three centuries of the Empire. In schools, though it may be the fault of curricular limitations and the setters of syllabuses, it is still hard for the pupil to avoid the impression that the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome ended abruptly at 323 and 31 b.c. respectively.

The Circe belongs to that class of plays which is described, rather vaguely, as Satyric Drama. Though not a Tragedy, it is of the Tragic rather than of the Comic type, and contains many of the elements without which no good play is complete. Thus there are two περιπέτειαι and one deus ex machina, and though άναγνώρισις is unfortunately absent (a fault noticeable also in many of the plays of Euripides) it contains some examples of Irony; the Unities of Time and Place are strictly observed, and the Hero is neither better nor worse than he should be.

There is a quarter of the eastern Mediterranean which has been singularly fertile in the history of thought. Place yourself, in time, in the four centuries from 300 b.c. to a.d. 100: place yourself, in space, on the island of Cyprus, and look northwards to Cilicia, eastwards to northern Syria, and south-eastwards to Phoenicia; and then so placed and so looking, you will find a constellation of many stars. From Citium in Cyprus came Zeno, a Hellenized Phoenician, as Mr. Bevan has called him, who founded the Stoic school. From Soli, in Cilicia, to the north, came Chrysippus, the systematizer of Stoicism. From the neighbouring city of Tarsus came Zeno the Second, the successor to Chrysippus as master of the Porch; and from Tarsus there also came a Hellenized Hebrew (again I quote Mr. Bevan), whom we call St. Paul, and who visited Athens three and a half centuries after the Hellenized Phoenician from Cyprus, and preached in terms of Stoic philosophy, as it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, in the midst of Mars' Hill. These are not the only sons of Tarsus. There was also Antipater, who was next successor but one to Zeno the Second as the head of the Stoic school; and many centuries afterwards, about a.d. 650, there was also Theodore of Tarsus, the founder of the English Church, who had studied at Athens, was well versed in literature, Greek as well as Latin, and was called ‘the philosopher’.

It is often assumed that Roman culture, which spread over almost all Europe, came to an end in the north at the Limes, which, of course, followed the lower course of the Rhine and part of the Danube, thus excluding most of Germany. But there is evidence that the free Germans traded with the Empire, and in the museums of Scandinavia there are numerous Roman objects which were found in the surrounding country, and which prove that even in Denmark and the southern parts of Norway and Sweden the inhabitants were ready to acquire things made according to Roman fashions, and that as time went on the natives were deeply influenced by these artifacts, even in their own manufactures.

The present paper is an attempt to show the far-reaching effect on history of a single economic factor, namely, the gold supply.

The claim that Alexander the Paphlagonian is greater than his Macedonian namesake is perhaps hardly to be taken seriously, yet an ingenious pro-Paphlagonian might argue with justice that his Alexander ‘conquered’ a large part of the Roman Empire; that this conquest was almost bloodless; and that the story of it appeals to the sense of humour, which is more than can be said for the history of Philip's filibustering son.

It is often assumed that Roman culture, which spread over almost all Europe, came to an end in the north at the Limes, which, of course, followed the lower course of the Rhine and part of the Danube, thus excluding most of Germany. But there is evidence that the free Germans traded with the Empire, and in the museums of Scandinavia there are numerous Roman objects which were found in the surrounding country, and which prove that even in Denmark and the southern parts of Norway and Sweden the inhabitants were ready to acquire things made according to Roman fashions, and that as time went on the natives were deeply influenced by these artifacts, even in their own manufactures.

From about the fourth century b.c. Rome had a long-standing alliance with the Greek colony of Massilia (Marseilles) whose territory was constantly raided by southern Gallic tribes; these incursions called for military intervention from the Romans from the middle of the second century, culminating in a series of successful campaigns, the enlargement of Massilia's territory, the founding of the colony of Aquae Sextiae (Aix, 30 miles north of Marseilles), and the annexation of southern Gaul in 121 b.c. after the defeat of the Allobroges and Arverni. The province stretched from the Pyrenees up to Tolosa (Toulouse), then the frontier skirted the Cevennes to the Jura Mountains and the south-west corner of Lacus Lemannus (Lake Geneva); then it came in a south-south-easterly line to the Mediterranean coasts, by the Maritime Alps. It formed a very valuable corridor from Italy to Spain, and through it ran the Via Domitia beyond the Rhone; in 118 b.c. Narbo Martius (Narbonne) was founded, and so flourishing a Roman civilization grew up that Pliny later described it as ‘Italia verius quam provincia’.

MR. W. F. Witton's reconsiderations of grammatical rules, ‘invented’, as he suggests, ‘by some unimaginative medieval scholar’, must be welcome to all teachers and students of the classics. Modern readers, both in schoolroom and in lecture-hall, are less ready to exploit the ambiguities of ‘the exception proves the rule’ than were the medieval Schoolmen, and a reluctance to accept arbitrary laws without examining the credentials of the legislator is one of the more healthy symptoms of this hypercritical and sometimes anarchical age.

The claim that Alexander the Paphlagonian is greater than his Macedonian namesake is perhaps hardly to be taken seriously, yet an ingenious pro-Paphlagonian might argue with justice that his Alexander ‘conquered’ a large part of the Roman Empire; that this conquest was almost bloodless; and that the story of it appeals to the sense of humour, which is more than can be said for the history of Philip's filibustering son.

Time is a pattern of passing days. There are bright days and dark, and days that have the unobtrusive colour of a background; but each day must begin, and sequences of days, such as the week, have fresh beginnings. This web of repetition, inwoven with the various colours of the days, makes the pattern of time by which we think and plan; for without beginnings there would be no time, and without repetition there can be no pattern. It is a fascinating occupation to try to call up from the past the pattern by which the ancient Romans thought, a pattern agreeably varied, with monthly festivals recurring at fixed but irregular intervals, and market-day every eight days irrespective of the months. The heavens themselves provide a pattern for mankind with day and night, stars and the seasons, and the revolutions of the moon and sun; and man makes markets to be held at stated intervals, and markets make a week. There is refreshment in irregular interruptions, but in the prospect of a regular break there is repose of spirit; and it is pleasant to know that from very early times the Romans profited by both. It is impossible to say how early. The origin of such institutions was already lost by the first century b.c., and our earliest information comes from the researches of Varro, the antiquary of that epoch. The fullest comes from five centuries later, when Macrobius, for his delight and ours, assembled from the works of earlier writers a choice medley of uncertain lore. It seems probable, however, that both markets and monthly dates were in existence by the beginning of the Republic. To this point we may look then for the main lines of the pattern, sparse here, and simple; at later times it is found filled in and shaded, with added detail; and under the Empire another pattern is to be seen coming through alongside of and unrelated to the first, and in the end predominating: the pattern of the modern week.

C. gargilius haemon read his own epitaph. He read slowly, sitting on the stairs beside the tablet, moving his lamp from line to line, and watching the words leap into clarity and fade again. It was a beautiful epitaph. Its warm phrases comforted him; its rhythms from the poets sang in his head. There was a whole line of verse to end it. He chanted it softly.

Suppose a class set to put into Latin ‘I think I have said enough to show why this war is necessary’. How many teachers would accept esset in the subordinate clause? Not, I venture to affirm, one in a hundred. Yet that is what was written by Cicero, who had of course the advantage of not knowing the above ‘rule’, in the De Imperio Cn. Pompei, 10. 27: ‘satis mihi multa verba fecisse videor, quare esset hoc bellum … necessarium; … restat ut de imperatore … dicendum esse videatur.’ He uses the same construction later in the speech (19.57): ‘quo mihi etiam indignius videtur obtrectatum esse adhuc, Gabinio dicam anne Pompeio an utrique, id quod est verius, ne legaretur A. Gabinius Cn. Pompeio expetenti ac postulanti’ And a fairly careful reading of the speeches against Catiline gives eleven examples of historic sequence after a pure perfect against six of primary. I quote some of them: ii. 4. 6, ‘quod exspectavi, iam sum adsecutus, ut vos omnes factam esse aperte coniurationem contra rem publicam esse videretis’; 12. 26, ‘vos … vestra tecta … defendite; mihi ut urbi … satis esset praesidii consultum atque provisum est’; iii. 12. 27, ‘mentes hominum audacissimorum sceleratae … ne vobis nocere possent ego providi; ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere’; iv. 1. 1, ‘mihi si haec condicio consulatus data est ut omnes acerbitates … perferrem, feram non solum fortiter verum etiam lubenter’; 2, ‘si hunc exitum consulatus mei di immortales esse voluerunt ut vos … ex caede … eriperem, quaecunque mihi uni proponetur fortuna, subeatur’; 5. 9, ‘habemus a Caesare … sententiam.… intellectum est quid interesset inter levitatem contionatorum et animum vere popularem’; 7. 14, ‘causa est … haec inventa sola in qua omnes sentirent unum atque idem’; 9. 19, ‘atque haec non ut vos … excitarem locutus sum’.

Odysseus had heard long ago from the shade of Tiresias that in Ithaca he would find insolent men devouring his goods and wooing his wife, and from the shade of Agamemnon that he should arrive there in secret; and now Athene, when she found him on that April morning wandering by the shore that he had forgotten, told him that for three years past the suitors had been lording it in his house, and she at once changed him to an old man in whom no one would recognize Odysseus, sacker of cities. He knew then of his enemies and had been given the advantages of disguise and secrecy and the possibility of surprise that would go with them.

On two sides productive work for the understanding of Aeschylean tragedy has lately been done. Cambridge scholars have made useful progress in the elucidation of Aeschylus, and recent new interpretations of the symbolic and prophetic meaning of later poetry, including the New Testament, have produced results which can be applied with caution to tragic poetry in general. A combination of the methods of these investigators, which yet does not abandon all the estimates of older criticism, may, by a slight change of perspective, enable further progress in the interpretation of Aeschylus to be made.

Does any one ever read Henty nowadays? It is a pity if they do not, for in his unpretentious way he serves as a very good model for one type of historical fiction, and it may upon reflection appear that his is not the worst type to follow. It was his practice to take some historical period of general interest, and into the framework of fact to work the adventures of a fictitious hero; the real historical heroes paced at intervals across the background, the facts of history were generally accurately enough presented, and the dialogue was couched in the ordinary speech of all ages: the more educated spoke the standard English of Henty's own day, the uneducated a sort of conventional Loamshire, which had the advantage of being equally suitable for Kingswear, Kenmare, or Kircudbright. He never attempted to give his books an air of antiquity by plastering them with what passed for the vocabulary of the period.

Parallels between ancient and modern, when drawn with the knowledge and skill of Mr. Cornford, are fascinating: they give new life to antiquity and help us to stand away from the pressure of our own days and to note their form. It would be pedantic to ask more of them; but there is a dangerous temptation to make more of them.

Suppose a class set to put into Latin ‘I think I have said enough to show why this war is necessary’. How many teachers would accept esset in the subordinate clause? Not, I venture to affirm, one in a hundred. Yet that is what was written by Cicero, who had of course the advantage of not knowing the above ‘rule’, in the De Imperio Cn. Pompei, 10. 27: ‘satis mihi multa verba fecisse videor, quare esset hoc bellum … necessarium; … restat ut de imperatore … dicendum esse videatur.’ He uses the same construction later in the speech (19.57): ‘quo mihi etiam indignius videtur obtrectatum esse adhuc, Gabinio dicam anne Pompeio an utrique, id quod est verius, ne legaretur A. Gabinius Cn. Pompeio expetenti ac postulanti’ And a fairly careful reading of the speeches against Catiline gives eleven examples of historic sequence after a pure perfect against six of primary. I quote some of them: ii. 4. 6, ‘quod exspectavi, iam sum adsecutus, ut vos omnes factam esse aperte coniurationem contra rem publicam esse videretis’; 12. 26, ‘vos … vestra tecta … defendite; mihi ut urbi … satis esset praesidii consultum atque provisum est’; iii. 12. 27, ‘mentes hominum audacissimorum sceleratae … ne vobis nocere possent ego providi; ne mihi noceant vestrum est providere’; iv. I. I, ‘mihi si haec condicio consulatus data est ut omnes acerbitates … perferrem, feram non solum fortiter verum etiam lubenter’; 2, ‘si hunc exitum consulatus mei di immortales esse voluerunt ut vos … ex caede … eriperem, quaecunque mihi uni proponetur fortuna, subeatur’; 5. 9, ‘habemus a Caesare … sententiam.… intellectum est quid interesset inter levitatem contionatorum et animum vere popularem’; 7. 14, ‘causa est … haec inventa sola in qua omnes sentirent unum atque idem’; 9. 19, ‘atque haec non ut vos … excitarem locutus sum’.