John muir became the fifth editor of this journal in 1964. He had been educated at Newbury (an ancient foundation from which there had emerged a long series of classical scholars) and at Keble College, Oxford. There followed some years of teaching at Public and Grammar School before he was appointed a Lecturer at King's College, London. So far he had little or no experience of the duties, and trials, of editorship, but he did bring to the task outstanding qualities, which soon proved that a worthy successor to Geoffrey Hooker had been found. In fact, Muir has left his own mark on Greece & Rome. Now, after six fruitful years, the pressure of work as a University teacher, as well as his own researches and—far more important—the ties of family (he and Mrs. Muir have three fine sons) have made it necessary for him to resign. We shall remember him for his scholarly approach, his modesty and a charming sense of humour—a virtue not always evident in a literary critic (which of course he had to become). He has earned the gratitude of us all. We wish him well.

The death of T. S. Eliot removed from the world of English letters a staunch and resolute advocate of the Greek tradition in our modern literature. The precise interaction between this tradition in which the poet believed so firmly and his own five verse dramas therefore deserves some consideration.

Boni and improbi are political words. Political words change their meanings—as we all very well know today—but they also have histories, which suggest basic, fundamental value-judgements, and whose use reveals as much about the user as about the object to which he refers.

The part of Aeneid ii which deals with the death of Priam has something in common with the murder of Duncan in Macbeth. Against a background of treachery and darkness, fitfully illumined by the flare of torches and the fiercer glare of fire, we witness the brutal murder of an old and kindly king. To the audience in the classical world, who knew the story of Ilium's fall in its every detail, the scene in which Sinon plays false must have been, like the opening act of Macbeth, top-full of dramatic irony.

Horace is a professional; and professionalism is not a marked feature of English lyric poetry: we think of Blake rather than Ben Jonson, of Shelley rather than Tennyson, and look less for perfection of form than individuality of content: personal revelation, a message of revolt, or esoteric symbolism. Moreover we tend today to distrust formality, in poetry as elsewhere, and to identify it with insincerity. ‘Scilicet vere quod placet ut non acriter elatrem!’ Provided sincerity is present, we are prepared to endure any amount of tedious revelation of the inmost trivialities of uninteresting minds, and the cruder the expression, the firmer the guarantee of sincerity. Strict and complex forms impose restrictions on a poet's utterance, and thus render his thought suspect.

The exact situation of this historic opening within the compass of the Elburz mountains has long been in dispute among travellers and scholars, so a fresh review of the evidence is not untimely.

Discussions of otium in Catullus concentrate, naturally enough, on poem 51. The role of otium in poem 50 has, in consequence, been neglected. It is the point of this paper to show that 50 is far more than an amusing Gelegenheitsgedicht and that 50 and 51, whether or not intended by Catullus to stand in this order, shed light on one another through a complementary conception of otium.

The Phormio, if we consider it from the viewpoint of artistic originality, is the least interesting of all Terence's works, because more than any other it approximates to the conventional type of New Comedy. Although it is characterized by a very complicated intrigue full of vivacity and animation, it lacks any particular delicacy in the psychological delineation of the characters.—M. R. Posani, ‘Il Formione di Terenzio’, Atene e Roma, ix (1941), 29.

On 14 December 1968 the following report from New York appeared on the front page of the Guardian: ‘An American-Italian team of archaeologists has found the long-lost site of Sybaris, known throughout the ancient world for its wealth and the luxurious life of its citizens. The discovery of the city was announced last night at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. F. G. Rainey, director of the University's museum, and Professor Giuseppe Foti, superintendent of antiquities at Calabria, said that the city, which disappeared around 510 B.c. after a civil war, had been found “beyond reasonable doubt”…’ When the excavation of Sybaris starts in earnest, it is expected to produce material of the first importance for the study of Greek colonial history in the archaic period. In view of the general interest that the excavation will arouse, it is worth summarizing what is known about Sybaris, to explain both the considerable efforts that have been made to find the site of the city, and the potential importance of its discovery.

The philosophy of Epicurus is one which was designed for living in a world where truth is attainable through, and only through, the right use of the senses, which are a reliable source of information in that they faithfully relay to the mind all impressions which reach them: all perception is true, but if the impression reaches the sense organ ‘damaged’, or an incorrect interpretation is put on it by the mind, error can occur. Such false conclusions as to the nature of an object of perception, when the information being received about it is inadequate or in some way distorted, can be avoided by ‘filing’ the received impression, for confirmation or contradiction, without coming to a decision on it until conditions are more favourable.

Callimachus was the Housman of antiquity. He had formidable learning, combative pugnacity, and a rare capacity to put both aside and write with exquisite simplicity. His learning is seen in the traditions about his pupils, who were reputed to include Eratosthenes, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Apollonius of Rhodes, with whom he was later on terms of enmity. It is seen in his association with the library at Alexandria. A scholiast to Plautus says that he held the post of librarian. That he was not chief librarian is proved by the list preserved in a papyrus at Oxyrhynchus, but there is no reason to doubt that he served on the library staff, especially as his published works included a library catalogue. It is to be seen in his later reputation: thus to Philippus Callimachus is the main weapon of the dry-as-dust army of commentators (AP 11. 321) and to study him is an investigation in the dark (AP 11. 347). It is seen in the volume of his works which numbered over eight hundred, and their general character. They show a taste for curious learning; one may instance a series on Local Nomenclature which included a book on Local Month-Names, or another on The Rivers of the World with separate volumes for Europe and Asia, or a volume on Foundations and Name-Changes of Islands and States, or Geographical Wonders of the World.

How old was Propertius when he wrote the Cynthia? It makes a difference to our understanding and appreciation of the poems. The poet's handling of language, and the lover's relations with his mistress, will be differently viewed if we guess his age at the date of publication as twenty-five or twenty-six, and if we calculate it at fifteen or sixteen, as seems to me more probable. The date of his birth is unknown; topical allusions in the poems indicate a date before which a poem would not have been written, but do not indicate how much later it was published as part of a book. ‘The Augustan poets—and, probably, other poets in other ages—when they published a book did not trouble to bring every detail in it “up to date” or to eliminate from it everything that had been appropriate at the time of writing but proved less appropriate at the moment of publication’ (E. Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford, 1957), 287). Nor have we any assurance that a poem published in Book Two or Book Three was written later, whether in its original or in its final form, than any poem in Book One. A poem rejected, for whatever reason, from an early collection, may fit quite well, perhaps after reworking, into a later one.

The Romans were oriented toward warfare and their highest honour was the iustus triumphus of the successful general. For the commanders glory, but the soldiers in the legions were subject to severe discipline and rarely received mention in the literary sources. This was natural because of the numbers involved, but the aristocratic nature of the Roman Republic made even more striking the difference between the treatment of aristocratic officers and the men in the line. After Cannae, Varro, the general responsible for the disaster, and Cornelius Scipio, tribune of the soldiers, both escaped death. Varro was publicly thanked quod de re publica non desperasset (Liv. xxii. 61.14). He was not given an army command again, but Scipio was given the highest commands and lived to gain the cognomen ex virtute Africanus. The fate of the common soldiers who survived was very different: various penalties, including service to the end of the war (xxiii. 25. 7), and service without pay in 215 (xxiii. 31. 2), Later their plea for remission of punishment was met with chill haughtiness by the Senate (xxv. 5. 10–7. 4).

It has been the fate of the Jewish people to spend most of their history under foreign rule, and Rome, who governed Palestine during the period of the New Testament and for centuries after it, was only one of a series of powers who throughout the ages became masters of the country for varying lengths of time and controlled it with varying success.