bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus
Authors: Lintott A. W.
Published: February 2009

In 88 B.C. the dying embers of the Social War kindled an even more dangerous civil war. Violence with gangs was no longer the final solution in Roman political struggles, but war with a regular army took its place. The link between the two wars and the critical escalation of political conflict was created by the tribunate of P. Sulpicius Rufus. Most modern accounts differ little in describing the sequence of events in his tribunate, though they vary in the interpretation of his motives and policy. They agree because they accept the common basis to the narratives of Appian, Plutarch, and Velleius as true, even though they usually discard the Tendenz in these authors, through which Sulpicius is portrayed as an unscrupulous man who put his services at Marius’ disposal. It is the aim of this paper to propose that the wheat in these authors cannot be so easily separated from the chaff: that in fact the bias, which is most obvious in Plutarch’s Lives, and there can be largely ascribed to the influence of Sulla’s fjown memoirs, has not only distorted motives but misplaced and misrepresented facts. Important inconsistencies in Appian, when taken in conjunction with the little information we have outside these sources, suggest a different outline for Sulpicius’ tribunate—one which involves more uncertainties than the commonly accepted view, because it is obtained by rejecting the validity of more of our scanty source material, but which may enable us to judge more fairly not only Sulpicius and Marius but also Sulla himself.
‘O Ancient Argos of the Land’: Euripides, Electra
Authors: Haslam M. W.
Published: February 2009

Neither can stand. ‘Argos of the land’ (or, ‘of land’) is nonsense, and even if it were not, is absurd as an apostrophe of the River Inachus. ‘a plain’, indistinguishable from is similarly impossible: the audience would be baffled; in 6 has to be the first occurrence of the vox; ‘streams’ cannot be apposed to a ‘plain’, even if could have been understood as meaning this.
Pinder Fr. 104b Snell
Authors: Francis E.D.
Published: February 2009

Towards the end of Plutarch's treatise dePytkiae oraculis(409 b 29) Theon quotes a short passage of verse but does not identify its author. The fragment is now customarily printed among the remains of Pindar'sParthenea, most recently by Snell:
The Position of the Accent in Greek Words: A New Statement
Authors: Mouraviev Serge N.
Published: February 2009

The accent of Greek (Ionic-Attic) orthotonic words was mobile with limited freedom of movement, i.e. it could not stand outside a definite zone at the end of the word. Had the limit of this zone been the same for all words and had the accent been allowed to stand anywhere within it (as is the case in Modern Greek), there would have been no problem. Unfortunately, the length of the accentuable zone did vary whatever the unit we use (2 or 3 final syllables; 3 or 4 final vocalic morae) and there was a place within it where the accent was prohibited (the penult vocalic mora of some words). Hence the problem of explaining these ‘irregularities’.
ΠAn-Compounds in Plato
Authors: Hawtrey R. S. W.
Published: February 2009

Plato's fondness for words compounded with παν- (nearly all adjectives and adverbs) is obvious at the most cursory reading of his works; this characteristic of his style becomes even more striking when his use of these words is compared with their frequency in earlier authors. An investigation of Platonic usage in this respect, relatively easy since the publication of Leonard Brandwood's Word Index to Plato (Leeds, 1976), yields interesting results. Whether the effect of the παν-prefix is intensive or determinative (see below, §I), Plato has a tendency to associate these words with some sort of disapproval; this disapproval is sometimes explicit enough and can sometimes be inferred from the use of the word, or of a word related to it, in other contexts. The words may be used ironically, as π⋯γκαλος often is and π⋯σσοϕος always. Another sort of disapproval springs from what may be called Plato's general dislike of (promiscuous plurality, excess and variety; for a philosopher who believes in single, unchanging Forms there is something intrinsically objectionable in such words as π⋯μπολυς and παντοδαπ⋯ς. It also transpires that Plato may have coined a number, of these words and that he was probably the first prose writer to import others from poetry; in the face of the fragmentary nature of surviving Greek literature it would be unwise to be more dogmatic. The following, somewhat dry, survey will, it is hoped, throw some light on the usage of these interesting words
The Taciturnity of Aeneas
Authors: Feeney D.
Published: February 2009

Aeneas' speech of defence before Dido (A.4. 333–61) is the longest and most controversial he delivers. Although by no means typical, it can open up some revealing perspectives over the rest of the poem.

The exchange between the two, having as its kernel a dispute over obligations and responsibilities, requires some words of context. The early part of the book describes the establishment of a liaison between the refugee leaders, while revealing amongst the poem's characters a wide discrepancy of opinion over the nature of that liaison. Juno announces that she will arrange the marriage of the couple (125–7); after the ensuing marriage-parody of the cave-scene (165–8), Dido also calls what now exists a ‘marriage’:coniugium uocat, hocpraetexit nomine culpam(172). Fama too, moving around Libya, speaks as if Dido has taken Aeneas for husband (192). But the local King Iarbas regards Aeneas as a pirate who has carried off a successful job of plunder (217), while Jupiter looks down from heaven and sees ‘lovers’,amantis(221). Mercury is able to address Aeneas asuxorius(266).
An Acrostic in Vergil (Aeneid 7. 601–4)?
Authors: Fowler D. P.
Published: February 2009

In any competition for monuments of wasted labour the collection of accidental acrostics in Latin poets published by I. Hilberg would stand a good chance of a prize. But amongst his examples of ‘neckische Spiele des Zufalls’ (269) is one I am gullible enough to believe may be more significant. In Aeneid 7. 601–15 Vergil describes the custom of opening the gates of war in a long anacoluthic sentence, the first four lines of which run:

Mos erat Hesperio in Latio, quern protinus urbes

Albanae coluere sacrum, nunc maxima rerum

Roma colit, cum prima movent in proelia Mortem,

Sive Getis inferre manu lacrimabile bellum…
LSJ and the Problem of Poetic Archaism: From Meanings to Iconyms
Authors: Silk M. S.
Published: February 2009

‘It is supposed’, declared the poet Wordsworth in 1802, ‘that by the act of writing in verse an author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association; that he not only thus apprizes the reader that certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held forth by metrical language must in different eras of literature have excited very different expectations.’ For his own era of literature Wordsworth proposed a language derived from the ‘simple and unelaborated expressions’ of the ‘language really spoken by men’, at the expense of ‘devices to elevate the style’ and ‘what is usually called poetic diction’.
The Question of Character-Development: Plutarch and Tacitus
Authors: Gill Christopher
Published: February 2009

It is often claimed that in the ancient world character was believed to be something fixed, given at birth and immutable during life. This belief is said to underlie the portrayal of individuals in ancient historiography and biography, particularly in the early Roman Empire; and tc constitute the chief point of difference in psychological assumptions between ancient and modern biography. In this article, I wish to examine the truth of these claims, with particular reference to Plutarch and Tacitus.
Konnos' figleaf?
Authors: Sommerstein Alan H.
Published: February 2009

In Aristophanes' Wasps (673–5), Bdelykleon tells his jury-mad father that because the allied states are aware that the ordinary Athenian juror is an exploited creature, deliberately kept poor by the demagogues in whose hands the real power lies, σ⋯ μ⋯ν ⋯γο⋯νΤαι Κ⋯ννου ψ⋯φον, Το⋯τοισι δ⋯ δωρоφоρоῡσιν. The scholia see that Κόννου ψ⋯φον must mean ‘something worthless’, but they add on the authority of Kallistratos and Euphronios that Ar. has altered the original phrase:

ΚαλλĺστραΤος παροιμ⋯αν φησ⋯ “Κόννου θρῖον”, παρ՚ ἣν παίζει Εὺφρόνιος δ⋯ ὅτι ⋯λέΧθη δι⋯ τ⋯ ⋯δύν τινα τ⋯ν Κόννον εἶναι. … ψ⋯φον δ⋯ εἶπε δι⋯ δι⋯ τ⋯ περ⋯ δικαστο⋯ λ⋯γειν. (Σ Wasps 675b+c ed. Koster)

We cannot tell whether Euphronios was commenting on κóννον θριον or κóννον ψ⋯ϕον, since although he was writing before Kallistratos, the latter need not have been the first to cite the phrase κóννον θριον in connection with our passage; indeed, the credit for first noting its relevance may belong to Euphronios himself. I shall be reverting to Euphronios' interpretation of the phrase presently.
The Fading of Memmius
Authors: Townend G. B.
Published: February 2009

In 1884 Ivo Bruns began his Lucrez-Studien, on the relationship between Lucretius' treatment of Epicureanism and the exposition by the philosopher himself in the extant Epistles, with the question (p.4) for whom did Lucretius write? His answer was to show (p.l 1) that the general public, who were the poet's real objective, were very different readers from the disciples whom Epicurus addressed in the Letter to Herodotus and similar works. This conclusion, and the subsequent investigation of the ways in which this difference affected the treatment of doctrine in the two works, does not concern me. My interest is rather in the manner in which Bruns tackles the problem of the ostensible addressee, Memmius, and the extent to which this man remains in Lucretius' mind throughout the whole six books.
Escorial Ms. O III 2 And Related Manuscripts Of Seneca's Natural Questions
Authors: Hine H. M.
Published: February 2009

Löwe and von Hartel (loc. cit. in n. 3) have drawn attention to the striking similarity between R's contents and those of a lost manuscript bequeathed by Philippe d' Harcourt (bishop of Bayeux, 1142–64) to the library at Bee. This manuscript is described in a twelfth-century catalogue as follows:7 ‘in alio Seneca de naturalibus questionibus et Adelermus Batensis [Adhelardus Bathonensis Becker), Proba vates, Aurea Capra, et liber Hildeberti Turonensis archiepiscopi de dissensione interioris et exterioris hominis, et sermones eius et uita ipsius.’
TheFastifor The Reign of Claudius
Authors: Gallivan Paul
Published: February 2009

Recent years have brought to light much new evidence which has sometimes compelled considerable revision of the consularfastiof the early Empire. Of especial importance have been the large number oftabulae cerataeforthcoming from the area around the Bay of Naples and the new fragments or reinterpretations of known fragments of municipalfastiThe aim of the present paper is to examine the effect which recent discoveries have had on knowledge of thefastifor the reign of Claudius and in the light of the interpretation of this new evidence to produce a revised list of consuls for the period 41–54.
Phidias and Cicero, Brutus 70
Authors: Innes D.C.
Published: February 2009

Phidias’ absence from the survey of sculptors in Cic. Brut. 70 is curious, explanation in terms of differing histories of sculpture only partly convincing. I suggest that Cicero has valid literary motives and is wittily undermining the Atticist position by adaptation of what was a rhetorical topos, the parallel development of Greek prose and sculpture from archaic spareness to classical expertise and dignity: see Dem. Eloc. 14, D. H. Isoc. 3, p.59 U-R; more elaborate but partly deriving from Cicero and less homogeneous is Qu. 12.10.7–9. Cicero assumes the reader's knowledge of the commonplace, pointedly ignores the quality of grandeur and dignity, and develops a theory of technical progress on the basis of veritas and grace to attack the Atticists from their own preferences. The resulting model serves to demote Lysias, imitated by the Atticists but merely the counterpart of Calamis, strigosior (64) like archaic sculptures (cf. Dem. loc. cit. ) and superseded by later progress. The analogy thus obliquely repeats the brief but charged parenthesis in 66 that Demosthenes superseded Lysias.
Too Many Ablatives Spoil The Broth
Authors: Kenney E. J.
Published: February 2009

The orthodox explanation of the syntax of lines 453–4 is that repeated by the most recent commentator, F. Bömer (P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen. Buch IV–V (1976), p.343): ‘neque adhuc epota parte ist Abl. absol.; der Gegenstand, mit dem Ceres den Jungen überschüttet, ist mixta … polenta.‘ The ablative absoluteis in itself unexceptionable (cf. Met. 5. 172-3, 9. 574-6), but the proliferation of three ablatives in two verses is awkward writing. As transmitted, line 454 is the product of a copyist who, as is often the habit of copyists, was confininghis attention to the verse on which he was engaged and still had ‘tosta … polenta’from line 450 echoing in his head. Unless I am much mistaken, Ovid wrote.
Aeschylus, Choephoroi 275
Authors: Owtram T. C.
Published: February 2009

This line, composed of only three words, occurs near the beginning of a speech in which Orestes, having revealed himself to his sister, is passing on to her and toa sympathetic chorus consisting of slaves in the royal palace at Argos, the gist of the instructions Apollo, through his oracle at Delphi, has given him about avenging his murdered father. The God, less merciful than the ghost of King Hamlet, has ordered him to kill his mother as well as her paramour.
Herodotus 2.96.1 —2
Authors: Lloyd Alan B.
Published: February 2009

This passage from the most important of all our textual sources on Ancient-Egyptian shipbuilding has been discussed by me in my newly published Commentary. There I followed the traditional view whereby is translated as ‘thwarts’’, is taken to describe thwarts passing from one gunwale to the other in such a way that each end was placed ‘on top of the gunwale, and the sentence is understood to refer to caulking with papyrus. J. S. Morrison has in recent years on several occasions offered a radically different translation under the influence of the Fourth-Dynasty boats interred beside the Great Pyramid of Gîza (c. 2600 B.C.). His criticism of the old rendering seizes upon three points:
Notes on Euripides' Andromache
Authors: Craik Elizabeth M.
Published: February 2009

Professor Stevens's fine edition of Andromache, which treats all kinds of problems–linguistic, textual, metrical, theatrical, and interpretative–with great authority in a well-balanced commentary, and in a short introduction deals succinctly with the main ‘background’’ questions, must have prompted many to look anew at the play; so prompted, I here offer some supplementary points, mostly of interpretation.
Knights 230–3 And Cleon's Eyebrows
Authors: Welsh D.
Published: February 2009

With these words the ‘first slave’’ of the Knights (usually identified as Demosthenes), encourages the Sausage-seller to take up the cudgels against the Paphlagonian, confident that the actor playing this role will not be masked. The exception proves the rule and it is generally concluded from these lines that portrait masks were customary in Aristophanic comedy.
Quo Usque Tandem …?
Authors: Malcolm D. A.
Published: February 2009

If any words are unmistakably Ciceronian, these are. Every schoolboy knew them. Generations of Latin prose composers have trotted them out with unassailable confidence. It seems almost indelicate to suggest that they are not Ciceronian at all; but it would solve the problem presented by Sallust Cat. 20.9 if this were the case. Sallust's placing of the hallowed words in the mouth of Catiline has always been something of a scandal, to be laughed off (if you can find a joke in it), or played down (Syme, Sallust, p.106, ‘If that is malice, it is not very noxious’’),
Horace and the Sibyl (Epode 16.2)
Authors: MacLeod C. W.
Published: February 2009

It seems clear that Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus knew, if not the third Sibylline Oracle itself, prophecies like it. An unnoticed parallel between that work and Horace may confirm this conclusion and afford a small insight into the Latin poet's art.
Imperatoria Nomina (Tac Ann 1.3.1
Authors: Goodyear F.R.D.
Published: February 2009

‘Tiberium Neronem et Claudium Drusum priuignos imperatoriis nominibus auxit [sc. Augustus]’’, i.e. honoured them with salutations as ‘imperatores’’. So I took it in my commentary (Cambridge, 1972), supposing argument needless. I must now defend my view against R. Syme, Historia antiqua, Commentationes Louanienses in honorem W. Peremans (Louvain, 1977), p.239. Syme asserts ‘Avoiding a technical term, he [Tacitus] describes the stepsons of the Princeps as invested with imperatoriis nominibus (3.1). That is, a grant of imperium proconsular (after the campaigns of 11 B.C.).’’ He adds in a footnote ‘As emerges clearly from Dio 54.33.5 (Drusus), cf. 34.4 (Tiberius). The matter must be stated firmly, since both Koestermann and Goodyear are totally inadequate.’’ Let me make amends.
Noctes Statianae
Authors: Dowden Ken
Published: February 2009

These lines, which I cite according to Hill's forthcoming edition, have caused scholars some difficulty of interpretation. Trabibus has generally been taken to refer to battering-rams and thus, for instance, we find in the Delphin edition as an interpretation of trabibusque … loco the words ‘et strepenti ariete loco extrudunt lapides firme constrictos’’. Certainly, if they drive stones from their place with a ram, it is the ram that is the best candidate for the epithet sonorus – a candidature every ω manuscript rejects, except two alleged by Barth. P, however, has et ariete, replacing the rather uninformative adjective artata and providing an explicit noun for sonoro to agree with; and P was followed by the early editors Lindenbrogius and Cruceus. ‘Infeliciter’’, says Barth. Infelicitously indeed: et is deleted by P in the first hand and would not scan; without et the sentence does not construct and the line still does not scan – for the word is ariěte (see Hill ad 2.492).
Kleisthenes' Reform Bill
Authors: Andrewes A.
Published: February 2009

Modern research has done much to elucidate the question what the reforms of Kleisthenes in fact achieved, and the work continues, but that does not settle the question what he was trying to achieve. Herodotos gives him a political motive in outline, that he brought the people over to his side because he had been defeated in a struggle for power against Isagoras (5.66.2); and in resuming this proposition after a digression he describes the Athenian people as (5.69.2). But he gives us no clear insight into the nature or mechanism of the struggle with Isagoras, and in particular he does not say that the latter's election to the archonship in 508 constituted his victory, though the dating of the reform to the archonship of Isagoras ('A.21.1) makes that highly probable; nor does he explain in what sense or by whom the Athenian people had been ‘previously excluded’.
Prometheus as Teacher and the Chorus's Descent,P.V. 278 ff.
Authors: Inoue Eva
Published: February 2009

descent represents a progression in this relationship whereby the Chorus, in finally abandoning their chariot and agreeing to approach Prometheus and listen to him, jeopardize their detachment from him and his fate, offer tentative support, and give him scope to develop his storytelling abilities and apply his persuasive powers. Although this progression does not represent an unequivocal commitment to Prometheus–for the Chorus fluctuate throughout the play between sympathy and reproach for him–it is none the less a crucial step as signalled by the intensity of Prometheus' insistence that they descend and hear his story through to the end.
Euripides, Helen 1564
Authors: Garton Charles
Published: February 2009

The Messenger is relating how Menelaus and Helen escape from Egypt in a royal Egyptian ship, under pretext that they are going to carry out a ritual ‘sea burial’ of the supposedly drowned Menelaus. Helen's husband, whose identity was as yet unknown to the Egyptian crew, induced them to let his own shipwrecked crew (as though Greek strangers wishing to participate in honour to the deceased) come on board, and as the bull intended for sacrifice resisted being embarked he here cries to his men to manhandle it—in fact to carry it—on board.
Nescio Quid Febriculosi ScortiA Note on Catullus 6
Authors: Morgan M. Gwyn
Published: February 2009

Catullus 6 is a short poem addressed to a certain Flavius, otherwise unknown. Flavius, so we are told, refuses to say anything about his girlfriend, and the poet can explain this only by assuming that he has taken up with a mistress who is singularly unrefined (lines 1–5). It is certainly clear that Flavius is not spending his nights alone; the state of his bedroom proves that much (lines 6–11). But, says Catullus, there is no reason for Flavius to remain silent, no matter what folly he is engaging in. He should confide in the poet, whose only wish is to praise him and his mistress in witty verse (lines 12—17).
Two Questions About the Sixteenth Epode
Authors: Hubbard Margaret
Published: February 2009

I suppose we have all at some time been puzzled by Horace's substitution of boulders for the iron mass that the Phocaeans threw into the sea when they took their oath, and have wondered what poetical purpose the boulders could serve that iron could not. Would not iron in fact better cohere as an image with all the civil war that fills the poem's opening lines and with the agreeable absence of plough-shares and pruning-hooks from the Blessed Isles? Most of all, would it not cohere better with the poem's closing lines?
Juvenal, Satire 1.155—7
Authors: Barrett Anthony A.
Published: February 2009

These lines, presented as they appear in the O.C.T., are among the most difficult and hotly disputed that Juvenal wrote. The poet defends his decision not to attack contemporary politicians directly: ‘expose a Tigellinus’, he says, ‘and you know what the consequences will be’. It has long been recognized that the consequences related are probably inspired by those suffered by the Christians in A.D. 64 during the reign of Nero, and so vividly described by Tacitus.
Ausonius' Use of The Classical Latin Poets: Some New Examples and Observations
Authors: Green R. P. H.
Published: February 2009

The primary aim of this article is to reveal a number of previously unrecorded appearances of classical Latin poetry in the poems of Ausonius, with a brief assessment of their value in understanding his text, and an incorporation of them into the general picture of his acquaintance with his predecessors; a final section will outline some ways in which his adoptions and adaptations are used. Latin poets now fragmented or lost are not included in this study; for the survival of a Lucilius or an Ennius has generally enjoyed more attention and study than the after-life of better-known authors. It is moreover doubtful if such early writers had a context to offer the borrower in Late Antiquity; while poets of the second and third centuries A.D. (often denoted by the vacuous term ‘neoteric’), who did, are poorly known today.
Quo Usque Tandem Patiemini?
Authors: Innes D. C.
Published: February 2009

In his article (CP 71 (1976), 97–105) R. Reneham rightly classes Sail. Cat.20.9 as a conscious imitation of Cic.Cat.1.1, but adopts the unsatisfactory explanation of parody. Such parody is, as he notes, without parallel in Sallust and ineptly distracts attention from the vigorous development of Catiline's rhetoric. Elsewhere mimesis is regularly a compliment to the author imitated, often closely functional by reinforcing a point from the parallel of a similar context (e.g. Sail. Cat.4.1 ~ Pl. Ep.324 b). Similarly I suggest that here Sallust recalls Cicero's words to illustrate that perversion of vocabulary which is the keynote of Catiline's speech: just as he misuses, for example, the terms virtus fidesque at the beginning of his speech, in stark contrast to Sallust's own definition, so he perverts the famous words of the attack which revealed his true villainy in similar savage indignatio.
Sundials, Parasites, and Girls from Boeotia
Authors: Gratwick A. S.
Published: February 2009

My purpose in this paper is, firstly, to investigate the relationship of the three passages printed below, and, secondly, to illustrate in passing the curious chain of historical accidents which have prevented the truth about that relationship from becoming common lore long ago.
Two Proper Names in the text of Diodorus, Book 15
Authors: Tuplin Christopher
Published: February 2009

Both patently incorrect readings and long-established emendations have a habit of retaining their places in texts of ancient authors with few or no questions asked. This paper considers two examples of this phenomenon (one of each type) in Book 15 of Diodorus' Bibliotheke.
Cantores Euphorionis again
Authors: Tuplin Christopher
Published: February 2009

Why cantoribus? The reference of the phrase cantores Euphorionis has been much discussed, by the author of this note among others. But what is the sense of cantores? The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Lewis and Short, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary variously classify Tusc. 3.45 as an instance of cantor in the special sense of ‘supporter’, ‘imitator’, or ‘eulogist’. Recently, however, W. Allen suggested that this may be to read too much into the word: ‘… cantor could well have the standard meaning of personal and private recitation of poetry. Since sometime cantare and legere have a semantic identity, however, it may be possible that the word cantores in hi cantores Euphorionis has a meaning no more momentous than that of lector. ’
Phaedrus and Folklore: an Old Problem Restated
Authors: Stinton T.C.W.
Published: February 2009

There was once a man in a certain village in the mountains, who made his living by making up stories, which he used to tell to the people of his village to while away their evenings. One day he went on a journey to a strange village far away in the plains, and there he saw a group of men sitting round another story-teller. Being curious to learn whether his rival was as good a story-teller as he was, he joined the group and listened. He was astonished to find that the story being told was one he had made up himself. So when the story-teller had finished, the man took him aside and said, ‘That was a good story, but it is my story, which I made up, and you must pay me money for it.’ ‘You are wrong,’ said his rival. ‘It is my story, for I made it up myself this morning’.
Notes on Seneca's Quaestiones Naturales
Authors: Bailey D. R. Shackleton
Published: February 2009

‘In spite of the efforts of scholars to improve matters, the condition of Seneca's text remains in many places most uncertain or quite irrecoverable. Again and again one has to be content with conjectures which, while often giving the general sense of a passage, must not be taken as certainly Seneca's words’ (Corcoran).

1. praef. 5 o quam contempta res est homo, nisi supra humana surrexerit! quam diu cum affectibus colluctamur, quid magnifici facimus, etiam si superiores sumus? portenta vincimus: quid est cur suspiciamus nosmet ipsos, quia dissimiles deterrimis sumus? Traditional punctuation: ‘… quid magnifici facimus? etiam si superiores sumus, portenta vincimus’
Annals 14.26 And The Armenian Settlement Of A. D. 60
Authors: Barrett A. A.
Published: February 2009

additum et praesidium mille legionarii, tres sociorum chohortes duaeque equitum alae, et quo facilius novum regnum tueretur, pars Armeniae, ut cuique finitima, Pharasmani Polemonique et Aristobulo atque Antiocho parere iussae sunt. Corbulo in Syriam abscessit, morte Ummidii legati vacuam ac sibi permissam.
Ammianus Marcellinus 26.4.5–6
Authors: Tomlin R.S.O.
Published: February 2009

Hoc tempore velut per universum orbem Romanum, bellicum canentibus bucinis, excitae gentes saevissimae, limites sibi proximos persultabant. Gallias Raetiasque simul Alamanni poputabantur; Sarmatae Pannonias et Quadi; Picti Saxonesque et Scotci, et Attacotti Brittanos aerumnis vexavere continuis; Austoriani Mauricaeque aliae gentes, Africam solito acrius incursabant; Thracias et diripiebant praedatorii globi Gothorum. Persarum rex manus Armeniis iniectabat, eos in suam dicionem ex integro vocare vi nimia properans, sed iniuste, causando, quod post Ioviani excessum, cum quo foedera firmarat et pacem, nihil obstare debebit, quo minus ea recuperaret, quae antea ad maiores suos pertinuisse monstrabat.
Melica
Authors: West M. L.
Published: February 2009

The context shows that the intention of the lines was to bring out the surpassing beauty of a certain girl and its value to the chorus as a whole. When the Pleiades rise up the sky, they are followed by a star that far outshines them all: Sirius. In Alcman's image, then, the Pleiades should correspond to the chorus and Sirius to the girl. The point of opdpiaiis that the comparison is not chosen at random, but suggested by something to be seen during the current ceremonies: the Pleiades rise up the sky before dawn when we carry the plough, with Sirius down below them, and they seem like a rival group.

There is no reference to Ortheia, and no rival chorus. We may translate: ‘For the Pleiades range themselves against us, before dawn, as we bear the plough through the ambrosial night, bringing Sirius up with them as they do.’
Ethiopians
Authors: Nadeau J. Y.
Published: February 2009

It was natural and inevitable that his two Aethiopias, in the eastern and western extremities of the world, should be identified with the countries of the two dark-skinned peoples in the Far East and the Far West of the Ancient World: India and Mauretania.

There was the difficulty that the real Aethiopia was in Africa, neither in the Far East nor in the Far West. Serious writers on geography tried to reconcile Homer and the geographical facts.

I wish to excerpt from Strabo three theories concerning Aethiopia and the Aethiopians which will then be used to elucidate passages in Latin literature.
Emendations of Seneca
Authors: Bailey D. R. Shackleton
Published: February 2009

10. 2. lugentem timentemque custodire solemus, ne solitudine male utatur.

Reynolds does not mention Haupt's conjecture amentemque, which is certainly on the right lines. Bereaved persons may need watching because in the violence of their grief they may do themselves an injury (cf. Ben. 2. 14. 2 ut frigidam aegris negamus et lugentibus ac sibi iratis ferrum), and the same applies to madmen (cf. Macer, Dig. 1. 18. 14 nam custodes furiosis non ad hoc solum adhibentur ne quid perniciosius ipsi in se moliantur, sed sqq.) or to anyone suspected of suicidal inclinations (cf. Sen. Contr. 3. 5 minantem sibi ipsi (sc. filiam) custodio). It does not apply to persons afraid; they may sometimes be glad of company, but do not require surveillance. My only doubt is whether amentem, seldom used of actual insanity, is the right word. Perhaps dementem or furentem, which makes a better match with the participle lugentem.
On the Leidensis of Tacitus
Authors: Goodyear F. R. D.
Published: February 2009

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to comment on certain remarks of E. Koestermann, and to examine briefly some passages adduced by K. Wellesley as evidence for the alleged independence of the Leidensis (hereafter L).

In a paper in CQ N.S. XV (1965), 299–322, I attempted to demonstrate by various arguments that the readings of L are not such as to support the claim that this manuscript has authority independent of M. Those arguments may be summarized as follows: that the majority of L's readings fall into a pattern of systematic normalization, that they give virtually no help in solving really deep corruptions, that L is particularly unreliable in transmitting proper names, that many readings of L show clear signs of being derived from M, that few (if any) of the good readings in L could not have been extracted from the corrupt text of M, and that other fifteenth-century manuscripts of Tacitus contain good corrections, not inferior to corrections found in L. No defender of L has yet, as far as I know, answered the arguments I put forward, and E. Koestermann has not even understood them, for he writes as follows (vol. iii of his commentary on the Annals [Heidelberg, 1967], p. 21): ‘[Goodyear] legt den Finger darauf, daß die abweichenden Lesarten in L in ihrer Diktion stärker ciceronischen Charakter tragen, demnach eher als Konjekturen zu verstehen seien. Aber dies Argument ist nicht durchschlagend, da die späteren Annalenbücher … eine gemässigtere Tendenz aufweisen und damit näher an Cicero heranrücken.’
Tacitus, Germania 36.1
Authors: Gilmore G. D.
Published: February 2009

The meanings collected by Mr. Lee (CQ 1968, 382 f.) seem very hard to extract from the Latin, neither do they seem to reflect the author's meaning. Surely the sense of the chapter is:

The Cherusci ruined themselves with a long peace … when it comes to a fight, moderation and justice are … For example, the Cherusci were once virtuous and just, but now are called idle and foolish, and the success of the Chatti who conquered them has become prudence.
Megarons and ΜΕΓΑΡΑ: Homer and Archaeology
Authors: Knox Mary O.
Published: February 2009

This paper is primarily an attempt to study the Homeric evidence on houses, particularly on the , in relation to the relevant remains. The reverse procedure, illuminating the archaeological evidence by references to Homer, is a hazardous one, as we shall see. It is often unclear just what is represented by the descriptions in the poems, and what period, if any, the things described belong to. I shall be concerned with these questions here. Are the houses in the poems Mycenaean: genuine traditions from the period in which the stories are set? Or are they Geometric: contemporary? Or a memory of some time in between? Or a mixture? We know so little about the development of the epic tradition that any possible source of information is worth pursuing.
The Foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy
Authors: Cawkwell G. L.
Published: February 2009

It is notorious that Xenophon omitted all notice of the foundation of the Second Athenian Confederacy, and alluded to Athens' alliances in the 370s so sparingly that if the Hellenica was the only evidence for the period it would hardly be possible to infer the existence of the Confederacy. All that could be said would be that the raid of Sphodrias so embittered the Athenians (5. 4. 63) that they joined with the Thebans in resisting Sparta (5. 4. 34), rinding in the course of the war the allies who mysteriously appeared in the account of the Peace of 372/1 (6. 3. 19) and who probably included the Corcyraeans (5. 4. 66). By contrast, Diodorus (15. 28 and 29) was explicit, and the best modern account of the foundation, that of Accame, is rightly attentive./
Terence, Adelphoe 155–9
Authors: Rosivach V. J.
Published: February 2009

To whom is Aeschinus speaking? Editors in general follow Eugraphius (ad 156–7) and have Aeschinus address his lines to the psaltria. According to this interpretation, it would be the psaltria who anxiously looks back (cf. quid respectas?, 157); since Sannio is the only person on stage whom the girl would have reason to fear, the leno would have to be standing behind her, and hence must have followed the psaltria (and Aeschinus and Parmeno who are escorting her) on to the stage.
Γ and the Miniatures of Terence
Authors: Grant John N.
Published: February 2009

There is an almost overwhelming mass of material available to the scholar who wishes to investigate the history of the text of Terence's plays. The manuscripts themselves number over 450 and of these over 100 belong to the period 800-c. 1300. No one, however, has undertaken a comprehensive recension of even the older group of medieval manuscripts. One reason for this is that the extent to which contamination has occurred makes classification extremely difficult, another is that it is unlikely that the laborious task of examining and studying so many manuscripts will produce much new evidence for the text itself. Many of the corruptions which survive in the plays probably arose at an early stage in the tradition and prior to the archetype of the manuscripts which have been used by past editors. Any marked advance in the constitution of the text would seem to depend on the discovery of a manuscript which belonged to a different tradition.
Pausanias and the Stymphalian Birds
Authors: Ling R. J.
Published: February 2009

‘In Stymphalos there is also an old sanctuary of Stymphalian Artemis. The image is of wood, mostly gilded. On the roof of the temple there are also representations of the Stymphalian birds. It was difficult to discern clearly whether they were made of wood or plaster, but my examination suggested that they were of wood rather than plaster.’

Pausanias' reference to the Stymphalian birds of the temple at Stymphalos was taken by the German scholar, Bliimner, to indicate that stucco reliefs were produced by the Greeks; and, despite the caution of Miss E. L. Wadsworth, 3 the inference that plaster was used for architectural sculptures of some form in Classical (or even pre-Classical) Greece has clearly been accepted by M. Cagiano de Azevedo and N. Bonacasa in the two great Italian encyclopedias of art.
Moral Values in the Age of Thucydides
Authors: Creed J. L.
Published: February 2009

Thucydides describes Antipho (8. 68. 1) as ‘inferior to no one of his time in and more capable than any of initiating ideas and giving expression to them’. What does he mean here by? Does it refer to ability? or does it refer to courage and consistency of principle? and in either case how are we to relate this description of Antipho to Thucydides description of Nicias (7. 86. 5) as less worthy than any other Greek of the historian's day to meet with the misfortunes that he did?
Sceparnio's ‘Raincoat’ in Plautus, Rudens 516
Authors: Bradshaw A. T. Von S.
Published: February 2009

What is the dry garment which Sceparnio offers to the sea-soaked Charmides? First of all, there is doubt about the spelling of the word. The Palatine tradition is tigillum, though T has tixillum; the Ambrosian palimpsest is provokingly defective at this point and Studemund was unable to determine whether the vowel is e or i. Since the beginning of the sixteenth century editors have chosen to print tegillum, being influenced by notes preserved in the collections of two grammarians—Nonius and Paulus. I quote these from Lindsay's Teubner editions.
Lucretius' Elephant Wall
Authors: Borthwick E. K.
Published: February 2009

In an article1 entitled Lucrèce et les éléphants, Professor Ernout has referred to recent archaeological evidence that in palaeolithic times the skeletons of mammoths were used in the construction of primitive habitations, and observes that the well-known lines of Lucretius. 532 ff. about India being so prolific inelephants that the whole land ‘milibus e multis vallo munitur eburno’ mayrefer not to anything legendary (as Bailey and others had supposed), nor to themilitary use of elephants in large numbers for frontier defence, but to a recognitionof the fact that even in later times ‘les Indiens avaient pu conserver leurmode de vie et utiliser avec ses défenses d'éléphant le système de protectioninvente par leurs ancêtres, ou simplement conserver ces gigantesques os demammouths’, etc.
Readings in Propertius
Authors: Skutsch Otto
Published: February 2009

Normally, if A knows B, B knows A, and ‘Lake Garda knows me’ is a poetic way of saying ‘I know Lake Garda’. The exchange of subject and object elevates diction and sentiment, but it can also help with the metre, especially where nouns such as gloria. and femina are concerned. Thus in 1.8. 46 the poet says ista meam norit gloria canitiem when in strict logic he should have said istam mea norit gloriam canities. Similarly here what he really wants to says is qua dum iter faciam feminam nullam norim. He must have been aware that the relationship is reciprocal, and something like oblitusque mearum, obliuiscendus et illis may well have been in his mind. But his main desire was to forget and not to know anything of women any more.
Critical Notes on Galen's De Venae Sectione Adversus Erasistrateos Romae Degentes [K XI 187–249]
Authors: Kotrč Ronald F.
Published: February 2009

The treatise was in origin a polemic against the Erasistrateans in Rome whom Galen found to be in opposition to his own views. It is of interest not only for Galen's views on venesection but also for the fragments of the writings of Erastistratus contained in it. The text has not yet appeared in a modern critical edition. The Kühn edition of 1826 is the most recent, but Kühn did not go beyond the work of the Renaissance editors in dealing with the numerous corruptions of the text. The emendations proposed below are occasioned by the want of a satisfactory reading anywhere in the tradition.
Stesichorus'Geryoneisand its Folk-tale Origins
Authors: Davies Malcolm
Published: February 2009

‘More light is thrown on the poetic art of Stesichorus by the papyrus-text of hisGeryoneisthan by all his other fragments together.’ This verdict continues to be as true now as when it was first enunciated. But we are also in the fortunate position of being able to infer much of value about what we may term the pre-history of the legend which the poet took as the basis for his composition. And a key document within this process turns out to be a text that is not preserved upon papyrus, that is not, indeed, included as part of any edition of the poet, and which has been the object of some very serious misconceptions. The relevant section consists of a phrase only three words long, but it is difficult to underestimate their importance, once they are rightly understood.
Euripides, Medea 926–31
Authors: Dyson M.
Published: February 2009

The above is the text of Medea 922–33 and a selection of the critical apparatus from the Oxford text edited by J. Diggle. In his discussion of the variant readings at 926 Diggle leaves open the choice between θήσομαι and θήσω. It seems to me worth noticing that an old proposal of Theodor Ladewig to transpose 926–8 and 929–31, which has in any case much to commend it, has a bearing on the solution of this problem.
The Virtues of Socratic Ignorance
Authors: Mackenzie Mary Margaret
Published: February 2009

Plato's Socrates denies that he knows. Yet he frequently claims that he does have certainty and knowledge. How can he avoid contradiction between his general stance about knowledge (that he lacks it) and his particular claims to have it?

Socrates' disavowal of knowledge is central to his defence in theApology. For here he rebuts the accusation that he teaches – and thus corrupts – the young by telling the jury that he cannot teach just because he knows nothing. Hence his disavowal of knowledge is important to Socrates. Why does he make this claim? And how then can he justify engaging in any philosophical activity at all?
The Sacrifice of Palinurus
Authors: Nicoll W. S. M.
Published: February 2009

The account of the death of Palinurus at the end ofAen.5 raises to a higher level of importance a figure who has previously seemed very much a minor character in theAeneid. This is achieved partly by the narrative brilliance of Virgil's account of his destruction by Somnus, and partly also by the atmosphere of solemn mystery which surrounds his fate. This solemn note is first struck in the passage which directly prepares the way for Palinurus' death. AtAen.5.779 Venus, anxious that Juno's wrath may still prevent the safe arrival of Aeneas in Italy, appeals for help to Neptune. He reassures her. Aeneas will arrive safely. There is, however, one condition:

unus erit tantum amissum quem gurgite quaeres;

unum pro multis dabitur caput. (5.814–15)
Scenes from the Later Wanderings of Odysseus
Authors: Edwards M. J.
Published: February 2009

That the most poetic of all the Greek philosophers should also be the severest judge of the poets was a perpetual embarrassment to his disciples and an invitation to enemies who could never have found their way into the difficulties of his thought. At the hands of Colotes, an early Epicurean, Plato became the butt of his own asperities; the allegorist Heraclitus, showing equal contempt for Plato and for ‘the Phaeacian Epicurus’, found that philosophy lent itself to vices for which the Iliad and the Odyssey had no name. Proclus, in his Commentary on the Republic, has the task of reconciling Homer with Plato, and of showing that the mythopoeic faculty is an instrument of the profoundest thought in both.
A Medical Theory and the Text at Lactantius, Mort. persec. 33.7 and Pelagonius 347
Authors: Adams J. N.
Published: February 2009

It would be a mistake to attempt to identify in modern terms the disease of Galerius described so graphically by Lactantius, Mort. 33 (cf. the similar description at Eus. H.E. 8.16). Consumption by lice or worms, if not genital ‘gangrene’, was a typical end for a tyrant or the impious, and there must be an element of literary exaggeration in Lactantius' account. But whatever one makes of the nature of the illness, Lactantius did set out to give the passage a scientific plausibility by his use of technical medical phraseology, and by an allusion to a medical theory at 33.7. Recognition of this theory allows one to settle the text at one point, where editors have failed to agree. There is also a second place in the chapter where familiarity with medical Latin points one towards the solution of a textual problem.
Conington's First Emendation
Authors: West M. L.
Published: February 2009

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.’
Turning the Tables: Various, Virgil and Lucan
Authors: Dewar Michael
Published: February 2009

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.
Epicurus, Priapus and the Dreams in Petronius
Authors: Kragelund Patrick
Published: February 2009

[Lichas] ‘videbatur mihi secundum quietem Priapus dicere: “Encolpion quod quaeris, scito a me in navem tuam esse perductum”.’ exhorruit Tryphaena et ‘putes’ inquit ‘una nos dormiisse; nam et mihi simulacrum Neptuni, quod Bais  tetrastylo notaveram, videbatur dicere: “in nave Lichae Gitona invenies”.’ ‘hinc scies’ inquit Eumolpus ‘Epicurum hominem esse divinum, qui eiusmodi ludibria facetissima ratione condemnat.’ <*> ceterum Lichas ut Tryphaenae somnium expiavit: ‘quis’ inquit ‘prohibet navigium scrutari, ne videamur divinae mentis opera damnare?’

(Petr.Sal. 104.1–4)

Priapus and Epicurus have frequently been claimed to be major influences, each in their particular way, on the plot and composition of theSatyrica.
Filiaster: Privignus or ‘Illegitimate Child’?
Authors: Watson P.
Published: February 2009

The term filiaster (fem. filiastra), though quite unknown in classical Latin literature, occurs with reasonable frequency in epitaphs from the 2nd century A.D. onwards. It is generally defined as the every-day equivalent of privignus/-a (= stepson, stepdaughter), and it is this Vulgar word which comes down into the Romance languages (e.g. Italian figliastro).