To the editor of a classical text manuscripts are useful as they can be induced to yield the truth. The purpose of this article is purely practical: to discuss in moderate compass, though in greater detail than an O.G.T. preface seems to demand, how the manuscripts of these poems can be used to find out what Ovid wrote. His text has been transmitted to us in circumstances which defy the rigid application of this or that ‘method’ of recension; and his editors will sometimes be wise to recognize the limitations of the evidence and to cultivate a robust indifference to unnecessary detail.

I take this opportunity of correcting a particularly reprehensible error of my own on p. 140 of my edition of these poems. At A.A. 1. 730 read ‘…hoc multri †non ualuisse† putant’; and at 11. 3-4 of the critical apparatus read ‘equidem multi <s> utique’ eqs. In other words, the manuscripts are unanimous in offering multi. I hope that Dr. Lenz will be glad to have this evidence of our common humanity (Maia xiii [1961], 131).

Among the Greek manuscripts in the Earl of Leicester's library at Holkham, which were recently acquired by the Bodleian Library throuth the generosity of the Dulverton Trust, is a volume containing eight of Aristophanes' plays. This manuscript (no. 88, formerly no. 269) is not included in the list of Aristophanes' manuscripts compilied by J. W. White, and it seems that no editor has ever consulted it. The object of this paper is to describe the manuscript, which will be called L, to prove that it is an almost complete copy of the Triclinian edition of Aristophanes,

In this passage transposition is surely necessary, as Leo saw. The only verb which can be supplied for Sarmata in 1. 71 is celant; but whereas the Hyrcanian forests may hide Diana's prey, the nomad Sarmatian can scarcely be said to do so; Sarmata requires some verb like nouit (68). Leo put 1. 71 after 1. 68. But in is not easy to see how uacuis …campis fell to two lines later. The transposition would be more easily explicable if Seneca, after 1. 66, wrote 69–70, then 67, 68, 71, i.e.

In an article (C.Q. xli [1947], 73 ff.) based on an unpublished paper by Professor Cornford, Mr. I. M. Glanville returned to the suggestion that the words at the beginning of Chapter 11 of the Poetics (1452a23), which are part of the definition of peripeteia, refer back to the phrase (52a4), thereby raising the question whose expectation it is to which events turn out contrary, that of the audience or of the characters in the play.

The version given above is from Murray's Oxford text: the recent Budé text of Chapouthier concurs in accepting Kirchhoff's transposition. Other editors, such as Paley and Weil, have also given their approval to this proposed alteration, though Biehl regards it as superfluous. Most commentators are agreed, however, in considering that the choice must lie between the traditional line-order and Kirchhoff's transposition: few regard the papyrus line-order as either probable or even possible.

In a recent paper Mr. Balsdon has condemned the ‘political barrenness of Cicero's thought and the thought of his political friends’. The speech pro Sestio, we are told, with its stress on otium, implies ‘an acceptance of the existing political and social conditions, of what Cicero describes as otiosae dignitatis … fundamenta (98), which the principes must protect and defend’. Defence of these was ‘a placid acceptance of the existing régime’ and the appeal for otium ‘the retort of Maître Pangloss that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds’.

It is generally agreed that the Topics is one of Aristotle's earliest works. But after saying this most writers are unwilling to commit themselves any further and discuss the work, if they discuss it at all, with a vagueness about dating that leads them to do it less than justice. Part of the difficulty, no doubt, lies in the fact that the Topics consists of a central, early, core, surrounded by later additions, and cannot therefore be dealt with as a whole. The suggestions about its date that I wish to make now are concerned solely with what I take to be the original Topics—or such part of it as remains—which I believe can be delimited almost exactly.

It is not certain when or by whom and were first technically distinguished as genus and species. The distinction does not appear in Plato's extant writings, whereas Aristotle seems to take it for granted in the Topics, which is usually regarded as among his earliest treatises. In his dialogues Plato seems able to use interchangeably to denote any group or division in a diairesis, including the group that is to be divided.

The role and precise significance of Intelligible Matter in the philosophy of Plotinus has been neglected or dismissed with many questions unanswered. In view of the fact that, unless this role can be properly understood, the whole doctrine of the procession of the Second Hypostasis must remain mysterious, this paper is intended to shed light on two important aspects of that Hypostasis: the nature of Intelligible Matter itself and the relation of that Matter to the Forms.

Josephus' pamphlet commonly known under the title Contra Apionem makes rather interesting reading, not only because it represents a more mature stage in the author's stylistic evolution, which shows so many points worth considering, but also and chiefly because it gives us a direct insight into a vehement polemic in which the writer played a leading role.

It is generally held that Plutarch's authority in his Vita Agidis was Phylarchos and that, consequently, our knowledge of Agis' programme derives solely from the Phylarchean, pro-Spartan, and generally unreliable tradition. There is little doubt that Plutarch's biography of Agis is based on Phylarchos. However, our knowledge of the programme of Agis does not depend solely on the Phylarchean tradition.

Demosthenes prophesied1 that, unless Athens stopped Philip in the north, she would have to deal with him in Greece itself, and the events of 346 proved him right. Right in this much, he has been presumed right in general, and the policies of those he opposed have received only scant consideration before being dismissed as the selfish pursuit of peace by the rich, who were so blinded by their material interests that they could not see the real issues involved. It is the purpose of this article to question, from a purely military standpoint, the soundness of Demosthenes' policy.

J. Kaerst, following a suggestion made by Ranke, conjectured that Diodorus' source for Alexander, whom he identified with Clitarchus, derived information from the mercenaries who served Darius. This conjecture has been developed into an elaborate theory by Sir William Tarn, a theory that has found some favour. He holds that the ‘mercenaries' source’, which I shall henceforth call M, was Diodorus' ‘principal guide [my italics] down to Issus’, and also ‘largely used’ by Curtius (p. 71); from certain texts in Curtius Tarn infers (pp. 105–6) that M went down to Darius' death, and he thinks that till that point both Diodorus and Curtius continued to draw upon him, as well as upon other authorities.

ARCHAEOLOGYTHE Classical Spartans were noted for their austerity, which seemed already ancient to writers of the fifth century B.C. The early poetry and art of their country show a considerable aesthetic sense. This apparent contradiction has caused some students to conclude that the strict Lycurgan regimen was not introduced till the middle or even the end of the sixth century (when literature and art were dead or died) and that before that date Sparta had culturally been developing in much the same way as other important Greek states. The argument is unsound.

Few authors, I should suppose, get less expert treatment in this lexicon than Cicero, so far at least as his letters are concerned. That is largely because the editors chose to trust Tyrrell and Purser, to whom Cicero's Greek was no less full of pitfalls than his Latin. The following notes may be of help in the preparation of a tenth edition.

It is now generally agreed that the Satyricon was written in the age of Nero by the Emperor's Arbiter elegantiae. The view that it should be dated to the age of the Antonines has been reasserted since the war, and the work of scholars who have refuted it has produced several new arguments of value; notably in the matter of the economic and social background in the Satyricon. H. C. Schnur has recently restated the economic arguments for the Neronian date, with some new points, and with convincing force.

This article does not set out to cast doubts on the established textual basis of the bulk of Quintilian's Institutio, or on the history of the work's fortunes in the Middle Ages. What I say about these things will be unoriginal and, I hope, uncontroversial. My object, however, is to show that what is true of the bulk is not true of 10. 1. 46–131; and to fill in some details in the history of the tradition.

The editors allow me four corrections of Mr. Parry's remarks in C.Q. N.S. X (1960), 268–70. Mr. Parry observes (p. 268, n. 4): ‘Calder says that Jebb wanted to translate by him. That is not correct.’ But Mr. Parry has just said that exemplifies ‘the common “I know thee who thou art” construction’ and has endorsed the view of Brunck, ‘Est autem’ etc. Brunck is saying that is the proleptic subject of the verb which is he, sc. Oedipus, therefore does not mean her nor them but him whether or not the word ‘must be left out in translation’.