Herodotus' extension of tisis from a merely ethical principle to an encompassing law of nature is now widely recognized. The unjust expulsion of Demaratus from the Spartan kingship obtains its clear revenge from both Leotychidas and Cleomenes (6.72.1, 84.3). Hipparchus' vision of a giant prophet who announces the universal penalty for human injustice (5.56.1) embodies a statement of the ethical law which Herodotus sees operating in the realm of animals as well as of men: for any act of injustice one must pay the penalty, (3.109.2). Herodotus similarly analyses the Persians' aim at Salamis: they sought to force the Greeks to ‘pay t n e penalty’ for the Greek success at Artemision (8.76.2, ).

In the late nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth thematic resemblances to the Roman elegists in Paulus Silentiarius (and other late epigrammatists) were explained as the result of the poets' reliance on a common Hellenistic source – usually this was identified as the so-called ‘subjective Alexandrian love elegy’ – and this represented a departure from the views of earlier scholars such as Hertzberg and Postgate, who had maintained that Paulus knew and imitated the elegists. In recent years the pendulum has swung back (partly, perhaps, because the whole notion of a ‘subjective Alexandrian love elegy’ has been abandoned), and the prevailing opinion seems to be that the Roman elegists were known to Paulus. This is the view of, for instance, Giovanni Viansino in his edition of Paulus, of Elmar Schulz-Vanheyden in his important work on Propertius' relationship to Greek epigram, and of Hermann Beckby in his edition of the Greek Anthology. Recently, too, Gordon Williams has put forward a very strong case for earlier epigrammatists like Antipater and Crinagoras imitating the Augustan poets.

The general significance of Ovid's Apollo-Dapbne (Met. 1. 452 ff.) within its immediate context seems plain enough. Ovid's technique, as Otis remarks, is to set epic pretensions beside elegiac behaviour and thus to show a struggle between incompatible styles of life and poetry. Yet the episode still poses certain problems. These mainly concern the significance of the story within the wider context of the opening of Ovid's poem. One difficulty is hinted at by Otis himself. He observes that with the Apollo-Dapbne and Jupiter-10 (1. 568 ff.) Ovid has ‘deflated his divine prologue’. Yet elsewhere3 Otis remarks that in one sense the gap between the behaviour of the gods in the concilium deorum (1. 163 ff.) and their philandering in the Daphne and Io stories is very slight.

A. The Problem:

Since A. Gercke's fundamental work, there has been no complete reappraisal of the manuscript tradition of the Natural Questions, yet a reappraisal is long overdue. Gercke divided the manuscripts into two branches, Δ and Φ but this division has been seriously undermined from two quarters. First, H. W. Garrod questioned the status which Gercke assigned to Δ, arguing, quite rightly, that in every case where Δ has the truth against Φ, Δ's reading can reasonably be attributed to conjecture, which is known to be rife in Δ Certainly nothing is proved about Δ's integrity by the passages which Gercke adduced, such as the following (Δ's reading first):3

These notes, which are conservative more often than they are revolutionary, have originated from some reviews which I have recently written of books on Apuleius. I have found that the only way to preserve any consistency in the format is to open each note by citing the text I should prefer and then following that with a Latin apparatus criticus. The aim of the notes is generally only to shed light on the individual passages, to offer conversion or conviction, but some notes serve the rather larger purpose of bolstering a general view of the editors of Apuleius against some modern misconceptions.

Sextus Empiricus does not reveal anything of himself as distinct from ‘the Sceptic’ except in a passing and incidental way. He does not refer to his contemporaries, nor to his country, nor to any personal experiences, in such a way as to provide a definite picture of his life and times. The few references he makes to his involvement in the medical profession are as perplexing as they are enlightening. The only attachments which Sextus strongly identifies with in his extant writings are the demands of the Pyrrhonean philosophy.

The basis of this article is a reconsideration of some old and familiar problems about Aristophanes' early career. In the course of trying to supply firm solutions to these problems I hope also to present evidence for an early and inconspicuous stage in Aristophanes' development as a comic dramatist, and as a reflection on the resulting picture I shall make some general observations on ou understanding of the relationship between the various activities involved in the creation of a comic production in the fifth-century theatre. Practically all the material I shall deal with comes from the plays themselves, and I should state at the start that I both work with and hope to justify the principle that Aristophai disingenuousness does not normally operate where hard facts of chronology, law and theatrical conditions are concerned.