The purpose of this note is to defend the following reading, offered by a minority of manuscripts, at Sat. 6.6.

Even if the evidence of the manuscripts showed merely that egregius… senes was an eleventh-century conjecture which gained a very moderate degree of acceptance, the reading would still have much to commend it.

Haec quae est a nobis prolata laudatio obsignata erat creta ilia Asiatica quae fere est omnibus nota nobis, qua utuntur omnes non modo in publicis sed etiam in privatis litteris quas cotidie videmus mitti a publicanis, saepe uni cuique nostrum.

Professor M. L. West has challenged the accepted reading (Reiske) and proposed (Philologus 117 (1973), 145). This makes for a disappointing antithesis, and Paley seems to have been right in pointing out that would be surprising as an object to tragic diction, at least, seems to use only pronouns, adjectives, or nouns which stand as internal accusatives etc.; fr. adesp.

In an important recent article T. C. W. Stinton reaffirmed the case that in Aristotle's Poetics, ch. 13, has a wide range of application. I do not wish to dispute the general conclusion of what seems to me a masterly analysis of the question but simply to discuss two areas where Stinton's argument may be thought defective–the interpretation of the examples given by Aristotle in Poetics 13, 5 3all and 53a2O–1 and the problem of the contradiction between 13, 53a13–15 and 14, 54a4–9.

In the latest edition of Liddell and Scott's Lexicon appears the entry, —, fantastic, Gloss.’’ No more information is given. Gloss, refers to the Corpus Glossariorum Latirtorum edited by G. Loewe, G. Goetz, and F. Schoell. (Leipzig, 1888–1923). If one consults that work, however, one finds that does not appear in it. Nor does it appear in Liddell and Scott's Lexicon before the new, revised edition of 1925.

Aristophanes, Lysistrate 256–65 ∼ 271–80 runs as follows. I print the muchdiscussed and frequently emended2 lines 260–65 ∼ 275–80 as they appear in the manuscripts (the strophe survives only in R) and testimonia, and shall argue that they are sound with the exception of 264, for which I suggest an emendation.

In his account of the Northern Sporades, Pliny names the islands of Iresia, Solymnia, Eudemia, and Nea as lying off the Gulf of Salonica, but gives no clue as to the individual identity of each island.

Most editors and commentators have acquiesced without enthusiasm in the reading in Creta religasset at 174, though Mynors in his Oxford text (1958) reverted to what had been the old vulgate in Cretam religasset (e.g. in Silvius' Delphin edition (Paris, 1685); Vulpius' (Padua 1737). If we read in Cretam, the sense must be ‘(Would that Theseus) had not untied his rope

The form (Ap. Rhod. 1.685) has lately caused controversy. It is traditionally interpreted as poetic for but O. Skutsch has denied that iota could be lost in this way, pointing out that instead it could be a correctly formed future cf. with a root ending in the laryngeal (my addition). M. Campbell rejects this, and rightly claims that ApoUonius borrowed the line from the Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo 528:

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).

One of the most widely accepted emendations in Lucretius has been the change by Lambinus in 2.289 of the manuscript reading res to mens. For instance, of the major editors since Lachmann only Bockemüller, Merrill in his 1917 edition, and Martin in his Teubner editions have printed res. Also, few emendations in Lucretius are of equal significance for Epicurean doctrine because, as will be shown, some conclusions of important recent scholarship depend on the acceptance of the reading mens.

The literary sources for the Flavian and Antonine periods of Roman history, it is a notorious and unhappy fact, where they exist at all, are infuriatingly fragmentary, frequently obscure, too frequently inaccurate or mendacious. Significant gaps still linger even in chronology; hence it can hardly occasion surprise that we are rarely permitted a glimpse of the political activity which preoccupied the emperors and Senate.

Professor Martin West's paper, titled ‘The Parodos of the Agamemnon’’, argues with characteristic learning and insight that Archilochus’’ fable of the fox and the eagle (frs. 174-81 West) was a major source for Aeschylus’’ description of the portent of the eagles and the pregnant hare in the parodos of the Agamemnon (108 ff.). The portent is vividly described by the chorus: two eagles, one black and one white behind feed upon a pregnant hare. Poetry is not real life, and Aeschylus’’ picture is not a naturalist's field-report. At the same time, an image's power increases in proportion to its precision, and I have no doubt that at some stage behind Aeschylus’’ description there was a personal sighting of a parallel incident by Aeschylus himself perhaps, or by Archilochus, or by an unknown figure who passed on his report. Fraenkel's commentary (p.69) avers that ‘precise zoological identification of the species of eagle named by Aeschylus must not be attempted.’’ This is a fair warning, but not for the reason advanced by Fraenkel here: the plumage variation among different birds of the same species, which makes the identification of large raptors in the wilds of Greece today a problem for even the most expert ornithologists. There are two better reasons. One will emerge in the course of this note. The other is that no ancient writer using the Greek language came at all near to the modern classification of eagle species native to Greece.

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.

This passage is discussed in AJPb 97 (1976), 252, by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, who rightly draws attention to the ‘absurdity’’ of exilii specie sepositos and observes that ‘Ausonius must be saying that the brothers were banished in fact, though not in name’’. Shackleton Bailey's solution is to replace exilii with bospitii, which gives excellent sense, but, even on the assumption of psychological error by a scribe, which is how Shackleton Bailey explains the corruption, may seem rather hard to credit. An easier solution might be to write auxilii for exilii: in appearance Constantine's brothers were being helped and protected, in reality confined in exile.

Manuscripts are listed in alphabetical order of library designation, and then, where necessary, in order of catalogue number. The date refers strictly to the cited folia or pages of the manuscript. Defective manuscripts are marked with an asterisk.