(I) In I910 the bookseller Hiersemann of Leipzig bought at Sotheby's a manuscript of Metamorphoses described as a ‘manuscript of the twelfth century, finely written on vellum, bound in oak boards, covered with stamped leathe’ it was one of the many manuscripts of Ovid owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Phillippicus 1038. Its whereabouts since 1910 are unknown. Also unknown are the whereabouts of Phillippicus 2709, a thirteenth-century manuscript of Metamorphoses.

It is well known that mitto comes to mean ‘put’ in late Latin and that it shows reflexes with this sense in the Romance languages (e.g. It. mettere, Fr. mettre, Sp. meter). But the nature of this semantic change has not been fully explained, nor has the relationship of the word with other placing-terms in Latin. E. Löfstedt has stated simply that it ‘takes over the meaning ot ponere’.2 But as pono itself remains common in all types of Latin, the question arises whether the two words did really come into conflict. It is the purpose of the first two sections of this article to show that for a considerable period pono and mitto occupied complementary places in a lexical system. This system exhibits a definite structure which remains unaltered from early Latin to at least the sixth century A.D., though its component terms undergo some changes. In section I pono and the words which in earlier Latin performed the functions later assumed by mitto will be discussed. In section I I we shall move on to mitto itself. It will be necessary to consider the nature and motivation of the transition ‘throwput’ as it appears in Latin.

If we reject τις, which appears only in derivative manuscripts, then the sentence is notable in the following ways. First, the position of τι—not that it separates ἕκαστος from ὑμν, but because (a) we expect it, if present at all, to appear as πρός ὃ τι … and (b) ἓαστός τι in itself is a conspicuously discordant juxtaposition—hence presumably the corruption to ἓαστός τις. Second, the sense: the sentence must surely mean not that each juryman has a criterion, but that each has a different criterion, that he would like to see satisfied.

Burnet's text (here printed) should be emended or repunctuated at three points. At d I we should follow Moreschini and with BT omit Proclus' γε: the unanimous voice of our best manuscripts must be allowed to drown the unreliable Neoplatonist. At e 2, as I shall argue, should be excised. And at e 2–3 the clause is to be attributed to Aristoteles, as Brumbaugh (tentatively supported by Stokes) advocates. This attribution gives a better and more typical question and answer sequence, although I can find no other example where Aristoteles ventures sua sponte (but he often enough—if less often than when prompted—volunteers e.g. 137 c 9, 138 c 6, 142 c 5, 145 a I).

Alexander's satrapal appointments in Syria have long been a focal point of scholarly dissension, for the relevant passages in the ancient sources are uniformly inconsistent and sometimes disconcertingly corrupt. A running debate continued until 1935, when Oscar Leuze presented a monumental survey of the ancient evidence together with exhaustive refutation of the hypotheses advanced by earlier scholars. Since then the problems of Syria under Alexander have been left virtually undisturbed, which is a pity. In the first place, Leuze's treatment is not impregnable. His massive discussion tends to convince through sheer accumulation of argument rather than by the cogency of its logic, which can often be faulted.

In his magisterial Religion und Kultus der Römer Georg Wissowa made the statement that a Roman man or woman seeking a priesthood had, among other things, to be free of physical defects. This has since become the communis opinio, sometimes in the form in which Wissowa expressed it, sometimes involving rather the idea that a priest or priestess could be deposed for such defects acquired after entry into the priesthood, and sometimes embracing both concepts simultaneously.

The Hellenistic epigrammatist does not break off at this point, but proceeds to state that Pisistratus collected the corpus of the songs of Homer—an appropriate tribute, in his view, to a ‘golden scion of Athens if, as is claimed, we Athenians founded Smyrna’ (Smyrna was commonly thought to be the native town of Homer). The ‘Pisistratid recension’ of Homer is an extremely vexed and unfashionable question in Homeric criticism and does not concern us here. More to the present point is the elementary logical mistake which is made in the lines which are quoted above. Pisistratus had three periods of tyranny, and is said to have been driven out three times, and to have been restored (or perhaps to have come to power) three times. The error is a transparent one, common in juvenile puzzles. Pisistratus died naturally in old age at the end of his third spell of power (probably 528/7 B.C.) and so was exiled only twice. The final exile of his son Hippias (511/10) would be the third occasion completing the chain of coup and expulsion

The precise nature of the relationship between Lucan's epic De Bello Civili and Petronius' essay on the same theme1 has proved one of the most intractable and perplexing interpretative problems of the Satyrica. Some have regarded Petronius' version as a straightforward parody of Lucan's; others have adopted the almost contrary view that Petronius is offering a ‘fair copy’ designed to show how Lucan might have treated his material in a more appropriate (i.e. more Virgilian and traditional) manner.

In the preface to the Anabasis Arrian explains his reliance on Aristobulus (as well as Ptolemy) because he took part in Alexander's campaigns and yet wrote after Alexander's death, when he was under no constraint or hope of gain that might lead him to distort the truth. It is in fact clear from 7. 18. 5 that Aristobulus was still writing his history after the battle of Ipsus in 301. According to Ps.-Lucian, Macrobioi 22, he stated at the beginning of his work that he was already in his eighty-fourth year; since numbers are easily subject to copying errors, it may be that the author of the Macrobioi was himself deceived by a manuscript corruption, and in any case, as the date of Aristobulus' birth is unknown, this testimony casts little light on the date of the history.

It is perhaps unnecessary to defend the principle that mythical exempla in ancient poetry are not merely decorative, but serve in the expression of ‘significant emotion’ it would still be welcome to see it more frequently and more coherently applied. This paper tries to isolate one characteristic use of myth in four poems from Hellenistic and Roman authors; the last section summarizes its conclusions and briefly sets them in a context of literary history.

During the entire period of the creative activity of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, tragic playwrights were required to enter the dramatic competition at the Dionysia with tetralogies consisting of three tragedies followed by a satyr play. This last was a comparatively short mythological travesty, a , 2 that received its name because its chorus is invariably composed of satyrs:3 comical half-men, half-beasts who regularly embody a wide range of shortcomings but nevertheless are possessed of a mysterious fund of knowledge and wisdom.

In the year 1970, during excavations at Aphrodisias in Caria, fragments of an inscription were discovered, beginning with the words: BICHARACTA Mİ [—, The editors suggest this should be read: BICHARACTA MONETA. The inscription may be dated to the year 301, and is part of an edict of the Emperor Diocletian dealing with his monetary reforms. The editors further suggest that ‘Bicharacta moneta’ perhaps refers to ‘the new coinage of A.D. 294, created by a grand recoinage (i.e. second striking) of old pieces’

This passage has long embarrassed interpreters, and many, beginning with Kock, have condemned it as spurious (generally bracketing 1460–6). But this would mean that Aeschylus' only answer to Dionysus' question (1436) ‘what <way to> safety have you for the city?’ would be, in effect, ‘none’ (1458 ) : and this would hardly justify the general confidence expressed in the final scene (1501 f., 1530 ff.) that Aeschylus will in fact be able to save the city. The most recent editor, Stanford, rightly rejects the idea of interpolation here.

The romance of Joseph and Asenatk (JA), a work almost entirely neglected by classicists, was extremely popular for many centuries and translated into many languages—Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian, Roumanian, Latin (twice), Middle English, Coptic, and Ethiopian. Yet the first complete edition of the Greek text was not published until 1890, and Batiffol's editio pritnceps (‘Le Livre de la Priére d' Aséneth’, Studia Patristica i-ii (1889–90) does not inspire confidence.Batiffol treated JA as a product of the late fourth or fifth century A.D., though he soon conceded an earlier date, convinced by the arguments of various reviewers that it reflected the missionary outlook characteristic of Judaism of the late Hellenistic and early Imperial period.

Jupiter, in his prophetic speech to Venus (Aen. i. 257 ff.) foretells that Aeneas will rule for three years in Italy, that Ascanius will complete the thirty years of rule at Lavinium, and that he will then found Alba, under whose kings' rule 300 years will elapse until the birth of Romulus. The sequence 3–30–300 is unmistakeable: tertia (265) and temaque (266) … triginta (269) … ter centum (272); no effort is required to see that the total of these numbers is 333 and the total is clearly more significant than the antiquarian associations of the individual numbers