I Agree with R. G. Austin, who in his recent paper (CQ, N.S. xviii (1968), 107 ff.) showed that Virgil did not write this proem to the Aeneid, and suggested (p. 115) that it was produced in the first half of the first century, perhaps prompted by the problem mentioned by Servius on A. I. I: ‘multi varie disserunt cur ab armis Vergilius coeperit.’ I wish here to comment briefly on the content of the lines.

(a) gracili

qui... carmen refers to the writing of the Eclogues. As Austin points out (p. 112), Virgil has gracilis only in E. 10. 70 ff., the conclusion of the whole of the Eclogues:

Haec sat erit, divae, vestrum cecinisse poetam,

dum sedet et gracili fiscellam texit hibisco,

Pierides…

In 191O Wilamowitz suggested that the account of the election of the first Magnesian officials (Laws 751 a–755 b) is a conflation of two originally separate sets of proposals. After long neglect his arguments have been resurrected, with one major modification and in more detail, by Morrow. I intend to argue that both commentators are fundamentally mistaken, and that, properly interpreted, the passage yields limited but valuable information about Plato's plans for coping with the problems of founding a state from scratch. These plans are not simply of theoretical interest: as D. A. Russell has remarked, the Laws is our best guide to the policies and practices of the constitutional advisers sent out by the Academy.

The literary legacy of Aramaic-speaking Christianity consists predominantly of ecclesiastical works—theological treatises (both original and translations), sermons, hymns, and the like; it is for the most part, one must admit, rather dull stuff. Distinguished from the rest, and of peculiar interest to classical students, are secular works, translated from the Greek, which include, apart from medical and scientific treatises, a handful of writings by Plutarch, Lucian, and Themistius. Baumstark suggests that the translator of these three Greek writers be identified as Sargis (died 536), a learned priest and ⋯ρχιατρός in Theodosiopolis, with a somewhat chequered ecclesiastical career (he changed sides in the christological controversy, starting out as a monophysite and ending up in the Chalcedonian camp), who is known as the translator of a number of philosophical and medical treatises. Sargis has his place in the history of thought, for it was in the first place through his Syriac translations that the Arabs became acquainted with Galen, whose works eventually assumed almost canonical status with them.

It is universally recognized that the Hymn to Ares stands apart from all the other poems in the Homeric collection, and that it was composed centuries later than any of those that can be assigned to a particular period with any degree of confidence. Many older scholars classed it or even printed it with the Orphic Hymns, which are transmitted together with the Homeric Hymns as well as with the hymns of Callimachus and Proclus. But the similarity with the Orphic Hymns is only superficial. It merely consists in the stylistic feature of accumulated epithets, a common characteristic of late hymns. There are three reasons for not lumping the Hymn to Ares with the very homogeneous Orphic series. First, the Orphic Hymns are courteous invocations of different gods to come to a ceremony described as τєλєτή or τєλєτταί, while the Hymn to Ares is an intensely personal prayer for the poet's own soul. Secondly, the Orphic collection already contains a hymn to Ares (65), and duplications are avoided. (There are a number of hymns, to Dionysus, but then he bears a different title in each case, Liknites, Trieterikos, etc.) Thirdly, in the Homeric hymn Ares is addressed as a planetary god. In the Orphic hymn to Ares, this aspect is totally absent, and the same is true of the hymns to Hermes, Aphrodite, Zeus, and Kronos.

The text as published runs:

The elegiacs on side (a) of this fragmentary piece of papyrus are identifiable as by Callimachus, probably from the Aetia, and these lines too are undoubtedly by the same author, and almost certainly from the same work. Verse 5 is a surprise, for it was thought until the discovery of this papyrus to be by Euripides; however the only source for this attribution is Stobaeus (Eel. 1. 3. 6), in whom it appears as the first line of a two-line quotation. It is not unusual in Stobaeus for two originally unconnected lines to be mistakenly combined (for further references and comments see John Barns, ‘A new Gnomologium (II)’, CQ N.s. i (1951), 18–19).

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.