The so-called fourth book of Aristotle's Meteorologica is not about meteorological phenomena at all. It describes the formation out of the four elements of ‘homoeomerous’ substances, by which are meant minerals such as stones and metals, and organic substances like flesh, skin, and hair, and the changes they can undergo under the influence of heat, cold, and moisture. Most commentators, ancient and modern, have seen that it has very little to do with the first three books of the Meteorologica to which it is attached, and Alexander suggested (p. 179. 3) that it should be placed after the second book de Generation et Corruptione.

The most recent commentator on this line, D. R. Shackleton Bailey (Propertiana, p. 124), states that ‘spiritus is breath rather than odour’ and he has the support of some commentators, Marcilius, for example, who amends notus to motus, and Hertzberg, who takes it as sweet breath, citing Mart. 3. 65. 1. So also most translators (e.g. Phillimore—‘Look, there is no such heavy breathing at all in me anywhere as is usual when guilty paramours have met’): an exception is D. Paganelli who translates ‘aucun souffle, aucune odeur d'adultère’. However, the parallels cited by Shackleton Bailey are irrelevant to this situation: Afranius 243 (Ribbeck), Ach. Tat. 2. 37. 9, and Claud. Carm. Min. 29. 33 all refer to the period just before, during, or immediately after the sexual act (cf. Ov. A. A. 3. 803 Quod iuvet, et voces et anhelitus arguat oris). It is most unlikely that this is the case in Propertius' poem. Propertius has come to see if Cynthia has spent the night alone; it is not a question of catching her inflagrante delicto, but of finding some rival there or the evidence of his stay not yet removed (v. the opening line—Mane erat, 1. 23). Cynthia is indignant at her lover's suspicions and lest he should think that his rival had left earlier, she coarsely specifies the evidence that Propertius might expect to find, including spiritus admisso notus adulterio.

Seizure before trial is forbidden in an impending dispute about a free man or slave. But if a claimant anticipates judgement he is to be fined ten staters for seizing a free man, five for a slave, and he is ordered to release the seized person within three days (1. 1–7).

If this order for release is not obeyed, the offending party incurs another fine of a stater for a free man, a drachma for a slave, for each day until the order is obeyed, the judge deciding on oath about the time involved. If this offence is denied, the judge is to decide on oath, where there is no witness (ib 7–14).

Our texts of the two complete extant works of Gorgias (Helen and Palamedes) and of the two attributed, rightly or wrongly, to Alkidamas (Odysseus and On Sophists) are derived entirely from two manuscripts. The one generally known as A is the Cripps manuscript (Burney 95), now in the British Museum, which is a principal authority also for Antiphon, Andokides, Isaios, Lykourgos, and Deinarchos; it contains Helen, Palamedes, and Odysseus, but not On Sophists. The other, known as X, is the Palatine manuscript (Heidelberg 88), which is the principal manuscript of Lysias; it contains Helen Odysseus, and On Sophists, but not Palamedes.

No satisfactory treatment of the whole subject of jurisdiction in the Athenian Empire of the fifth century B.C. yet exists, and in this paper I make no attempt to provide a complete account. My purpose is twofold: to deal in some detail with certain specific problems, and to demonstrate that the most fruitful method of approach to the whole subject—perhaps, indeed, the only one which can reduce it to order–is to divide it up under three particular headings and to treat each of these separately. Only Part I will be included in the present issue of this journal; Parts II and III, with a brief Conclusion, will appear in a later issue.

It is obvious that A.P. attached importance to chronology and considered it his business to supply his sketch of Athienian constitutional development, at every stage, with such chronological indications as were available. Thus his account of Peisistratos (14 ff.) largely follows Herodotus (1. 59 ff.), but with the addition of a more detailed chronology of the tyrant's comings and goings (and some other matter derived from the Atthidographers). From the archonship of Solon to that of Xenainetos he has constructed what is evidently intended to be a continuous chronological chain, by marking the intervals between events.

When I read, rather belatedly, Professor Davison's article on Theognis 257–66 in C.R. ix (1959), 1–5, I found myself remembering somewhat uncomfortably that I have an article awaiting publication in Mnemosyne in which I present a new interpretation of Theognis 1209–16 as a griphos. Against Carriere, Davison remarks that it would be easier to accept 261–6 as a griphos ‘if there were any serious evidence for the prevalence of in the Theognidean corpus’ (p. 2); this is an eminently sane attitude and leaves the question open for later consideration. But lower on the same page E. Harrison's dictum that ‘sweeping emendations’ are ‘the last infirmity of exegesis’ (Studies in Theognis, p. 167) has given birth to a pronouncement that ‘recourse to riddles’ is one of two ‘penultimate infirmities of academic minds’. This is really too much. I have not yet acquired a fixation on this subject, but I am sufficiently impenitent to maintain that the griphos appears at least twice in the corpus, at 1209–16 and 261–6. I have no opinion on 257–60, which seems at any rate to be in its proper place.

This is the reading of M. presumably arose from a dittography ( for ). (Turnebus) has been generally accepted. The adverbial use of an adjective qualifying the subject of an imperative appears to be at least unusual; no examples are quoted (though this may be fortuitous) by Kühner–Gerth, i. 274–6. Robortello, followed by Tucker, preferred : but the earliest certain appearance of the adverb seems to be in Aristotle. I would propose : cf. Supp. 1015, Th. 34. This is no less satisfactory palaeographically, and the participle is demonstrably idiomatic Greek.

Dr. Jameson's editio princeps of his major discovery at Troizen (Hesperia, xxix [1960], 198–223) will long remain essential for the study of this document. The following jottings are largely footnotes to the rich material which he has collected. Their main preoccupation is linguistic, and I abstain from any attempt to fit the decree into its historical setting. The gap between 480 B.C. and our copy is so long that it is hardly to be expected that the authenticity of the decree will go unchallenged, and this exploration of some points in the language may help towards a decision.

The first question here is the interpretation of line 638. Burges wrote: ‘Constructio sic solvenda est: M. Parmentier in the Budé edition translates, ‘On ne souffre pas quand on n'a nul sentiment de ses maux’, likewise assuming that is doing double work. For this he compares Andromache 706 f., Electra, 383, and Orestes 393. None of these passages is in fact an example of how a negative can negative simultaneously a finite verb and a participle. But in any case, what is the subject of Burges supposed that a line was lost ; Parmentier does not explain his ‘On’.

The long-standing enigma of I.G. i. 115 (= Tod, G.H.I. 87) has been brought into the lime-light once more by two recent articles, ‘The Law Codes of Athens’ by Sterling Dow in Proc. Massachusetts Hist. Soc., vol. lxxi (1953–7, pub. 1959) and by E. Ruschenbusch in Historia, ix, Heft 2 (i960).

This enigma has many facets, but I only wish to deal here with one. It concerns the precise nature and purpose of the inscription and, in particular, the significance of the words l. 10. The preamble to the decree is quite specific.