Athenian history in the fifth century B.C. has, on the whole, become a battlefield where only the trained hoplite ran compete. By contrast, the period from Cleisthenes down to 480 is one where the mere peltast still has an honest chance. There are—at least in internal history—practically no facts known, and ingenuity and imagination have been limited only by what the audience has been ready to believe. These limits have traditionally been generous. And the state of affairs has tended to permit and even to encourage what philosophers call the ‘conspiracy theory’ of history. This, of course, has many aspects; but the one that interests us here may be formulated as follows: ‘All historical events happen because someone planned that they should happen; and all historical events happen just as someone planned that they should happen, unless they are upset by the counter-plans of someone else. It is the duty of the historian to elucidate these plans and counter-plans, and in doing so he is explaining the events.’ Students of ancient history have always tended to adhere to this theory, perhaps because they are exceptionally rational people, or perhaps because most of them, in the past, grew up in an atmosphere like that of The Masters, where this theory can most profitably be applied. But in any case: the fewer the attested facts, the easier—and the more tempting—to combine them all in a grand design, successful or (at the worst) frustrated. And nowhere do these conditions more obviously obtain than in the period I have mentioned. The plans and counter-plans of Cleisthenes, Miltiades, Aristides and Themistocles fill the pages of our standard works with such exciting goings-on that the student ceases to be receptive to the still, small voice recalling him to the extent of our evidence. It is the purpose of this paper to examine one very small item of evidence, well known to us all, and to make as little as possible of it.

If in New Comedy someone opens the door of a stage-house from within to come out, a person already on the stage often describes this occurrence by a phrase including the verb ψοφεϊν, such as άλλα την θύραν ψοφεϊ τις έξιών (Perik. 126), or έψόφηκεν ή θύρα, προέρχεται τις (Pap. Hibeh 6.1). Owing to an odd ancient explanation, the derivation and exact signification of these expressions have long been doubtful, in spite of their frequency and stereotyped form. Today most scholars agree on their meaning, but the case has not been put as cogently and extensively as it could have been, so that some uncertainty still remains. Therefore it seems reasonable to undertake a fresh consideration, which is to set out the whole material (considerably augmented since 1958), point out the problems, and show what evidence is available to tackle them.

Under this heading I wish to raise two points connected with the tradition about Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. (i) Did ‘Cunctator’ become a cognomen of Fabius and, if so, when? (ii) How far did Ennius’ famous eulogy of Fabius penetrate subsequent Latin literature?

The metrical technique of Catullus in his elegiac verse has not yet received the detailed examination that has been given to the usage of Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid by Platnauer in his Latin Elegiac Verse (Cambridge, 1951). Robinson Ellis in the Prolegomena to his Commentary on Catullus (Oxford, 1876) introduced this part of his subject in these words: ‘If we examine the metrical peculiarities of these elegies, we shall find their defects to lie mainly in the too exclusive imitation of Greek models.’ He then goes on to speak of the Greek practice of allowing the thought to run on uninterruptedly without necessarily a pause at the end of the couplet, and of the Greek freedom in admitting words of any length in the last place in the pentameter: ‘in these respects the Catullian elegy is completely Greek.’ In the Introduction to the Select Elegies of Propertius (Macmillan, 1884) by J.P. Postgate there is a brief reference to what is described as the ‘carelessness’ of Catullus about the ending of the pentameter, and a further censure is implied in the mention of ‘his extraordinary number of elisions’; in short, Postgate describes the elegiac of Catullus as ‘still semi-barbarous’. Clearly, we have a problem here, since it is hard to reconcile the two descriptions of verse which in some respects is ‘completely Greek’ and in others ‘semi-barbarous’.

Ancient readers of this stanza perhaps usually took Tarquinius as being the last of Rome’s seven kings and Cato as the praetorian governor of Utica who died by his own hand after Julius Caesar’s defeat of the Senate’s forces at Thapsus in 49. Some found L. Tarquinius ‘Superbus’ unsuitable company for the other Roman worthies listed by Horace and suggested that L. Tarquinius ‘Priscus’, the fifth king, was meant. Richard Bentley created worry in modern readers by pointing out the oddity of Cato’s position in Horace’s list—after three reges and before eight Republican principes—and by arguing that Cato’s presence in a poem designed to compliment Julius Caesar’s adopted son was even odder. In a recent volume of this journal, A. Treloar defended Cato’s presence against the efforts of Bentley and others to extrude him by emendation and made a new suggestion about the identity of Tarquinius, namely that he was L. Tarquinius ‘Collatinus’, one of Brutus’ succession of colleagues in the first consulship. The issues which Treloar raised are interesting and will repay further discussion.

Much of the primary material for the social history of the early Roman empire is inscriptional and an uncomfortably high proportion of this material consists of just names. Names of persons are what we have in abundance and the study of nomenclature at all levels of society is bound to be a most important key to the interpretation of that society.