In over thirty lines of the Agamemnon I think I discern lurking in the apparatus of modern editions truths unnoticed by recent editors, and needing for the most part merely redivision, repunctuation, or reaccentuation to become recognizable. At a few points I offer alternative interpretations of readings that have been accepted by some at least among modern editors.

‘And now invoking as our helper overseas Zeus' calf and the son of the flower-browsing ancestress cow by conception from the on-breathing of Zeus—’: so begins the appeal of Danaos' daughters to their forefather Epaphos; the opening sentence is interrupted by a digression and never completed. In 43 M reads (Porson) is almost universally adopted. However, (Tucker) is printed in the current Oxford text (1955). Porson's emendation was attacked by Tucker on various grounds: (1) it was palaeographically unsatisfactory, (2) it added an otiose epithet to but left unqualified, (3) it involved a ‘scarcely Greek’ use of the participle, and (4) it coined a form in having the unique sense ‘graze’ instead of ‘handle’. My purpose is to defend as the true reading and to explore its contextual significance. I begin by taking Tucker's objections in order.

In the sixth mime of Herodas is described a visit by a woman called Metro to her friend Coritto. After an introduction ( I-I 7) largely taken up with abuse of Coritto's slave, Metro comes to the point: she asks, (18–19). Coritto is furious that knowledge of this precious possession has spread so far, and without answering the question asks where Coritto saw it: the reply is, (20–21). Coritto laments the faithlessness of those she thought her friends, but is consoled by Metro, who repeats her question. Coritto now reveals that the craftsman was Cerdon, and describes him and his works: and she was prevented from this last only by the presence of a neighbour's slave. Metro now asks how Coritto got to know Cerdon, and on hearing that it was through Artemeis, she declares her intention of going to see her, to learn more of Cerdon, and departs (95–98). The poem ends with Coritto giving orders for the door to be closed and the hens counted.

Professor G. E. L. OWEN has demonstrated (C.Q. N.S. X [1960], 84 ff.) that Parmenides' Way of Truth is to be taken as a self-contained logical argument. The basis for this argument is a proof that whatever we may choose to think about The first stage of this proof is contained in B 2.

According to Owen's reconstruction of the argument, Parmenides' method is to take the three possible answers to the question (i.e. an unqualified yes; an unqualified no; and a noncommittal answer that some- times we must say yes, sometimes no) and rule out two of them. This view involves giving equal status to each of the two wrong answers; but Parmenides appears not to do this. At the start of B 2 he undertakes to tell us

I Have argued elsewhere, and still believe, that the Phaedo was written before Plato's first journey to Italy, when the strong Pythagorean influences displayed in that dialogue were reaching him through the Pythagorean centres on the Greek mainland, in particular Phleius and Thebes; and that in the Republic and Phaedrus it is possible to trace equally strong Pythagorean influence but different in detail, because Plato had now come into contact with the Pythagoreans who still remained in Italy, particularly Archytas. The most remarkable of these influences from whatever source was the doctrine of the immortality and transmigration of the soul, which we know to have been held by the earliest Pythagorean society, and the account of the soul's experience in the world below.

In the myth of the Phaedrus Plato sets forth a picture of the life of discarnate souls in heaven. He represents these souls by the symbol of a winged charioteer driving winged horses. In the case of the souls of the gods (theoi), the charioteers and horses are good (246 a ). In the case of the other souls whom Plato calls daimones, and among whom our own souls are included, the soul is represented by a charioteer with two horses of which the right one is good but the left one evil (246 b ). It is generally agreed that the right and left horses represent thumos and passion respectively, while the charioteer symbolizes reason. Plato goes on to describe a procession which the gods and daimones make up to the outer edge of heaven in order to contemplate the Forms which lie beyond. The gods, we are told, make the ascent easily and when they reach the edge of heaven have no difficulty in staying there and beholding the Forms. The daimones, however, experience difficulty due to the recalcitrance of the evil horse, which all their charioteers possess (247 b Plato divides the daimones into three main groups: those who succeed in beholding the Forms though with difficulty; those whose vision is only partial; those, finally, who fail to see the Forms at all. Since contemplation of the Forms provides the nourishment by which the wings of the soul are nurtured, those daimones who fail to see the Forms at all lose their wings and fall to earth. They have to go through a series of earthly existences for 10,000 years, before they regain their wings and return to heaven.

The causes and the outbreak of the Corinthian war, as well as the events immediately preceding it, have often been discussed by modern historians. Since the Corinthian war is the first attempt at achieving a new settlement in Greece after the Peloponnesian war and since it brought about new political alliances and the revival of old imperial rivalries, it is not only an episode in the continual warfare among the Greek states, but may also be regarded as a key to the understanding of a part, at least, of the pattern of Greek history in the fourth century B.C.

Chapters 3 and 4 of Book 80 of Dio Cassius, dealing with the founding of the new Sassanid dynasty in Persia, have to be reconstructed from Xiphilinus on the one hand and the Excerpta Valesiana on the other. Zonaras 12. 15 in turn excerpts Xiphilinus; but Zonaras 12. 15, p. 572. 7–10 B. is not to be found in either of the excerptors of Dio. The words are as follows:

When a poet's work survives only in fragments our judgement of its merit is bound to be strongly influenced by the arrangement given to the fragments by their editors. And yet some superficial indication of the subject-matter is not infrequently seized upon as though it were a sound basis for so responsible an operation, and horror uacui proving stronger than amor ueri, stronger even than desiderium noua docendi, the ill-founded solution is passed on from one edition to the next although it may be wholly out of character with the author's style and may make a great poet appear a wretched hack. An example of this was given in C.Q. N.S. X (1960), 188 f., where the traditional attribution of a commonplace statement to a speech which called for the very opposite of a commonplace was shown to be mistaken. The standard interpretation of the fragment to be discussed here is no less striking as an instance of injustice done to the poet, even more liable to expose him to ridicule, and perhaps of wider interest as a specimen of stylistic indications unduly neglected.

The argument as far as 205 is simply and clearly laid out by Munro, but later editors have rejected his explanation, and proposed more involved analyses. The first purpose of this paper is to support the simple interpretation and refute later complications.

The only serious difficulty lies in the mention of plants in line 189. Without this line the argument would run as follows. ‘Nothing can move upwards of its own accord’ (184–6). ‘Don&t be misled by the atoms of flames, for they spring into being and take their increase in an upward direction, although all weights, left to themselves, move downwards’ (187–90). ‘Nor must we believe that when fire leaps up to the roofs of houses …, it does so of its own accord’ (191–3). Now the two analogicalarguments: ‘For blood spurts up into the air and timbers leap out of the water, yet everybody agrees that their weights left to themselves move downwards’ (194–202). Now the conclusion repeating the original proposition: ‘This is how it must be that flames too rise, forced out upwards through the air although their weights, left to themselves, move downwards’ (203–5).

The traditional interpretation of line 149 understands in praecipiti as a metaphor expressing the height that vice has reached in Juvenal's day. Vice is now ‘at its zenith’ (Mayor), ‘at its highest point’ (Hardy), ‘auf demGipfel’ (Friedlaender, Knoche), ‘at its acme’ (Ramsay), ‘a son comble’ (Labriolle and Villeneuve), ‘at a climax’ (Sedgwick), ‘at a dizzy height’ (Highet). Lewis and Short have a special sub-heading, II. B. 3. b. (β), for this example of praeceps (together with Pliny's accedere adpraeceps in Epp. 9. 26. 2) and translate ‘at its point of culmination’.

From the beginning of the seventeenth century it has generally been held that the second Medicean is the parent of all the other extant manuscripts. In two articles C. W. Mendell has demonstrated that Leidensis B.P.L. 16. B is the manuscript once owned by Rudolphus Agricola (d. 1485) and later by Th. Ryck, whose edition (Lugd. Batav. 1687) makes frequent allusion to its readings. Mendell's attempt to show further that L (= Leidensis) represents a tradition independent of the Medicean has found little support until recently, when E. Koestermann, in the course of preparing the latest Teubner edition of Annals (1960) and Histories (1961) became convinced from his own study of L that Mendell's view—in spite of some arguments of dubious validity—was essentially correct. In an article in Philologus (civ [i960], 92–115) and in the preface to his edition of Histories Koestermann has marshalled the arguments which he believes prove L's independence of the Medicean line of descent. Since the new valuation that Koestermann puts upon L has produced a drastic revision of both text and apparatus criticus in his new editions, it may be worth while to examine the evidence that Koestermann adduces in support of his belief in L's independence.

[Plutarch] records that Augustus passed a winter on the island of Aegina, rather than in Athens, as a sign of his wrath toward the Athenians. Paul Graindor assumed that the most likely time for Augustus to have been angry with the Athenians was immediately after Actium, and so he dated [Plutarch]'s anecdote to the winter of 31/30 (Athènes sous Auguste [Cairo, 1927], p. 17). This is impossible.

The study of the republican Roman Senate was revolutionized by Professor Broughton's Magistrates, and to a lesser extent more recently by Professor Lily Ross Taylor's Voting Districts of the Roman Republic. Naturally, neither of these two great works rounded up all the available evidence without exception, and a considerable amount of mopping-up has been carried out. More remains to be done, however, and this article aims at providing some further information on republican senators, their tribes, and their origins, as an addendum to (in the first section) M.R.R. and its Supplement, and (in the second) the prosopogra- phical chapter of Professor Taylor's book.

The status nomenclature of the Imperial slaves, as that of the Imperial freedmen, is important mainly for its bearing on the difficult problems of dating slave sepulchral inscriptions, but also as a means of determining who were Imperial slaves belonging to the Familia Caesaris with the significant social status this implied. Bang's careful but brief treatment of the subject, published in 1919, was not based on a complete collection of the material—admittedly difficult to obtain—and much has appeared in the interval. Moreover, a deeper analysis of the evidence necessitates some revision of his conclusions.