The B.B.C.'s recent series of programmes on the Greeks, introduced by an attractively illustrated booklet, was an enterprising essay in popular education. More might perhaps have been done to bring home to non-specialists the ‘strangeness of the Greeks’, their remoteness from us in racial make-up, language, and religion, and the peculiar character of life in a city-state. On some matters, such as the migrations and the development of the language, speakers tended to repeat the current doctrine without noting that it did not make sense; but the existence of unsolved problems was acknowledged, and the series as a whole summed up plainly the present state of knowledge, or opinion, about the Greeks, and properly drew attention to the revolutionary advances in Greek studies in the present century, and even in the last decade. It ended by offering a hope of still more discoveries, and by stressing the need of every generation for new interpretations of what is already known. No stagnation here; and, since the Greeks were pioneers in so many fields, little that was irrelevant to twentieth-century life.

It must occur to anyone who reads Plutarch's account of Marius' flight and exile to wonder how much of this thrilling and romantic tale is historically true. There is indeed much to cause disquietude. Historiography of Plutarch's day had no distinct genre for the romantic novel, as Perrin so well points out, and consequently included much that history proper would exclude. Incidents in the flight and exile have in fact been described as ‘fairy-tale-like’ and ‘out.of the Arabian nights’. The debating points of the schools of rhetoric have had their influence too, involving Marius in several dilemmas which seem to have been invented for suasoriae (e.g. Marius and the slave-herdsmen, 36. 3; and the shipowners, 37. 2; and the old fisherman, 37.4; and Sextilius' envoy, 40. 3–4; the deliberations before the grove of Marica, 39. 4, are another example).

Various difficulties beset the scholar investigating the origins of Greek drama. The ancient evidence is fragmentary, sometimes unreliable, and often difficult to interpret; Greek drama is the original drama, and from those to whom dramatic representation is a commonplace a real effort of imagination is required in dealing with its possible origins and early history; and scholars of a previous age, writing under the influence of early anthropological studies and their generation's innate notion of progress as ordered and inevitable, have sometimes bedevilled the whole investigation. Not all of these difficulties can be removed, nor are they without their compensating advantages. Anthropology can provide very interesting and suggestive parallels, and can help us to see significance where we might otherwise have missed it; and ritual no doubt has much to do with the beginnings of drama. But in attempting to explain the existence of the great drama of fifth-century Greece, we should do well to view with suspicion any theory which traces a direct and merely thickening line from primitive ritual to Aeschylus or Aristophanes, and regards the plays not as dramas but as interesting sources of evidence for primitive ‘survivals’. The more new facts about the origins (the plural is used with intent) of drama become known, the more complex these origins appear; and however much an artist is influenced (as he must be) by the conventions and inheritance of his own age, we should remember that that inheritance will include conscious intelligence and individual genius, as well as primitive ritual and superstition.

A Traveller from Athens who takes the inland route to Cape Sounion will pass from the plain of Athens, between Hymettos and Pentelikon, to enter the pleasant and fertile region of the Mesogia. Through the vineyards and olive groves, and through the attractive and populous villages of Paiania, Koropi, Markopoulo, and Keratea, the road bears on south-eastwards to encounter and cross a hill barrier close to the eastern coast of Attica. Descending by this road as it winds through the Plaka Pass to Thorikos and the sea the traveller is struck by the changing aspect of the country. Already in the Plaka Pass there is a hint of an abandoned industrial area such as is encountered in Derbyshire. The impression produced by these first indications of industry is strengthened after the descent to the level of the sea-coast. The charm of Attica's shore, so apparent elsewhere, is here destroyed by an ugly village with great dark mounds like those of a Yorkshire colliery or Scottish shale mine. There are also industrial buildings, for the most part derelict, looking not unlike enlarged Nonconformist chapels in the nineteenth-century tradition. Up the hill-side stretches a curious brick tunnel, with smoke stacks at intervals, intended to remove the noisome vapours generated in the processes here carried out. This is the village of Lavrion. Its other modern name of Ergasteri underlines its character. It is a profoundly depressing place, and one passes through it with relief to regain the road to Sounion.

One day in 79 b.c., when he was studying at Athens, Cicero and a group of friends took a walk along the same road as Lucian's Philosophia, but in the opposite direction. They had listened, as usual, to a lecture by Antiochos, who was then head of the Academy, delivered in the gymnasium called Ptolemaion, which was in the middle of the city; and they resolved to take an ambulatio postmeridiana (Latin for Περίπατος δειλινός) in the Academy, which at that time of day would be quiet (and comparatively cool). Forgathering at Piso's, they traversed the six stadia from the Dipylon, and reached the justly famous walks (non sine causa nobilitata spatia) of the Academy. There Piso remarks, ‘Whether by a sound instinct or by an illusion (natura an errore) when we set eyes on the very places frequented by great men, we are more deeply moved than when we merely hear of their deeds or read their writings. Plato used to hold discussions here; I can almost see him walking in those little gardens near by (illi propinqui hortuli). Here taught Speusippos and Xenokrates and Polemon, who used to sit on the very seat which we can see over there. The power of suggestion which places possess is indeed great (tanta uis admonitionis inest in locis).’ Quintus Cicero is more attracted to the Kolonos near by, with its Sophoklean associations.

TheCyclops is a neglected play. Although commending itself by its brevity to teachers as an easy introduction to Euripides, it has received little critical attention and is only rarely performed. Nevertheless the feeling persists that even this slight work, being by Euripides, must be treated with respect. A recent school edition comments, ‘The preservation of ancient literature does seem in some measure to have illustrated the principle of the survival of the fittest; and the Cyclops may have been one of the few satyric dramas which really deserve to be handed down to us.’ Similarly J. Duchemin, in his critical edition published a few years earlier, cautiously suggests that the characterization of Polyphemos embodies familiar themes in later fifth-century thought: ‘Son Cyclope est, semble-t-il, auprès des autres, une figure évoluée, et par certains côtés vraiment moderne: le materialisme intellectuel affiché dans l'⋯γών avec Ulysse, et où l'on a voulu retrouver les traces de la sophistique (v. 316 sqq.), marque de toute evidence une étape nouvelle dans le développement du personnage.’ The purpose of this article is to re-examine the status of the play, and inquire whether such tributes are really justified. I hope to gather together certain considerations, some already familiar, others perhaps less well known, which suggest that the value of the Cyclops, both as drama and as an illustration of Euripides' thought, is negligible, and that the illustrious name of its author has led us to look for merit where none exists.

It is always agreeable to offer congratulations to someone who is celebrating a jubilee. It is a particular pleasure to do so when the ‘child’ whose birthday it is can look back over 150 years of existence, and all those who have a share in the jubilee may reflect that the thanks for the achievements of the past and wishes for the future serve the cause of publicity. For no one who sets out to discuss the state of classical studies in Germany can, or should, fail to mention the Leipzig publishing firm of B. G. Teubner. Here publishing and scholarship have in the past century and a half formed an indissoluble partnership which has made it its duty to provide the best texts for use in the study of classical antiquity.

We were interested to read Dr. Bertha Tilly's recent article in Greeceand Rome. Such studies do much to infuse life into our ‘dead’ language, and help not only to bring reality to the student and throw light on Latin literature but to add interest to modern travel. We should like to add some further points on Terracina, which we recently visited. It provides a fascinating remnant of classical times, almost unaltered until this century, when the first truly successful draining of the Pomptine marshes took place.

In the Gallic War Caesar mentions rather less than fifty Roman soldiers by name. Naturally the names of his legati occur most frequently, though he does not always give the rank. Eight, possibly nine, are centurions, and one is the standard-bearer of the Fourteenth Legion. None is a legionary soldier, though we know the name of one, Lucanius, because his father, a senior centurion, Q. Lucanius, was killed trying to rescue him in the disaster at Atuatuca. There are certain surprising omissions. For example, we are not told the name of the standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion, whose gallantry rallied the faltering troops at the first landing in Britain. Surely Caesar knew the name of this distinguished man in his crack legion. One officer, P. Considius, receives an unenviable mention. He made a mistake. Perhaps in extenuation, or in regret, Caesar remarks that he had won a good reputation under Sulla and Crassus.

KhushhalKhan, hereditary Khan of the Khatak tribe of Pathans, lived from a.d. 1613 to 1689. For the first half of his long life Khushhal enjoyed the favour, and in some degree the friendship, of the Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan, whose feudatory he was and to whose state he did some service. But in 1658 Aurarigzeb succeeded to the throne, having defeated and deposed his father. With that Khushhal's fortunes began to decline, and in 1664 he was arrested, clapped in irons, and sent down into Hindustan, where he spent five weary years in captivity. Having somehow procured his release, he laid himself out for revenge, and began to play a part not unlike that of William Wallace or Owen Glendower. The rebellion which he fomented by his pen and furthered by his sword can be counted as not least among the causes which on the death of Aurangzeb brought about the dramatic downfall of the Great Moguls. This in turn opened the way for the East India Company to become the paramount power in India.

This salutary series got off to a flying start with W. F. Witton's article upon a subject in bad need of treatment—the gerund and gerundive. Textbooks and grammars, when discussing the use of ‘gerundive attraction’, waver, through many shades of loosely expressed opinion, from a prudent silence to a complete prohibition of the use of this construction when it involves a genitive plural with nouns of the first and second (or sometimes all) declensions. The basis of this prohibition is the allegedly ugly sound of -arum -arum and -orum -orum. In connexion with this construction Witton not only perpetuated a heresy but confirmed it in clear and forthright language. He concludes his discussion with this statement: ‘Thus we arrive at the rule that in normal Latin the gerund does not govern an accusative unless for the purpose of retaining the distinctive neuter termination, as in aliquid agendo, or to avoid a sequence of genitive plurals: consiliorum tuorum cognoscendorum causa was too much of a mouthful even for Cicero.’ Let us now see what is Cicero's practice in reality.