Current scholarly opinion holds that the poet Claudian was a pagan who was able to hide sufficiently his personal views at a largely Christian court. This opinion is not unanimous: Claudian has in the past occasionally been considered a Christian, and recently that view has reappeared in print. That Claudian wrote carm. min. 32, de saluatore, should not be doubted; yet this collection of stock phrases cannot be considered Claudian's credo. As Gnilka has shown, Claudian's treatment of the traditional gods and goddesses displays warmth and fondness beyond the requirements of epic and consequently reveals his true beliefs. The poem is an Easter card for Honorius, displaying not religious convictions, but an instinct for survival at a Christian court. The exegesis of Carmina Minora 50 here proposed suggests that Claudian was familiar enough with Christian ideas to criticise them. Nothing hinders him from repeating them when it proved advantageous.

The interpretation of carm. min. 50 depends in some measure on the literary relationship between Claudian and the Christian poet Prudentius. Specifically, it is important to ascertain whether Claudian was aware of the work of his contemporary. Several studies have argued that Prudentius read and used Claudian, but only recently has Cameron suggested Claudian also read and used Prudentius. His arguments and example are convincing and conclusive, revealing at the same time the nature of Claudian's use of his contemporary's words and ideas. Because similar echoes of Prudentius' poetry will appear in the interpretation of carm. min. 50, it will be useful to cite the example here.

Recently, Jenny Strauss Clay has put forward the suggestion that the ‘goat island’ on which Odysseus lands before crossing over to the Cyclopes is ‘none other than Hyperia, the former home of the Phaeacians from which they emigrated to Scheria under the leadership of Nausithoos on account of the depredations of the Cyclopes.’ She arrives at this suggestion by combining the former proximity of the Phaeacians and Cyclopes (6.4–6) with the fact that the island ⋯νδρ⋯ν χηρεύει (9.124), ‘is bereft of men’ (i.e. in her opinion the Phaeacians).

The argument seems debatable. First, the word χηρεύει is a hapax, which Homer may or may not have used in a metaphorical way; our words ‘desert’ and ‘deserted’ are also used of places which have not been inhabited before. Second, nothing in the description of the island suggests previous habitation. Third, the Phaeacians are said to have left Hyperia to escape the plundering of the Cyclopes (6.4–6), but the Cyclopes are also explicitly described as lacking ships and shipbuilders (9.125f.). Consequently, Hyperia will hardly have been an island, nor the ‘goat island’ Hyperia.

Modern studies of Odysseus' visit to the Cyclopes often focus on the nature/culture aspects of the episode. The wild goats of ‘goat island’ in line 124 — βóσκει δέ τε μηκ⋯δας αἶγας — have regularly been included in these analyses. For example, C. Calame has well pointed out that ‘ce dernier trait distingue le complexe sémantique que définit l'Île Petite de celui que représente Polyphème et son monde: alors que Polyphème avait avec le monde des hommes le trait commun de l'élevage du petit bétail, la figure sémantique de l'Île Petite inverse exactement les traits caractérisant le monde des hommes.’

The fire beacon in the opening scenes of the Agamemnon commands attention and creates the positive image of light from darkness. In the immediate context the light of the beacon relieves the watchman of his toil and brings joy to Argos. The image, however, is not totally positive. The fire signal announces both the fall of Troy and the return of Agamemnon to Clytemnestra. The negative aspect, furthermore, is emphasised at the opening — the watchman's joy at seeing the beacon (lines 22ff.) gives way at line 36 to foreboding (τ⋯ δ' ἄλλα σιγ⋯). For the original audience of 458 b.c. I suggest that this fire beacon proclaiming victory must have conveyed other negative overtones. In brief, it will have recalled to them vividly the signals used by the Persian commanders during the great invasion of 480 to announce Athens' capture to an expectant Persian court.

Euripides, Medea 11–13 (Diggle's Oxford text):

12 πολιτ⋯ν codd. et Σbv; πολίταις (Bgl) V3, sicut coni. Barnes 13 αὐτῷ Sakorrphos; αὐτή codd. et gE et Stob. 4.23.30

In his recent discussion of this passage (CQ 34 [1984], 50–1), Diggle has convincingly argued for πολίταις and αὐτῷ, the latter of which he places in his new Oxford text, but recognises that ɸυγῇ remains highly problematic (51): ‘The truth, I think, is still to seek’. It is to this last difficulty that I should like to suggest a solution.

The problems of ɸυγῇ are syntactical, as Diggle clearly demonstrates (51): ‘With which verb (⋯νδάνουσα or ⋯ɸίκετο) is ɸυγῇ to be constructed?’ Of these ⋯νδάνουσα is more likely for position, ⋯ɸίκετο for sense; but the former construction produces an obscurity, the latter an unacceptable hyperbaton. Another complicating element is the juxtaposition ɸυγῇ πολιτ⋯ν. it is clearly significant, and by its intervention appears to prevent taking ɸυγῇ as ⋯π⋯ κοινο⋯ with both verbs, the third possible construction.

As a solution I should like to revive a forgotten conjecture of Pierson's, made in his Verisimilia (1752). His ɸυγ⋯ς πολίταις appears both to solve all the syntactical problems and to give appropriate point to the juxtaposition of ‘exile’ and ‘citizen’. ɸυγάς would then go with ⋯νδάνουσα and bear a concessive sense: ‘pleasing, though an exile, the citizens to whose land she came’, a nuance found already in Wecklein's paraphrase of his text ɸυγῇ πολιτ⋯ν. ‘Sie gefällt denen, in deren Land sie gekommen ist, obwohl sie die Bürgerschaft als eine fremde, landesflüchtige Person gegenübersteht’. This contrast between citizen and exile and the necessity for the latter to please the former are naturally important themes in the dramatic situation of the Medea — cf. Medea's words at 222 χρ⋯ δ⋯ ξένον μ⋯ν κάρτα προσχωρεῖν πόλει, with Page's note.

ὦ ξένε, τ⋯ μ⋯ν σ⋯ν οὐκ ⋯παιδεύτως ἔχει

⋯ς θαύματ' ⋯λθεῖν δακρύων ⋯μ⋯ν πέρι.

The second of these lines seems to be the result of an interpolation designed to spell out the implicit sense of the first. In 241–6 Ion has expressed amazement that Creusa should be weeping at the sight of Apollo's sanctuary, a sight which brings other visitors joy. She prefaces her explanation of this with an assurance which in its transmitted form is elegantly translated by Grégoire: ‘Il n'est point discourtois de ta part, étranger, de marquer ta surprise au sujet de mes pleurs.’ But there are reasons for doubting I the authenticity of line 248:

(1) Line 247 is self-sufficient, as is shown by IA 1402: τ⋯ μ⋯ν σόν, ὦ νε⋯νι, γενναίως ἔχει. This also gives the closest parallel for the use of τ⋯ σόν in reference to the attitude which a previous speaker's words have just expressed. Other instances of τ⋯ σόν, tout court, are helpfully grouped in Allen and Italie's Concordance to Euripides, s.v. σός. τ⋯ σόν…[adverbial phrase] ἔχει occurs also in Hek. 1195 and Med. 312; cf. HF 165, Hel. 893, Pho. 995 with τοὐμόν. These make it unlikely that τ⋯ χόν in our passage is to be taken adverbially, as perhaps Grégoire intended with ‘de ta part’, rather than as subject of ἔχει. Tro. 82 might be adduced for the alternative (A. Ag. 550 is a different idiom), but there is no reason for Creusa to be saying emphatically ‘as far as you are concerned’.

This statement, in Nicias' letter from Sicily, has puzzled readers and editors, and it has baffled translators, who expect phrases with ⋯π⋯ προɸάσει to indicate a pretext or ostensible reason for an action. In my first discussion of prophasis I suggested that ‘what Nicias means is that they are leaving without offering any other reason or pretext’ (except αὐτομολία), and Dover, in the Historical Commentary, goes halfway towards accepting this interpretation (‘though it is obscure, I do not think it is impossible’); but it does not satisfy me now, and it is firmly rejected by Hunter Rawlings. A different approach to the question is needed.

Nicias is not concerned with any excuses or pretexts that these deserters are offering. He is explaining the ‘true prophasis’ of this epidemic of desertion, and does so in terms of opportunity — they can find employment in the enemy's forces and there are numerous opportunities elsewhere (Sicily is a large island). Translators may not want to render ⋯π' αὐτομολίας προɸάσει as ‘taking the opportunity to desert to the enemy’, arguing that ‘prophasis cannot mean opportunity’. But a prophasis is an explanation, true or false, that can be given for an action, and the best explanation (or excuse) can often be found in the circumstances — the opportunity that tempts or encourages. These deserters have a prophasis.

This is not the only passage in Thucydides where ‘opportunity’ seems to be the word that translators need. A good example is in 4.126.5, where Brasidas is explaining how barbarian armies fight: αὐτοκράτωρ δ⋯ μάχη μάλιστ' ἃν κα⋯ πρόɸασιν το⋯ σᾡζεσθαί τινι πρεπόντως πορίσειε.

Οὐκο⋯ν τ⋯ν μέλλοντα τέχνην ῥητορικ⋯ν μετιέναι πρ⋯τον μέν δεῖ τα⋯τα ⋯δῷ διῃρ⋯σθαι, κα⋯ εἰληɸέναι τιν⋯ χαρακτ⋯ρα ⋯κατέρου το⋯ εἵδουδ, ⋯ν ᾧ τε ⋯ν⋯γκη τ⋯ πλ⋯θος πλαν⋯σθαι Kα⋯ ⋯ν ᾧ μή (Phaedrus 263b6–9). To the best of my knowledge the soundness of the first six words of this sentence (Οὐκο⋯ν…μετιέναι) has never been questioned, yet to accept them as they are in the manuscripts means to close one's eyes to the direction of the argument.

At 260d5–9 rhetoric personified and allowed to plead its case makes the ‘big’ statement that anyone learning how to speak would do well to know the truth about his subject but that even if he knows it he would not be able ἄνεν ⋯μο⋯, i.e. without the aid of rhetoric, πείθειν τέχνῃ. From that point on the issues are whether rhetoric justly claims to be a τέχνῃ, what territory it covers and how the procedure of someone practising it τέχνῃ may differ from that of one for whom it is an ἄτεχνος τριβή (see 260e3–5). Even if rhetoric engages in ⋯πάτη (261a6ff.) and proves e.g. one and the same thing to be both just and unjust (261c5ff., d3f.), success will be with ⋯ τέχνῃ το⋯το δρ⋯ν (clO); witness Zeno of Elea, a master in such arguments λέγοντα τέχνῃ when he makes the same things appear like and unlike or one and many (261d6–9). To judge shrewdly what kind of subjects deceive people more easily (261eff.) the rhetorician himself must have a firm grasp of the truth: λόγων ἄρα τέχνην, ⋯ ⋯ταῖρε, ⋯ τ⋯ν ⋯λήθειαν μ⋯ εἰδώς, δόξας δ⋯ τεθηρευκώς, γελοίαν τινά, ὡς ἔοικε, κα⋯ ἄτεχνον παρέξεται(262c 1 ff.).

Quei apice insigne Dial(is fl)aminis gesistei | mors perfec(it) tua ut essent omnia | brevia, honos, fama, virtusque | gloria atque ingenium. Quibus sei | in longa licuiset tibe utier vita, | facile facteis superases gloriam | maiorum. Qua relubens te in gremiu, | Scipio, recipit terra, Publi, | prognatum Publio, Corneli. ILLRP 311

For you who wore the distinctive cap of a Flamen Dialis, Death cut everything short — honour, fame and virtue, glory and intellectual ability. If you had been granted a long life in which to use these advantages, you would have far surpassed the glory of your ancestors by your achievements. Therefore Earth gladly takes you in her arms, Scipio — Publius Cornelius, son of Publius.

In the first chapter of my book Tradition and Originality in Plautus: Studies of the Amatory Motifs in Plautine Comedy, I have expressed the view that mythological hyperboles in which the Comic character asserts his superiority in one respect or another to a mythological hero, far from being a product of Plautus' own imagination, as suggested by E. Fraenkel, are a specifically Greek element, adapted by Plautus from his originals. Here I should like to draw attention to one particular aspect of the pattern of thought in question, not dealt with in my book, which reinforces my argument and further underlines the traditional framework of which this pattern forms part.

Most commentators apply the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ not only to the heifer but to Attis himself. When they ask what iugum Attis is avoiding, the immediate context provides no obvious answer. They are therefore compelled to interpret the iugum either in the light of a much earlier passage or in the light of a much later one. Neither procedure is satisfactory.

On the other hand, at least one editor has proposed that the phrase ‘vitans onus…iugi’ does not apply to Attis himself but to the heifer alone. The comparison between Attis and the heifer then lies only in their frenzied speed; the yoke-avoiding action is external to the comparison and merely heightens the picture of the charging heifer. The obvious difficulty with this view is that the concept of a yoke, and more generally of avoiding servitude, plays an important role relevant to Attis later on in the poem. From line 50 onwards Attis sees himself as an erifuga anxious to escape from slavery to Cybele. And the account of Cybele's lion, sent to round him up, twice refers to the notion of freeing from a yoke (76 and 84).

Both these traditional approaches concentrate on the literal meaning of the phrase vitans onus…iugi: they assume that the yoke itself is important and that it either does or does not make sense when applied to Attis. But if we focus instead upon the action which the whole phrase vitans onus…iugi suggests, then the description of the heifer has an apt application to Attis within its own immediate context.

I. The name earned early notoriety from L. Ambivius Turpio, the actor who performed in all the plays of Terence. It appealed to Lucilius:

quid tibi ego ambages Ambivi scribere coner?

Also to Wilhelm Schulze, duly citing the Lucilian reference. In the sequel the nomen failed to enlist proper regard. Three persons bore it, diverse in life and rank: a tavern keeper on the Via Latina, a gourmet writer, a procurator governing Judaea. To the first and to the third, erudition in the recent time denies recognition; and the second through inadvertence misses his place and period. The Ambivii call for redemption. The venture will lead along circuitous or devious paths, ‘per ambages’, in the pursuit of names and identities. From that operation various instruction accrues on the flank.

II. First, a casual notice in the criminal record of a family of the better sort at Larinum. Cluentius and his slaves, so it was alleged, had made an assault on ‘Ambivium quendam, coponem de via Latina’ (Pro Cluentio 163).

Traditional texts remained content with that name. Not so long ago recourse to manuscripts produced ‘A. Bivium’. It was adopted in two standard editions. Had editors given a thought to nomenclature, they might have conceived some disquiet. Absent from the repertorium, the nomen appeared to lack attestation. In itself no bar, to be sure. The dense forest of local Italian nomenclature carries plenty of unique specimens. Reassurance could be sought from ‘Bivellius’ and ‘Bivonius’.

‘Candida avis’ is usually assumed to be the white stork (Ciconia ciconia). T. E. Page, the Loeb editors and others give a footnote to this effect. T. F. Royds in The Beasts, Birds and Bees of Virgil (Oxford, 1914) says of ‘Candida avis’:

‘This is by common consent ‘Ciconia alba’, the white stork. It is a migrant in Mediterranean countries…a most useful bird feeding chiefly on snakes and other reptiles’

He then cites Pliny (N.H. 10.31) and Juvenal (14.74–5) ‘serpente ciconia pullos nutrit’ to confirm the snake-eating propensities of the stork.

Virgil's ornithological mystery is not, however, quite so easily resolved. There is another contender for ‘Candida avis’, one more convincing both on a textual and an ornithological basis — Circaetus gallicus, the short-toed eagle.

The short-toed eagle is the only European snake eagle, its diet being almost exclusively snakes. Lizards, and much less frequently small mammals or birds, may also be taken.

Virgilian scholars appear not to have appreciated the full dramatic significance of this passage, which provides a further example of Virgil's use of divine intervention in events which he wishes to mark as particularly significant in the course of the poem. These three lines signal the onset of the war with which the remainder of the Aeneid will be concerned; since line 607, Virgil has been working towards them by means of a detailed description of the gates of war themselves and of the tradition attached to them. But at this point in Italian history there is an ominous departure from the traditional procedures regarding the declaration of war. Latinus, who according to what Virgil depicts as the already well-established tradition was bound to open the gates in order to mark the beginning of war against the Trojans, has refused in horror to carry out his duty, opposed as he is to the turn recent events have taken in Latium. At this point Juno intervenes dramatically, as she had intervened before to sow the seeds of the ‘horrida bella’ (6.86, 7.41) between the Trojans and the indigenous population (323ff.). Virgil depicts her as sweeping down from heaven in person in order to push open the gates. The reader is shown how at her touch the gates burst open (‘rumpit’) without the involvement of any human or visible agency. It is an action which apparently has only a supernatural explanation, clearly described to the reader as the work of Juno.

In CQ 34 (1984), 457, on Lucan 4.664 indulsit castris, I wrote ‘Housman…explains “…inuitantibus ad desidiam”: read rather ad temeritatem’. Mr S. J. Heyworth has kindly pointed out to me that Housman in his corrected impression (1927) does in fact write temeritatem. I was myself (as was evidently TLL vii. i. 1252. 10ff.) using the first impression (1926), where H. has desidiam. It had not occurred to me that H. would so drastically alter an interpretation in a ‘Second impression (corrected)’.

Here in the Achilleid Statius catalogues the contributions of Greek towns to Agamemnon's expedition against Troy. Every item of equipment is appropriate to its origin. There is one puzzle, however: why is it that murorum tormenta are the peculiar contribution of Pylos and Messene? O. A. W. Dilke (1954) suggests that the proximity of classical Messene to Mt Ithome would have reminded Statius of the siege of that place by the Spartans in 464–59 b.c., when they were aided by the Athenians, experts in siege warfare. This solution is undoubtedly ingenious but, based as it is upon association, it places this last entry in a quite different category from the previous entries: all the preceding items have been very definite products of their places of origin. K. von Barth (1664), while noting the not unparalleled anachronism, attempts to account in another way for the siege-engines: ‘quia ibi silvae crassissimas arbores habent’. But there is no evidence to support this: Messenia features neither in the pages of Theophrastus (Περ⋯ Φυτ⋯ν Ἱστορία) or Pliny (N.H. 16) as a source of quality timber, nor in the poets as an area which is characterised by the stoutness of its trees.

These theories pay insufficient attention to the verb tendunt, the vox propria for exerting a strain on rope, making it taut (cf. Stat. Sil. 3.2.26f.: ‘stuppea tendite mali | vincula’).