From what has already been said it will be clear that Alcaeus of Messene, like the anonymous author of Anth. Pal. xvi. 6, was a supporter of Philip V at least until 201 B.C., that is, until the Second Macedonian War. The view that his breach with Philip followed the Messenian events of 215–214 has, however, been so frequently upheld that it deserves consideration. It appears to be based on one or more of the following assumptions. Philip's activities in Messene resulted in driving that state into the Aetolo-Spartan camp: Alcaeus, as a loyal Messenian, will have followed the official Messenian policy. Further, Alcaeus wrote a poem (Anth. Pal. ix. 519) accusing Philip of poisoning his guests: this is to be connected with the death of Aratus, in which the Achaean himself professed to see the hand of Philip. Finally, it is assumed that Alcaeus had already started his literary career at the time of the Messenian events of 215–214, since he has left an epigram celebrating the threefold victory at the Isthmus of the famous Cleitomachus of Thebes, whose floruit, it is claimed, was 216–212 (Anth. Pal. ix. 588). None of these arguments is really cogent: a very good case can be, and has been, made out for dating Cleitomachus’ success towards the end of the third century; the poisoning referred to is undoubtedly that of Callias and Epicrates (cf. Anth. Pal. xi. 12) which, being itself undated, cannot be used as a chronological index; and politically Alcaeus, as we shall see, was far from being an orthodox Messenian.

An archaic boustrophedon (or partly boustrophedon) inscription found a few years ago at Dreros is one of the oldest extant Cretan inscriptions, probably not later than 600 B.C., and is of the greatest interest for our knowledge of the early development of the Polis. The text runs as follows:

1. ←Aδ' εϜαδε πολι επει κα κοσμησει, δεκα Ϝετιον τον αIa←θιοσολοιον

2. →Ϝτον μη κοσμεν αι δε κοσμησιε, οπε δικακσιε, αϜτον οπηλεν διπηλεν καϜτον

3. ←ακρηστον ημεν, ας δοοι, κοτι κοσμησιε, μηδεν.

4. ← ⋈ομοται δε κοσμος κοι δαμιοι κοι ικατι οι τας πολ[ιο]ς.

Our chief evidence for the days on which the Delphic oracle could be consulted comes, as is well known, from a passage in the Quaestiones Graecae of Plutarch (Moralia, 292 E). He is explaining the name of the Delphic month Bysios, which he derives from the verbs for inquiry (πυσтι⋯νтαι, πυνθάνονтαι), and adds the comment:

⋯ν т⋯ μην⋯ γ⋯ρ тούтῳ χρησтήριον ⋯γίγνεο, κα⋯ έβδóμην таüтην νομίζουσι тο⋯ θεο⋯ γενέθλιο, κα⋯ πολύϕθοον ⋯νομάζουσι, οὐ δι⋯ тò πέттεσθαι ϕθóïς ⋯λλ⋯ πολυπευθ⋯ κα⋯ πολυμάνтευтον οὖσαν. ⋯ψ⋯ γŰρ ⋯νείθησαν α⋯ καтŰ μ⋯να μανтεῖᔞᔦ тοῖς δεομένοις, πóтεπον δ' ᾰπαξ ⋯θεμίσтευεν ⋯ Пυθία тο⋯ ⋯νιαυтο⋯ καтŰ тαύтην т⋯ν ⋯μέραν, ώς Кαλλισθένης κα⋯ 'Ạναξανδρίης ίςтρήκασι.

Papyrus Geneva 97 is still believed to be the earliest find of Callimachus' Aitia. In the years 1896 and 1904 Jules Nicole acquired in Egypt for the library in Geneva some pieces of papyri and parchments. One of his acquisitions was the remainder from the top of a double leaf of a vellum codex, containing elegiac lines with marginal comments. The first edition appeared in 1904 with the title ‘Un fragment des Aetia de Callimaque’ presenting scraps of more than forty lines; but neither the first editor nor anyone else succeeded in identifying any of them with any of the well-attested Callimachean fragments. This may not have worried Nicole very much in 1904. But since then thirty papyri have turned up with the text of lost poems and every single piece of them, even the smallest, could be clearly identified as Callimachean by coincidence with a known quotation. For the Geneva parchment there is no evidence up to to-day, and its case remains absolutely unique.

On οὐδ ἄγγελός τίς κτλ. Jebb writes: ‘The sentence begins as if ἄγγελός were to be followed by ἤλθε:but the second alternative, συμπράκτωρ όδοû suggests κατεȋδε [had seen, though he did not speak]: and this, by a kind of zeugma, stands as verb to ἃγγελος also.’ In support he cites only an atrocious zeugma from the MS. text of Hdt. iv. 106; but this has (and had) been corrected, as anyone may now see who will examine the text and apparatus of chs. 106 and 107 as presented in Hude's edition.

In the Old Attic Comedy contemporary figures were criticized in the most outspoken manner. The legitimate stage seems to have departed from this practice in part with the advent of the Middle Comedy, and almost completely in the New. It might be tempting to imagine that direct criticism of contemporaries could still have been found on the impermanent stages of the travelling mimes. But there is no evidence to show that this was so. From the beginning the Greek mime laid the emphasis on the portrayal of character, on the delineation of types rather than of individuals. In the information that we possess about the deikelistai and other forms of immature burlesque, about the comedy of Megara, and about the phlyakes of Tarentum, there is nothing to show that the little plays took any cognizance of contemporary events; the only individualized characters introduced are the gods and heroes of mythology. The fragments of Sophron and Epicharmus give no indication that they attacked men of their own times, while the extant mimes of Herodas, like the mimic imitations in Theocritus, are concerned solely with types of humanity, not with individuals.

The New Comedy as an art form is descended both from the Old Comedy and from fifth-century Tragedy. It is a middle style of the sort that Diderot called le genre sérieux. On the one side it made an expurgation of the Old Comedy by dropping the gross elements of the primitive ritual ⋯ϕέσεωςκ⋯μος which still survived in Aristophanes, the phallic dress, the ϒεϕυρɩομός in language, and the reckless personal satire, while it kept and emphasized the final Gamos, or union of lovers, and developed a more elaborate plot. On the other side it reformed Tragedy by getting rid of the supernatural stories and the stiff conventions. To quote some words of my own written in 1912, it ‘introduced all the simplifications and improvements which seem to a modern’—I meant a modern philistine—‘so obviously desirable. It developed an easy colloquial language, a flexible and unexacting metre. It left the Chorus quite outside the play, a kind of entr'acte, not worth writing down. It frankly abandoned religious ritual’—please observe that statement, which I now wish to correct—‘and heroic saga. It drew its material from the adventures and emotions of contemporary middle class life, and boldly invented its own plots.’ Menander in particular was considered in antiquity to have held a mirror up to life; a verse by Aristophanes of Byzantium asks.

There is one nautical term which has been neglected by those who have written about the Greek ship—for the very good reason that it had ceased to be used literally by the time our records, literary and epigraphic, begin. This is a pity, since the silence of experts has resulted in an absurdity, or at least obscurity, appearing in the dictionaries. An unattested original meaning ‘under-rower’ has been universally assumed for the word ujnjpenjs (e.g. Boisacq, ‘rameur en sous-ordre’; L. & S., ‘under-rower’). This assumption not merely requires proof but is in sore need of explanation. What is an ‘under-rower’? And why did the term pass out of use in that sense?

The Spartan Rhetra quoted by Plutarch in Lyc. vi. 2 consists of some thirty-seven words in an archaic Dorian or near-Dorian dialect: Plutarch says it was an oracle, and that later an extra clause was added by the kings Polydoros and Theopompos; he quotes this ‘added clause’ in vi. 8. I believe this Rhetra was not an oracle but an act of the Spartan Ekklesia; and I suspect that the ‘added clause’ was not added, but is an integral part of the original act. But for our first objective this opinion matters less than Plutarch's opinion. Our first objective must be to recover Plutarch's text (for his manuscripts are certainly corrupted to some extent): and to do that, we must understand his interpretation.