Lactantius' treatise the de opificio dei has received little attention from classical scholars in modern times. There are two main reasons for this. First, Lactantius is regarded essentially as a Christian apologist and therefore of interest primarily to theologians and students of Christian history. Second, that work which has been done on the treatise has tended to the view that the opif.'s interest for scholars lies largely in the question of its written sources, its main such source, according to several commentators, being the Hermetic body of writings. Both of these reasons need re-examining. With regard to the first, it is unfortunate that the only surviving works of Lactantius are his specifically Christian treatises, written after the outbreak of persecution in A.D. 303. As such they represent only a portion of his work, being composed in the last two decades of a long life. The basis of his reputation as a rhetorician, a reputation which secured him his appointment as professor of Latin rhetoric at Nicomedia under Diocletian, must have been his earlier works, which pre-date his conversion in c. 300.

These comments start, as they must, from the text of I. Hilberg in the Vienna corpus.1 This was the first properly critical edition of the Letters,and has not been superseded. It is, however, not without its limitations. In establishing his text Hilberg considered only a few MSS for each letter: for epist.1, seven, and for epist.107, six, in one of which (B)the letter is represented twice, though in neither case is it complete.Hilberg promised a volume of prolegomena and indices to accompany his text;2 but it seems that he died before it could appear, and we do not know how he assessed his MSS, or how many he consulted before making his choice.What we do know is that those on which he relied form a very small proportion of those which exist.B.Lambert′s catalogue of Jerome MSS3 lists 138 for epist.1 and 145 for epist.107, of which ten and thirteen respectively are dated ninth-to-tenth-century or earlier - and Lambert is well aware that his list cannot pretend to be exhaustive.4 Furthermore, there is some reason to doubt the accuracy of the collations which form the basis of Hilberg′s edition.5 It is evident that much work remains to be done before a definitive edition can be produced.Meanwhile Hilberg′s text is the best we have, and where I cite MSS I follow the readings of his apparatus criticus.6 The phrase ‘the MSS’ refers, in this article, only to those which Hilberg utilised.

The adjective ⋯μøιμ⋯τωρ occurs, so far as our evidence goes, twice in Greek literature: in Aeschylus' Herakleidai (fr. 73b.4 Radt) and in Euripides' Andromache (466). And the ancient authorities are unanimous that it means, in the words of P. T. Stevens, ‘sons of the same father by different mothers, i.e. half-brothers’.

According to the apparatus which accompanies the fragment in Diels-Kranz, the reading χλωρ⋯ Καί ἄναιμα is found in the scholia and in the MSS. of class II, whereas class I has χλωρ⋯ Καί ἔἄναιμα . We are also referred to Demetrius, Eloc.

Antiphon, in his fifth oration, relates that c. 422–413 B.C. Euxitheos, a young Mytilenean, and Herodes, probably an Athenian cleruch in Mytilene, embarked together on a ship bound from Mytilene for Ainos in Thrace. Shortly after they left port, a storm forced them to put into an unnamed harbour in Methymnian territory. The two men left their uncovered ship to take shelter in a covered one; whether others from their own ship went with them is not indicated. During the night, a drinking party ensued. Herodes, after heavy drinking, left the covered ship and disappeared; he could not be found in the morning, nor even after two days of searching. When the weather cleared, the search was abandoned, and all ships in the port resumed their voyages. On Euxitheos' return to Mytilene, a charge of murder was brought against him by Herodes' relatives, who tried him in Athens. Antiphon's fifth oration is his final defence; we do not know whether the speech was successful.

In 1930 Hunt and Johnson published the remains of P. Oxy. 2064, a roll containing at least some of the poems attributed to Theocritus and dating from the late second century A.d. (A. S. Hunt and J. Johnson, Two Theocritus Papyri [London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1930], 3–19). The papyrus was important, even though very fragmentary (no column is preserved complete, and very few lines are wholly intact), since at its time of publication it was one of the three earliest witnesses to the text of Theocritus. Fragments of other early papyri of Theocritus have been published since then, but P. Oxy. 2064 has remained the most important known witness prior to the fifth century because of the spread of poems which the extant fragments show it to have contained. No other papyrus allows us to reconstruct the contents of an early Theocritus book to such an extent. In 1983 the editors of Oxyrhynchus Papyri published a further collection of Theocritus fragments from various papyri (P. Oxy. 3545–3552), among which were more remains from P. Oxy. 2064 edited by P. J. Parsons under the number P. Oxy. 3548 (Oxyrhynchus Papyri L [Graeco-Roman Memoirs, 70: London, 1983], 105–22).

The contents of the sixth book of Ennius' Annals have recently become a matter of dispute. Ever since Columna's edition (1585) it had been assumed that the book was entirely given over to the story of the war against king Pyrrhus (followed perhaps by mention of some events of the next few years; so my commentary, Oxford, 1985, p. 329). That view was based on the anecdote told by Quintilian 6.3.6, that Cicero, asked to say something de Sexto Annali, a witness in a law case, replied: ‘Quis potis ingentis oras euoluere belli’. It seems as good as certain that this was the first line of Book VI, and belli was taken by all as referring to the Pyrrhus war. According to Dr T. Cornell, however, ‘unrolling the mighty scroll of war’ means that the poet is now going to describe warfare on the grand scale, thus setting the sequence of the third Samnite War, the Pyrrhus War, and (the first and) the second Punic War against the minor wars described in the first five books. I doubt if Ennius would have felt that the early Latin war with the story of Lake Regillus, the capture of Veii, the Allia, the fall of Rome to the Gauls, and the second Samnite war (the Caudine forks!) were minor wars; but I am certain that bellum in the singular, except in contrast to the notion of pax, cannot refer to war in a general sense, covering a plurality of wars.

Together with the majority of modern commentators, Professor Skutsch believes that the ‘devotio’ prayer in lines 191–4 of Ennius' Annals was spoken by the consul P. Decius Mus before the battle of Ausculum in 279 B.c. This seems to me unlikely for several reasons, and I am still not persuaded after reading his note (above).

In CQ n.s 32 (1982), 237, Howard Jacobson comments on Lucretius' expression fingere somnia, for which he can find only two parallels, both later than Lucretius. He suggests that the phrase can best be understood as a reference to the actual practice of dream control, or oneiropompeia, for which he provides several useful references. A fragment of Luciiius, however, provides not only a parallel, but perhaps even a model, for Lucretius' phrase, and for his criticism in 1.102–35 of the lies or fictions of both religious figures and poets.

The writer purports to be conversing with the door of a house, now owned by a man named Caecilius, which is alleged to have harboured a scandal in the time of its previous occupants. For this the speaker reproaches the door, as having through negligence been partly responsible. The door replies (beginning at line 9) that it is wholly innocent in the matter; but people lay blame on it for everything that is done amiss. Line 12, in the door's speech, is obviously corrupt, and the greater part of it is obelized by editors accordingly.

Mundus istum M. En(n)ius in the manuscripts of Att. 15.26.5 is surely corrupt, as has been unanimously acknowledged (above all Cicero would avoid giving the three parts of a name in the order cognomen + praenomen + nomen, not to speak of the inexplicable istum). Also the modern Vulgate Mundus iste cum M. Ennio, introduced by Wesenberg in his Teubner text, is an improbable guess. Shackleton Bailey has recently proposed Maenius or Men(n)ius as the gentile name of Mundus. Mennius, however, is a very rare name and does not occur in Republican documents, while Maenius, although attested in Republican inscriptions, diverges unnecessarily from the manuscript tradition. Moreover, Shackleton Bailey must forcibly change istum to iste (even if he does not say so expressly). But it is possible to avoid practically any infringement of the transmitted text if we simply read Mundus Istummenius. The name (H) istumen(n)ius, (H)istimen(n)ius (also Inst-), written in a wide variety of ways, does occur some 20 times in urban inscriptions, mostly of the early Imperial period. It is attested also outside Rome: at Velitrae (CIL X 6556, of the early Imperial period), and even as far away as Gallia (CIL XIII 739, Bordeaux, early Empire). This gens must therefore have been somehow present among the Roman population of the Julio-Claudian age. In particular, attention should be paid to an Instumennius on a tessera nummularia of 60 B.C. (CIL I 915). No major figures occur in this gens, the name remaining restricted to the lower strata of the Roman population. That suits Mundus down to the ground. He clearly belongs to the grey mob of Rome. If he is, as it seems, identical with that Mundus mentioned in 15.29.1, then Cicero gives his family name in the first instance. The transmitted form with -mm- could represent a transposition of the double consonant of the common form Istumennius.

Here Horace gives warning to an adversary of his powers of literary attack, comparing himself with the great iambists Archilochus (‘Lycambae spretus infido gener’) and Hipponax (‘acer hostis Bupalo’). The general sense of the last two lines seems clear: ‘If someone attacks me (gifted as I am with the weapons of the iambist), shall I weep like a mere boy?’, i.e. ‘Am I not to take revenge?’

There is nothing that renders this punctuation and the standard understanding of these verses (i.e. ‘seu tollere seu ponere volt freta’) impossible. Parallels can certainly be found (e.g. Cat. 4.19; Prop. 2.26.33). It is however true that this ellipse of seu has no good parallel in the Odes and the two examples in the Satires (2.5.10; 2.8.16) are much easier to tolerate than the use here. Thus, it may be worth noting that a different view of the verse seems possible. Remove the comma from line 16 and take tollere with maior: ‘than whom there is no master of the Adriatic greater at raising or calming – if he desires – the waters.’ Seu then = vel si, as frequently. Horace has a particular affection for infinitives governed by adjectives (as in line 25 of this poem); Wickham provides a lengthy list at vol. 1, pp. 316–17. At Satire 2.3,313 minor is so used.

Further proof of Professor Kenney's assertion that in the case of prodelided est the syncopated form was written by Ovid as well as spoken (CQ 36 [1986], 524) is provided by Metamorphoses 15.426ff.

The manuscript version of this line, apart from a nonsensical variant tutus for bubus, is et Tiberis nostris advena bubus erat. The trouble here has been that scholars have taken advena to mean ‘stranger’, ‘foreigner’, ‘alien’, or German ‘fremd’. Clearly the sentence and Tiber was a stranger to our oxen makes no sense in the context, and for this reason many scholars have either produced strange translations (‘alien Tiber served our oxen’, Butler and Barber) or else have dabbled in dubious emendation (temptus Baehrens, tortus Postgate, Tuscus Havet in place of bubus).

These are the very last words of Eumolpus' testament. The editors all print them thus, but I suspect a hidden corruption in devoverint. The text may seem to have an acceptable meaning, but only on a superficial reading inattentive to the whole context. A certain exegetical discomfort becomes noticeable if the translations are compared: Ernout renders ‘maudire mon âme’, Ehlers in Müller's second and third editions translates ‘sie meinen letzten Atemzug herbeiwünschten’ (thus giving spiritus a strained translation as though it were extremus or ultimus spiritus), and Cesareo- Terzaghi's edition (under Pasquali's supervision) prefers to render with a nuance of the future ‘con quel cuore stesso con cui mi avranno maledetto l'anima’. Obviously, devovere is being understood as synonymous with exsecrari. This is an attested secondary meaning, ‘curse’, ‘execrate’, which developed from the technical religious one connected with the ritual of devotio. According to this interpretation, the captatores cursed the fact that Eumolpus, apparently a sick man on the verge of death, continued to live longer than they could reasonably have expected when they began to court him. But the expression does not seem adequate for conveying this meaning: instead, we would expect something like vitam meam devoverint or me et caput meum devoverint or, better, me ad mortem devoverint, or similarly explicit expressions.

Mart. 11.75 is a variation on the same theme and may serve as a commentary on 7.35. As it was not common to wear clothing in the bath, a Roman lady not wanting mentulam videre (11.75.4) should not have gone to a public bath, where all the nude males, including Martial and his slave (7.35.3–4), were definitely not spadones (11.75.6; cf. 7.35.6).

Hippomedon is stoutly defending the body of his fallen comrade Tydeus against a mass of Thebans who press him hard: there is a break in the attack allowing him to return fire while his allies Alcon and Idas with their troops come to his aid. It is grammatically possible that iaculantum could be taken with tela, but style and word order make this most unlikely.