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.

In several recent studies we have developed precise statistical methodologies which have demonstrated that the cursus mixtus was the dominant rhythmical system for final clausulae in Latin prose from the third century a.d. to the fifth. The cursus mixtus consisted of four standard metrical forms derived from the richer variety of Cicero's Asiatic tradition – cretic-spondee, dicretic, cretic-tribrach and ditrochee –, which were structured according to three accentual patterns – planus, tardus and velox. The latter are differentiated by the number of unstressed syllables intervening between and following two accented syllables. The planus has two unaccented syllables between two word accents and one after the last accent. The tardus has two between two accents and two after the last accent. The velox has four between two accents and one after the last accent. The four metrical forms are contained within the parameters of the accentual cadences. The planus contains either the cretic-spondee (epistulae nostrae) or the ditrochee (manu ferire); the tardus either the dicretic (carcer includeret) or the cretic-tribrach (estis indigenae); the velox either the ditrochee (experientiam singulorum) or the cretic-spondee (nimium videbatur. Authors who used the cursus mixtus, however, preferred to effect an exact coincidence between the accent and ictus, and as a result evinced primarily the following standard rhythmical forms: planus/cretic-spondee; tardus/dicretic or cretic-tribrach; and velox/ditrochee.

So far now we have examined only the rhythmical properties of final clausulae, but it is appropriate also to investigate for rhythm at internal positions within the sentence.

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.’

In his article ‘A Nonce-word in the Iliad’ (CQ 35 [1985], 1–8) Maurice Pope argues against the usual modern interpretation of παναώριος, a Homeric ἃπαξ λεγόμενον applied by Achilles to himself at Il. 24.540, sc. ‘of all-untimely fate’, ‘doomed to die young’, and the like. The same is also the interpretation of the scholium παντελ⋯ς ἄωρον ⋯ποθανούμενον, whilst Herodian and Eustathius, respectively with κατ⋯ πάντα ἄωρον and πάντῃ ἄωρον, do no more than paraphrase the force of παν- in the compound. Pope tries to establish instead the suitability of the meaning ‘out of season’, i.e. in what Achilles does or fails to do in general. His case rests on the ground of what is appropriate to or required by the context, since, as he himself shows, the word in itself can, on the analogy of closely related forms, notably the adjective ἄωρος, bear the meaning usually attributed to it, provided the context contains sufficient indication of a reference to death. Accordingly, the validity of his argument depends on his assessment of this context.

Pope recognises that throughout the last part of the Iliad, at least starting from the conversation between Achilles and his mother at 18.70ff., Achilles is fully aware of the nearness and unavoidability of his own death, and that ‘from this point on Homer exploits the atmosphere of impending doom’. But after citing several passages in which the approach of Achilles' death is mentioned, Pope continues as follows.

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.

A. C. Cassio has recently pointed out that Μαρικ⋯ς, the name which Eupolis applied to the demagogue Hyperbolus, is a transliteration of the Old Persian word . In fact, a Persian origin μαρικ⋯ς was suspected long ago. The seventeenth-century English scholar Edward Bernard, whose notes were used by J. Alberti in his edition of Hesychius, connected μαρικ⋯ς with the Modern Persian mardekeh, which literally means ‘a little man’ and has the connotation ‘a vile person’, ‘a scoundrel’. A. Meineke followed Bernard's derivation of μαρικ⋯ς from Persian, as did K. Latte in his recent edition of Hesychius. These references should be added to Cassio's citation of E. Maass' quotation of K. F. Geldner's opinion.

In the Vita Aristotelis of Diogenes Laertius and elsewhere we come across an epigram of Theocritus of Chios directed against Aristotle. I cite the poem in the form in which it has most recently been published by D. L. Page:

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.

A well-known epigram by Callimachus on the philosopher Diodorus Cronus (fr. 393 Pfeiffer) reads as follows:

The question of the third line, while perhaps recondite from a contemporary perspective, was clear in antiquity. The crows are asking ‘What follows (from what)?’, in allusion to the Hellenistic disputes concerning the truth conditions of conditional propositions (συνημμ⋯να), disputes in which the views of Diodorus figured prominently.

I agree with Sedley that the question of the last line is ‘much more problematic’. The common interpretation has been to read the αὖθι as a form of αὖθις and to interpret it temporally. The result, in Pfeiffer's estimation, is ‘quomodo posthac erimus?’.

This interpretation derives from Sextus Empiricus' discussion at M. 1.309–12 of the last two lines of the epigram. After crediting the grammarian with the ability to understand the allusion in the crows' first question (M. 1.310: κα⋯ μ⋯χρι τούτου συνήσει τ⋯ κα⋯ παιδίοις γνώριμον), he proceeds to argue that the philosopher has a better chance than the grammarian of understanding the second question. But, to quote Sedley, Sextus ‘makes a ghastly mess of it’ when he attempts his own elucidation. According to an argument of Diodorus, a living thing does not die in the time in which it lives nor in a time in which it does not live. Hence, Sextus concludes, it must be the case that it never dies and, ‘if this is the case, we are always living and, according to him, we shall come to be hereafter (αὖθις γενησόμεθα)’ (M. 1.312).

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’.

While restating the correct interpretation of the prologue to the Hecyra of Terence in CQ 32 (1982), 134 F. H. Sandbach has this to say: ‘Possibly the widespread view which the translators and I reject has been encouraged by disbelief that the theatre could be used for gladiatorial combat. It is true that there is no reliable evidence for such use at Rome, for Donatus' statement “hoc abhorret a nostra consuetudine uerumtamen apud antiquos gladiatores in theatro spectabantur” may be no more than inference from Terence's text.’ There is, in fact, a certain amount of evidence for gladiatorial combats in the theatres at Rome, that is at venues where ludi scaenici were performed, which it is difficult to regard as unreliable and which is consistent with what we know of the relationship between the theatre and gladiatorial games.

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.

Constans, who defends the unanimous reading of the manuscripts, explains ‘tertium’ as a reference to two previous senatus consulta which Fufius did not veto (ad Att. 1.13.3). The problem with this interpretation is that Fufius is not even mentioned in the passage Constans cites; in fact, this letter marks Fufius' first appearance in the correspondence. On the basis of what is preserved it is difficult to see how Atticus could have divined such a meaning in Cicero's ‘tertium’. Scholars have preferred to emend. The proposals of Graevius and Manutius have been criticized by Shackleton Bailey on the grounds that ‘concessit’ cannot mean ‘non intercessit’ in the absence of any mention of previous intercessory action on Fufius' part. However, in view of Cicero's description of the tribune in ad Att. 1.14.1, Atticus would have been no less puzzled if Fufius' failure to veto went unexplained. No earlier allusion to Fufius is necessary. Both ‘territus’ and ‘tum’ provide an explanatory context for Fufius' behaviour which makes the word play in ‘concessit’ understandable and perfectly acceptable.

Shackleton Bailey's own suggestion does not suit the context of the letter, as Ph. Moreau demonstrates in some detail. In addition to the arguments (chiefly historical) adduced by Moreau, it is important to notice that Shackleton Bailey's reading fails to conform to the confident and victorious mood of the letter or to the plot of the relevant paragraph (1.14.5): once Cato's intrusion has focused the resentment of the Senate against Clodius' supporters and his tactics, Cicero depicts Clodhis 'position as increasingly abject.

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.

Neptunus et Apollo dicuntur Troiam muro cinxisse; his rex Laomedon uouit quod regno suo pecoris eo anno natum esset immolaturum. id uotum auaritia fefellit. alii dicunt †parum eum promisisse.

The story that Neptune and Apollo together built the walls of Troy for Laomedon is well known from Homer. At the end of their year's service the perfidious king refused to pay the agreed wages. Ovid tells the familiar story in one of his transitional sections in the Metamorphoses. Hyginus' account poses the textual problem indicated above. H. I. Rose comments on ‘parum’ as follows: ‘procul dubio corruptum hoc neque arridet Schmidtii coniectura promsisse. fuitne partum equarum? hoc enim plerumque narratur, equos quos a Ioue accepisset promisisse Laomedontem mercedis nomine…sed Herculi; quod facile ad deos mercennarios transferri potuit; atque non equos sed equas fuisse tradit Apollod. II, 104’. Rose rightly rejects Schmidt's emendation ‘promsisse’. ‘Promisisse’ has every sign of soundness and the difficulty lies, as Rose sees, with ‘parum’. Rose's own conjecture ‘partum equarum’, however, will not do. Apart from the oddity of the expression, one would need a good deal more persuasion than Rose offers to accept that the well-known promise of Zeus' horses which Laomedon made to Hercules (Hom. Il. 5.648–51, Ov. Met. 11.213–15) was transferred from Hercules to Neptune and Apollo. There is no suggestion anywhere in the sources that Laomedon promised to give Neptune and Apollo the famous horses as payment for building the walls.

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.

Of recent editors only Ehwald, I think, prints formosast rather than formosa est. This orthography is supported by that of the capital MSS of Virgil (O. Ribbeck, Prolegomena critica ad P. Vergili Maronis Opera Maiora [1867], 419); the inscriptions offer no consistent guidance. Here, however, the intentions of the writer himself are evident: Ovid must have written formosast to give three words to each season. He can be seen, as so often, improving on his model, here the Virgilian ‘mini-catalogues’ (A. A. R. Henderson, ad loc.) of the Eclogues, exploiting the couplet form to produce a completely symmetrical effect. In his magisterial note on the orthography of prodelision at D.R.N. 1.993 Lachmann confined his remarks on the elegists to the last word of the pentameter, and his conclusion is asserted rather than argued. Here we have contemporary evidence that by Ovid at least the syncopated form was written as well as spoken.

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.

This note is not concerned with the reliability of this information, but with the lexical singularity παλλ⋯ς, which has won widespread acceptance as an ancient sacral term, though our lexica display an uncommon, and indeed misleading, prudishness as to its meaning: ‘maiden-priestess’ (LSJ s.v. Παλλ⋯ς ii); ‘bei den Griechen in ägypt. Theben noch als sakraler Ausdruck = παρθ⋯νος' (Frisk, GEW s.v. παλλακ⋯); ‘A Thèbes d'Égypte pour désigner une prêtresse = παρθ⋯νος' (Chantraine, Dictionnaire s.v. παλλακ⋯).

Pubescent temple-prostitutes had no place in Hellenic religious life, and it might be thought surprising that there was a Greek word for them; yet Strabo offers the term without explanation or speculation as to derivation or dialectal provenance, apparently confident that it is indeed Greek and not a foreign loan-word. The Greeks who frequented Upper Egypt were not a group of largely homogeneous origin, who might have preserved in quasi-colonial isolation an archaism obsolete elsewhere in the Hellenic world. No such usage is mentioned in ancient discussions of the derivation of Pallas, wide though the etymological net is cast in the attempt to explain Athene's title: see, e.g., sch. Il. 1.199–200 (with Erbse's note), sch. Od. 1.252, P. Oxy. 2260 (early second century a.d.).