The occurrence of Greek and Trojan names on the Linear B tablets at Knossos and Pylos raised a problem. Professor T. B. L. Webster, writing in 1955, a few years after the decipherment of Linear B, stated: ‘For the moment it may be safest to assume that Mycenaean poetry already possessed these names but that poetry was continually remodelled to tell of recent events, so that if the sack of Troy VIIa found its way into poetry, its defenders, as well as its attackers, would be given for the most part, as Nilsson long ago suggested, existing Mycenaean names.’ Four years later Professor D. L. Page deepened the issue when he stated: ‘An apparently Greek name on the Trojan side may be merely an adaptation, the assimilation of a foreign name to a Greek form. Let the name of Alexandras be a warning to us: he looks Greek enough, but we know that he is merely a foreigner in a Greek dress.

The evidence of the Marmor Parium confirms that Sophokles ‘died under Kallias’, who was archon from the summer of 406 to the summer of 405. The Frogs was produced during the archonship of the same Kallias, at the Lenaia: that is, in January/February 405. The Frogs refers to the dead poet in the prologue, in the second prologue, and in the exodos (76–82, 786–94, 1515–19): in the prologue and in the exodos Sophokles is mentioned in connexion with the return of Dionysos from Hades with a good tragic poet (cf. 71–85 and 1414–1533), and in the second prologue in connexion with the contest between Aeschylus and Euripides for the tragic throne in Hades (cf. 757–1410).

I Know that it is a commonplace to begin with apologies, but the Head Master of Eton did so last night, and hence let me say that you are doomed to disappointment this morning if, at the end of your splendid and varied programme, you are expecting a sonorous peroration on ‘The Spirit of Antiquity’ or ‘The Greeks and what they mean to us’. You know the kind of thing I mean: ‘Greek simplicity recalls to us the central interests of the human heart. Greek truthfulness is a challenge to see the world as it is and to shun the falsities of rhetoric or sentiment. Greek beauty is a memorial of an aspect of the Universe to which ages of thought are often blind.’ Noble words, and as you hear them, some of you are no doubt murmuring ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume’, and like Stanley you would be right. Originally I was billed to talk about Verse Composition but this was changed to something about the Greek Anthology, and finally I find myself responsible for the concluding lecture. I fear it will be for me not to heighten the tone but to lower it. I have myself attended conferences of this kind and drawn much profit from them.

This of course was Renaissance enthusiasm. The fame and influence which Plutarch enjoyed in the days of the rediscovery of antiquity could not survive the revolutions in historical and scholarly attitudes that marked the nineteenth century. Instead of being thought of as a mirror of antiquity and of human nature, he became a ‘secondary authority’, to be used where the ‘primary sources’ failed, himself to be quarried by the Quellenforscher and left a ruin. The present neglect of the Lives in education is a consequence of this. And yet it should be obvious that, for the very historical purposes for which the book is now chiefly studied, it is misleading and dangerous to use what is plainly one of the most sophisticated products of ancient historiography without constant regard to the plans and purposes of its author. Fortunately, a good deal has been written, especially in the last twenty years, to redress the balance.

In his perceptive discussion of Catullus' eighth poem (Greece & Rome xiii, no. i [1966], 15–21) R. L. Rowland several times speaks of the ‘two halves’ of the poem, the second of which he takes to start with uale, puella, iam Catullus obdurat. These ‘two halves’, however, are very unequal in length, occupying eleven and eight lines respectively; and Catullus has made it hard for the reader to fail to notice this, for there are few Latin poems in which the structural parts are more clearly, or as clearly, marked. It may be legitimate to discern a poetic intention behind these ‘signposts’, and, if so, an analysis of them may perhaps supplement Mr. Rowland's observations and itself contribute something to our critical appreciation of the poem.

The eighth poem of Catullus is in many ways fundamental to our understanding of the poet; in it can be seen something not only of his methods but also of his approach both to his poetry and to the experience which he attempted to express through it. It is possible, by thinking in terms of ‘the Catullan experience’, to be led to overemphasize particular aspects of it at the expense of others and to attempt to find in one particular experience or set of experiences a clue to the man and his poetry. Such an approach may be fruitful; it may throw light on particular aspects of Catullus; but unless we remember that our results can only be partial, there is a danger that we may think we understand him when we do not.

More that thirty years ago W. Arend decisively showed that in Homer routine operations such as sacrificing and arming conform to a regular pattern. When a warrior arms himself, first are mentioned his greaves, then his cuirass, sword, shield, helmet, and spear(s), invariably in this order; at a sacrifice, first comes prayer and barley sprinkling, then the slaughter of the victim and its flaying, the cutting of the meat, its preparation, roasting, and serving. The embellishing varies a good deal, I suppose in accordance with the pace of the narrative or other aesthetic considerations; thus the Opfermahl scene has 21 possible operations: in the Iliad A 447 ff. has 18, B 402 ff. 17, H 314 ff. 6, Ω. 621 ff. 4, and ψ 166 a mere ἔδερόν τε κα⋯ ἄμεπον.

Greek myths are so vivid that we think of the figures in them as real people and argue about their characters and what made them do what they did. We forget not only that the people never existed (or if some of them did, they were certainly very different from the refined and sophisticated representations of them about which we argue), but also that what we have is a number of often incompatible versions in literature and art dating over a period of a thousand years or more, whereas what we argue about is either a single late version or a very late amalgam of a number of versions made in a handbook of mythology.

Bycommunis is meant a syllable, not the last syllable of a word nor a prepositional prefix, which may in one context be short, in another long, because it contains a short vowel, this vowel being followed by a mute (which may be represented by more than one character) followed by a liquid. The first two syllables of quadruplicis are communes. In Cicero, Arati Phaenomena 334, this word is scanned with the first syllable long and the second short, and we may say that it contains a long communis followed by a short communis; but in another context the first syllable of this word might be short and the second long, or both might be long. For brevity we may use CR (CCR) to mean long communis (-es) in the rise of a foot (arsis, strong position), CF (CCF) to mean long communis (-es) in the fall of a foot (thesis, weak position).

One of the incidental advantages of working in Ibadan is the wide variety of legitimate routes between Lagos and London. These have enabled us to explore the Roman Empire in some thoroughness; we have in the past visited Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Sicily, Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Spain. But we had long had our sights set on Algeria; only the political situation kept us away. By 1965 we decided that the political situation was settled. In fact our bookings came through on the day of Ben Bella's deposition. Equally when we were there in September 1965 the country gave every sign of being tranquil, and we had a time so thrilling that it seemed right to share it publicly in the hope of encouraging others to follow. For the welcome we received was warm beyond belief, and the Roman remains are wonderful, and wonderfully situated in beautiful country.

On the last occasion when I had the misfortune to examine in Honour Moderations at Oxford I set a question on the Oedipus Rex, which was among the books prescribed for general reading. My question was ‘In what sense, if in any, does the Oedipus Rex attempt to justify the ways of God to man?’ It was an optional question; there were plenty of alternatives. But the candidates evidently considered it a gift: nearly all of them attempted it. When I came to sort out the answers I found that they fell into three groups.

A brief glance into almost any modern history of Latin literature will show that the age of Silver Latin came to an end with Suetonius, whose death marked the beginning of two centuries during which Roman letters trickled away to nothing in a wind-swept desert. A sad fate for a great literature at such an early date, for Suetonius still belonged to the first quarter of the second century a.d. Fortunately we may beg to differ from our historians: there was yet life in the old body even after Suetonius.

Peter Bruegel's The Fall of Icarus—his only painting with a mythological subject—has long been seen as an allegory: Charles de Tolnay has shown how Bruegel took the details which he found in Ovid and used them, contrary to the accepted tradition of his time, to contrast the futility of Icarus' venture with the solid worth of the peasant labourer's life. Ovid, like Bruegel's contemporaries (for the most part), emphasized the wonder and novelty of the flight: the people in his landscape stopped in the middle of their tasks to wonder at the god-like beings who flew so effortlessly above them:

hos aliquis tremula dum captat harundine pisces aut pastor baculo stivave innixus arator vidit et obstipuit, quique aethera carpere possent credidit esse deos.