Mr. Hulton has made interesting comments (C.Q., N.S. vii (1957), 139–42) on my earlier article (ibid. xl (1946), 1–10), from which I note that he is in favour of the construction, and also sees emphatic meaning in some examples. I am afraid, however, that I do not find his arguments convincing. Perhaps some brief remarks on them may be helpful.

So many scholars nowadays believe that the final scenes of the Seven against Thebes as we have them have been considerably distorted and interpolated that some may not be aware that such an opinion was first expressed little more than ioo years ago. The first scholar to do so was A. Scholl, who afterwards recanted (1 and 2);

SOME suggestions are here made for improvement of the text and understanding of Pliny's Eastern Aegean geography. The editions studied for the purpose are Detlefsen's special edition of the geographical books (Sieglin's Quellen und Forschungen, vol. ix, Berlin, 1904) and Mayhoff's Teubner vol. i (1906).

The citations of MSS. readings given below are normally taken from Mayhoff's apparatus, which (though not necessarily more accurate) gives a fuller coverage than Detlefsen's. The MSS. are cited by the letters given them in Mayhoff's edition and the Budé Pliny book i (1950), pp. 37 f. One further MS., hitherto not collated in the geographical books, is here cited. Following Campbell, who first drew attention to it, I cite it as c. This MS., formerly in the Phillipps collection in Cheltenham and now in the Pierpont Morgan Library (M. 871), is assigned to Lorsch and said to be of the first half of the ninth century. It seems thus to be somewhat older than A and E, and in that case is the oldest known surviving MS. of the geographical books.

In my second article on this subject I asked Professor Webster to clarify his previous statements. My article was shown to him before publication, and his reply will be found immediately following it. I will confine my remarks here to a single point, because it is simple and decisive.

The only passage in ancient literature explicitly connecting the phallus with Old Comedy is Clouds 537 f. There Aristophanes says that his play does not wear ‘any stitched-on leather, hanging down, red-tipped, thick, to make the children laugh’. Webster, following Körte, throws all the emphasis on and interprets the passage as meaning ‘the phalli worn in this play do not hang down’. Asked why so much emphasis should be placed on the word , he makes no reply.