The use of earthenware as a filtering material for the purification of water is probably of very ancient origin, but the modern modification, the porcelain filter, according to Gautier (1890), is due to Nadaud de Buffon (1861). Earthenware filters in general serve the useful purpose of aërating the water and retaining suspended matter and are therefore valuable in rendering boiled and rain water clear and palatable. The first application of bacteriological methods of examination by pupils of Robert Koch showed, however, that the great majority of these and other water filters gave no protection against disease organisms. Hesse (1885–6) found that clays and asbestos retained micro-organisms to a marked extent, and, although Plagge (1886) confirmed this observation he demonstrated that but few filters prevented the direct transmission of bacteria and that even the best after a few days contaminated the filtrates indirectly. This indirect contamination Plagge attributed to the growth of micro-organisms within the filter mass and so pronounced is its influence that porcelain filters after being a few days in action give filtrates richer in germs than the original water. Schäfer (1893) states that porcelain filters do not allow organisms to grow through them when the water filtered is of such a character that the organisms cannot multiply in it. He points out that the waters usually filtered for domestic purposes do not allow B. typhosus and V. cholerae to grow, and that in such cases porcelain filters are efficient. Unfortunately, however, drinking waters do occur in which these organisms can multiply, and then indirect contamination is inevitable if the filter be allowed to act more than a few days without sterilisation.

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).

Horace once described Tibullus, in a letter addressed to the elegiac poet, as ‘silently strolling through the healthy woods, pondering on the problems that matter most’ (Ep. 1. 4. 4–5 taciturn silvas inter reptare salubris ∣ curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque est), and this is a view of Tibullus which underlies, in some form or another, most modern approaches to his poetry. After all, Tibullus is singularly dedicated to his concerns of love and the countryside, expressed with directness and simplicity in a style which is, as Quintilian says (x 1. 93), particularly ‘polished and elegant’ (elegia quoque Graecos provocamus, cuius mihi tersus atque elegans maxime videtur auctor Tibullus).

Of his own activity as a poet, and how he saw himself in relation to other writers, he says very little. At 2. 4. 13 ff., in one of love's despairs, he exclaims:

The text as published runs:

The elegiacs on side (a) of this fragmentary piece of papyrus are identifiable as by Callimachus, probably from the Aetia, and these lines too are undoubtedly by the same author, and almost certainly from the same work. Verse 5 is a surprise, for it was thought until the discovery of this papyrus to be by Euripides; however the only source for this attribution is Stobaeus (Eel. 1. 3. 6), in whom it appears as the first line of a two-line quotation. It is not unusual in Stobaeus for two originally unconnected lines to be mistakenly combined (for further references and comments see John Barns, ‘A new Gnomologium (II)’, CQ N.s. i (1951), 18–19).

I should like to draw attention to a metrical phenomenon observable in the hexameters of Callimachus and propound a ‘law’ which so far as I know has not been remarked on before; the accompanying discussion involves some refinements to our understanding of the metrical effect of proclitics of general importance to Greek metrical studies. In analysing the data I have made use of some standard statistical methods which could in my view be used throughout the whole field of Greek metrical studies with great profit (to emphasize this I have presented the evidence as thoroughly as seemed possible). The analysis also provides some detailed evidence useful for a comparison of Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, and Aratus, and the earlier writers by whom the Hellenistic poets were influenced.