THE object of this note is to draw attention to a suggestion made by the late Professor F. M. Cornford, in the course of a paper read to the Oxford Philological Society some years ago,

‘Lapidem silicem tenebant iuraturi per Iouem, haec uerba dicentes: Si sciens fallo, tum me Dispiter salua urbe arceque bonis eiciat ut ego hunc lapidem.’ I do not propose to add to the mass of commentary and controversy which loads this passage of Paulus Diaconus (p. 102, 11 Lindsay), except to remind readers that it is a comparatively modern version (for the words are not archaic in form) of a very old formula. Under Dispiter lurks some early shape of the name of Iuppiter, certainly not of the Greek importation Dis, first worshipped in Rome, apparently, in 505/249. I believe it to be older than the end of the regal period, probably much older, for it names the Arx as the important spot in Rome, not the Etruscanizing Capitol. However, this detail and my opinions concerning the oath and its takers matter little for my present purpose. It is enough if it be granted, as I think everyone will grant, that it is ‘eine alte Fetialformel’ as Fraenkel has it, at all events eine alte Formel, more ancient than the surviving literature.

‘Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluuunt celebranturque. igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus adfixi aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. hortos suos ei spectaculo Nero obtulerat et circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus plebi vel curriculo insistens. unde quamquam adversus sontes et novissima exempla meritos miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica sed in saevitiam unius absumerentur.’ Tac.Ann. 15. 44.

In an article on ‘The Name of the Euxine Pontus’ in C.Q.xxxiv (1940), pp. 123 ff., A. C. Moorhouse rejects the suggestion made by M. Vasmer and supported by Boisacq that the original Greek title ἃξε(ι)νος was a popular rendering of the Avestan adjective αχṦαệνα, ‘of dark colour’. Moorhouse raises the following objections to this theory:

i. There is no direct evidence of the Avestan adjective ever being applied to the Black Sea.

ii. In historical times ‘Avestan is a long way from Greek’ and in prehistorical times it is doubtful whether the speakers of Avestan had any close connexion with the Black Sea.

iii. Assuming πόντος to denote ‘way’, ‘the dark way’ would be a fantastic name for any sea.

iv. The early Greek form is ἃξενος, and only metri gratia ἃξεινος, whereas if the word is a loan from αχṧαēνα we should expect the phonetically closer form ἃξενος

oscula suspensis instabant carpere palmis

oscula et alterna ferre supina fuga.

It has been held that ferre is here to be taken for Φέρεσθαι oscula ferre is a fairly common phrase; I have met with it in twenty-two other passages down to Apuleius, in eighteen of which the meaning dare (as distinct from carpere) oscula is certain and in two more (Ov. Met. 7. 729, Am. 3. 7. 48) it is appropriate. The two exceptions are Ov. Her. 15. 101 non tecutn lacrimas, non oscula nostra tulisti and ibid 16. 253 f. oscula si natae dederas, ego protinus ilia / Hermiones tenero laetus ab ore tuli. Neither offers a true parallel to the use attributed to Propertius (in the second passage the notion of stealing kisses previously given by a third party makes a difference), and in both the sense ‘bear away’ is made unmistakable by other words (tecum and ab ore). As a matter of usage, then, it is justifiable to assume the meaning ‘give a kiss’ for this phrase, unless something else is plainly indicated. Further, the Propertian lines gain in point by the contrast (of word rather than fact, it is true) between carpere ‘snatch’ and ferre ‘bring’.

In his masterly work on Tarentum, P. Wuilleumier (Tarente, 5) identifies the Galaesus with the Citrezze or Giadrezze, a small stream running into the north side of the Mare Piccolo, about two miles from the channel on the west side of the citadel of Tarentum which connects the Mare Piccolo with the sea. This identification, which has been often repeated since Lenormant's time (La Grande-Grèce, i. 19) and spread beyond the narrow bounds of pure scholarship by the writings of George Gissing (By the Ionian Sea, 60 ff.), Norman Douglas (Old Calabria, 80), and David Randall-Madver (Greek Cities in Italy and Sicily, 76), is likely to hold the field by virtue, of Wuilleumier's support. But it is irreconcilable with the only ancient evidence on the position of this river, given in the account of Hannibal's movements in 212 B.C.

Readers of the poems of Dracontius as edited and expounded by F. Vollmer (Monum. Germ. Hist., Auct. Ant., vol. xiv, 1905, and Poet. Lat. Min., vol. v, 1914) may well receive the impression that the poet was incapable of the Latin tongue and was given to turns and expressions intelligible only to himself and such painstaking students as his editor. The language of the true Drac., though often stiff and artificial, does not, however, call for superhuman powers of interpretation, and the bewilderment of his readers is occasioned largely by the faulty tradition of the text and the conservatism of an editor who either refuses to recognize the corruptions which confront him, or is content with superficial corrections sufficient to restore some semblance of grammar whether or not accompanied by sense. To the text of Drac. Vollm. certainly made a valuable contribution, but his unshakable faith in the integrity of scribes led to a frequent acceptance of the false as the true; that the transmission of the text may have been left to the heedless or the ignorant is not a possibility which appears to have occurred to him. There can be no doubt that the manuscripts on which the text depends are full of corruptions, and many of these have received either inadequate attention or none at all; where convincing remedies have been proposed by previous scholars, Vollm. has shown all too often a blind indifference. The poems of Drac. deserve, indeed, more sympathetic treatment, for they are by no means without merit. The Christian works at least, written during his imprisonment, contain flashes of real poetry and are characterized by a warmth of feeling inspired by the poet's personal miseries and genuine belief in the goodness of God; that they were read and imitated in the most diverse lands of the Christian world is not surprising. The following notes represent for the most part an attempt to improve on Vollm.'s text of the De laudibus dei and the Satisfactio in certain passages where the manuscript reading appears to me to have been either improperly retained or imperfectly emended. I have already dealt with a number of other unsatisfactory passages in C.Q., vol. xxxiii, pp. 157–62, and vol. xl, pp. 92–100. The text quoted is in each case that of Vollm.'s P.L.M. edition.

The assumption that a particular object mentioned in the Iliad or Odyssey must be described by epithets which are consistent with each other and with the narrative has complicated every attempt to relate the evidence of archaeology to the poems. It may fairly be assumed that a modern writer wants to be consistent and that, apart from oversights, he will not use an epithet unless it is directly appropriate to the object which he is creating for his immediate purpose; but this is not necessarily true of a poet who had ready to hand a rich store of phrases in meaning appropriate to the various furnishings of his heroic world, and in form adapted to the needs of his verses. As within the Kunstsprache there is a group of epithets describing the moral and physical characteristics common to all heroes and used to suit not the race or actions of individuals but the scansion of their names and the place in the hexameter, so it is natural to suppose that descriptions of things in common use will include at least some similar stock phrases appropriate to types rather than to units. Once the existence of such phrases is established, there is no difficulty in their combination, as metrical convenience requires, in composite descriptions made up of elements each of which has its own real counterpart, but which need never all have existed together in the same object or even in the same age. The following tabulations of the descriptive words and phrases applied to a few familiar objects show that such metrical clausulae are always present, though they vary in prevalence and behaviour.

IN 19052 Dr. Tarn put forward the theory that the trireme had three squads of oarsmen, one forward, one amidships, and one aft, and that its oar system was similar to that of the Venetian a zenzile galleys of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, ships in which 'three oarsmen sit to each bench, each pulling his own oar, so that the man who sits furthest inboard pulls the longest oar.

Mr. M. P. Charlesworth seems to have been too sceptical when he remarked (Classical Quarterly, xxii, 1928, p. 93) that ‘the names of the Indian princelets given in the Periplus are unidentifiable, or rather too easily identifiable with any one, to be of any use’. Actually, the ruler mentioned in ch. 41 is identifiable beyond reasonable doubt, and (even more important) his date is practically certain.