We summarize the results of two experiments to address important issues related to the correlation between planet frequencies and properties and the metallicity of the hosts. Our results can usefully inform formation, structural, and evolutionary models of gas giant planets.

Mr Bloch's note contained other surprises for me beside that of discovering that I'd been in the Political Science Department of M.I.T. There does seem to be a real issue, however—propriety of use of a technique like content analysis—so reply seems indicated, unaccustomed as I am to this form of public speaking.

Firstly, logic. My reference to content analysis was specifically limited to Mr Stadter's chapter four (third paragraph of my review). Mr Bloch generalises this, apparently (see his paragraph one), to refer to the whole review—certainly he does not deal specifically with my criticisms in paragraph two, though they involve specific, substantive points. My paragraph two dealt with semantics, a separate, if related, issue. Let's not muddle them up here. Some inconsistency seems involved in arguing that ‘content analysis has nothing to contribute’ (Mr Bloch's paragraph three) while yet ‘students of literature and historians have for generations pursued “content analysis” as a major aim of their professions' (paragraph four). I note also that Mr Bloch was able to define the use of content analysis as ‘inappropriate’ even when it was ‘a term he had never previously encountered’ (paragraph two).

It must occur to anyone who reads Plutarch's account of Marius' flight and exile to wonder how much of this thrilling and romantic tale is historically true. There is indeed much to cause disquietude. Historiography of Plutarch's day had no distinct genre for the romantic novel, as Perrin so well points out, and consequently included much that history proper would exclude. Incidents in the flight and exile have in fact been described as ‘fairy-tale-like’ and ‘out.of the Arabian nights’. The debating points of the schools of rhetoric have had their influence too, involving Marius in several dilemmas which seem to have been invented for suasoriae (e.g. Marius and the slave-herdsmen, 36. 3; and the shipowners, 37. 2; and the old fisherman, 37.4; and Sextilius' envoy, 40. 3–4; the deliberations before the grove of Marica, 39. 4, are another example).

These notes are prompted by experience gained teaching Roman Republican history to a first-year Latin class over a period of a few years at Victoria University (then College), N.Z. The suggestions they contain arose largely from discussions with students and other teachers, university and otherwise, from all of whom I have learned a great deal. Basically, my problems were threefold. The course was very short, and tune limitations demanded the utmost selectiveness. The course was also voluntary, and so had to be interesting in itself and of immediate value and significance for students busied with Latin and generally with three other degree subiects, too.

In writing on Plutarch as a literary artist there is a tendency to confuse Plutarch's personality, which appears from his writings as ingenuous and somewhat naïve, with his style, which has all the sophistication of the classical renaissance of which his writings form a part. Actually, extensive acquaintance with many aspects of literary craftsmanship is visible in his work. His careful avoidance of hiatus was noticed as long ago as 1841 by Benseler. More recently it has been discovered that Plutarch writes rhythmical prose, with a great preference for certain definite forms. He is thoroughly versed in the various schemata for the presentation of material. Boissonade termed his style a mosaic because it is so well adapted for dealing with the various themes occurring in the Lives; Plutarch has in fact perfect command over matter and form as a result of a thorough acquaintance with a rich literary tradition.

The metaphors and similes which appear in this Life seem on a first reading in ill accord with the sophistication of its general craftsmanship. They are stereotyped into the thought-content, and even the diction, traditional for the symbolism they express. Their infrequency and the elaboration of the metaphors in particular makes them stand out starkly. This conspicuousness and careful articulation is significant. The metaphors and similes are in fact strikingly put so that they emphasise the passages in which they occur, and recall one another vividly to mind. Analysis reveals that they are used in two ways: as points of reference and emphasis (they occur only at important junctures) and to indicate the unity of lengthy passages. Long and elaborate metaphors occur at 11.1, 35.1, and 46.4, marking respectively the Germanic war, the civil war, and Marius' fate and death. A metaphor and simile grouped together, at 23.1 and at 32.1, 3 respectively, tell of Catulus' reverse and the Social War; two similes commence the developments which are to lead to Marius' death at 45.1–2. Less striking metaphors anticipate the civil war (10.5) and the Marian massacre (43.4).

Translations show an appreciation of the technical sense with which is endowed in this passage but the terminology which they employ to express that sense is unfortunate. The English term ‘declination’ when used technically in an astronomical context is irreconcilable with the connotations of the Greek term as used in this particular astronomical context. Allowing the technical meaning normal for it in such passages, upon Plutarch's wording, here compressed almost into incomprehensibility, the following construction must be put.