During the British occupation of the western extremity of the Gallipoli Peninsula, a brief Greek inscription was discovered by Sergt.-Major R. S. Jones, 136 Company, Royal Engineers. A copy of this he sent to his relatives in Cardiff, and it was by them put before the Western Mail for explanation. Ultimately it came into my hands. I at once wrote asking what had become of the stone, and what was its position—whether above or below ground—when discovered But Sergt.-Major Jones had been killed by a shell on December 27, 1915, eleven days after writing his letter, and only two days after he had been recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Further information, therefore, was not obtainable; but the inscription appears to have been hitherto unknown. It is a splendid thought that we owe this new historical information to the interest and care of a soldier in the midst of perilous and toilsome duties. His commanding officer wrote that he was ‘my right-hand man ever since the company was formed at Buxton.’

In a paper recently published in this Review, I tried to show that part of the formal beauty of the Hercules Furens is due to a subtle treatment of the familiar doctrine that the tyrant's wealth and power are of trifling value compared with Sophrosune, the gain that is really gain. Perhaps some further notes on the dramatic use made by Euripides of these familiar ideas may be of interest. One object with which I started was to observe the use of the word τúραννος in Greek drama. Though the poets frequently enough use it merely as a convenient equivalent for βασιλεúσetc., popular feeling made it easy to suggest the meaning ‘tyrant,’ ‘bad King,’ or ‘Usurper’; and the poets use the ambiguity with great subtlety and in a manner which enables them to obtain fine effects of irony and scorn. What is more important is the fact that the notion of a tyrant with which we are acquainted in later Greek literature was already common-place in the fifth century, and that many dramatic effects depend on the recognition by the audience of the commonplace as such. Indeed, it is often the adaptation by the poet of the familiar ideas that lends formal beauty to compositions which, if we think simply of the plot, appear at first sight jerky or ‘epeisodic.’

Vergil has a strong idea of personal fate. A certain fate becomes attached to a certain person (or community) and follows him all his life; then the fates are spoken of as the fates of that person. As a parallel one might quote the idea in Maeterlinck's essay ‘La Chance’ (in the volume, he Temple enseveli, 1902, pp. 229 sqq.). For both Maeterlinck and Vergil men are marked out, one might almost call it annexed, by good or bad fortune; yet both authors refuse to endow this good or bad fortune with personality: they deal with personal fates which yet lack personality.

In an interesting article in the Journal of Roman Studies (Vol. V., Part I.) Prof. Jefferson Elmore reopens the vexed question as to the nature and object of the ‘declarations’ provided for in lines 1 to 19 of the Heraclean Table, and claims to have discovered a fresh clue more satisfactory than any so far propounded. As I have recently committed myself in opposition to the hypotheses of Hirschfeld, Legras and Nap, to what is at least a partial reaffirmation of Mommsen's explanation, and as I find Prof. Elmore's suggestions contrary to the evidence, and seriously wanting in cohesion and consistency, I shall venture to subject them to some examination and criticism.

The abbreviation-symbols of the Romans, found in ancient uncial MSS., may be roughly divided into three classes:

(1) Those peculiar to juristic writing, e.g. R.P. ‘res priuata’ (any case), Q.D.R.A. ‘qua de re agitur.’ They are properly called ‘notae iuris.’ They abound in the famous Verona MS. of Gaius(uncial, ‘fifth century’).

(2) A few used in histories, etc., e.g. R.P. 'respublica' (any case), Q. ‘Quintus’ (any case). Valerius Probus, who compiled a manual of ancient Notae, calls this class ‘notae publicae’. They appear in such MSS. as the codex Puteanus of Livy (uncial, ‘fifth century’); and since they have been transferred into modern editions of the Latin historians, etc., no one is at a loss to interpret them nowadays, although they puzzled mediaeval scribes.

(3) Symbols of ordinary words of frequent occurrence in any type of literature, e.g. Q. ‘que.’ It is this class which is the subject of this article.

One day towards the end of the eighth century the scribe of cod. Paris. Lat. 7530, a miscellany to which we owe the carmen de figuris (anth. Lat. Ries. 485, P. L. M. Baehr. III pp. 273–85), began to copy out for us, on the 28th leaf of the MS, the Thyestes of Varius. He transcribed the title and the prefatory note, which run thus: INCIPIT THVESTA VARII. Lucius Varius cognomento Rufus Thyesten tragoediam (traged … cod.) magna cura absolutam (absoluto cod.) post Actiacam uictoriam Augusti (aug … cod.) ludis eius in scaena edidit, pro qua fabula sestertium deciens accepit. Then he changed his mind: he proceeded with a list of the notae employed by Probus and Aristarchus, and the masterpiece of Roman tragedy has rejoined its author in the shades.

My paper, written in 1911, was something of a ballon d'essai, and I acknowledge frankly one or two mistakes. Thus I did not know that Euripides wrote a Thyestes; and again one or two of my references were wrong: in excuse I may perhaps plead that I have not had access to a Latin book for nearly two years. Apart from this I will now make only two observations:

1. I set aside the evidence of Cod. Paris. Lat. 7530 because I was dealing with evidence of saec. i.-iv. Cod. Paris. Lat. 7530 shows that some persons at the end of saec. viii. ascribed the Thyestes to L. Varius Rufus. So did persons in saec. iv. In addition, Cod. Paris. Lat. 7530 gives a date for the Thyestes. To Mr. Housmanthis date is certain; if it is uncertain a large part of his argument comes to nothing. But who can think it certain ? It comes to us from the end of the eighth century. If it came to us from Jerome's Chronicle we could still not think it certain, though we should know whence Jerome derived it. We do not now whence Cod. Paris. Lat. 7530 derived it. The reference to Actium may have no better source than the wish to connect a great literary and a great political event: and the gossip about the playwright's profits (reckoned by Mr. Housman at some £10,000) seems to me in itself suspicious.

2. The main contention of the early part of my paper was that the evidence of the relevant MSS. as between Vari and Varii, etc., amounts to nothing either way. I do not think Mr. Housman is prepared seriously to contest this proposition.