S is Madrid, Biblioteca Nacionale, gr. 24; foll. 136 (paper); size folio, with thirty-two lines usually to the page; dated 1464. Contents: f. 2, a Life of Musaeus (differing from Suidas), followed by' AντƖπά⋯pou σƖδωτíον (sic, for Өɛσσαλο⋯ɩƙέως) ɛĺς ἠƿὠ καĺ λέα⋯ծpoδ (Anth. Dübner, VII. 666) and Musaeus, Hero and Leander. 7v, two poems by Marcus Musurus, viz. a version of Musaeus' poem in ten hexameter lines and four elegiac couplets ɛĺς μονοαîo⋯. 8r, three epigrams on Orpheus (Anth. Düb. VII. 8–10), written as one. 8v, Constantine Lascaris ɛĺς Ƭձ πpoλɛƳòμɛ⋯α ƬoȖ σoϕοȖ òpϕέως 10v, πɛpìπolŋroÛ on the life and writings of Orpheus (quite different from Suidas' Life). 11r, úπóƟɛσɩς ƬoȖ πλoȖ Ƭὦ⋯ ⋯pƳo⋯α⋯ Ƭlκѽѵ (sic). 11v, úπóƟɛσɩς ƬoȖ ծέpo⋯ς 12, Orpheus, Argonautica, with frequent marginal notes, and corrections in red ink, in Lascaris' hand. 35, Orpheus, Hymns, prefaced by the invocation to Musaeus, 'Opɸɛùς πρòς μo⋯σαîo⋯ ɛùƬνXὦς Xpὦ έƬαîρɛ (M⋯⋯Ɵɑ⋯ɛ ծέμονσαîɛ Ɵυɳπоλíŋ⋯ πɛpì σɛμ⋯ήν κƬλ); of the Hymns are given (Abel) II.; VI.; VIII.; XXXII.; XL.

As the black clouds of war lift from the surface of the Continents of Europe and Nearer Asia, the eye looks round upon a shattered civilization. The once busy tide of labour on the field and in the factory, beneath the soil and within dock, ebbs slowly away; the accustomed rewards of toil, food, warmth and clothing, become daily more difficult of attainment. Authority trembles in its seat, and money loses its once all-powerful attraction. Inevitably the scholar recalls the tale of the Decline and Fall of the Roman-Hellenistic world, and calculates the prospect of a second millennium of darkness and suffering. And he is not unconscious that he stands himself accused of having brought about, or at least failed to avert, the doom of the nations. For, he is told, the governing classes of all the nations that clashed in mutual destructiveness were constituted of men brought up in the classical tradition, whose minds in their fresh boyhood were fed on the so-called glories of Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar, and who sought in rivalry to win, each for his nation, the haughty supremacy of imperial Rome. And he hears the clamour of those who demand a clean sweep of the false ideals and selfish ambitions of the past, and the building upon new foundations of a world of contentment and peace, inspired by the basic conception of a citizenship in which no man shall seek his own gain at the cost of another's loss. Towards the building up of this new world, it is claimed, the study of the past can do nothing to help; by effacing itself it will cease to be a hindrance. And in response to this accusation there arise in all directions schemes for a reconstructed world, a reconstituted nation, and a new education, which shall be alike in this one point—that they take for granted the elimination of the study of antiquity and the disappearance of the atmosphere of the Humanities.

To discuss Professor Lindsay's doctrine of ‘Breves Breviantes’ would involve writing a long article, for which there is no space in the April number of the Class. Quart. But it would be wrong in me to pass his treatment of Plaut. Bacch. 1106 by without comment. What he calls ‘a sane view of the law of B.B.’ (Class. Quart, for January, p. 50) involves the emendation of a number of lines which are in other respects quite above suspicion. In these circumstances would it not be the wiser course to reconsider the supposed ‘sane law’ rather than to attempt to alter the text so as to make it fit a law which is not admitted by some of the most eminent of modern critics (e.g. Seyffert and Skutsch)? Emendation is particularly unfortunate in this instance, because the metre is anapaestic, and the suggestion of Professor Lindsay that the word Philoxene may be ‘a gloss to indicate the speaker or a misinterpretation of some marginal indication of a speaker’ is surely ill-considered; for the speaker is Nicobulus, and the speakers of adjacent lines are given correctly, so far as I see, in the MSS. Such a gloss would, then, be meaningless. Professor Lindsay's attempt at emendation of this line is, in fact, striking evidence of the bankruptcy of the ‘sane view‘ of iambic shortening to which he has unfortunately committed himself.

Great advances have been made of late years in the understanding of ancient artillery, but the difference between the παλíντινιν and the εὐθ⋯τινιν seems to remain a riddle still inviting solution. In tentatively accepting the invitation, we are met at the outset by a certain amount of fog due to the fact that ancient guns were classed by two methods which produce a cross division. It will pay us to dispel this fog, or at any rate to find our bearings in it as exactly as may be, before going further.

The Abstrusa glossary consists to a great extent of glosses extracted apparently from the margins of a Virgil MS., which contained not merely explanations of difficult words but many long scholia taken from ancient commentators such as Donatus and Servius. In its original form it was probably much larger than it appears in C.G.L. IV. The process of curtailment is visible in the MSS. we possess. Moreover, the Liber Glossarum and other glossaries borrowed freely from it, and often show its glosses in a fuller form. It is reasonable to suppose that many glosses of the kind described above, which are found in the Liber Glossarum (with the sign DE GLS., i.e. ‘taken from glossaries’) and sometimes elsewhere, belonged to the Abstrusa glossary, though they do not appear in the edition of it which has survived. (See Lindsay, C.Q. XI. 120 sqq.) Some of the following notes will show how these principles help to clear up difficulties which arise in the investigation of individual items.

During the period from December to April Dionysos is celebrated at Athens four times: at the Lesser Dionysia, at the Lenaea, at the Anthesteria, at the Greater Dionysia.

The Lenaea festival falls in the Ionic month of Lenaion, which corresponds with the Attic Gamelion, i.e. January. There are no serious objections to fixing the date in this way. The competition in theatricals held at this festival is called ⋯ ⋯π⋯ Ληναίωι àγών the god Dionysos Ληναίος or Ληνεύς the temple-grounds τ⋯ Λήυαιου. These were probably situated on the stretch of swelling ground, rising from the Apostle Paul Road, between Areopagus and Akropolis, as there was room enough there to seat a large audience. It is worthy of notice that, in contrast with the Greater or Urban Dionysia, ancient narrators call the Lenaea a rural festivity, at which a rustic song is intoned. Still, they are to be distinguished from the Lesser Dionysia, which are celebrated at the end of December.

While reserving my judgment on the wider questions connected with the Roman calendar, I think it may not be out of place to attempt a firmer handling of the astronomical dates discussed in Dr. Rice Holmes's ‘Supplementary Note on the Julian Calendar’ which appeared in the Classical Quarterly, XIV. (1920), pp. 46, 47. That note is concerned with two new moons discussed by Dr. Groebe in his edition of Drumann's Geschichte Roms, III. (1906), pp. 774–9.

In Dr. T. Rice Holmes's article, ‘A Supplementary Note on the Julian Calendar’ in the Classical Quarterly of January, 1920, the following correction should be mide:

P. 47, 1, 2: For ‘26th’ read ‘25th’.