Hardly:τoσσάδε means ‘yet again,’ or ‘again and again.’ This idiomatic use of τοσο⋯τος (which is not recognized by the lexicons) may be illustrated from Plato, Apol. 19 c, µή πως έγώ ύπò Mελήτον τοσαύτας δίκας φύγοιµι, ‘lest I should be prosecuted by Meletus on yet another charge.’ Similar, in Latin, is the use of totiens: as Hor. Epp. i. 1. 6, ‘ne populum extrema totiens exoret harena.’

This use of ήβης has caused qualms both to others and to myself, but it means simply ‘life.’ Soph. frag. 713, ύβρις δέ τοι | ού πώποθ' ἥβης είς τ⋯ σώφρον ἳkετο | àλλ' έν νέοις àνθις τε καἱ πáλιν φθἱνει where τò νώθρον ἥβης must mean an advanced period of life. Thuc. v. 32, àπέκτειναν τούς ήβώντας, παῖδας δέ κα⋯ γυναικας ήνδραπόδισαν 116, ⋯πέκτειναν Mηλ⋯ων ὃνους ⋯βώντας ἔλαβου, παιδας δέ κα⋯ γυναῖκας ήνδραπόδισαν; in these two passages the context shews that ήβώντας includes grown men of all ages. Hence we may say with reason that ⋯κμ⋯ν ἥβης means merely ‘point of life.’ It does not, I think, mean to suggest that Oedipus hopes to hear that Laius was younger than the man he had killed; Oedipus is very careful to avoid leading questions throughout his investigations; it is his extreme scientific honesty that causes him to begin this very couplet by refusing to give Iocasta any hint of what he fears.Indeed he often seems to me to be an unconscious satire upon that scientific espirit which has led us to seek for the root from whence we sprung only to find an ancestor ‘with pointed ears, probably arboreal’; luckily we are none the worse. All he means therefore in this question is ‘how old was he?’ Both Campbell and Jebb mistranslate it.

μ⋯. ρ[…] τει. Professor Hunt thinks that this may be the remains of a verb ending in -ε⋯ or -λ⋯; read perhaps 'κρινλάτει. The uncompounded verb occurs in col. iv. 1. 8. It is well known that Sophocles is fond of forming new verbs compounded with ⋯κ. Professor Hunt tells me that this suggestion satisfies the conditions in the Papyrus. Compare κυνηλέσω, 11. 15, 44, and ⋯κκυνηλ⋯σαι, 1. 75.

The four Books numbered XI. to XIV. in the extant collection of Sibylline Oracles present, under the transparent disguise of prophecy, a summary of the world's history, concluded, in the last fourteen lines of Book XIV., by a short prediction of an ideal future. The chronicle of events, as it now stands, runs continuously from the Flood and the Tower of Babel to some date not hitherto determined, but certainly not earlier than 266 A.D.

Octogesa.—Those who have read the First Commentary of Caesar's Civil War will remember that the theatre of the campaign which he conducted against Afranius and Petreius extended from a point on the Segre twenty-two Roman miles above Ilerda (Lerida) to the mountains which close on the north the valley of the Ebro. The earlier operations took place in the neighbourhood of Ilerda and on either side of the upper reaches of the Segre; the later in the country between Ilerda and the mountains. Thanks to Stoffel, the topography of the earlier operations is determined fairly well: that of the later, especially the position of Octogesa, is still uncertain. Caesar's camp was about five furlongs west of Ilerda; the Pompeian camp was on a ridge half a mile south of his.

Gercke reads with the MSS. Δ and E: ‘haec adhuc Etruscis philosophisque communia sunt: in illo dissentiunt quod fulmina a Ioue (“fulmina nouem” the best MSS.) dicunt mitti et tres illi (om. Δ) manubias dant.’ Mr. Garrod (C.Q. vol. VIII. No. 4, p. 281) remarks that the soundness of ‘nouem’ is clinched by the passage he cites from Pliny, N.H. II. 138. But the suggestion he bases on this—to alter ‘illi’ to ‘Ioui’—seems unsatisfactory, as ‘mittiy’ in the first clause is left in crying need of a governing agent; ‘Ioui’ comes in too late in the sentence, and the whole is given an awkward turn that Seneca surely could and would have avoided—by writing ‘fulmina >a Ioue< nouem dicunt mitti.’ Even if ‘a Ioue’ is merely a conjecture of the Δ family, as Mr. Garrod seems to hold, it is a conjecture good enough to pass muster. Perhaps copyists then dropped ‘illi’ from a feeling that it was needless after ‘a Ioue.’ But construction practically demands it.

The subject of these lines may be found in Caes. B.C. I. 54, from which they are in part derived, though probably at second hand. The reference is to Caesar's tactics after the floods in the plain around Ilerda. He built a number of coracles after the British fashion, and had them conveyed to a point on the right bank of the Sicoris, twenty-two miles from his camp. In these boats he sent a number of men across the river, who fortified some rising ground. Then he sent a legion across and started the building of a bridge from both sides at once: hue legionem postea traiecit atque ex utraque parte pontem institutum biduo perfecit.