In this article I have been concerned to show that some commonly accepted readings or interpretations are inadequate, to offer what I believe to be the correct interpretations, to justify these by a careful consideration of the context, and to-propose corrections that give the required sense and are in accordance with well-established palaeographical canons.

In The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens Dr. Pickard-Cambridge includes a most useful and convenient collection of south Italian vase-paintings which have been held to throw light on the stage-settings of Greek tragedy. He concludes that they give no evidence for Athens in the fifth century and in particular do not justify the assumption that interior scenes were played in a porch in front of the central door. The second conclusion is true, but some of the vases do show that the central doors could be thrown wide open to display an interior scene. The first conclusion is formally correct, but it should be remembered that the “plays came from Athens, and it is at least possible that the south Italian producers modelled themselves on Athenian producers. In any case these vases are worthy of further consideration.

The study of Plato's style as a writer has hardly kept pace with the study of his thought as a philosopher. Obviously he stands apart as the one original thinker in classical antiquity who also gives expression to his thought in a finished literary prose; and obviously his prose is worth studying for its own sake. What I would here suggest is that the close and continual relationship between the style and the content of his work may serve, in various aspects, to elucidate his argument; and, further, that at certain points his style itself has a direct connexion with his philosophic thought.

It is one of the attractions of Greek syntax that it provides an abundance of usages which require careful discrimination, if we are to appreciate their value; and which at the same time present problems of interpretation which have not been completely solved. This is particularly the case with the use of the negatives, and it is one of these constructions with which we are concerned here.

The codex Cromwellianus 12 (saec. XV–XVI), one of the most interesting astrological manuscripts of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, contains on p. 450 f., under the heading 'Ιμβρασίου 'Εϕεσίου περί ⋯ρρώστων, the first part of the first part of Ps.-Galen's περι κατακλίσεως νοσούντων, which is, together with a work of Hermes Trismegistos, our principal source for iatromathematics, that is, for diagnosis and prognosis based on certain constellations, above all on the Moon's position in a particular sign of the zodiac. It is not the text itself that calls for notice—since we possess older and better manuscripts of it—but the mention of the author, Imbrasios of Ephesus, which only occurs here.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to a similarity between an ancient and a modern theory of living nature. There is no need to present the Aristotelian doctrine in full detail. I must rather apologize for repeating much that is well known. My endeavour is to offer it for comparison, and, incidentally, to clear it from misrepresentation. Uexküll's theory, on the other hand, is little known, and what is given here is an insufficient outline of it. I do not maintain that either doctrine is right. I am fully aware that the problem of the essence of living nature by no means admits of an éasy solution. In offering for consideration the comparison contained in this paper I would go no farther than owning my belief that the two authors here discussed, both thinkers who combine an intensely philosophical outlook with a wide biological experience, are worth the attention not only of the historian of science and philosophy, but also of the student of philosophical biology.

Etymology, especially that of an ancient language like Greek, is not as a rule a field in which one expects to get conclusive demonstration; and between rival explanations one is often provided with a choice which cannot be made with much confidence. But despite this I think that I should reply to the article by W. S. Allen on ‘The Name of the Black Sea in Greek’ (C.Q. xli (1947), pp. 86–8), which has raised again the question dealt with in my article ‘The Name of the Euxine Pontus’ (C.Q. xxxiv (1940), pp. 123–8). This is not so much because I do not feel satisfied with Allen's explanation (as I do not), as because this particular etymology has considerable historical, in addition to linguistic, interest.

Since my article in C.Q. xli, pp. 86 ff., a further discussion of the problem has come to my notice. H. Jacobsohn, in an article entitled Σκνθικ⋯ in Zeitschr. f. vergleichende Sprachforschung, liv, pp. 254 ff., anticipates my point that the Greek ᾊξε(ι)νƿς is borrowed not from Avestan but from some other Iranian language, probably Scythian. He also makes outan attractive case, based on the word παφ⋯δεισ¿ς, for considering the Iranian pronunciation at the period when the loan occurred to have been αχšēna, with ē from original ai. It is unfortunate that he should have supported his case with the argument that a form αχšaina is too remote from Greek ἄξειν¿ς (where ει = ē, not ei) for the identification to have taken place: this insistence on complete homonymy in folk-etymology I have already criticized in discussing Moorhouse's article; and in any case it is by no means certain that ἄξεινႿς is the earliest form of the name in Greek.