This paper deals with an apparently straightforward question: the degree to which ancient educators thought it necessary to introduce a playful element into the programmes of schools, and the way in which such ideas were put into practice.

Given that Lucretius offers a systematic and cohesive explanation of the workings of nature, we should not expect inconsistencies in his poem. The explanation presented by Lucretius emphatically rejects any interventionist divine machinery of the cosmos, offering in its place the eminently regular dynamics of atomic configuration and dissolution, which can explain everything that pertains to natural philosophy without necessitating the activity of any divinity. The reader who understands the basics of Lucretius’ philosophy, therefore, should be surprised that the DRN begins with an anthropomorphic description of the goddess Venus, whom the poet petitions to intervene actively in human affairs. Lucretius gradually refines this initial presentation of the goddess’ essence throughout the poem, suggesting that the Venus who inaugurates the poem must be nuanced once one has learned the basic principles of Epicurean philosophy. At the end of DRN 4, Venus is presented not as a divine being but as nothing more than the sexual drive shared by all creatures in nature (haec Venus est nobis, 4.1058). Historically scholars have been keen to ‘correct’ perceived inconsistencies such as this, either by arguing that such imperfections derive from later interpolators or by appealing to the incomplete nature of the text as we possess it. Of course, no one has suggested that Lucretius would have changed or removed the proem, so the Venus problem remains an issue. One major aim of this article is to show that the process we witness with Lucretius’ Venus is not inconsistent but programmatic, a point grasped by many with regard to Venus herself but not in respect to the DRN as a whole. In other words, this article extends this insight about Lucretius’ Venus, whose providential attributes are only provisionally attached to her at the outset of the poem and, in due course, are completely removed. In fact, I will argue that the technique of gradually redefining initial propositions—a process I will refer to as provisional argumentation—fundamentally informs Lucretius’ famous metaphor of the honeyed cup, and I will suggest that we ought to recognize this technique as a major aspect of Lucretius’ discursive method throughout the DRN.

Clytaemnestra describes her anxious presentiment of coming evil, but ό π ροστατν Χρθνος bears no obvious meaning. The schol.'s πιενόμεος —corrected to πιινπιγ by Papageorgios from Suidas—is meant to interpret the phrase as merely a periphrasis for the future. So the schol. on Pind. ol. X. 9 glosses πιγν πιγ with ιγενόμε&ngr;ος. Jebb practically agrees, but thinks that strictly ό πρ. Χρόνος is ‘the time which stands in front (of the present).’ Kaibel, rightly in my opinion, regards έμοṽ as the necessary complement of προστάτης, but understands the latter as Time personified leading the queen by the hand continuously forward. She does not know her goal, but fears it is death. None of these views is convincing; and if we would seize the metaphor which the words are intended to convey, we shall do better to follow the indication afforded by Aesch. Ag. 976 τιπτε μο τς μπςως |δείμαπ ροατατατηριον| καρδιας τερασκόπον ποτται where the speaker is labouring under the burden of apprehension, whose image hovers over his heart. The future casts its shadow beforehand as a danger to be encountered. So here Clytaemnestra cannot rest for the persistent image which ever obtrudes itself upon her mental vision (scil.έμοṽ). Meineke preferred προσ-στατν just as Blaydes conjectured προσ-στατ ριον in the Agamemnon.

This famous passage has given rise to much discussion and some perplexity. Theodoras the mathematician is represented by Theaetetus as proving the irrationality of the square roots of the (non-square) numbers from 3 to 17:

‘He took the separate cases up to the root of 17 square feet; and there, for some reason, he stopped.’ (Transl. Cornford.)

The passage is of great importance in the history of Greek mathematics for more than one reason. Theaetetus is said to have generalized the proof of the irrationality of square roots of non-square integers; and thus his connexion with this passage is important because Plato here obviously implies that Theodorus was not giving a generalized proof—otherwise, why should he go up to 17 ? If Theodorus did not know the generalized proof, he clearly had to proceed by enumeration and proof of particular case

It is universally recognized that the Hymn to Ares stands apart from all the other poems in the Homeric collection, and that it was composed centuries later than any of those that can be assigned to a particular period with any degree of confidence. Many older scholars classed it or even printed it with the Orphic Hymns, which are transmitted together with the Homeric Hymns as well as with the hymns of Callimachus and Proclus. But the similarity with the Orphic Hymns is only superficial. It merely consists in the stylistic feature of accumulated epithets, a common characteristic of late hymns. There are three reasons for not lumping the Hymn to Ares with the very homogeneous Orphic series. First, the Orphic Hymns are courteous invocations of different gods to come to a ceremony described as τєλєτή or τєλєτταί, while the Hymn to Ares is an intensely personal prayer for the poet's own soul. Secondly, the Orphic collection already contains a hymn to Ares (65), and duplications are avoided. (There are a number of hymns, to Dionysus, but then he bears a different title in each case, Liknites, Trieterikos, etc.) Thirdly, in the Homeric hymn Ares is addressed as a planetary god. In the Orphic hymn to Ares, this aspect is totally absent, and the same is true of the hymns to Hermes, Aphrodite, Zeus, and Kronos.

The following discussion' of the manuscript tradition of Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics i-iv originated in an examination of the tradition of the fragments of Parmenides. It is therefore illustrated not only from Simplicius but particularly from the texts of Parmenides quoted by him. This will not be misleading, since, though many of these texts are quoted by Simplicius more than once, there is little or no sign in any manuscript of interpolation from one passage to another and it is not likely that any scribe could have interpolated the text from an independent manuscript of Parmenides.

The Hellenistic epigrammatist does not break off at this point, but proceeds to state that Pisistratus collected the corpus of the songs of Homer—an appropriate tribute, in his view, to a ‘golden scion of Athens if, as is claimed, we Athenians founded Smyrna’ (Smyrna was commonly thought to be the native town of Homer). The ‘Pisistratid recension’ of Homer is an extremely vexed and unfashionable question in Homeric criticism and does not concern us here. More to the present point is the elementary logical mistake which is made in the lines which are quoted above. Pisistratus had three periods of tyranny, and is said to have been driven out three times, and to have been restored (or perhaps to have come to power) three times. The error is a transparent one, common in juvenile puzzles. Pisistratus died naturally in old age at the end of his third spell of power (probably 528/7 B.C.) and so was exiled only twice. The final exile of his son Hippias (511/10) would be the third occasion completing the chain of coup and expulsion

A propos of his earlier attempt to demonstrate, by means of measurements, computer-enhanced images and laser technology, that the archon of IG i311 was Antiphon (418/17), not Habron (458/7), Mortimer Chambers now quotes with approval the favourable verdict of J. Tréheux: ‘la mésure des intervalles entre les lettres, la superposition des photographies multiples et, surtout, le bombardement du marbre par un rayon laser ont prouvé (les photographies en couleur A et B ne permettent pas d'en douter)

In the last decades Orphic scholarship has found itself in rather fortunate circumstances: there have been not only spectacular finds such as the Derveni Papyrus and the so-called Orphic Gold Tablets, but these texts together with all the other fragments ascribed to the authoritative author-figure Orpheus have been made accessible in the new and extensive edition by Alberto Bernabé (2004–7). Understandably, recent discussions have focussed especially on the new material. Nevertheless, much work remains to be done on those fragments with which we have long been familiar. The present study puts a new complexion on a text long taken as evidence for an Orphic theogony.

In the first argumentative section of Book 1, Lucretius establishes the existence of matter and void (146–482), and in the second identifies matter as the atoms and defines their properties (483–634). In the third section, following Epicurean tradition, he attempts to refute a representative selection of Presocratic philosophers – Heraclitus (635–704), Empedocles (705–829) and Anaxagoras (830–920) – whose explanations of basic matter are potential rivals to the atomist theory which he has just outlined. The climax to this section is reached in Lucretius' triumphant personal claim to be an original poet and health-bringing purveyor of truth (921–50). His foregoing criticism (and praise) of the Presocratics as writers and thinkers is deeply coloured by the values he openly professes here. The introductory passages to each philosopher, in particular, are highly revealing of Lucretius' personal inclinations as a poet and exhibit a virtuoso command of several styles and techniques.

Athenaeus (637a) records these lines from the dithyramb Hymenaios, along with a number of other snippets of poetry, in the course of an inconclusive discussion about the characteristics of the instrument (if it is an instrument) called the magadis. Athenaeus had good reasons for being puzzled; the word first appeared in Greek, so far as we know, in the seventh century b.c., and its sense was already a matter of some doubt in the fourth. As to this particular fragment, even Telestes' original audience might be forgiven some bafflement in the face of the third line, on which I shall initially focus here. What can be meant by ‘the five-rodded joining of the strings’?

Catullus' cunning dinner invitation to Fabullus continues to generate a rich variety of interpretations of its memorable central image, the promised gift of a certain unguentum Veneris (13.12). Three Latomus articles, by Littman, Hallett, and Case, have explored possible origins of and uses for that mysterious substance, suggesting, for example, that it might even contain female secretions with powerful aphrodisiac properties, or some other unmentionable sexual lubricant.

The wine referred to in the second line of the epigram was produced near Verona, at the foot of the Rhaetian Alps. It was well regarded by most and was a favourite of the Emperor Augustus: for references see Mynors at Verg. G. 2.96 and my note at Mart. 14.100.2. It appears, however, to have undue prominence in this poem, supposedly about the earthenware drinking vessels which, presumably, were manufactured in the same area.

There is also the question of why Martial refers to Verona in such a circumlocutory way. Is he merely following a well established elegiac/epigrammatic convention in associating Verona with Catullus (cf. e.g. Ovid, Am. 3.15.7 and Mart. 1.7.2), or does his circumlocution here have any particular point?

Down to the present century the Niobe of Aeschylus was represented by eight significant manuscript fragments containing some twenty-three lines. Even in this condition it deservedly attracted the interest and attention of scholars; and in 1933 this interest was intensified by the publication in Florence by Vitelli and Norsa of a mutilated papyrus of twenty-one lines embodying two of the earlier fragments.