The recent revival of scholarly interest in Suetonius provides a good occasion to emend a long-standing crux in Joannes Lydus' description (De Mag. 2.6) of Suetonius' dedication of his Vitae Caesarum to his friend the praetorian prefect Septicius Clarus. The codex unicus Caseolinus (Parisinus suppl. gr. 257, s. X/XI) has Τράγκυλλος τοίνυν τοὺς τ⋯ν Καισάων βίους ⋯ν γράμμασιν † ⋯ποτίνων † Σεπτικίῳ, ὃς ἦν ὓπαρχος τ⋯ν πραιτωριαν⋯ν σπειρ⋯ν ⋯πì αὐτο⋯. The conjectures ⋯ποτείνων by J. D. Fuss and ὑποτείνων by I. Bekker do little to improve the sense, and although W. Kroll's προτείνων gives the meaning required by the context (cf. Aristophanes, Plut. 1019), προ- would not easily have been misread as ⋯πο-.

For ⋯ποτίνων read ⋯νατείνων. For parallels compare BGU ii (1898), 613.3–4 'Ανέτινα ( = 'Ανέτεινα) βιβλ[ίδι]α τῷ λαμπροτάτῳ [⋯γεμόνι] in a papyrus from the reign of Antoninus Pius cited by LSJ, and several other passages, most of which I owe to the supplement to Preisigke and Kiessling's Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden and to Dr Francisco R. Adrados of the Diccionario Griego-Español: Sammelbuch x (1971), 10527.5–7 ['Ανέτε]ινά σοι, κ[ύριε,]…⋯ναφόρ[ιον… of a.d. 152–3, P. Fouad iii (1939), 26.5–10 (cf. Sammelbuch v (1934), 8252.5–10) Οὗ ⋯νέτινάσυ ( = ⋯νέτεινά σοι)τῷ κυρίῳ βιβλιδίου…⋯ντίγραφον ὑπέταξα of a.d. 157–9, P. Oslo. iii (1936), 80.21 οὗ ⋯νέτιναν (read ⋯νέτειναν) βιβλιδί[ου…written sometime after March 7, a.d. 161, Sammelbuch iv (1931) 7472.3 'Ανέτεινά [σοι, κύριε ⋯πίτροπε, βιβλείδιον of a.d. 164, Sammelbuch vi.3 (1961) 9339.24–7 (cf. a second copy in P. Fouad iii (1939) 13.5–7) οὗ ⋯νετείναμεν τῷ [κρατίσῳ ⋯τρχιερεῖ Oὐ]λπίῳ Σερηνιανῷ βιβλιδίου…[…⋯] ντίγραφον ὑπετάξαμεν from a.d. 178 or a little later, P. Mich. xii (1971) 616.13–14 τ⋯ δίκαιά μου βιβλειδίῳ ⋯νγράψασ ⋯νέτεινα Νεμεσιανῷ ὅπωσ τα[⋯]τα διαπέμψηται[τῷ ⋯]πιτρόπῳ from ca. a.d. 182, P. Cornell 14.2–4 οὗ ⋯νέτει[να τῷ κρατίστῳ ⋯πιστρ]ατηγῷ Κλαυδίῳ [Ξενοφ⋯ντι βιβλδίο]υ from a.d. 180–92, Wilcken, Chrestomathie (1912) 461.3–5 О[ὗ ⋯νέ]τεινα τῷ λαμπροτάτῳ [⋯γεμόνΚ]υίντω[ι] Μαικίωι λαιτίωι βιβλιδίου…⋯ντίγραφον ὑ[ποτάξασ] from the beginning of the third century, and Sammelbuch v (1934), 8246.3–4 αἱ συνηγερούμεναι λιβέλλον ⋯νέτιναν (= ⋯νέτιναν) ⋯π⋯ τ⋯ν ἔπαρχον (the author should have written ⋯παρχικ⋯ν) ⋯ξουσίαν from a.d. 340.

I. The name earned early notoriety from L. Ambivius Turpio, the actor who performed in all the plays of Terence. It appealed to Lucilius:

quid tibi ego ambages Ambivi scribere coner?

Also to Wilhelm Schulze, duly citing the Lucilian reference. In the sequel the nomen failed to enlist proper regard. Three persons bore it, diverse in life and rank: a tavern keeper on the Via Latina, a gourmet writer, a procurator governing Judaea. To the first and to the third, erudition in the recent time denies recognition; and the second through inadvertence misses his place and period. The Ambivii call for redemption. The venture will lead along circuitous or devious paths, ‘per ambages’, in the pursuit of names and identities. From that operation various instruction accrues on the flank.

II. First, a casual notice in the criminal record of a family of the better sort at Larinum. Cluentius and his slaves, so it was alleged, had made an assault on ‘Ambivium quendam, coponem de via Latina’ (Pro Cluentio 163).

Traditional texts remained content with that name. Not so long ago recourse to manuscripts produced ‘A. Bivium’. It was adopted in two standard editions. Had editors given a thought to nomenclature, they might have conceived some disquiet. Absent from the repertorium, the nomen appeared to lack attestation. In itself no bar, to be sure. The dense forest of local Italian nomenclature carries plenty of unique specimens. Reassurance could be sought from ‘Bivellius’ and ‘Bivonius’.

Thus begins a letter of an anonymous Pelagian, printed in Patrologia Latino, Suppl. 1.1687–94 from the edition of C. P. Caspari in Briefe, Abhandlungen und Predigten (Oslo, 1890), 3–13. habitationibus is Caspari's emendation for the MSS' laboribus; it gives the right sense, but clashes with habitatione in the next sentence, and is palaeographically unconvincing. J. Baer, De operibus Fastidii, Britannorum episcopi (diss. Nürnberg, 1902), 31–2 for these reasons suggested litoribus. laboribus itself is not quite impossible, in the sense ‘fields’, ‘estates’ (see T.L.L. s.v. 2 labor 795, 49–59; E. Löfstedt, Late Latin (Oslo, 1959), 147–8, following on Eranos 44 (1946), 347–50). But this usage is late and unrespectable, unless we count the fifth-century Cyprianus Gallus, Gen. 1323 ‘patrios seruare labores'. And we should consider the possibility that our Pelagian wrote laribus.

One parallel is Valerius Maximus 7.7.3 ‘in proprio lare’, where lare is Madvig's emendation for iure. More intriguing is a series of passages in Jordane's Getica.

‘Candida avis’ is usually assumed to be the white stork (Ciconia ciconia). T. E. Page, the Loeb editors and others give a footnote to this effect. T. F. Royds in The Beasts, Birds and Bees of Virgil (Oxford, 1914) says of ‘Candida avis’:

‘This is by common consent ‘Ciconia alba’, the white stork. It is a migrant in Mediterranean countries…a most useful bird feeding chiefly on snakes and other reptiles’

He then cites Pliny (N.H. 10.31) and Juvenal (14.74–5) ‘serpente ciconia pullos nutrit’ to confirm the snake-eating propensities of the stork.

Virgil's ornithological mystery is not, however, quite so easily resolved. There is another contender for ‘Candida avis’, one more convincing both on a textual and an ornithological basis — Circaetus gallicus, the short-toed eagle.

The short-toed eagle is the only European snake eagle, its diet being almost exclusively snakes. Lizards, and much less frequently small mammals or birds, may also be taken.

Virgilian scholars appear not to have appreciated the full dramatic significance of this passage, which provides a further example of Virgil's use of divine intervention in events which he wishes to mark as particularly significant in the course of the poem. These three lines signal the onset of the war with which the remainder of the Aeneid will be concerned; since line 607, Virgil has been working towards them by means of a detailed description of the gates of war themselves and of the tradition attached to them. But at this point in Italian history there is an ominous departure from the traditional procedures regarding the declaration of war. Latinus, who according to what Virgil depicts as the already well-established tradition was bound to open the gates in order to mark the beginning of war against the Trojans, has refused in horror to carry out his duty, opposed as he is to the turn recent events have taken in Latium. At this point Juno intervenes dramatically, as she had intervened before to sow the seeds of the ‘horrida bella’ (6.86, 7.41) between the Trojans and the indigenous population (323ff.). Virgil depicts her as sweeping down from heaven in person in order to push open the gates. The reader is shown how at her touch the gates burst open (‘rumpit’) without the involvement of any human or visible agency. It is an action which apparently has only a supernatural explanation, clearly described to the reader as the work of Juno.

In CQ 34 (1984), 457, on Lucan 4.664 indulsit castris, I wrote ‘Housman…explains “…inuitantibus ad desidiam”: read rather ad temeritatem’. Mr S. J. Heyworth has kindly pointed out to me that Housman in his corrected impression (1927) does in fact write temeritatem. I was myself (as was evidently TLL vii. i. 1252. 10ff.) using the first impression (1926), where H. has desidiam. It had not occurred to me that H. would so drastically alter an interpretation in a ‘Second impression (corrected)’.

Here in the Achilleid Statius catalogues the contributions of Greek towns to Agamemnon's expedition against Troy. Every item of equipment is appropriate to its origin. There is one puzzle, however: why is it that murorum tormenta are the peculiar contribution of Pylos and Messene? O. A. W. Dilke (1954) suggests that the proximity of classical Messene to Mt Ithome would have reminded Statius of the siege of that place by the Spartans in 464–59 b.c., when they were aided by the Athenians, experts in siege warfare. This solution is undoubtedly ingenious but, based as it is upon association, it places this last entry in a quite different category from the previous entries: all the preceding items have been very definite products of their places of origin. K. von Barth (1664), while noting the not unparalleled anachronism, attempts to account in another way for the siege-engines: ‘quia ibi silvae crassissimas arbores habent’. But there is no evidence to support this: Messenia features neither in the pages of Theophrastus (Περ⋯ Φυτ⋯ν Ἱστορία) or Pliny (N.H. 16) as a source of quality timber, nor in the poets as an area which is characterised by the stoutness of its trees.

These theories pay insufficient attention to the verb tendunt, the vox propria for exerting a strain on rope, making it taut (cf. Stat. Sil. 3.2.26f.: ‘stuppea tendite mali | vincula’).