Detection of theft ‘by plate and girdle’ was one of the odder Roman customs and has never been explained satisfactorily. It appears that when a theft had taken place, a man could be called in to search the house for clues or stolen property. He wore only a licium, a small belt round his waist, so that he could not be suspected of bringing into the house articles which he could then claim were stolen—in modern parlance, ‘plant evidence’. He also held in front of his face a plate (lanx) so that he would not be recognized by the women of the household (Gaius, Institutes 3. 192—3).

Thucydides is, naturally enough, almost always considered purely and simply as a historian. Scholars deal with such problems as textual readings, the composition of the History, topography, land and sea forces, and the authenticity of the speeches. Yet treated just as a work of literature, as a book to take down off the shelves and read in an easy chair (though not, like Macaulay's;s scholar, with feet on the fender), the History can exercise an ever-increasing fascination. I do not suppose Thucydides has very many compulsive readers, but over one of them at any rate he has cast his spell, and as an amateur in every sense I should like to attempt to explain why.

In the speech Against Konon the speaker, a young man named Ariston, complains that one evening when he and a friend were walking in the Agora they were victims of what would now be called ‘a mugging’. They were set upon by Konon and some other men, who pulled Ariston's cloak off him, tripped him up, threw him into the mud, and jumped on him. While he was lying on the ground, they said a lot of things which Ariston does not like to repeat in front of a jury of respectable men; ‘but’ he goes on ‘the thing which shows Konon's hybris, and indicates that he was the ringleader, I will tell you: he crowed in imitation of cocks that have won fights, and the others suggested he should beat his sides with his elbows like wings’ (Dem. 54. 8–9). So Ariston has taken steps to prosecute Konon. But his prosecution is not for hybris, although hybris was an offence in Athenian law, but for assault (aikeia).

In an essay published in a recent issue of Greece & Rome, P.G. Walsh examines the views of the American scholars Gilbert Highet, Helen Bacon, and William Arrowsmith and comes to the very sensible conclusion that they are wrong in believing that Petronius Arbiter had any moral purpose in writing the Satyricon. While ultimately it may prove impossible for one side in this debate to convince the other, Walsh's arguments, and the way he goes about propounding them, can provide us with some illuminating hints as to why the Petronius controversy arose in the first place. And there are unexplored aspects to the terms on which the argument is being conducted which, when examined and carefully considered, may point the way toward a possible resolution.

Classics and the Computer: one might well be forgiven for dismissing such a phrase as today's equivalent of the ‘oil and vinegar’ of antiquity, those two substances whose refusal to mix was then proverbial. On the level of pure aesthetic appreciation indeed we have to admit that there is little that any statistical study or procedure can contribute. The majesty of Homer or Vergil, the intensity of Greek tragedy, the passion of Sappho, the grandeur of Cicero all make their appeal as much to the heart as they do to the head. Yet for a number of years now the languages of Greece and Rome, like those of more modern times, have been the subject of a growing interest among scholars who have sought to gain, through the application of the computer, both a wider and a deeper understanding of ancient literature and its structure. Classicists indeed have often been in the very forefront of computer application to literature. This is not to say, however, that the computer has in any way diminished the need for the more traditional forms of classical research; the ever growing stream of books and articles of this type should be sufficient answer to any such suggestion.

This brief article tries to make sense of the first and ninth Eclogues with as little recourse as possible to evidence from outside the poems. In particular, it does without the doubtful aid of Servius, who arguably knew little more than we about the meaning and background. Where I give no references (except for the most familiar historical events) I am conjecturing, or adopting the conjectures of others. I have cut secondary references to a minimum, because the doxography of the Eclogues is too vast to be entertaining. Those who are new to the problems can easily find their bearings in the books of H.J. Rose, L.P. Wilkinson, and Gordon Williams. Old hands will know where I am being original: rarely, of course, if ever, for in this field of scholarship more than most it is true that ‘nihil iam dictumst quod non dictum sit prius’.

The ancient Greeks believed that the oracle at Delphi went back to immemorial antiquity. But were they right? The history of the site has been traced through excavations that are among the greatest achievements of modern archaeology. The interest of the French school in Delphi goes back to 1861, but for political reasons systematic excavation could not begin till 1893; since 1902 the series of volumes of the Fouilles de Delphes has appeared regularly. Mycenaean Delphi has been shown to have amounted to very little; and the chief centre seems to have been not on the site of the great temple, but at Marmaria, near the temple of Athene Pronaia. A few clay figurines may pertain to a private, but hardly to a public cult; an isolated Minoan marble drinking-horn shaped like a lion's head proves little. By the beginning of the Dark Age the settlement seems to have been destroyed by fire; before its life resumes during the Protogeometric period, there seems to have been a complete break in continuity. Only when the Dark Age is over does Delphi become important.

Horace's Soracte Ode is a difficult poem. It begins in winter, apparently in the countryside, and concludes with the sketch of an urban incident in summer (or spring). This seeming inconsistency has provoked widely divergent critical comment. E. Fraenkel sums up one approach:

We like the Ode because it contains several passages of great beauty, among them some happy adaptations of Alcaean motifs. But we have to admit that as a whole the poem falls short of the perfection reached by Horace in many of his odes. Its heterogeneous elements have not merged into a harmonious unit. Line 18, nunc et campus et areae and what follows suggest a season wholly different from the severe winter at the beginning. This incongruity cannot be removed by any device of apologetic interpretation.