Interpreting the Aeneid in terms of symbols is nowadays a fashionable and respectable procedure. It can also be highly dangerous, as some of its practitioners frankly admit. For example, Michael C. J. Putnam writes: ‘Any attempt, however sympathetic and careful, to delineate or clarify a poet's special, often private, symbolism, is subject to many hazards. I am not unaware of the difficulties of moving over a terrain wherein the already subtle boundary-line which separates critic from creator grows dimmer still.’ A sterner warning comes from Robert A. Brooks at the beginning of his article on the Golden Bough: ‘The oak-spirit and the King of the Wood, the mistletoe and the Queen of the Dead are all impressive concepts. But if the “real meaning” of the golden bough lies in these or near them, then Vergil must be considered an artist after the fashion of the late David Belasco, who painted the back of his stage sets as well as the front. What is happening on the stage or in the poem we may suspect to be illusory or subsidiary; the real action may be taking place in the carefully prepared but invisible recesses of the scene, approachable only by those who have a pass backstage. This is not Vergil's method …’ The warning should be heeded, even though the writer is citing an extreme case.

In 1797 Ennius Quirinus Visconti declared that the starting-gate (aphesis) at Olympia, described by Pausanias, had caused more crashes among modern antiquaries than ever the turning-posts did among the charioteers whom in its heyday it launched on their course; the intervening 170 years have lengthened the tale of academic disasters. But even at the risk of adding to the pile-up of reputations it seems legitimate to attempt another investigation of the subject. The moment is opportune, now that experiments are being made in the use of starting-stalls for horses on British race-courses.

The dictionary compiled by Ælfric, who became Abbot of Eynsham, was perhaps the first work to which the title Latin—English Dictionary can be given. Before A.d. 1000 there had been many glossaries explaining difficult Latin words in simpler or contemporary Latin words; the arrangement had regard to subjects. There had also been lists rendering selected words into a language other than Latin, e.g. the St. Gall manuscript which rendered Latin words into Old High German; the arrangement is in groups, though an alphabetical index is provided in an appendix. But Ælfric's dictionary was probably the first to offer the framework of what we should require in a Latin—English dictionary.

So Clerimont in Ben Jonson's The Silent Woman; and it is to be feared he speaks for many. Plutarch's miscellaneous works, commonly and perhaps unfortunately called Moralia, have never enjoyed the popularity of the Lives. Yet they have enormous interest. They are a collection of short works on all kinds of subjects, the record of a life devoted to learning and a heart both generous and devout. Without them we should not only have lost a mass of knowledge, we should also have a different impression of many of the moral, social, and religious attitudes of the ancient world. Besides, as Bernays told Wilamowitz and Wilamowitz told the world, you can't say ‘I know Greek’ until you have read them.

To assess the influence of one author on another and the extent of one's use of another is always difficult. When the authors assessed are poets who each give a highly individual stamp to material, it is doubly difficult. When they are separated by one and a half millennia and by a language difference, the assessment is open to pitfalls almost too enormous to bear contemplation. What follows, therefore, does not attempt to be a categorical statement that Shakespeare used Virgil solely or in part in any one particular instance or in any one particular way; it rather offers a juxtaposition of lines, images, or ideas which appear to be similar in both authors, in the hope that the comparisons may prove interesting in themselves and that the sum total of them may lead at least to some guarded and cautious conclusions about the use of classical authors and in particular of Virgil's poetry and thought by Shakespeare in Henry V.

The younger Pliny was consul suffectus from September to October, A.d. 100, and delivered in the Senate his official gratiarum actio to the Emperor Trajan for his appointment. This practice went back to the days of Augustus, according to Ovid (Ep. ex Ponto iv. 4. 35), though nothing is known of the senatorial decree which made it obligatory. Nor do we know if both consuls made speeches, or whether Pliny was following normal practice when he spoke on behalf of his colleague, Cornutus Tertullus. In Ep. ii. 1. 5 he tells us that Verginius Rufus was rehearsing a similar speech (to be addressed to Nerva) at the time of his fatal accident, and elsewhere (iii. 13) he writes of the boredom of having to listen to speeches of this kind, brief though they could be, and the distasteful duty of addressing words of insincere flattery to an emperor (Domitian) under whom freedom of speech was impossible. The custom of the official vote of thanks continued; M. Cornelius Pronto was suffect consul in July-August 143, and delivered his speech to Antoninus Pius on 13 August (Pronto, Ep. ii. 1).

The ostensible subject of this Satire is an invitation to dinner extended by Juvenal to his friend Persicus, with a description of the proposed menu, which gives rise to comments drawing an unfavourable comparison between Juvenal's meal and the prevalent dining habits of his day. In his justly famous study Professor Highet accepts this ostensible subject at its face value as the real subject of the Satire—his chapter on it is entitled ‘Dinner at Home’ (ch. 20)—and on p. 279, note 3, he tabulates the structure of the Satire as follows:

(a) lines 1–55: introductory chat.

(b) lines 56–63: the invitation.

(c) lines 64–89: the food (with reflections on old Roman manners).

(d) lines 90–135: the furniture and dishes (with reflections on manners old and new).

(e) lines 136–61: the servants and the wine.

(f) lines 162–82: the entertainment.

(g) lines 183–208: conclusion, the preliminary relaxation and comfortable bath.

When Xerxes' fleet encountered a violent storm and was shattered against the seaward flank of Mount Pelion, much of the treasure that had been lost in the wreckage was recovered by Scyllias of Scione, the best diver of his day. He and many of his fellow citizens had been impressed into service as the Persian armada came by the Chalcidic peninsula, but he later escaped to the Greeks waiting at Artemisium. By the time of Herodotus, a half-century or so later, it was being claimed that he had dived into the sea at Aphetae and not come up until he had reached Artemisium eight miles away. ‘Many other tales are told of this man, some lies, some true,’ said Herodotus (viii. 8), ‘but in my opinion, he came by boat.’

Saint Ambrose (c.A.d. 339–97), bishop of Milan, was one of the outstanding figures of the fourth century both from a political and from an ecclesiastical point of view.