Catullus' forty-fifth poem has become in recent years a focus for a certain amount of controversy. In this respect it has not been alone among the poems of Catullus' libellus; Catullan criticism has been undergoing a process of reassessment whereby a somewhat indiscriminate enthusiasm for certain poems has been challenged by an attitude in some cases more sophisticated, in others, perhaps, simply more devious. In the case of the poem under discussion, a traditional view, represented by J. Ferguson who quotes with approval Munro's estimate of the poem (‘the most charming picture in any language of a light and happy love’), has been rejected by several scholars who agree that the poem is, in some sense, ironical, while disagreeing in their reasons for so concluding. Before we examine their arguments we should, perhaps, be careful to define precisely what we mean by irony.

Perhaps the one feature that makes the Iliad and Odyssey most characteristically Homeric—not Virgilian, nor Apollonian—is the similes. They allow Homer to turn from the material at hand for a brief moment to look at some other scene, and the intensity with which he looks at the new scene gives a heightened awareness to the original subject, the thing, person, or event which suggested the simile in the first place and was the simile's point of departure. It is well known that the poet's interest in this new subject occasionally goes beyond the strict needs of the poetic context; he often seems absorbed in and even distracted by the other scene, and so the poetic device to which he has lent his name is frequently understood to mean nothing more than an extended comparison whose development and details are thought to be somehow irrelevant. What I wish to do here is look closely at several of these similes in the Odyssey, not from a statistical point of view or to compare them with those of the Iliad, but rather to consider them as poetic devices which Homer uses in an expert way to achieve just the effect he intends; often, as I hope to show, the subtlety of the effect achieved is surprising.

Admirers of Horace's Odes have cause to be grateful to Professor Gordon Williams for his recent edition of Book iii, with its illuminating and fascinating introduction and commentaries on individual odes. It is arguable, however, that he has misinterpreted iii. 19, ‘Quantum distet ab Inacho’.

In his introduction to the Loeb translation of Suetonius, J. C. Rolfe suggests that Suetonius' unknown birthplace may be Rome, adding: ‘There is no prominent writer of whom this [being born in Rome] can be asserted positively; it seems probable in the case of Caesar and Lucretius.’ One wonders, then, just where the writers in the Latin language were born, and what effect, if any, this had on the literature, especially that now extant. I have investigated the birthplaces of the major authors up to a.d. 200, and propose here to summarize my results and offer a few comments.

At the end of Iliad ix we see the Achaeans confined in their camp by the Trojans. Under cover of darkness they hold a council of war, at which Nestor suggests (x. 204 ff.) the need for a reconnaissance to discover the Trojan intentions: this idea had also occurred to Menelaus earlier (37–8). It may be done either by ‘cutting out’ some enemy on the edge of the sleeping army (the word used is ⋯σχατόωντα, 206), or by overhearing a conversation (φ⋯μις, 207) which may give information. There is no suggestion of any further exploit, for the Achaeans are hard-pressed and at this moment it is information which they chiefly need. Nestor suggests that the exploit will bring much glory; there will also be a substantial reward. Diomedes volunteers to undertake the task, and selects Odysseus as his companion: others also volunteer, but Diomedes feels that Odysseus' cunning makes him the most suitable choice. When they set off, Athene, well disposed as always towards her favourite, sends them a good omen (274). Both men offer prayers to her for success; Diomedes also promises a sacrifice if all goes well. Odysseus in his prayer expresses the hope that they will return ‘after accomplishing a fine deed’ (ῥέξαντας μέγα ἔργον, 282). This phrase may be significant, for the attentive reader will ask himself whether the exploit as planned does really merit such a description.

The question ‘Is History an art or a science?’ will be familiar to anyone who has answered more than a handful of General Papers, and it is tempting to think of it, not as a real question, but as a sort of logical puzzle, rather on the lines of ‘Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?’ To set it aside, however, or to answer it on a purely theoretical level, is to disregard a problem which is as old as History itself and which concerns historians now perhaps more than at any other time. Is History subjective ? Must it necessarily reflect the ideas and values and conceptual framework of those who write it ? Is the historian by his very nature a distorting medium? Or is this merely an excuse that historians themselves have invented? Is it possible, after all, to be objective ? Are there such things as historical facts, and is it possible so to arrange these facts that they speak for themselves and not with a voice from another and alien age ? Behind these questions, and to some extent bound up with them, there is, of course, another: if History is subjective, is this necessarily bad, and if it could be objective would this be desirable?

InG & R xvii (1970), 197–8, H. G. Lord discusses the textual problem in Lucretius v. 1442 and proposes

tum mare velivolis florebat propter ad oras

navibu', non ausi tum in altum vertere proras.

Since the crux is one of those desperate ones of which it is almost true to say ‘quot editores tot sententiae, suos quoique mos’, and I have already published my own emendation, I will not attempt a refutation of a proposal which I myself find unconvincing. However, there are some inaccuracies in Lord's article upon which comment must be made. He states: ‘The only suggestions which attempt to deal with the reading of the manuscripts are that of Clodachzh (“in search of spices”, which in addition to its improbability uses propter in a causal, and not in a local sense; the latter alone appears to be the Lucretian usage) and that of Ellis.’

Suetonius quotes some attractive specimens of Augustus' domestic correspondence. They include several sentences from letters to Tiberius by which Suetonius seeks to show that Augustus had a high regard for his adopted son as a military man and valued campaigner. One quotation (Suet. Tib. 21) is as follows:

Vale, iucundissime Tiberi, et feliciter rem gere, ⋯μο⋯ κα⋯ ταῖς †μουισασαιστ στρατηγ⋯ν. Iucundissime et ita sim felix, vir fortissimo et dux νομιμώτατε, vale.

Seneca's shortcomings as a tragedian are a commonplace of literary criticism. On the one hand, the style of Seneca's plays is condemned for being excessively rhetorical; long, undramatic speeches, full of mythological references, alternate with bombastic utterances; or, as J. W. Duff states, comparing Seneca with his Greek predecessors: ‘in the Latin plays one has entered a new world where genius has been replaced by cleverness, and an eminently classic directness of expression by rhetoric.’ On the other hand, Seneca's detractors claim that extravagance of style is matched by a propensity for gory detail, such as the notorious piecing together of Hippolytus at the end of Phaedra. Thus, according to F. L. Lucas:

if only to make up for the unreality of his ultra-academic drama [Seneca] tries to be vivid by being lurid, to stimulate the jaded imagination of his public by screaming atrocity. Seneca does indeed recall the man in Plato who had a morbid desire to view the corpses in the city ditch; long ashamed to yield to such an impulse, at last he ran to the edge and uncovered his eyes with the cry, ‘There, you wretches, take your fill’.