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MS. 124 in the library of St. John Baptist College, Oxford, is a quarto of 154 pages, written in two or more hands of the fifteenth century. Its provenance is unknown, and, as it has been carefully and ruthlessly rebound at some time in the nineteenth century, it is impossible to derive any information from the binding. After an unusually elabbrate alphabetical index it bears on folio 11 an inscription in a seventeenth-century hand as follows: ‘Libellus Thomae de Walsingham De (...) generacione naturaque deorum simul cum interpretatione Ouidii Metamorphoseon Simoni Priori Sancti Albani dedicatus.’. (shrink)

Readers of Phaedrus will have noticed that the rhythm of III. Ep. 34, Palam muttire plebeio piaculum est is unique. Nowhere else does he admit a molossus-word before the final metron of the iambic senarius, and he only admits it here because he is quoting a line from the Telephus of Ennius. Since a scholar whose opinion deserves respect proposes to introduce this rhythm into a reconstruction of a fragment of Laberius it seems worth while to examine its history in (...) order to see how and why it was used, before it was finally banned. For Seneca, like Phaedrus, banns it entirely. The question has already been considered by Klotz, Grundzüge Altrömischer Metrik, pp. 324 sqq.; W. M. Lindsay, Captiui , p. 66; Havet, Métrique, 276 ; and by T. Hingst in his inaugural dissertation De Spondeis et Anapaestis in antepaenultimo pede uersuum generis duplicis Latinorum, Leipzig, 1904. (shrink)

The bear, says Hierocles, is aware that its head is easily injured, and instinctively uses its paws as a protection. The three following lines in the papyrus are badly damaged– καν εί π.ε … δεηθεί Του | βαλανεíον κρημν | πáλιν ύ;β εθεíησιν ε | αυΤήν. This is followed by a description of what the bear does when it is pursued and comes to a precipice. It inflates itself and trusts to the inflation to break its fall. It is hardly (...) possible to restore the damaged lines. Von Arnim thinks that the sense required is: ‘wenn die Bärin, vom Jäger verfolgt, eines Bades bedarf oder auf ihrer Flucht an einen Abgrund kommt,πáλιν ύπ èψίησιν εαψτήν’ But a sensible bear would hardly think of taking a bath when pursued by the hunter. It might take to the water; but the Greek for this would be somewhat different. As I read the passage, there is no reference to the bear as pursued by the hunter till line 34, where I would read πоιεî δè τò τοιóνδε , since the phrase εί δ υν διοκμéνμ in line 38 is resumptive, and implies that the pursuit must have been alluded to before. But before line 35 H. is only describing what the bear does to protect its head in the ordinary routine of its life when it is not harassed by the hunter. It wants a bath, and finds that it cannot reach the water without clambering down an overhanging bank It will not climb down head foremost, but guards its head by sliding backwards down the bank. As the bear would want its bath because it was hot, it is perhaps not too hazardous to conjecture that some phrase such as xs03F0xs2135ν ει π ε<ζομéν πνíγηι δεμθεíν του β. should find its place in line 31. (shrink)

It would add greatly to our interest in the plays of Plautus if we knew more about the order in which they were produced. As it is, our knowledge of the dates of the plays is pitifully meagre and uncertain. Miles Gloriosus appears to have been produced soon after 206; Cistellaria about 201; Stichus in 200; Trinummus soon after 194; Pseudolus probably is 191, and Truculentus about 189. The date of the remaining seventeen plays is unknown. We can only infer (...) their relation one to another from the internal evidence of language, metre, and structure. The results of an examination on these lines, if they converged, might be useful in enabling us to arrange the plays roughly in a number of well-defined groups. Mr. Sedgwick 1 has recently made an interesting attempt to approach the problem from the side of metre. I think that a more intensive study of the plays from the side of language might lead to profitable results. My immediate concern is, however, only with a small corner of this vast field—viz., the frequent coincidence of thought and phrase which is so marked a feature of these plays. (shrink)