19 author is not especially valuable. Every one who has worked on the subject will easily detect the traces of long and profitable study in the majority of Schulze's notes on this most difficult and elusive of Roman poets. They are brief but usually to the point, and without that tendency to wordiness sometimes seen in the commentary of Rothstein. Moreover, unlike so many school editions of Latin and Greek authors, the difficulty is faced and explained, not overlooked, passed over in silence, or-worse yetleft to float about in the watery solution of a paraphrase. The note, however, on ibat videre, I, 1, 13 (infin. in a final sense) seems to need revision. The statement "Von den augusteischen Dichtern erlaubt sich ausser Prop. nur noch Vergil diesen altertümlichen Gebrauch des Infinitivs" is at once disproved by such examples as Hor., Od. I, 2, 7; 23, 10; 26, 2: Ovid, Her. 1, 37; Met., 5, 660-1, etc. See A. J. P. XVIII, p. 121. In speaking of Hylaios, l. 15 (in which Propertius alludes to the famous encounter with Atalanta) Schulze describes the centaur's attitude on that occasion as "bewarb sich um die Hand der Atalante." There is a flavor of wedding cards and future 'at-homes' about this expression which seems to me almost as incongruous in its mild conventionality as the mention of table manners in connection with a gorilla. Note here the poet's choice of rami to describe the weapon of Hylaios. The word adds a touch of horror to this hairy Caliban of the forest which is quite lost in Ovid's imitation of this passage (A. A. 2, 191). I observe with considerable surprise that in commenting on the exquisite poem which begins, Quicumque ille fuit primum qui pinxit Amorem, Schulze is, apparently, the first editor to mention the interesting Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, In the powerful and characteristic elegy to Paetus, line 6, -one all but sees the downward push of that monstrous hand-it Sit lacrimas movisse satis; quater ille beatus Quo tenera irato flere puella potest! where no one has seemed to note the characteristically sly touch of exaggeration-to be suspected as soon as we remember how Odysseus (5. 306) said: τρὶς μάκαρες Δαναοὶ καὶ τετράκις, and after him Aeneas (I, 94): O terque quaterque beati, quis ante ora patrum, etc. One of the most difficult passages, among many others, in Propertius is line 47 f.: Non tulit haec Paetus stridorem audire procellae Et duro teneras laedere fune manus, Sed thyio thalamo aut Oricia terebintho Et fultum pluma versicolore caput. Nothing seems to have been done to clear up the real difficulties in these lines by any commentator in the last fifteen years. Rothstein's special study of Propertius has contributed nothing here, and it is not necessary to mention those who, to judge from their silence, have joyously skated over this peculiarly thin strip of ice without observing their danger. The principal difficulties are haec (hic, hoc, hunc) and thalamo. Non tulit is entitled also to a share. I should prefer hic for haec, not the hic of Ramsay, "while he was here at home," but hic the pronoun, after A. J. P. IV, 208, ff., "Hic Paetus' brings before us the style of the man, this Paetus of ours', whatever another Paetus might do, and if Propertius had been gifted with prophetic foresight he would have known that there would be a Paetus of a very different stamp. Notice the iteration in what follows v. 51 huic, v. 53 hunc with the moλÚпттоν so characteristic of artificial poetry." But the real difficulty has been locked up in the thalamo. The key was discovered in the note to which I have just referred. As it seems, however, to have escaped the notice of Propertius-commentators, one and all, I take the liberty of repeating here that portion which bears on the point in question: "Non tulit is ook erλŋ = non is fuit qui ferret, from which we get for the contrast sed is fuit qui mallet. 'This Paetus was not the man to bear the sound of the piping storm, but he was the man (to have) his head propped on feather pillow of shot colors in a chamber of thyine wood or (of) Orician terebinth.' This chamber the commentators have sought on land and sought in a real chamber. But we know that Paetus was in narrow circumstances (pauper, v. 48), and had no such luxurious chamber or bed as [every commentator who commits himself on the subject since] Mr. Postgate would render it. Propertius simply tells us what Paetus would have preferred. But the thalamus is not a chamber on land nor yet a bed. It is a stateroom, the stateroom of such a ship as the Romans must have known as well as we know Cleopatra's barge in Shakespeare, the ship of Hieron, built under the direction of Archimedes and fully described by Athenaios, 5, p. 206. Of this ship we read θαλάμους δὲ τρεῖς εἶχε τρικλίνους (p. 207 C), and further: ἀφροδίσιον κατεσκεύαστο τρίκλινον τοὺς ... τοίχους δ ̓ εἶχε καὶ τὴν ὀροφὴν κυπαρίττου τὰς δὲ θύρας ἐλέφαντος καὶ θύου. This was the kind of seagoing environment that our Paetus was fit for, not the rough work of the deck that the mannish Roman lady of Juvenal delighted in (duros gaudet tractare rudentis).” 1 In the matter of selections the fourth edition differs only in the addition of V, VII and XLV to Catullus. But why was the vivamus, mea Lesbia, which echoes down the ages in scores of imitations, why was the quot mihi basiationes, which is scarcely less famous, ever left out at all? These be parlous questions. And where is that interview with Varus's grisette, where is Marrucinus, the would-be "funny" man, where is Suffenus-quem probe nosti-and Egnatius, with his fou rire, and Fabullus's dinnerinvitation? The principle of selection from Ovid is also far from clear to me. But people will always differ in the matter of selections from their favorite authors. Who has ever seen an anthology that was satisfactory in this respect? Of course, one must select from a poet as voluminous as Ovid. But Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, are all compact. They are also three of the greatest among Roman poets. Why do we always read them in selections? However, whether we read them in selections or not, and to whatever extent we may differ on questions of text or interpretation it is certain that Schulze's excellent book is one of the best we have on the subject. It has already gone through three editions and has borne the practical test of constant use for nearly quarter of a century. KIRBY FLOWER SMITH. Apollonii Rhodii Argonautica recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit R. C. Seaton, M. A. Oxonii e Typographeo Clarendoniano. In editing the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius Merkel's work must always be reckoned with. His great service consists in having recognized the primacy of Codex Laurentianus XXXII, 9 as a source of the text. That Merkel had the right of it in throwing aside the textus receptus and basing his edition upon Laurentianus, will not be called in question. But his text is not final. There is another stream of tradition, although it is by no means so easy to define; and of this second tradition Merkel was not always duly regardful. It is therefore worth while to think over and work over the whole material from an independent point of view. Mr. Seaton, the editor of the Oxford text, while he accepts substantially Merkel's position, has approached his author in a spirit of independence. The result, as it lies before us in the new edition, is a conservative one. The editor has allowed himself a few slight changes, and while he shows familiarity with the efforts that have been made by others since Merkel's time to emend the text, he has been slow to set aside a tolerable reading, based upon evidence, for any conjecture whatsoever. In such passages as II 1127, III 892, 1384, where the manuscripts have difficult or impossible readings, Seaton has preferred to keep the tradition and mark the passage as corrupt rather than to accept Merkel's suggestions. The conjectures that are noted in the commentary suggest, for the most part, that a difficulty exists or that another reading is possible: not many of the recent conjectures are incorporated into the text. A few examples may be given of wise departure from Merkel. In III 644, Madvig's Béσai for oẞéon of the manuscripts is adopted, and thus the only future optative with xé is eliminated from the Argonautica. In III 980, Merkel kept the reading of L, áddýλois ixávoμev, which involved the lengthening of iota in ixávoμev. Following codex Guelferbytanus and the metrical procedure of the poet, Seaton gives aλowi ikávoμev. In II 298, III 1147, Seaton adopts Spitzner's emendation διέτμαγεν, in place of διέτμαγον of Merkel and the manuscripts. There is no reason for assuming a 2d aor. active form diétμayov with intransitive sense, and this same error has been banished from the text of the Iliad. In IV 203, the vocative pio occurring in the middle of a verse and of a sentence and before re, is disturbing. Seaton has followed Guelf. in writing piny. In III 745, vavrai has long been under fire, and Seaton himself formerly held it to be objectionable (Am. J. Phil. X 467): but following Rzach (Wiener Studien 1881, p. 58) who offers Homeric parallels for a as long in the first thesis before hiatus, Seaton has set vavrat in the text. In IV 1523, Seaton adopts Brunck's emendation aλyos for OS. Merkel kept the latter in deference to manuscript authority. These instances, which might easily be multiplied, may serve to show that Seaton has gone his own way and has not set out to reproduce Merkel's text. In general, the new edition is marked not only by conservatism, but by a knowledge of the author's vocabulary, and by good judgment in the selection of individual readings when the evidence compels the editor to choose one of two alternatives. Considered as a critical edition, the new text raises various points that are worthy of discussion. The proportion of dissent in the following remarks is not meant to reflect the total impression which the edition makes upon an attentive reader. It is rather in the interest of discussion upon an author whose works receive all too little attention. First, as to the commentary. A critical commentary, to be of value, should contain evidence: not necessarily every fact which one might seek in larger works, but what is given ought, for quality, to be evidence. The nature of the evidence which one expects to find in the Oxford edition, is explained in the preface. In the tenth century there were two types of text: the first and best is known to us by means of Laur. XXXII, 9; the second we must determine by the help of Guelferbytanus, Laur. XXXII, 16, and the corrections entered in Laur. XXXII, 9: citations in the Etymologicum Magnum which agree with this second type of text, show that the separation into two types is as old as the fifth or fourth century. Assuming the correctness of this classification of sources, the readings of L are of the first importance, likewise the agreement of G and L' as against L. Such variations between these two families, variations which carry us back at once beyond the time of printed editions, ought always to be given. As a matter of fact, the commentary does not systematically present the evidence in this way. A few examples will suffice to make this point clear. In IV 170, depкoμévns is read by Merkel and by Seaton on the authority of Land G. L has the impossible depкoμévn. Seaton gives no note. In III 1001, we find y de kaì in the text. In the commentary is noted the fact that L has oi de kaì, but no mention is made of the agreement of L' and G upon the reading adopted. In II 239, G and L 16 support the reading adopted, yov. L's Kev is the only fact noted in the commentary. One might, in these cases just cited, infer with approximate correctness upon what authority the text rests, but it would have been far better to give the various strands of evidence. In II 1174, is an interesting grammatical question. L has οὐδέ σφιν θέμις ἦεν, ὅτ ̓ ἀντιπέρηθεν ίκοντο. Seaton notes L's "KOVTO but adopts KowTo without explanation. An ex silentio conclusion would be fallacious here, for G has iKOLTO. The plural KowTo is presumably somebody's conjecture on the basis of G's reading; but if any further evidence was attainable it ought, to have been given. In IV 145, the reading to ero, in which L and G agree, and which is the basis of Merkel's emendation, is not mentioned. Any increase in the size of the commentary which might become necessary by the method of citation here advocated, would be more than made good by the elimination of the vulgate readings. If the general theory of the text as it is set forth in the preface is the true one-and there is no doubt that it is the true |