It is hard to conceive and define the general characteristics of Alexandrian poetry (c. 323–146 B.C.), a poetry which we know mostly in fragments and of which the greatest representatives show so wide a divergence.

Between the poetry, for instance, of Callimachus, with its austere and scholarly character intended for an educated and courtly audience, and the mimes of Herodas, with their sensual and humorous character designed to appeal to the broad masses of the cities, there is an abyss which cannot be bridged. Yet we can discern common elements and qualities which differ both from classical Greek poetry and the poetry which followed.

The Alexandrian poets are all in some way or other, directly or indirectly, hampered and fettered by the weight of classical Greek poetry. They looked at the Greek poetic tradition with awe mingled with despair; they were spellbound by the rich and beautiful language, the perfection of form and the grandeur of the classical creative imagination from Homer to Menander, but the more they studied those works the more deeply were they convinced of the utter impossibility of creating anything of equal originality; they realized that they were incapable of freeing themselves completely from the classical tradition or of breaking it and creating new types of great poetry, as the Ionians had created the epic, or the Athenians drama. The furthest they dared venture was to mix and to mingle the old pure and clearly defined types of poetry. The result, neither the same nor completely new, flattered their vanity by persuading them that they were creating, without breaking way from the spell of tradition.

At first sight it might appear that the scope of Virgil's influence had been predetermined from the beginning, as far surpassing that of any classical author. His poems became a school-book within a few years of his death: he is one of the very few Latin writers whose work remained known, without any real break, from the day that it was written until now: his genius was recognized in his own lifetime and onwards with very little question, and wherever Latin has been read at all he has been one of the authors read. More than that, his text has been pored over, annotated, translated, and sedulously imitated, from his own time to ours, sometimes chiefly for antiquarian reasons, but usually with an appreciation of its beauty and a devotion amounting to a cult. This Society has been founded in the belief that Such an influence should be in one way or another permanent, and this conviction in itself raises the consideration of scope: the question, I mean, whether Virgil may be regarded as a European influence, part of the inheritance of European culture at its widest range, or whether there is anything in his poetry which makes him more even than the greatest European classic—one of the very few writers of universal importance. The question is bound up with the whole problem of classical education and how far it should be fundamental in the world-order of the future, which will not be wholly, perhaps not primarily, European.

Another question is relevant to this, though at first sight rather distantly so.

When did the Athenians march out to meet the Persians?

In an attempt to sort out the confused chronology of events before the battle of Marathon, J. A. R. Munro, in the Cambridge Ancient History, vol. iv, maintains that the march must have taken place whilst Eretria was still in a state of siege, and was designed to save that city.

His supposition is based on a statement in Aristotle's Rhetoric, iii. 10, 1411 a 10, where Cephisodotus παρακαλν ποτε τούς 'Aϑηναíους εìς Eὒβοιαν ἐπισιτισαμένους ἒϕη εīν ἐξιἑναι τò Mιλτιἁλου Ψἡϕιαμα. Munro points out that the only possible context for this decree of Miltiades is the Persian investment of Eretria; he then goes on to presume that the decree was implemented, and that the Athenians set out from Athens some time before the date given by Herodotus for their march. To account for their non-arrival at Oropus he suggests that the Persian forces divided, and by an early invasion of Attica diverted the Greek army from its original intention.

A ψἡϕιαμα was a most binding enactment, and could only be can-celled by another ψἡϕιαμα. Because there is no record of such a cancellation, Munro seems to think that the decree must have been carried out. But both Herodotus (vi. 102 seq.) and Plato (Menexenus, 240 b) expressly declare that only after the subjugation of Eretria and the landing at Marathon did the Athenians move from the city.

Munro's difficulty about the ψἡϕιαμα could surely be better dealt with if we suppose that the force of the decree was completely invalidated by the fall of Eretria.

Aristotle's account of the περκνóπτεος the Black Eagle (H.A. ix. 32. b), is, in the main, an accurate enough description of the Lammergeyer (Gypaetus barbatus): λευκἠ κεϕαλἠ, μεγέθει ἠ μἑγιοτος, πτερἀ ἠ βραχύτατα, καì ὀρροπύγιον πρóμκες, γυπí ὃμοιος ὀρειπέλαργος καλε¯ται καí ὑπάετος. οἰkgr;ε’ ἂλση, τἀ μἐν κακἁ ταὐτἀ ἒχων τοῐς ἂλλοις, τν ’ ἀγαθν οὐἑν. ἁλíσκεται γἀρ καì ιὠκεται ὑττò κορἁκων καì τν ἂλλων, βαρύς γα καí κακóβιος καì τἀ τεθνετα ϕἑρων πειν’ ἑεì καì βοᾀ και μινυρíℑει. The birds which I observed in Abyssinia and Kenya appeared very black, and the white head (λευκἠ κεϕαλἡ) was very noticeable when the bird turned in the sun.

Again it is in fact the largest of the Old World raptores (μεγἑθει μἑγιατος), for specimens have been recorded which measured 10 feet between wing-tips. But it is untrue to say that its wings are βραχύτατα, for it possesses the graceful spread of a gigantic falcon. Sundevall, as Professor D'A. W. Thompson points out in A Glossary of Greek Birds (pp. 146–7, new edition, 1936), suggested that βραχύτατα was an error for μακρóτατα, but it is more likely, in view of Pliny's alts minimis, quoted below, that Aristotle was confusing the lammergeyer with another bird, perhaps Bonelli's (Nisaetus fasciatus Vieill.) or the Dwarf Eagle (Aquila naevia). In flight the lammergeyer's most prominent feature is its long, streamlined rump, which is faithfully described by ὀρροπὑγιον πρóμηκες (this characteristic is well portrayed in Leonard Gill's A First Guide to the Birds of South Africa).

If you were setting out to write a play you would at an early stage have to decide how to begin. That is to say, once your plot and characters had taken shape, you would have to determine how to introduce your audience to sufficient basic facts for them to appreciate the situation at the opening of the play and the relevance of fresh developments as they occurred. Moreover, you would aim to do this in a manner which was both economical and dramatic; and you would probably discover that your two aims were inconsistent. A bald exposition of the present position and past history of the more important characters would be economical in time but unsuited to the stage; whereas dramatic dialogue, of sufficient length to allow of the necessary knowledge being imparted indirectly to the audience, is apt to be verbose and disproportionately long.

In a modern play we should expect to find that any second- or thirdrate playwright has a slick enough technique to have resolved this discrepancy with a fair degree of success. But it was not always so; and this paper is largely concerned with the history of the tug-of-war between the two aims—the economical and concise exposition on the one hand and, on the other, the more leisurely and more properly dramatic build-up of the situation by natural explanatory dialogue and incidental allusions between characters on the stage.

For Aeschylus, the problem does not really arise in the form in which it faces his successors.

Arecent article in Greece and Rome on the formation of a school Virgil Society has had repercussions in the Potteries area of north Staffordshire which I think may interest other readers. When the article first appeared one of the sixth-form boys studying Classics at this school asked if we might start our own Virgil Society. I mentioned this suggestion to our headmaster, himself a Classical scholar, and he was able to show us some of the literature sent out by the Virgil Society. But a discussion in the sixth form soon made it clear that the boys, while keen on forming a society, did not wish to see it limited in scope. They envisaged the whole realm of Greece and Rome as their arena. With such a wide field in view it was obvious that the resources of one school would be severely strained to provide lectures, talks, and discussions at anything like frequent intervals, and permission was sought and obtained to invite representatives of two girls' schools and one boys' school, all situated fairly near to us, to an informal meeting to discuss ideas.

That meeting in November 1945 was a great success. The representatives, staff and pupils, were enthusiastic to form some such society, which should take for its field of operations the whole life of the ancient classical world. We elected a committee of two representatives from each school, stipulating that not more than one should be a member of the staff, and invited all the other secondary grammar schools within easy travelling distance.

It is a strange fact that, despite the spread of education and the great number of cultural vade meca in the hands of the public nowadays, there should still be found so many ignorami among the hoi polloi. Too often you will hear people saying ‘octopuses’ when they should, of course, have said ‘octopi’: and we fear that to use the forms ‘platypi’ and ‘rhino-ceri’ is only to incur the reproach of pedantry. The times are out of joint: we worship at the shrine of universal education, but this ideal is the very antipode of the actual fact. Slipshod and inaccurate utterance pervades every strata of society. In particular, exactness and precision in classical quotation, instead of being regarded as the desideratae and, we may almost say, the necessary sine quae non of polite intercourse, are only laughed at as ridiculous refinements. Cui bono?, ‘for what good?’, is the false standard applied to mere elegancies of style. If faults are noticed at all, they are dismissed as trivial lapsi linguae.

How is this lamentable situation to be improved? The classical teacher is, no doubt, partly responsible; he can plead no alibum in the matter. But he can effect little improvement by himself. He is no dictator, whose cujus is mightier than any quorum of democratic committeemen. We, the enlightened, must therefore band ourselves together and form a militant Society for Purer Latin. We must begin at Jerusalem and purge ourselves first. Let us pay our own final adieux to these errors and say, each and all of us, our several valia to inelegant solecisms.

All the plates in this number are concerned with the Roman cities of Nemausus (Nîmes), Arelate (Arles), and Arausio (Orange). In the ancient writers references to these places are strangely infrequent, though Pliny throws some light on the advanced romanization of the district: ‘Agrorum cultu, virorum morumque dignatione, amplitudine opum, nulli provinciarum postferenda breviterque Italia verius quam provincia’ (H.N. iii. 31). He also tells us that there was in Nemausiensi agro a pool, Laterra, where dolphins fished with the natives! (H.N. ix. 8.) From Suetonius, moreover, we gather that the Imperial Cult, early established in Gallia Narbonensis, was not always popular, for the folk of Nemausus overthrew the imagines and statues of Tiberius even in his lifetime (Tib. 13). In the same book we are told that Tiberius' father was sent to found coloniae at Arelate and Narbo (Tib. 4), and Pliny (H.N. iii. 4) declares that these were recruited from veterans of the Tenth and Sixth Legions.

Both these cities were flourishing before Tiberius succeeded Augustus, and Agrippa especially stamped his mark on Provence. Arausio was already famous for the battle there in the second century B.C. with the Cimbri and Teutones. Arelate appears to have maintained its importance for centuries: there was even a suggestion, in the fifth century, that it should be the Imperial capital city (Ausonius had described it, some time before, as ‘Gallulam Romam’).

It was natural that the arts should flourish among a people as cultured as the Gauls. Varro, writing of the natives of these parts, says that they were ‘trilingues, quod et Graece loquuntur et Latine et Gallice’ (ap. Isidorum, Etym. xv. 1. 63), and much valuable information on their literary achievements will be found in Mayor's notes on the Gallia… facunda of Juvenal xv. 111.