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.

‘I Propose to argue first’, writes M. R. Glover1 of the Bacchae, ‘that Euripides is here, as elsewhere, a realist, giving us a picture of Dionysus’ worship as it really was; and that the miracles are meant as evidence of some supernatural power; and secondly that, if we want to know his judgment on that religion, we shall come nearest to his thought, if not his vocabulary, in saying that it seemed to him devilish.’ The point of view expressed in the opening words reduces the ‘riddle’ of the Bacchae to manageable proportions. As a piece of life, a study of religious psychology, to be set beside the Hippolytus and the Ion, the play becomes comprehensible. It reveals the poet in his old familiar role, watching men and women with his own rare insight and truthfulness, and noting with fidelity their tragic conflicts of the spirit and their bewildering catastrophes. Miss Glover's first proposition, therefore, is undoubtedly correct. Whether Euripides was as emotionally involved in his subject as the second proposition suggests might be much more open to doubt. H. J. Rose,2 on the first point, takes substantially the same position. He writes:

‘To call the play an attack on or a defence of religion in general or any form of it in particular is quite to miss the meaning. It is a study, by a poet who was deeply interested in all religious phenomena, of one of the most notable of them… As he neither attacks nor defends sexual passion in the Hippolytus, but studies it sympathetically and with profound pity for its victims, so here he deals with an equally potent force, which he shows exalting some of those affected by it to the raptures of the chorus, and ruining others like Pentheus and Agave.

There are flaws in the usual methods of research into religious origins which have become apparent to the writer during several years' work on the cult of one Greek god. It has therefore seemed desirable to restate and to examine these methods so as to demonstrate the merits and the faults of each. To do so is one aim of this paper; another is an elucidation of the many important advantages of the historical approach, and, although it is hoped that the principles herein erected as guides to study are applicable to all ancient gods, the illustrations of these principles will derive very largely from Hermes, the god with whose cult and concept the writer has been most closely concerned.

It would be hard to exaggerate the difficulties which beset a student when he turns to the problem of an ancient god's origin. Even a partial solution demands his utmost caution, for the easy explanation is hardly ever the right one. He must guard himself against the beguilements of the attractive theory which will very often beckon him down the wrong path. To avoid this and to enter upon his task most wisely he will meditate upon two main initial difficulties.

The first one to present itself is, of course, the fact that the origin of most gods worshipped by the Greeks lies in the past far behind Homer. Therefore the student is faced with an almost total lack of literary and epigraphical material—at least which he can understand— to aid him in the search.

Poetry has four appeals: the romantic, the sensuous, the intellectual, and the formal. We may enjoy the story, the sound, the thought, or the shape of a poem. Almost everybody can appreciate the first; and a reciter trying to convert an audience suspicious of poetry might begin with Alfred Noyes's ‘Highwayman’. Susceptibility to the second appeal seems innate in a fortunate few. Some men loved the music of Keats's ‘Nightingale’ long before they understood the words. But others are tone-deaf (I know a Doctor of Divinity who calls Kubla Khan rubbish), and in most of us the appreciation of verbal harmony grows but slowly. And the last two appeals are much more limited. Few can be bothered to master the ‘criticism of life’ of Arnold's ‘Resignation’ or Browning's ‘Rabbi ben Ezra’, or to estimate the place of Troilus and Cressida in Shakespeare's intellectual development, or to discuss the merits of the Spenserian stanza, or to criticize the structure of ‘The Lotus-Eaters’ or the arrangement of the books in Paradise Lost. Such conundrums are left to candidates for Honours in English and the dons who set the papers.

Now if we have only read two or three books of the Aeneid we cannot enjoy the structure of the whole poem. And we shall not apprehend much of Virgil's thought. Indeed, we may misunderstand it, just as, if somebody insists that Milton's God is a bully and the rebel angels heroes, it is fairly safe to infer that he has read only the first two books of Paradise Lost.

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.

This has always been one of my favourite poems, but if I were asked why, I should be hard put to it for an answer. I suppose it is because it seems to me the most perfect example of urbanitas in Latin poetry. Others will prefer Horace—those who prefer curiosa felicitas, and I admit at once there is nothing here to match such an exquisite felicity as ‘tange Chloen semel arrogantem’ (o si sic omnia!). But even in Horace such apparently effortless grace is rare; usually we find as much curiositas as felicitas: we marvel at the art, but I for one feel uneasily conscious of the tour de force. In other words, I feel the effects are calculated, whereas I always feel that Catullus dashed down his shorter poems, at least, in a few minutes—as we know Schubert did many of his songs: even Mozart composed in his head, though without the necessity of writing. Of the labor limae the outstanding examples are Horace and Beethoven. For Horace we have his own word: in the case of Beethoven no one would suspect to what an extent he carried it, if his note-books had not been preserved.

However de gustibus non disputandum: it is the old controversy between Munro, who favoured Catullus and Lucretius, and Conington, who preferred Horace and Virgil. (Those who have access to Conington's Miscellaneous Writings will find there a most interesting statement of his views: Munro's reply will be found in Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus.)

The outstanding feature of epic as displayed in the Odyssey is simplicity. It is the tale of the hero who has to pass many dangers on sea and land, outwit giants and other monsters, and accomplish in general a number of feats of courage and ingenuity before he reaches the final goal from which his purpose, so far as it is serious, has never swerved, and is welcomed by his dear wife at his own fireside. In all this he has working with and for him a goddess who has chosen him for her especial favourite. As Jason had the help of Hera, and Aeneas of his mother, so Odysseus was able to defeat all perils by joining to his own wits the divine powers of Athena. The assistance she gave him lay in such devices as hiding him in a cloud, or going before him in human form to ensure him a friendly reception, for help of this sort suited the problems he had to face. We are, that is to say, in a genuine fairy-tale world, not one indeed where human personalities are submerged, but where motives are simplified, where our chief joy is to see the hero first mocked, then outwitting or outdoing his mockers, where, to put the point briefly, there is no moral and no one but a fool would spoil a good story by looking for one.

It is otherwise with tragedy, and expecially with the tragedy of Sophocles. Human motives and their justification, the moral relations between gods and mortals, provide questions that have demanded, not perhaps to be answered, but at any rate to be probed and brought forcibly before the notice of men.

In 1545, nearly two years before the death of Henry VIII, there came to England Nicander Nucius of Corfu. He stayed some months, and later wrote an account of his visit in classical Greek.

There must be many like myself who are indebted to Mr. Stanley Casson's last published work, Greece and Britain, for their first acquaintance with Nicander. Unfortunately his chapter on Nicander is all too brief. Moreover, there is only one English edition of the Greek text, and this was published by the Camden Society over a hundred years ago.2 A more accessible edition is called for, as I hope this paper will show.

Nicander came to England with his patron Gerard, whom the Emperor Charles V had dispatched as an emissary to Henry. We know little about Nicander himself, but there are hints that he had recently left his home owing to some personal tragedy. Corfu was then a part of the Venetian Republic and it was to Venice that he made his way, there to meet Gerard, who was travelling to the court of Sultan Suleiman. Nicander accompanied him to Constantinople. His knowledge of local conditions would make him a useful travelling-companion, and it is probable that he also proved helpful as a diplomatic assistant. At any rate, he remained a member of Gerard's suite and followed him faithfully on the long journey through Germany and Belgium which finally brought them both to Calais. Here they received a travel-permit (ἐυλóσιμον), and after a false start crossed to Dover.

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).

Most students, when their last examination is over, are glad enough to sell their text-books and bid a long farewell to all subjects that lie outside their daily occupations. Not only Classics but History, Music, Mathematics, and even French are cheerfully ‘dropped’—a course that many will regret in after years. Up to the twentieth century Latin was not a dead or an alien tongue: it was part of an educated man's native language. But the overcrowded time-table, the ‘new’ pronunciation, and the so-called diffusion of culture have made a cleavage between young and old. Our Ciceronian accent sounds pedantic at home and is not understood by foreigners; so we no longer quote Latin, but join in the common hunt for second-hand American slang.

But is not this a foolish betrayal of the very citadel of sound learning and enlightenment? Who are the bearers of culture if not the young graduates from our Arts Departments? How can the tide of barbarism be stemmed if the leaders of thought are ashamed of their own know-ledge and literary taste? I do not mean that the art of classical quotation can be revived. But for our own pleasure, as well as for the ripening of our attainments, should we not make a little effort to keep up our Latin? Let me suggest one or two simple ways of doing this.

1. If you have an odd half-hour in a library, pick out an edition of any Latin author not too familiar. Read the introduction until you find out who he was and when he lived.

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.

Whatever may be his weaknesses in other fields, all will agree that as a literary craftsman Tacitus stands in the first rank. Like Lytton Strachey, he writes with an extraordinary verbal felicity, shows an uncanny genius for delineating character, and is a master of innuendo and suggestion.

It would be an entertaining but profitless pastime for my readers to cast themselves for the part of Nero at the beginning of Book XIV and decide how they would elect to liquidate—pardon the modern term—a troublesome mother. I am sure we could each one of us propound half a dozen more convincing schemes than that adopted by the historical Nero. Judged by the standards of the modern novel, the story is utterly fantastic. Yet such is the artistry of Tacitus that we are held spellbound throughout and accept it as vera historia.

He makes an excellent start: ‘Gaio Vipstano C. Fonteio consulibus diu meditatum scelus non ultra Nero distulit.’ How lucky it was for Tacitus he had no chapter-headings to give his secrets away! Subconsciously the reader draws in a breath of eager anticipation, feeling that if Nero is now about to bring off a long-meditated crime, then he is in for an interesting story. But what was the crime? Just wait and see. But to whet our appetite Tacitus gives us in his description of Nero one of those pungent quasi-epigrammatic touches of psychology of which he is so fond. ‘Vetustate imperii coalita audacia.… ’ ‘This unnatural power’, says Burke, ‘corrupts both the heart and the understanding.’

‘Crete, for religion, as for civilization generally, was the stepping-stone from Egypt to Greece.’ This statement of Miss Jane Harrison is far from being the belief of the orthodox classical scholar, and it is not the aim of this paper to claim its truth except in relation to one aspect of religion.

The Haghia Triada sarcophagus shows that the Minoans were probably familiar with the Egyptian conception of the Isles of the Blest, and that this figured in their cult of the dead in the model of a ship which is being carried to the dead man, to facilitate his journey to that blessed region. It seems that it was this conception that survived in Greek religion.

Pindar in his Second Olympian Ode (lines 76–84) describes such a region. Virtue, he says, brings its reward, and the good are allowed after death to live a life free from toil of any kind, in the company of the Gods. But a still greater reward awaits those who have undergone the threefold probation without taint of evil. ‘Whosoever have dared in either world to live three times a life pure from all evil, pass on the road of Zeus by the tower of Cronus, where the breezes of Ocean breathe around the Islands of the Blest, and flowers are radiant with gold, some on the shore from the shining trees, while the water fosters others. With wreaths of these and with crowns they entwine their hands, living the while by the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthus.’

The lives of the Emperors from Hadrian to Carus, usually grouped together under the title of Scriptores Historiae Augustae, offer a strange problem to the historian. They purport to be addressed to the Emperors Diocletian and Constantine and to be the work of six distinct writers, Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Vulcacius Gallicanus, Aelius Lampridius, Trebellius Pollio, and Flavius Vopiscus. In fact, they betray occasional evidences of a much later date—whether the age of Julian the Apostate, the age of Theodosius the Great, or one later still. There seems to be a growing agreement that the six independent authors are not to be taken too seriously—at least, that the work, based on material of various dates, finally saw the light through the agency of a single editor. Let us, however, leave the headaches to the historians and see if we can find a laugh for the latinist amid the strange variations of idiom which our mysterious historians permit themselves. The oddest usages probably belong to the hypothetical ‘final’ editor: but even oddity has its variations and I seem to detect such variations here. It should be a serious task for some student of Latin to investigate the problem of date from the linguistic point of view.

There is a strange freedom in the use of cases. Accusative of motion towards is not limited to ‘towns and small islands’: civitatem veniens ‘coming to the city’ (Severus 22. 6), Asiam primum venit (Gallicanus 2. 6), orientem redire (Alexander Severus 63. 5). In with accusative is found where in with ablative is expected: habet in potestatem Thracios (Claudius 15. 2), dispatches quae in urbem ingentem laetitiam fecerunt (Maximinus 24. 6), or we may find ablatives where we expect accusatives: in loco Maximini Gordianus sufficiatus (Maximinus 26. 4).

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.

In Westminster Abbey lie the bones of Ben Jonson; in the little parish church of Cookham in Berkshire lies a local squire named Arthur Babham, who died and was buried at about the same time as the poet. The world knows Ben Jonson, and his epitaph. Who has heard of his contemporary? Yet listen to the first lines of the Cookham memorial:

To Cristall Skyes let Fame resounde the Vertuous Praise aright Of Arthor Babham here depicte in alabastere bright.

Ten further lines record his lineage, his offspring, the expense of his monument, and his ultimate happy destination; but to the reader they mean little, compared with the directness of the words on the Abbey flagstone: ‘O rare Ben Ihonson.’

There is a similar simplicity and lack of pretension in certain of the sepulchral epigrams on individuals contained in Book VII of the Greek Anthology, which marks them out among the multitude of ‘poetical exercises in the form of epitaphs’ (to quote the introduction of the Loeb edition) which form the greater part of the collection. Some of these outstanding examples are attributed, though often on very slender evidence, to famous poets from the seventh to the fifth centuries, while others are anonymous (); but, contrasted with the mass of rhetorical questions, imaginative speculations, and elaborate descriptions which so often detract from the compositions of the later writers, the epitaphs in question all have this common virtue, that the bare facts to be commemorated are stated briefly and lucidly, some-times with the transcendent clarity of great poetry, sometimes with a halting plainness which has equal power to transfix the mind.

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.