First published in 1911 as the second edition of a 1900 original, this book provides a basic introduction to astronomy written by the former Astronomer Royal of Ireland. The text is illustrated with photographs, diagrams and drawings of astronomical phenomena, including certain comets and the constellations visible from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of education and the teaching of astronomy.

The phrase per remos alii (Aen. 10.290) has baffled Vergil scholars for centuries, in which regard they have all just guessed at its meaning without citing any evidence to justify their views. During the 1960s, Gilbert Highet proposed a solution to the problem after seeing a scene in a Hollywood film in which a famous actor “ran down the oars” (i. e., ran over or along or across the oars)-a solution Highet would mention in his Vergil classes but never researched (...) for publication. This article attempts to justify Highet’s suggestion by considering, beyond the cinematic and related contemporary evidence, a variety of classical, medieval, and archaeological sources of information. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Bilingual Edition by Rodney G. DennisRobert J. BallRodney G. Dennis and Michael C. J. Putnam, trans. The Complete Poems of Tibullus: An En Face Bilingual Edition. With intro. by J. Haig Gaisser. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. x + 159 pp. Hardcover, $52.95, Paperback, $20.95.This welcome edition of Tibullus’ elegies contains a two-page preface, a twenty-eight-page introduction, an en (...) face bilingual text and translation of the elegies of Tibullus, Lygdamus, and Sulpicia, a seven-page section of notes, a ten-page glossary, an appendix containing a text and translation of Ovid Amores 3.9 (Ovid’s memorial to Tibullus), a select bibliography, and a general index.As related in the preface, after the death of Rodney Dennis, Curator of Manuscripts for twenty-five years at Harvard University’s Houghton Library, Michael Putnam and Julia Gaisser agreed to bring to fruition the Tibullus translation Dennis had worked on, which Dennis had wanted Gaisser to help him perfect and for which he had wanted Putnam to write the introduction. Putnam and Gaisser decided to reverse the roles that had been envisioned for them by Dennis, with the revision of the translation (and the addition of the poetry of Lygdamus and Sulpicia) diligently executed by Putnam, Professor Emeritus of Classics at Brown University, and the introduction insightfully authored by Gaisser, Professor Emerita of Latin at Bryn Mawr College.Gaisser’s introduction examines 1) the world of the Roman elegists, especially how, in an era of brilliant poets, the elegists defined their genre; 2) the themes and characters in Tibullus’ elegies and how the characters help shape the [End Page 295] arrangement of his poems; and 3) what the elegies of Lygdamus and Sulpicia have and do not have in common with those of the other elegists. Gaisser’s fine comment, “His [Tibullus’] poems glide easily, some would say dreamily, from theme to theme, moving almost like a slide show through apparently random images and musings” (1), recalls statements of some of the poet’s admirers at the dawn of the twentieth century, such as Johannes Vahlen, who likened the movement of the elegies to the tide of a summer sea. Gaisser takes the middle ground, as appropriate, in seeing Tibullus as a poet who speaks through a persona, yet who has “some (perhaps many) points in common with his creator” (7)—as he very likely does—since even within the context of his alternate universe, he touches on the contemporary world, where he refers to people and events outside the poem’s web of self-reference. Yet one may question Gaisser’s unqualified comment that “Tibullus’ poetic techniques are Alexandrian at almost every level” (17)—a thesis developed by Francis Cairns based on Hellenistic evidence of a fragmentary nature, substantiated by Alexandrian elements in some of Tibullus’ verses but with little relevance to those elegies governed by non-Alexandrian literary sources.The bilingual text and translation include the sixteen elegies written by Tibullus (1.1–10 and 2.1–6), the six by Lygdamus (3.1–6), and the six by Sulpicia (3.13–18 = 4.7–12); not included are the Panegyric of Messalla (3.7 = 4.1), the Garland of Sulpicia (3.8–12 = 4.2–6), and the elegy and epigram of debatable authorship appearing at the end of the corpus (3.19–20 = 4.13–14). In preparing this edition of the elegies, Putnam has followed, appropriately, Georg Luck’s Teubner text (Stuttgart 1988, rev. in 1998)—a text containing the most complete list of Tibullus’ manuscripts ever assembled and the most extensive citation of variants and conjectures for the poems, which Putnam supplements with his own variants. Verse form presents a serious challenge for anyone attempting to translate classical poetry into English, inasmuch as classical meters are quantitative whereas English verse is accentual; although translations of classical verses into the original meters may well result in a metrical tour de force, they tend to have a jingly sound, which can obscure and overshadow the poet’s artistry. Philip Dunlop translated some of Tibullus’ elegies into free... (shrink)

The verse hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus has long fuelled considerable debate and discussion among classical scholars. This hexameter occurs in the passage of the first satire that describes the aspect of the patron-client relationship where the rich patron, ignoring the plight of his poor and hungry clients, enjoys a sumptuous but deadly feast. After dining on delicacies such as boar and peacock, he bathes on a bloated stomach, causing him to die suddenly and apparently intestate, and causing those (...) angry at being deprived of their legacy to cheer at his funeral :quanta est gula quae sibi totosponit apros, animal propter conuiuia natum!poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictusturgidus et crudum pauonem in balnea portas.hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus.it noua nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas;ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis. (shrink)