Principled discussions of civil rights became inherently less likely as a direct result of the observation by Earl Warren, in Brown v. Board of Education, that, respecting freedmen, “Education of Negroes was almost non-existent, and practically all of the race were illiterate,” and in proportion as that observation increasingly became the foundation of common opinion on the subject. Warren's observation was not true in any meaningful or non-trivial sense. Nevertheless, it served to perpetuate the myth of a backward people needing (...) help to catch up instead of the truth of a people being held back. That is the perspective – the disadvantaged group perspective – that ultimately infected all discussion of civil rights, even after the designation of so-called “disadvantaged groups” had been extended beyond American blacks. To define civil rights, we may well begin with what all mankind would likely recognize. Thus the dictionary definition of “civil rights” stands: “the rights that belong to all individuals in a nation or community touching property, marriage, and the like.” In that definition the term “rights” may be further expanded to mean “legitimate claims,” following the definition of right as law – as “a claim or title or interest in anything whatever that is enforceable by law.” This definition applies with minimal distinction of regimes intruding and, therefore, without the host of recent complications in the United States that create the impression that civil rights have something to do with pluralism. Previously, the generic definition was thought to exhaust the meaning of the term in the United States. (shrink)

It would be natural to expect, after all these years, that the language of an author so important as Livy would be adequately represented in the dictionaries. Unfortunately this is very far from being the case. It is disquieting to find numerous Livian words cited without any mention of Livy or of any other writer of the Ciceronian or the Augustan Age. It is equally disquieting to find Livian idioms or constructions attributed only to writers remote from Livy both in (...) time and in genre. To crown all, we find a good many of Livy's notable usages entirely ignored. Perhaps a humble service may be rendered both to Livy and to the history of the Latin language by indicating a few deficiencies, especially in the parts of the alphabet not yet covered by the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. (shrink)

In recent years important contributions to the interpretation of the eighth book of Lucan have been made by Professor Postgate , and by Mr.J.D.Duff .The following notes make a further attempt to solve some of the many problems presented by the book.

This well-known passage refers to the growth of latifundia, a symptom of Rome's decadence. In v. 170 ignotis is generally taken to mean ‘unknown to the owners,’ and thus, it seems to me, the point of the passage is missed. There is a double antithesis; longa is contrasted with breuίa, parua, and ίgnotίs with notίs, ίnlustrίbus, or the like. The latter antithesis is implied in Camίllί, Curίorum; the other is left to be understood. In the good old days farms were (...) small, but were cultivated by the most eminent citizens, men like Camillus and Curius Dentatus; now these small farms are combined to form latίfundίa, managed by nobodies , whether slaves or tenant farmers. The juxta-position of longa and sub ίgnotίs is intentional. (shrink)

The statement of Donatus that Vergil wrote the Culex at the age of sixteen seems to be regarded by most scholars as too good to be true. It is a very long time since it was first suggested that XXVI. should be read for XVI., and the proposal has not yet fallen from favour. The apparent justification of this view is found in a passage of Statius' Genethliacon Lucani , where Calliope is represented as foretelling the literary achievements of Lucan. (...) It is the purpose of the present paper to examine this supposed evidence. (shrink)