The Platonic MS. Vat. gr. 225 contains tetr. I, VI. 3, 4, II–IV, while its companion volume in the same hand Vat. gr. 226 contains V–VI. 2, VIII. 3, VII, Spp., VIII. 1, 2. Posts states that for tetr. I and VI. 3 A is close to Vind. suppl. gr. 7 and thereafter derives from the Clarkianus . I am here concerned only with the testimony of Δ in. 2 . This manuscript has been largely ignored by commentators and editors. (...) Schanz does not quote it, nor does Bekker . Alline is scornful about it. Neither Burnet nor Croiset quotes it—and indeed Burnet claims that it is merely an interpolated apograph of W. Stallbaum seems to be the only editor who quotes it for Apol. This appears to be an unwarranted neglect since A has, in fact, a good claim to be considered as a primary witness in this dialogue. (shrink)

Although other quasi-Kantian theories have been adapted, Jürgen Habermas’s discourse theory has been largely ignored in discussions of environmental ethics. Indeed on some versions of what an environmental philosophy must entail, Habermas’s anthropocentric approach must be disqualified from the start. Yet, there are some environmentally friendly implications of his discourse theory. They may not give us everything we would wish, but in the contemporary political context we must treasure any moral theory that can draw on the still-extensive theoretical and political (...) resources of liberalism. (shrink)

Libertarians such as J.R. Lucas have abandoned traditional Christian doctrines because they cannot reconcile them with the freedom of the will. Traditional Christian thinkers such as Augustine have repudiated libertarianism because they cannot reconcile it with the dogmas of the Faith. In Free Will and the Christian Faith, W.S. Anglin demonstrates that free will and traditional Christianity are ineed compatible. He examines, and solves, puzzles about the relationships between free will and omnipotence, omniscience, and God's goodness, using the idea of (...) free will to answer the question of why God allows evil, and presenting arguments that link free will to eternal life and to the nature of revelation. Topics covered include the meaning of life, the soul and Lesbegue measure, and strategies for discerning the voice of God. (shrink)

Of the various contests held by Aeneas to mark the anniversary of his father's death the ship-race is marked out by its length and initial position as especially important. However its precise significance is by no means obvious. That Virgil intends it to have some relevance to events of later Roman history seems fairly clear. First, we are told the names of the families descended from three of the four captains involved — Cluentii, Memmii and Sergii. It seems therefore that (...) we should look to the activities of members of these families to discover Virgil's intention. Two families — Cluentii and Memmii — are a mystery, since none of their members plays an obviously prominent role in the events of Virgil's own time. However, Sergestus and the Sergii point unmistakably towards Catiline. Sergestus' rash folly, which is nearly the ruin of his men and his ship, exactly matches Catifine's own furor, which would have destroyed Rome. Even the name of his ship, Centaurus, reinforces the point. (shrink)

The account of the death of Palinurus at the end of Aen. 5 raises to a higher level of importance a figure who has previously seemed very much a minor character in the Aeneid. This is achieved partly by the narrative brilliance of Virgil's account of his destruction by Somnus, and partly also by the atmosphere of solemn mystery which surrounds his fate. This solemn note is first struck in the passage which directly prepares the way for Palinurus' death. At (...) Aen. 5.779 Venus, anxious that Juno's wrath may still prevent the safe arrival of Aeneas in Italy, appeals for help to Neptune. He reassures her. Aeneas will arrive safely. There is, however, one condition: unus erit tantum amissum quem gurgite quaeres; unum pro multis dabitur caput. (shrink)

Since my article in C.Q. xli, pp. 86 ff., a further discussion of the problem has come to my notice. H. Jacobsohn, in an article entitled Σκνθικ in Zeitschr. f. vergleichende Sprachforschung, liv, pp. 254 ff., anticipates my point that the Greek ᾊξενƿς is borrowed not from Avestan but from some other Iranian language, probably Scythian. He also makes outan attractive case, based on the word παφδεισ¿ς, for considering the Iranian pronunciation at the period when the loan occurred to have (...) been αχšēna, with ē from original ai. It is unfortunate that he should have supported his case with the argument that a form αχšaina is too remote from Greek ξειν¿ς for the identification to have taken place: this insistence on complete homonymy in folk-etymology I have already criticized in discussing Moorhouse's article; and in any case it is by no means certain that ξεινႿς is the earliest form of the name in Greek. (shrink)

In an article on ‘The Name of the Euxine Pontus’ in C.Q.xxxiv , pp. 123 ff., A. C. Moorhouse rejects the suggestion made by M. Vasmer and supported by Boisacq that the original Greek title ξενος was a popular rendering of the Avestan adjective αχṦαệνα, ‘of dark colour’. Moorhouse raises the following objections to this theory: i. There is no direct evidence of the Avestan adjective ever being applied to the Black Sea. ii. In historical times ‘Avestan is a long (...) way from Greek’ and in prehistorical times it is doubtful whether the speakers of Avestan had any close connexion with the Black Sea. iii. Assuming πόντος to denote ‘way’, ‘the dark way’ would be a fantastic name for any sea. iv. The early Greek form is ξενος, and only metri gratia ξεινος, whereas if the word is a loan from αχṧαēνα we should expect the phonetically closer form ξενος. (shrink)

In two shocking articles that appeared in 1968 and 1974, Garrett Hardin argued that the population explosion was producing a “tragedy of the commons.” Since we lack an effective method of sharing common resources, the strong incentive for individuals to appropriate them selfishly would soon lead to their collapse. To mitigate this danger, Hardin proposed a “lifeboat ethic”: less populated and -polluted Western countries should deny food aid to developing nations, where it would save lives only to increase population pressure, (...) and they should close their borders to immigration to prevent their lifeboats from becoming overcrowded and going down with the rest. This paper challenges and complicates Hardin’s account of the tragedy. While there is something right about his view, its vulnerability to a series of empirical challenges reflects its conceptual limitations. I argue that we need to develop a broadly ethical and arguably religious solution to the twin challenges of population growth and pollution. If the liberal commitment to negative freedom is, ironically, largely responsible for our current ecological bind, our only hope of escape is to build bridges between traditions in search of a thicker sense of ethicopolitical obligation. (shrink)

We now know that the epitomes prefixed to the plays of Euripides in the medieval manuscripts were written not for this purpose but as part of a complete collection of Euripidean epitomes, arranged alphabetically by initial,and intended presumably to make the subject-matter of the plays available to persons unable or unwilling to read the plays themselves. The first direct proof of the existence of this collection came with the publication in 1933 of a fragment containing Rhesos, Rhadamanthys, Skyrioi ; we (...) now have parts of it in three other papyri as well, and may reasonably suppose that P. Oxy. 420 is also from the same work. (shrink)

Emile Durkheim is widely lauded as one of the founding fathers of modern Sociology and for his substantial contribution to the sociology of education. This set brings some of his most important writings on the subject together for the first time.

Odysseus' man, disguised as the captain of a merchant ship, is explaining to Neoptolemus how he chanced unexpectedly to meet Neoptolemus' sailors. Jebb's note, ‘the same land ; not, strictly, the same “spot” ’, and his rendering, ‘off the same coast’, somewhat contradict one another.

Panegyric IV , 24, 2: diducta acie inreuocabilem impetum hostis effundis, dein quos ludificandos receperas reductis agminibus includis. Acidalius' correction ludificando is accepted in both the Teubner editions. The addition of the s would, of course, be an easy error, and quite characteristic of the MSS, of these authors. But there is no need for the correction, in view of the frequency; in the Panegyrici Latini, of the Gerundive as a Future Participle Passive, an unquestionable example of which occurs, in (...) fact, in the last sentence of the chapter in question. ‘Quos ludificandos receperas’ means ‘whom you had admitted with the intention that they should be tricked,’ is equivalent in sense to ‘quos ludificaturus receperas.’ The Gerundive used as Future Participle Passive gives an appropriate picture of the purpose with which the manoeuvre described by receperas was carried out. (shrink)

Following the example of the late Professor R. S. Conway, who in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, vol. v, part i , discussed ‘The Use of the Singular Nos in Cicero's Letters’, I examined Catullus’ employment of the idiom in an article published in Mnemosyne, series iii, vol. vii, fasc. 2 , pp. 148–56. While the usage of Catullus exemplified various of Conway's indisputable types of the singular nos, such as the Plural of Authorship and the Plural of (...) Proprietorship, my observations did not confirm his main thesis of a ‘projective’ use, which L. C. Purser reviewing his rnonograph called ‘a Pluralis Dignitatis or Fiduciae, not to say Adrogantiae’, in direct contrast to the orthodox pluralis modestiae. I found that, where the use of nos related to a state of mind of the writer or speaker, not merely to circumstances of his environment, the usage in Catullus was either a pluralis modestiae or one of several derivative types. My examination of Virgil seems wholly to confirm the conclusions reached concerning Catullus, whose types of singular nos I classified as follows: the Plural of Proprietorship ; the Traveller's Plural ; the Local Plural ; the Plural of Authorship ; the Social and Domestic Plural ; the pluralis modestiae , pp. 87–9); the Plural of Pleading or Requesting; the Plural of Pathos or Self-pity. Of these , , , and are a product of circumstances of environment and relate to a group of which the speaker or writer is a member; , , , and express an attitude or state of mind. Virgil's examples of the usage fall into six of these categories, and being absent. For the purposes of the present study I shall, in order to indicate more clearly the connexion between and , and the subjective character of , number the six Virgilian categories as follows: the Plural of Proprietorship; the Social and Domestic Plural; the Plural of Authorship; the pluralis modestiae; the Plural of Pleading or Requesting; the Plural of Pathos, Self-pity, or Complaint. (shrink)