However, in spite of skepticism in regard to this explanation of the meaning of aκрηтоν, my reason for reopening the matter is not to start a debate on the question of the proper vocabulary for Homer to use in cheese-making, but to bring in two parallels from Latin literature which have apparently been overlooked by all commentators in their efforts at securing illumination upon this subject. In the absence of any other use of aκρητov уáλa by Greek writers it is not at all impossible that these Latin passages have some value. Ovid (Fasti iv. 369), in explaining why a simple salad is offered to Cybele, says: Lacte mero veteres usi memorantur et herbis Sponte sua si quas terra ferebat, ait. Lucretius (De Rerum Nat. i. 257-61) concludes his discussion of the indestructibility of matter with a happy pastoral scene: fessae pecudes pingui per pabula laeta corpora deponunt et candens lacteus umor uberibus manant distentis; hinc nova proles artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas ludit lacte mero mentes perculsa novellas. It is possible to assume that in the Ovidian passage mero equals English mere and that the thought is that men of old, before wine came into use (Seymour, Life in the Homeric Age, p. 217), or because of their temperate habits, lived on very plain fare, nothing but milk and vegetables. The quotation from Lucretius, however, is of a different stamp. We have here (259-61) a playful picture of the visible effects of the strongest drink that the young lambs have, ǎкρηтоν yáλa. It goes to their heads (mentes perculsa) and they frisk about on shaky legs. But why mero lacte? Obviously it is intended to suggest merum vinum and the effect of such a drink on mankind. Bockemüller recognizes this as the meaning of the passage in his note on artubus infirmis (260): "Junge Lämmer, welche den sicheren Gebrauch ihrer Glieder noch nicht besitzen, machen den Eindruck von Trunkenen, die auch nicht Herren über ihre Glieder sind." Giussani (on p. 261 ) expresses the same view more explicitly: "L'aggiunta di mero a lacte pare voglia ricordare il vino, e far meglio sentire l'effetto inebriante del latte sulle anime novelline." This interpretation of the Lucretian mero lacte accords exactly with what Professors Perrin and Seymour (notes ad loc.) have to say of the Homeric aκρητov: "The epithet is half-humorous with yáλa from the custom of diluting wine." There is, to be sure, a difference in the setting of the two passages, but in spite of Professor Oldfather's objections to a joke amid the grewsomeness of the scene, I am inclined to believe that the poet who was capable of the Ouris joke and the úpatov doμai joke, was also quite capable of a humorous touch here. A guess at the meaning of Lucretius does not, of course, establish the meaning of Homer, but it seems desirable that merum lac should be considered in the interpretation of ἄκρητον γάλα. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS J. O. LOFBERG CORRECTION UPON THE "LAND REGISTERS UNDER Professor Eduard Meyer, of Berlin, has very kindly called my attention to Wiegand's publication in 1908 of a large and important addition to the Laodice document (O.G.I. 225)2 which had entirely escaped my notice. The additions which are made are: four lines (complete) of the letter of King Antiochus II to the satrap Metrophanes; the ends of the following four lines, so that we now have the king's letter in its entirety; and the second half of the letter of the satrap Metrophanes to Nicomachus, overseer of the royal domain in the Hellespontine satrapy. The letter of King Antiochus begins: Daisius. King Antiochus to Metrophanes greeting. We have sold to Laodice the village of Pannus and Baris and the countryside going with the village, bounded by the territory of Zelea and that of Cyzicus, and by the road, the old one, which formerly ran above the village of Pannus but has since been ploughed up by the peasants living near, by reason of the demarcation of the estate. For the present village of Pannus happens to have been established later. The information given in this new portion of the king's letter alters in one important particular the weight of the evidence upon which my deductions were based in my recent attempt to reconstruct from the available testimony a rough picture of the land registers of the Seleucids. I had concluded that the central land register could not furnish the poσopioμoí or TEрiорioкоí, the detailed boundary descriptions, of the estates of the royal domains. It is now evident that in the case, at least, of the transfer of the Пávvov kúμn to Laodice the central registry of the king was certainly in a position to give the exact boundaries of this land unit. Furthermore the agents of the central registry knew, when the king's letter was written, that the village of Pannus had not existed on the estate as originally delimited. It is, of course, possible that this information had been sent in to one or the other of the contracting parties, Antiochus or Laodice, by some agent 1 Printed in Classical Philology, XVI (1921), 12-19. 2 Th. Wiegand, "Sechster vorläufiger Bericht über Ausgrabungen in Milet und Didyma," in Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, 1908, p. 36. 3 See Classical Philology, XVI (1921), 16, 18. on the ground who had obtained the details from the local land register in preparation for the purchase. One would in such case most readily think of Arrhidaeus, manager of the affairs of Laodice,' who was in the locality when the transaction was carried through. It is to be hoped that further inscriptional evidence may be found upon this point. CORNELL UNIVERSITY W. L. WESTERMANN 10.G.I. 225, 1. 20, ̓Αρριδαίωι τῶι οἰκονομοῦντι τὰ Λαοδίκης. BOOK REVIEWS La Critica dei Poeti Romani in Orazio. By CARLO PASCAL. Catania: Francesco Battiato, 1919. Pp. 144. Lire 3.50. The essays in this volume deal with Ennius, Plautus, Lucilius, Catullus, Pollio, Tibullus, Propertius. They have all appeared before in periodicals. (most of them in Athenaeum), except those on Plautus and Lucilius. That on Catullus appeared also in Pascal's Poeti e personaggi Catulliani (reviewed at length in the American Journal of Philology, XXXVII, 481 ff.). There is also a general Introduction and a Conclusion. In the Introduction Pascal sets forth the principles or preconceptions which he believes guided Horace as a literary critic. The most important is the belief in the absolute perfection of Greek art. Out of this belief grew Horace's contempt for the simple art of ancient Italy. To the roughness of this art Horace opposes his own urbanitas, another of his guiding principles. In Pascal's definition urbanitas almost becomes a supercilious snobbishness which fails to appreciate the virile qualities of primitive art. Pascal also observes that Horace discusses only the defects of the poets he mentions. Another preconception he attributes to Horace is due to friendship: Horace cared only for the favorable comments of his friends. But Pascal fails to note that the basis of this friendship was agreement on literary and stylistic principles. In the Conclusion, Pascal argues that Horace's attitude was determined by the struggle between nationalism and Hellenism which in his time was going on in all phases of life. According to this view, Horace threw in his lot with the Hellenists. This seems to me to be a wrong conception: Horace took a middle ground here and attacked both extremes. The poetry of the Augustan age seems to me to represent such a compromise. The weakness of Pascal's views is due, in my opinion, to two factors: (1) that no allowance is made for modification of Horace's point of view between the time of the Satires and of the Epistles; (2) that poets as different in time, temperament, and training as Ennius, Plautus, Lucilius, and Catullus are grouped together. With regard to the older poets, Ennius and Lucilius, Horace's attitude, it seems to me, is not that of entire depreciation. He merely points out that they are human, like himself, that they make mistakes-even Homer nods-that, conversely, there are good qualities in modern poetry. Horace is attacking in many cases not the ancient poets, as Pascal at times assumes, but those critics who would canonize and even deify them. His attitude toward Ennius is decidedly friendly (Serm. i. 4. 60 ff.), though Pascal rather depreciates this. In the chapter on Plautus there is a full discussion of the passage in Hor. Epist. ii. 1.57 ff., where Afranius, Plautus, Caecilius, and Terence are mentioned. By a rather attractive interpretation of a fragment of Afranius this writer is credited with applying the term "Latin Menander" to Terence before Cicero and Caesar did. We must agree with Pascal that Horace's attitude toward Plautus, as far as it is expressed, is thoroughly unfavorable. The chapter on Lucilius is, from my prejudiced point of view, unsatisfactory, as it does not even mention certain interpretations, which seem to me more than plausible, of passages in the fourth and tenth satires (see T.A.P.A., XLVIII, 111 ff., and Classical Philology, X, 270 ff.), though these articles are mentioned in an introductory footnote. Examples are Serm. i. 4.21-22 and i. 10.11-14. Considerable space is given to Lucilius' use of Greek words, which Horace criticizes. Pascal's defense of Lucilius is not convincing. The rest of the chapter is devoted to Horace's indebtedness to Lucilius. Fiske's notable book (Lucilius and Horace) appeared too late to be used by Pascal. Pascal adopts the common view that Horace is hostile to Catullus and explains this hostility as due to jealousy. My views differ widely from his (Classical Philology, X, 270 ff.). In the chapter on Pollio, Pascal tries to show that Pollio and Catullus were at variance and that this fact created a bond of sympathy between Pollio and Horace. Catullus' poem 12 is interpreted as unfriendly to Pollio. This is hard to believe. As Pascal points out, Horace does not pass judgment on the poetry of Tibullus directly. There is little that is new in the chapter on Tibullus. My article, "Horace and Tibullus" (American Journal of Philology, XXXIII [1912], 149 ff.), seems to be unknown to Pascal. A new and unconvincing suggestion, based on Epist. i. 4, is that Tibullus was a Stoic. The reference to Cassius Parmensis in the same poem is interpreted as a jest, as I took it. The chapter on Propertius goes over familiar ground. It concludes, however, with a new argument to show that Horace had only contempt for this poet. After citing the familiar passage in Epist. ii. 2. 91 ff. supposed to contain a reference to Propertius, Pascal quotes Asconius to the effect that the poets of the time (Varius, Tucca, Horace, Gallus, Propertius) all honored Virgil, though they were jealous of one another. By a process of elimination Pascal concludes that Horace and Propertius were among the guilty ones. In general, then, we have a very useful collection of the material bearing on Horace's attitude toward some of the most important Latin poets, with an occasional new interpretation which is suggestive, but without due consideration of recent literature. UNIVERSITY OF IOWA B. L. ULLMAN |