I would propose ζώσ< τρ >ας. The word ζώστρα does not occuri n the lexica; but oтpov does. Moreover, Sophocles (fr. 342 Pearson) used ἐπιζώστρα, and ἀναζώστρα, διαζώστρα and περιζώστρα were employed by other Greek writers. "To gird one's self" for a fray or for a journey must have been a common thought with the Greeks, since it was the common practice, except that in athletic contests the diáloμa was in later times omitted. The fact that the expression does not, apparently, occur in classical Greek in a metaphorical application can under the circumstances signify nothing. In later Greek we find ζώνη τροπικῶς ἡ δύναμις, ἐπειδὴ ὁ ἐζωσμένος εὐστα πέστερός ἐστι πρὸς τὴν πρᾶξιν (Theodoret in Psalm. apud Suidam), and one cannot doubt that so obvious a figure must have been long familiar. One has only to think of the metaphorical uses of ouvreίvw and its occasional connection with (úvn, as e.g. in Eurip. Iph. Taur. 203 sq., where the Moirai, as birth-goddesses, are clearly functional equivalents of Athena (wσtupa or (wornpía, to make sure that the thought was familiar to the Greeks of the fifth century. Plato could make Socrates bid the scatter-brained Euthyphro έúvτeive σavτóv (Euth. 12A); and what was more natural than to bid a man to brace himself when about to be put to the test in a trial of waist of strength? For the situation one may compare Terence Phorm. 315 sq., where at the crisis the parasite says to himself,

Ad te summa solum, Phormio, rerum redit:

tute hoc intristi: tibi omnest exedendum: accingere.

He is not proposing to brace himself for a physical encounter with the irate father, but trying to collect his wits and use them to the best purpose. One would wish to know just what stood here in the Greek original of Apollodorus: not knowing, it is useless perhaps to speculate. But it will suffice to draw the parallel. As Phormio exhorts himself to brace up and bethink himself of some expedient in the difficult situation that confronts him, we may well conceive of the priest of Zeus as politely suggesting the same course to Oedipus,

To men approved, I find, e'en dire disaster

Doth chiefly serve to brace their wits for counsel.

For necessity is the mother of invention.

The quotation from Theodoret suggests another possibility. Supposing the corruption in wσas to date, as it may, from the fifth (or early fourth) century, it may be worth considering whether Sophocles did not write Covas rather than Corpas; for early Attic inscriptions (cf. Roberts, Introd. to Gr. Epigr., pp. 384 sq. show forms of sigma and nu distinguished solely by the slant of the nu. For the sigma compare the βόστρυχος εἰλιγμένος οἱ Eurip. fr. 382. 7. The corruption is therefore not difficult to explain. The interpretation would be the same whether we read ζώνας or ζώστρας.

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

W. A. HEIDEL

SCELERATUM FRIGUS

In Virgil's Georgics, ii. 256 occurs the phrase: sceleratum exquirere frigus. The use of the adjective has attracted the attention of commentators from Servius on, and various supposed parallels have been adduced without bringing much additional light to the passage. There has been pretty generally overlooked, however, a discussion by Saint Jerome (Ep. 121. 10, p. 879 Vall.), where, speaking of certain Cilician provincialisms in the language of Saint Paul, he remarks: nec hoc miremur in apostolo si utatur eius linguae consuetudine in qua natus est et nutritus, cum Virgilius, alter Homerus apud nos, patriae suae sequens consuetudinem, sceleratum frigus appellet. Doubtless this criticism is borrowed by Jerome from his teacher Donatus (cf. Lammert, De Hieronymo Donati Discipulo [1912], pp. 38-39). Did the Patavinity of Livy perhaps consist in as slight but yet definite features as this by which Virgil betrayed his native district?

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

ARTHUR STANLEY PEASE

BOOK REVIEWS

Martial, the Epigrammatist; and Other Essays. By KIRBY FLOWER SMITH. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1920. 171 pp. $2.00.

In this volume Professor Wilfred Mustard has collected a number of papers written by his friend and colleague, Kirby Smith, late professor of Latin in the Johns Hopkins University. Besides the essay which gives its title to the book there are chapters on "The Poet Ovid," "Propertius; A Modern Lover in the Augustan Age," and also in a different vein "Pupula Duplex." The other papers are of a wholly different type: "The Classics and Our Vernacular," "The Future Place of the Humanities in Education," and "Some Boyhood Reminiscences of a Country Town." At the end of the volume are given some of Professor Smith's metrical translations and original verse.

The collection comprises only some of the less technical of Professor Smith's writings, but the choice of material made by the editor within these limits is notably felicitous; it exemplifies both the author's special interests and the range of his erudition. In the essays on Martial, Propertius, and Ovid we see his love of literature for its own sake, his subtle appreciation of its various forms and that gift of analysis which brings home to the reader -as it did in the old days to his students at Johns Hopkins-all those qualities of the poets, whether emotional or technical, which made their poems what they were. Many writers of "essays of appreciation" have but a superficial knowledge of their subject, but these essays by Professor Smith are based upon an exhaustive study of the poets and an unrivaled command of the literature of the departments to which they belonged. After reading them one knows Martial, Propertius, and Ovid as never before.

While Graeco-Roman elegy constituted Professor Smith's chief interest, he had a distinct bent for the study of folk-lore, and this side of his mind is illustrated by the article on the pupula duplex. Here we see his erudition, his familiarity with authors obscure and little read, his love of the curious in custom and literature, and his skill in interpretation.

In the papers "The Classics and Our Vernacular" and "The Future Place of the Humanities in Education" we see our author as an apologist for classical culture. To me, and, I think, to many of his students and colleagues, this is his most unfamiliar rôle. He loved the classics so dearly, he believed so thoroughly in their educational value, that a formal defense of them must always have seemed to him a superfluity and a bore. But

secretaries of associations must have papers for their meetings and Kirby Smith was always ready to help. The essays, moreover, are good, and it is characteristic of him that in the first of them instead of repeating all the time-worn arguments, so old, so tattered, and so frayed, he selects a single one, the value of the classics for the study of English and the development of an English style, and elaborates it in a way that is at once genial and vigorous, persuasive and effective. In the "Humanities in Education,” among other good points, he draws attention to the character of German education in the period before August, 1914:

Now it is safe to say that for more than a generation the most obvious and striking characteristic of German education was that, apart from being highly organized and relentlessly thorough, it has been more exclusively scientific and technical than any system of education has ever been in any part of the world. Not content with its own proper domain, science and the scientific attitude had sought and found a "place in the sun" in practically every department of human activity. The Humanities undertook to save themselves by protective assimilation; but the final result of the effort was that at the outbreak of the war there hardly a handful of classical scholars subject to the draft who could ever hope to command or deserve the recognition given to their illustrious predecessors. G. J. LAING

was

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Livy. With an English translation by B. O. FOSTER. Volume I. Books I and II. ("Loeb Classical Series.") London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1919. xxxvi+447. 2 maps. $2.25.

The excellent quality of this first instalment of Professor Foster's proposed thirteen-volume translation of Livy assures us of at last having a good rendering of all that remains of the historian's work. The only complete translations now available (Holland's, London, 1600, and Baker's 1797) are old fashioned in vocabulary and style, and in other respects also are far from satisfactory.

Professor Foster has equipped his work with a much more substantial introduction than is to be found in other recently published volumes of the Loeb series. In it he discusses most of the outstanding questions connected with Livy: his life and social position, the plan of his history, its style and technique, the use of epitomes, and the manuscript tradition. Limitations of space prevented his treating any of these topics in detail, but his command of the field, his admirable sense of perspective, and his compact style have enabled him to include in small space a surprising amount of valuable information.

The Latin text has been set up from the last edition by Weissenborn and Müller, but many changes have been introduced from the Oxford text by Conway and Walters. The text of the Periochae is that of Rossbach. The translation is of distinct merit. It adheres closely to the original, but is couched in idiomatic English. If any criticism is to be made it is that in some passages, especially in the matter of periodic structure, it follows the original too closely. This is especially noticeable in the translation of the Preface, which is the least successful of the translator's efforts. Just how far this close adherence to the original represents Professor Foster's own ideal of translation or the standard fixed by the editorial board of the series the reviewer is not in a position to state.

In a few cases the translator's English is open to criticism: e.g., page xxiii (Introduction), “Caligula . . . . lacked but little of casting out their works"; page 15, where we have the pleonastic "affirm for certain"; page 19, "ordered the children to be committed to the river"; page 27, "chose out those of the cattle"; page 33, "the city was ... reaching out its walls." It is doubtful, moreover, whether the style of the translation gains anything by the use of archaisms like "avouch” (p. 1), "in menacing wise” (p. 25), and "added these words withal." As regards correctness and accuracy the translation takes high rank, and it is only occasionally that renderings are found which might be criticized on the ground of vagueness or inaccuracy as on page 31, "purple-bordered toga" for toga praetexta (it was red, not purple); and page 37, "taking her to Thalassius" for Thalassio ferre, where the meaning is that "she was being carried off for Thalassius." however, minor points, more or less inevitable in so large a task as Professor Foster has undertaken.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

These are,

G. J. LAING

Die germanische Urgeschichte in Tacitus Germania. Von EDUARD NORDEN. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1920. x+505.

The quotation from Jakob Grimm on the title-page aptly indicates the nature and scope of this volume: "nirgends wo europäische Geschichte beginnt, hebt sie ganz von Frischem an, sondern setzt immer lange dunkle Zeiten voraus, durch welche ihr eine frühere Welt verknüpft wird." For the author's discussion of the ethnology of the Germania grows into a critical analysis of the history of primitive Germany, in which with striking acumen and great erudition he estimates the contributions and traces the relations of Posidonius, Procopius, Caesar, Pliny the Elder, and Jordanes. He does not however confine himself to literary sources. The latest results of archaeological research are also presented and effectively woven into the fabric of his argument.

The range of the volume may be seen from the chapter titles: I, Die Germania im Rahmen der ethnographischen Literatur des Altertums;