lines 25 and 34. Contrary to most authorities it is maintained that Hecyra II followed the Adelphoe at the funeral games for Paulus in 160 B.C., a fact which helps to explain the brevity of the former's prologue.

17. The Meter of the Attis of Catullus, by Philip Barrows Whitehead, University of Vermont.

The meter of the Attis has usually been explained as a very irregular form of Ionic a minore tetrameter catalectic. In reality, however, it bears only a theoretical resemblance to Ionic meter and is, if one can free his mind of metrical theory and consider only the facts, quite simple and surprisingly regular.

The basic form of the meter, as announced in the first three verses, is: To this metrical pattern, 63 of the 93 lines of the poem correspond exactly. With the exception of two slightly irregular lines, every verse in the poem corresponds in all essentials to this pattern. The correspondence of all the lines of the poem to the metrical pattern announced in the first verse is made evident by the accompanying table in which their metrical elements are arranged in vertical columns.

Regular lines

TABLE

63 lines

2 lines (14, 35)

3 lines (18, 34, 83)

6 lines (4, 27, 30, 31, 69,

78)

1 line (76)

1 line (91)

3 lines (23, 48, 70)

1 line (63)

7 lines (5, 15, 17, 26, 40,

67, 82)

1 line (73)

1 line (86)

1 line (77)

1 line (22)

Irregular lines

1 line (54)

1 line (60)

The theory that the meter of the Attis is Ionic is based upon a passage in Hephaestion (ed. Consbruch, Teubner, 1906, p. 37). But the metrical form of the poems discussed by Hephaestion is quite different from that of the Attis, for in them pure Ionic lines are used along with lines of the type employed by Catullus. There are however in the Attis no pure Ionic lines and only two which even suggest Ionic rhythm. The metrical effect of the typical lines of the Attis could better be described as iambic. But the fact that Catullus never allows either half of the verse to begin with a pure iambic foot indicates that he did not feel the meter as iambic. In conclusion, the meter of the Attis is neither Ionic nor iambic. Catullus took what in the hands of his predecessors (the VETEрOL mentioned by Hephaestion) had been a bastard metrical form and made of it a pure and fully developed form for which, so far as our evidence goes, there is no parallel in Greek literature.

18. Laughter in Lucretius, by Lou V. Walker, State University of Iowa.

With the passage in 1, 919 ff. of De Rerum Natura as a starting point abundant evidence may be found to show that Lucretius' poem is not all melancholy and sadness but is lightened in several places by various types of humor. Examples in this discussion are based both on the old, intellectual concept which includes sarcasm and irony and the more popular, modern theory that humor is only benign and genial.

Exuberance of feeling arising from pure enjoyment of nature is very frequently attested not only in the spirit of his descriptions but in the repeated use of such epithets as ridens and laetus applied to animate and inanimate forms of nature. Several forms of gaudeo and cachinno also add to his laughter-vocabulary.

The less kindly laughter is used with altruistic motive in an attempt to make ridiculous the fears which trouble mankind, such as the fear of the gods and the fear of death. The traditions to which man is bound in his futile attempt to satisfy the gods are made laughing-stocks.

Arguments are frequently closed with the "reductio ad absurdum." Several striking instances occur in the arguments against the immortality of the soul in book III. This method is used also in opposing the tenets of Greek philosophers who believed that the original elements of the universe were other than atoms.

A fine bit of raillery, commended by Constant Martha in Le Poème de Lucrèce, is shown in the fourth book concerning the way

in which Venus disguises the imperfections of loved ones. Here and there is a harmless irony which seems meant for entertainment as much as for persuasion. Altogether the author seems to use these various examples of humor as at least one means of making the draughts of philosophy agreeable to the reader.

19. Ancient Greece as Depicted in a Medieval Outline of History, by Charles Christopher Mierow, Colorado College.

This paper presents the synopsis of Greek history contained in the well-known medieval chronicle of Otto of Freising (1146 a.d.) entitled "The Two Cities." The importance which the author himself attaches to the place of Greece in the great scheme of existence is evident from his introductory remarks to his friend Reinald, chancellor of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Otto says:

"That there were from the beginning of the world four principal kingdoms which stood out above all the rest, and that they are to endure unto the world's end, succeeding one another in accordance with the law of the universe, can be gathered in various ways, in particular from the vision of Daniel. I have therefore set down the rulers of these kingdoms, listed in chronological sequence: first the Assyrians, next (omitting the Chaldeans, whom the writers of history do not deign to include among the others) the Medes and the Persians, finally the Greeks and the Romans, and I have recorded their names down to the present Emperor, speaking of the other kingdoms only incidentally, to make manifest the fluctuations of events."

His sources are clearly indicated for us in the prologue to the first book of the chronicle when he says:

"There are extant in this field the famous works of Pompeius Trogus, Justin, Cornelius (i.e. Tacitus), Varro, Eusebius, Jerome, Orosius, Jordanes, and a great many others of our number as well as of their array whom it would take too long to enumerate."

The earliest reference to Greece occurs in a chapter (1, 11) in which the author is dealing primarily with the history of the Jews. The other passages in the chronicle dealing with the history of Greece are found in the following books and chapters:

I. 12-13; 16; 17; 19; 21; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28.

II. 6; 7; 8; 13; 16; 17; 19; 20; 22; 24; 25; 26; 27; 40; 43.
III. 2; 3.

In the prologue to a later book (V) Otto speaks as follows with reference to the rise and the trend of human power and wisdom:

"As I said above, all human power or wisdom, originating in the East, began to reach its limits in the West. Regarding human power-how it passed from the Babylonians to the Medes and the Persians and from them to the Macedonians, and after that to the Romans, and then again to the Greeks under the Roman name-I think enough has been said."

20. Corcyra and the Peloponnesian War, by Ashton Waugh McWhorter, University of Tennessee.

Under the following heads this paper traced the history of Corcyra from the earliest times down through the Peloponnesian war, and endeavored to account for the momentous rôle it came to play in the affairs of Greece:

I. Traditional and colonial history. (1) Location-ancient Corcyra and modern Corfu; strategic advantages; early aristocratic element, settled on coast; commerce, the chief business. (2) Aborigines-three accounts: (a) Corcyra, home of Homeric Phaeacians; (b) Eretrians from Euboea; (c) Liburnians, maritime race from isles of Adriatic. (3) Corcyra presents characteristic conditions of Greek colony. Interest of Corinth in colonization of Corcyra-rivalry, jealousy, hostility. Contrast of Greek colonization with that of Phoenician and Roman.

II. Corcyra in the Peloponnesian war. (1) (a) In the greater background, antagonism of Athens and Corinth-democracy and oligarchy, Ionian and Dorian; Effect of (b) Conquest by Athens of Samos; (c) Affair at Epidamnus upon relations between Athens and Corinth. (2) Revolution at Corcyra. (a) Corinth seeks to overturn government at Corcyra and set it in array against Athens; (b) Course of Peithias, leader of democracy-his fate and its effect; (c) Conflict between oligarchs and democrats at Corcyra; (d) Defensive and offensive alliance between Athens and Corcyra; (e) Action of democratic leaders; (f) Massacre of oligarchs.

III. Significance of Corcyraean dissensions. (1) Commentary on Greek politics during Peloponnesian war; civil discord accentuated by foreign war. Corcyra, an extreme case; revolution there a result of selfish working of oligarchic party, playing game of foreign foe; reaction of demos, natural and inevitable. Normal type of revolution throughout Greek community lies between that of Athens and Corcyra; bitterness of internal factions, severity of laws, and frequency of wars are apt to be increased in small commonwealths, and antagonism tends to become hereditary. (2) Later at Athens conspiracies arose similar in principle and in

general result to the Corcyraean, but milder and more moderate. (3) Social revolutions throughout Greece reveal falsity of claim set up by rich and powerful to superior morality and intelligence.

21. The Ships of Columbus in Brant's Vergil, by Anna Cox Brinton, Earlham College.

Sebastian Brant's Vergil (Strassburg, 1502) supplies evidence regarding the date when Columbus' discovery of America became generally known in Northern Europe. This volume, which Redgrave considers one of the most wonderful illustrated books ever produced, contains in the large woodcut illustrating Aeneid I, 34 ff. copies of two illustrations taken from the Latin translation of Columbus's letter printed in Bâle, 1493 (?). The same cuts were used again in the publication in 1494 by Bergman da Olpe of a Latin play on King Ferdinand to which Columbus's letter was appended. Sebastian Brant wrote the dedicatory verses for this slender volume. Eight years later, under the double inspiration of Vergil's vivid narrative of ancient exploration and the most brilliant discovery of the age of the great navigators, Brant conceived the plan for his illustrated Vergil.

22. The Secretaries of the Athenian Boule in the Fifth Century, by Patience Haggard, Stephens College.

The purpose of this paper was to collect and tabulate information on fifth century Athenian secretaries, such as their names, the number of letters in the name where the name itself was unknown, the tribe to which each belonged, and the year and prytany in which each officiated. It was intended to supplement the Fasti and index of the editio minor of the first volume of Inscriptiones Graecae. The tables include references to twenty-five secretaries, not known when the lists of Penndorf and Ferguson were made in 1897 and 1898.

By comparison of the inscriptions themselves with the transcripts in the Corpus it was sometimes found necessary to deviate from Corpus readings both as to single letters and length of lacunae.

The investigations brought to light evidence which dates certain inscriptions more precisely. Ferguson's suggestion that Neokλeidns was the secretary of I. G. 12, 145 and that the tribe Aigeis held the prytany is confirmed by measurements and the lettering is such that it can be assigned with probability to the same year, I. G. 12, 25 and 87, circa 420-19, where Neocleides was secretary when Aigeis held the prytany. For the Phaselitan decree, I. G. 12, 16,