the book has indeed a simplicity and directness of treatment which makes the whole subject intelligible. Attention may be called particularly to the strong position taken up by the author in opposition to the doctrine of ictus, which he regards as a wholly unnecessary assumption in dealing with Greek metres (Introd., pp. xxii-xxiv). An article by the same writer published during the present year1 contains some illuminating remarks as to the relation between his doctrine and that of the other school, which he describes as based on an attempt to make the 'ten distinct rhythms of Greek melic odes' conform to the four elementary rhythms of modern recited poetry,' i.e., the iambic, the trochaic, the anapaestic and the dactylic. This article is controversial, for the new-old doctrine has met with opposition in many quarters. It has been described as a 'passing fashion' by Goodell,2 rejected with indignation by Prof. Shorey, and criticised in some of its aspects by F. Marx, Paul Maas, and Paul Friedlander. Nor can it be said that the upholders of the doctrine are unanimous among themselves on all points. Wilamowitz, for example, does not accept Schröder's reconstruction of the history and development of the several types of Greek verse. Obviously, then, we have not yet reached anything like finality of metrical theory; but for anyone who desires to understand the drift of inquiry in this important branch of classical learning, Prof. White's new book is indispensable, and will in all probability itself contribute powerfully to a final or semi-final solution of the difficult problems at issue. And apart from these thorny questions, the present work is exceedingly valuable. For

6

1 Class. Phil, 1913, p. 214 f. 3 Ibid. 1908, p. 114 f.

5 Ibid. 1910, p. 99.

4

3

5

2 See Year's Work, 1910, p. 99.

4 Ibid. 1909, p. 115.

6 In Hermes, xliv., 1909, pp. 321-51; Year's Work, 1910, p. 99.

7 Cf. Sappho und Simonides, p. 132. The latest statement of Schröder's position will be found in Class. Phil. 1912, pp. 137 ff. ('The New Metric '), and in Ueber den gegenwärtigen Stand der griechischen Verswissenschaft, 1912, Naumburg. See Berl. Phil. Woch. 1913, pp. 462 ff.

the ordinary metres of dialogue in comedy (Menander as well as Aristophanes) are here analysed with more thoroughness than anywhere else. The description of the non-melic iambic trimeter of comedy as 'the anapaestic trimeter' (§ 115) is illuminating; so too the treatment of 'irrational' (spurious) dactyls and anapaests (§ 17, § 308, etc.); and the terms 'logaoedic anapaest' and 'logaoedic dactyl' might well be adopted as a substitute for 'cyclic anapaest' and 'cyclic dactyl' (§§ 389-91). The precise mode in which logaoedic cola are to be rhythmised is rightly left uncertain. In connexion with chapter xviii. (Analysis of Systematic Periods), the three programmes by C. Conradt, entitled Die metrische und rhythmische Komposition der Komödien des Aristophanes, may be studied.

Wilamowitz's Sappho und Simonides contributes not a little to our understanding of a number of special forms of melic and choric verse. In the section referred to above 2 he deals with hiatus (p. 87) and synaloephe (p. 89), and he makes the interesting statement that the illegitimacy in Aeolic verse of substituting two shorts for one long and one long for two shorts results in the possibility of syllablecounting for all Aeolic verse (this being a consequence and not a principle), and involves the further consequence that 'free syllables' are numerous, and were doubtless still more numerous in the older forms of Aeolic verse (p. 90). Throughout the book explanations of metre accompany interpretations of passages from the lyrical poets: e.g., p. 135 (on the hyporchema of Pratinas), p. 182 (on the metre of the skolion of Simonides, reconstructed from the Protagoras of Plato).

On Homeric verse the following important articles have appeared: 'Homerische Sprach- und Versgeschichte-die Entstehung der ionischen Langzeile,' by K. Witte,3 with which may be read 'Wort- und Versrhythmus bei Homer,' by the

1 Leipzig: Fock, 1910-12 (about 50 pp. each). See Berl. Phil. Woch. 1913, pp. 1029 ff. 3 Glotta, iv., pp. 1-21.

2 See also pp. 102, 160.

1 6

2

same author; Contributions to the Study of Homeric Metre-length by Position,' by G. M. Bolling; ‘Beiträge zur Sprache und Verstechnik des Homerischen Epos,' by H. Jacobsohn.3

Prof. T. Fitzhugh has produced another 'bulletin' on the subject of tripudic rhythm, to which he has devoted attention for many years.1

A new work on Greek prose rhythm is Albert Thumb's Satzrhythmus und Satzmelodie in der altgriechischen Prosa,5 based on K. Marbe's book on the rhythm of German prose, published in 1904.

1 Rhein. Mus. 1913, pp. 217-38.

E. A. SONNENSCHEIN.

2 Am. Journ. Phil. xxxiii., 1912, pp. 401-25; and xxxiv., 1913, pp. 153-71 (a continuation of the article begun in xxviii., 1907, pp. 401-10). 3 Hermes, xliv.

4 Indo-European Rhythm, October 1912; Anderson, Charlottesville; 12s. See Year's Work, 1908, p. 115, and for 1910, p. 101.

5 Teubner, Leipzig, 1913.

XIII

GREEK HISTORY

Ancient Authorities.-The most important of recent contributions to our knowledge of Greek historians is a book on Polybius by Laqueur.1 The genesis of Polybius' great work is analysed therein with minute care and great ingenuity. Laqueur's conclusion is that the history went through five separate editions, each successive reissue being determined by some accretions of knowledge on the author's part, or by a change in his political philosophy. This theory is based on a meticulous analysis of the fluctuations in Polybius' general outlook upon life, and of the contradictions in his narrative of particular events. Such a method of proof is necessarily precarious in the case of a discursive author like Polybius, whose stratification of thought may be expected to display numerous faults." But Laqueur is successful in showing up the composite nature of our received text of Polybius, and his speculations on the influence of the Scipionic circle, and subsequently of Panaetius and Timaeus, on various editions of the History, make some very attractive reading.

Some notable research has been carried out by Jacoby on two pioneers of historical writing, Hecataeus and Hellanicus.3 His treatise on Hecataeus, whose extant

1 Polybius, Teubner, 1912; viii+309; 10 m. See also p. 121.

2 A similar criticism is made on Grundy's Thucydides by Bodin, Rev. Ét. Anc. 1912, pp. 1-38. But in spite of criticisms as to details, Grundy's method, like Laqueur's, may be accepted as sound.

3 Pauly-Wissowa, vii. 2, cols. 2667-2750; viii. 1, cols. 104-153.

fragments he confidently accepts as genuine, is a singularly elaborate piece of work. In defining the scope and reconstructing the plan of Hecataeus' books, he leans somewhat heavily on the unproved supposition that Hecataeus' range of research was at least coextensive with that of Herodotus, and that Herodotus did little more than copy out his predecessor. This line of argument is apt to create a 'house-that-Jack-built' of hypotheses. On the other hand, Jacoby's criticism on the speculations of other modern writers on Hecataeus is for the most part sound and incisive. In his account of Hellanicus he characterises this author as an articulator' who dissected the amorphous mass of Greek historiography into monographs, and proceeded to correlate these by means of systematic synchronisms.

6

The Oxyrhynchus historian is still enjoying a 'close season' previous to fresh search for his identity. The value of his narrative has meanwhile been endorsed by Rühl,1 who makes Diodorus the scapegoat for 'P's' seeming errors and deals faithfully with Xenophon's rival version.

A fresh turn has been given to the controversy on the authorship of the pamphlet Пepì Пoλiréias, a supposed work of Herodes Atticus. The alluring theory of Drerup and Ed. Meyer, who contend that it was composed at the end of the fifth century B.C., has been carefully examined by Adcock and Knox.3 Their conclusion, which is also put forward in a more summary article by Münscher, is that ancient editors were perfectly correct in ascribing the work to Herodes.

4

Another and better known pamphlet, the pseudoXenophontic Αθηναιων Πολιτεια, has been provided with a new critical text and commentary by Kalinka.5 This editor adduces some fresh evidence to show that this treatise

1 Rhein. Mus. 1913, pp. 161-201.

2 See Year's Work, 1912, p. 102.

3 Klio, 1913, pp. 249-57.

4 Pauly-Wissowa, viii. 1, cols. 951-4.

5 Teubner, 1913; pp. vi+324; 10 m. See also p. 164.