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CLASSICAL NOTES. 



BY W. D. PEARMAN, M.A., 

 Classical Tutor, Unl-Oersity College, Toronto, 



In the course of my last year's reading I met with several passages, 

 in various classical authors, the received explanation of which seemed 

 to me unsatisfactory. In the following instances I have ventured to 

 propose a different explanation. 



During a recent visit to Cambridge I communicated with several 

 classical scholars, among others Messrs. Shilleto, Munro, and J. E. B. 

 Mayor, and in most instances they expressed themselves satisfied 

 that the explanation proposed was correct. 



In the Gorgias of Plato (505 E), avayxawratov is taken to signify 

 " necessity," and the interpreters have exercised their ingenuity to 

 disgu.ise the awkward phrase " most necessary." An examination of 

 the context led me to suppose that avayx.- had here its not unusual 

 sense of "barely suflSoient," e. ^., Plat. Rep., avayxaiordr-q TtoXtq, "the 

 least one could call a city," "a city composed of the fewest possible 

 elements." 



In the case before us, Socrates observes, that if one man did the 

 work of two {i. e. if he carried on the dialogue himself) it would be 

 dvayxaiorarov. 



Homer. Odyss., xii. 82. Ilpdc: Z6<pov is here taken to signify 

 " towards the northwest," but may be also translated " towards 

 sunset," or " at sunset:" cf. izpoq Tjcij. We should then have " a cave 

 dreary and dark at sunset turned into blackest night," or the idea of 

 Shelly's Cenci, in the description of a mountain pass, — 



/ " At noon-day here 'tis twiligtt, 



And at sunset blackest night." 



Sophocles Antigone, 263. The MSS. give aXX' S^euys rd fj-ij stdivat. 

 Hermann in (meiri causa) k'fuys. It occurred to me that the difficulty 

 of supplying ttcc? r:c out of the previous oddsc; and giAang <peuyct) the 

 meaning of aTzofeuyco might be avoided by making to fiij eidivai the 

 subject of i<puye, irrj eldivat, being a quotation from the answer of the 

 person accused, i, e., " *Don't know' was the defendant." 



