SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHILEBUS OF PLATO, ETC. 161 



Homer, Iliad, B. XVIII. v. 119. dpyaUoi; ^/oXo'^ suggests itself 

 to me as the original of Horace's " splendida bilis" (Sat. II. iii. 141). 

 I have never been able to persuade myself that such a master of 

 epithets, as Horace undoubtedly was, would liave allowed himself to 

 use such an apparently meaningless epithet as splendida, without 

 some special reason. Now this verse of Homer's would seem to 

 have passed into a proverb (the description of -/_oXoq, in the verses 

 immediately preceding it, is quoted by Plato, Phileh. 47 E.); and it 

 is probable that Horace, with this phrase of Homer's floating idly in 

 his memory, wrote splendida as a translation of dpyaXioq, not stopping 

 to reflect that this word was from a different root than the similar 

 sounding derivatives of dpyuq "bright and glistening." Horace him- 

 self tells us, in more than one passage, that he repeatedly conned the 

 Homeric poems ; and we frequently find scraps from the Iliad and 

 Odyssey, literally rendered and introduced, apparently, quite as 

 much for the purpose of displaying Horace's archaeological lore, as 

 from the appositeness of the quotation. If this assumption of mine 

 be correct, it curiously ilhistrates Pindar, Pyth. TV. v. 109. levxalq 

 TttOT]«7o.vr'a (ppsffiv — where it has been suggested '(Donaldson's note ad 

 locmn) that Pindar has miscopied Homer's ^peai hoyaXirjac -KiQ-q^aq. 

 Apropos of derivations, I find, in the Lexica, the word d[io8p6q 

 variously derived from diiaupoc, and from an Indo-European madra. 

 A much simpler derivation would be from the Homei'ic a/iuScg "all 

 together," i.e., confusus as opposed to distinctus. 



Xenophon, Anah. V. vii. 25. xaX invcyero oariq vs'iv ixrjhuyy^avev 

 i-KTrdfisvoq. This passage illustrates, in the most striking manner, 

 the necessity for attention to the distinctions of tense in the Greek 

 verb. I have never seen it correctly translated. Xenophon is 

 deploring a tumultuous spirit which had developed itself among the 

 soldiers. He says that, owing to their menacing behaviour on a 

 certain occasion, many people had been so much alarmed that they 

 had cast themselves into the sea in their efforts to escape, "and who- 

 ever did not happen to know how to swim was in a fair way for 

 being droioned." If ^izviyeTo had signified " was drowned" as it is 

 usually rendered, Xenophon would not have failed to dwell upon the 

 loss of life occasioned by this outrage. 



Livy, B. IX. cp. 16, furnishes an example of a far more amusing, 

 but perhaps more excusable, mistranslation than the above. Writers 

 of Roman history gravely tell us that Papirius Cursor was such a 



