COMMENTATIONES PHILOLOGAE IENENSES.

Commentationes Philologae Ienenses. Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1906. Vol. vii. fasc. 2. 8vo. Pp. 201.

THIS 'fasciculus' contains three dissertations by Jena professors: Prof. Paul Crain writes 'de ratione quae inter Platonis Phaedrum Symposiumque intercedat'; Prof. P. Karl, 'de Placidi glossis'; Prof. E. Merten, 'de bello Persico ab Anastasio gesto.' Being more nearly interested myself in Plato than in Placidus or Anastasius, I must pray to be excused if I devote this notice mainly to the dissertation of Prof. Crain.

In his 'praefatio' he tells us that some men would fain have us believe that the 'platonic question' is already settled. If this were true the occupation of many of our most esteemed doctors, and of Prof. Crain amongst their number, would be gone; but fortunately the truth of the statement is by no means universally admitted' plurimi doctissimique viri vehementer negant.' There is still a free field, and no favour, open to every dissertator who has a new solution to advance. Hence Prof. Crain cannot be accused of transgressing the ordinance μǹ kiveîv εὖ κείμενον.

Prof. Crain, as his title indicates, confines himself to one particular point of the vast and multiform question. He institutes a comparison as regards both 'ratio poetica' and 'ratio philologa' between the Phaedrus and the Symposium with the object of determining which is prior in point of date. His general conclusion is that the Phaedrus is the earlier by a few years and to be dated circ. 390-85 B.C., while for the Symposium he accepts the common view which puts it shortly after 385, on the strength of the allusion to the dioinioμós of Mantinea. For my own part, I am inclined to think that this order is the right one, and that the dates are about as near as one can get. It must be confessed, however, that a good many of the grounds upon which Prof. Crain bases his conclusion are, taken singly, lacking in solidity. Thus, when it is stated that the leading part played by Phaedrus in the Symposium facilius intelligitur ab illo qui ante cognoverit Phaedrum dialogum, contra in hoc nihil est quod non satis per se intellegi possit' (p. 9), we cannot help feeling that this is but a slender prop for our argument. But, of course, the conclusion rests not upon one but upon many props, whose combined strength it is that must be estimated; and it would be unfair to isolate and condemn any given one as insufficient of itself to bear the whole weight of the conclusion. Taken

all together, the arguments in favour of Prof. Crain's view are, to my mind, more strong and solid than those which support the opposite order of dating. The most important section of his argumentation is that in which he compares the doctrines of epos in the two dialogues. He endeavours, successfully as I think, to show that the exposition of the origin, nature, and object of epws in the Symposium is fuller, more closely-reasoned, and more mature than the exposition in the Phaedrus. And if this be granted, what more natural than to conclude-' minime igitur ego quidem arbitror Platonem id potuisse facere, ut perfecto Symposio descenderet ad illam in Phaedro rationis inconstantiam'? Furthermore, the refutations in Sympos. of such statements as that love has 'its own' for object, and that love is 'a god,' seem to indicate a revision of opinions expressed in Phaedr. Prof. Crain also compares the views of the two dialogues in regard to 'dialectic,' rhetoric and poetry; but more important than these are the questions concerning the theory of Ideas and the theory of the Soul and its immortality. As to the Ideal theory, the transcendent Ideas of the Phaedrus are held to be an earlier stage than the immanent Ideas of the Symposium, and the view that Idealism is broached as a novelty in the Phaedrus is accepted. As regards the immortality of the soul, no argument can be drawn, it is argued, for or against the priority of either dialogue, since the problem is treated in each on a different side and from a distinct standpoint: mortalem apparet in Symposio spectari animum, in Phaedro immortalem. Vtraque ratio se ipsa contenta est neque altera videtur ad alteram pertinere; necessitudinem earum Plato inter se nullam ostendit' (p. 60). Whether this method of treating their divergences will satisfy the champions of a post-republican Phaedrus may be doubted; but Prof. Crain pays only scant attention throughout to the counterarguments they adduce. His treatment is in the main so entirely positive that after closing his book the reader cannot repress an uneasy feeling that all has not been said, that there is still an 'altera pars' which demands a hearing. It is true that he states and dismisses certain opinions of Blass, Teichmüller, and Brunns which are inconvenient, and very probabiy incorrect; but he does not clear his ground at all completely. Almost at every step of his progress, one might say, he leaves behind him the snakes of argument still lurking in the grass, neither killed nor scotched. They lurk in the pages of Lutoslawski and Raeder, if nowhere else; and it is a safe prophecy that before long they will again be heard hissing as loudly as ever, in Prof. Crain's despite.

This incompleteness, which spoils the cogency of Prof. Crain's proof, is partly due to the narrow limits he has set himself. To fix the date of the Phaedrus one ought to take account of many other things besides its relation to the Symposium; nor can one decide whether a doctrine or an opinion of Plato's is early or late if one's purview is confined to two dialogues. And, lastly, to say no more about the results of 'stylometry,' which weigh so largely with some in settling the date of the Phaedrus, than is here said in the preface will scarcely do much towards convincing the philo-stylometrists. But, as Prof. Crain himself seems to hint, 'that is another story': and perhaps the modern Apollodorus, the enthusiast of Platonic

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controversy, may expect from Jena a 'confutatio' to supplement this present 'commentatio.' Meanwhile we welcome the statement before us as a timely counterblast against the lucubrations of those critics who proclaim from the housetops that the Phaedrus 'must be' later than the Symposium.

Prof. Karl's dissertation de Placidi glossis' has all the appearance of a careful philological study. It is intended to supplement the work of Goetz, Duerling, and others in discriminating the genuine from the spurious among the glosses ascribed to Placidus. The method of treatment may be indicated most simply by setting down the titles of the sections: (1) 'de Placido libri glossarum et codicis Parisini'; (2) 'de Placidi glossario ex diversis partibus composito'; (3) 'de ratione, quae inter breviores Placidi glossas et Festi reliquias intercedat'; (4) ‘de amplioribus Placidi glossis cum Festi reliquiis comparatis.'

Prof. Merten's treatise on the Persian War of the Emperor Anastasius, at the commencement of the sixth century, should prove useful and interesting to students of the later Roman Empire. He examines critically the sources, especially Joshua Stylites of Edessa, the relation of whose account to that of Zacharius and Procopius he attempts to determine. For the details and results of his investigations, which are not easily summarized, the student must be referred to Prof. Merten's own Latin.

R. G. BURY.

RODOCANACHI'S ROMAN CAPITOL.

The Roman Capitol in Ancient and Modern Times. By E. RODOCANACHI (translated from the French by FREDERICK LAWTON, M.A.). London:

Heinemann, 1906. 8vo. Pp. xvi + 264. One Full Page Frontispiece, 49 Figs. in Text, 1 Map. 4s. net.

THE present work is a translation of a French original in large quarto which appeared in 1904. It has, though now sufficiently small to be carried in the pocket, naturally suffered somewhat in other respects from its reduction in size; there has, however, been a proportionate diminution in price, as the original costs 12 francs. The more important illustrations have been retained, and the text and notes are in the main identical; but some documents (the absence of which will not affect the majority of readers, though they are of importance to students) have been omitted-notably the full text of the inventory of the contents of the 'new museum' (now called the Museum of the Capitol) in 1671 (p. 155 of the French original), the descriptions of the museum by the President de Brosses (1739–1740), and by an anonymous writer of 1765 (pp. 161 seq. of the original). The text of the speech delivered by Petrarch when he was crowned in the Capitol and that of the Constitution of Benedict XIII, forbidding the lottery (pp. 199 seq.), are less important. A more serious inconvenience is the suppression of the text of the modern inscription relating to the Capitol: bare references to Forcella's Iscrizioni are hardly likely to be of much service, as it is not a book that will be in the hands of many readers. At times, too, part of a footnote is retained, though it is really an explanation of matter which has been omitted (e.g., the remarks on the Ponte Rotto on p. 142, n. 1). An addition has been made to the English edition in the form of a short section (pp. ix.-xvi., entitled 'A Visit to the Capitol,' which will no doubt be of service. The provision of a list of illustrations, which was absent from the French original, is also an improvement. A few slight additions have been made in places in the text and notes.

M. Rodocanachi's account of the Capitol in the earliest times is not, and does not profess to be, a criticism of the traditional accounts, which it in the main follows. Nor in his further description of the Capitol in the classical period does he enter upon the discussion of controversial points. Fairly full references in the

footnotes, however, make it as a rule easy to examine further in detail the points with which he deals; and the account as a whole will be found useful. In dealing with the sixteenth century drawings of the relief representing the Capitoline temple of Jupiter (p. 40) (he is wrong by the way in stating that it was ever preserved in the Vatican Library), for which see Mr. Wace's article in the forthcoming volume of Papers of the British School at Rome (iv), while reckoning Piranesi's representation of it as a sixteenth century drawing, he does not mention the important drawing at Berlin, published by Michaelis in Röm. Mitt., 1891, p. 21, and Tav. iii.

An interesting section is the one which gives the curious legends that gathered round the Capitol in the early middle ages (pp. 57-63), after the ruin and abandonment of its buildings. Between the eighth and the twelfth century, however, the market, and with it the seat of the prefect of the city, was transferred from the forum holitorium to the Capitol (p. 65)-a point not noticed by Rodocanachi, but introduced by the translator from an article by Mgr. Duchesne (Mélanges, 1904, 481 seq.). It is not a little curious, therefore, to find the Antipope Anacletus in 1130-38 giving the whole hill to the Benedictines; and the expressions in the text on pp. 67, 71, with regard to this donation have not been altered so as to square with the new point adduced on p. 65. The Capitol thus became the political centre of the mediaeval city, and the palace of the Capitol was already existing in 1145. It appears to have been almost entirely rebuilt in 1300, and not very much later (1348) were constructed the stairs which led to S. M. in Aracoeli-not of materials taken from the ruins of the temple of Quirinus (p. 78) but of fragments of ancient or mediaeval sepulchral monuments, as an examination of them in 1887 showed (Hülsen in Röm. Mitt. 1889, 255). The market was transferred in 1477 to the Piazza Navona. In the middle of the fifteenth century the palace, which had fallen into a very dilapidated condition, was restored by Nicholas V (p. 91). The Palazzo dei Conservatori, which had been erected in the meantime, was also reconstructed on a larger scale by him (p. 94). In 1536 Michelangelo drew up plans for the transformation of the whole group, including the construction of a third palace opposite that of the Conservatori. It was more than a century before his plans were completely carried out: but it is to him that the Capitol owes its present aspect.

The origin of the Capitoline collections of antiquities is due to Sixtus IV. Their gradual growth has already been traced by Michaelis (Röm. Mitt. 1891, I seq.), but M. Rodocanachi brings further contributions to their history. After the completion of the new palace (the present Capitoline Museum), a certain number of sculptures were transferred to it; but it was Clement XII who by the donation of the greater part of the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani was the real creator of the collection in the Capitoline Museum. With the exception indeed of the group of bronzes which began to be formed, as has been said, in the fifteenth century, the Palazzo dei Conservatori is mainly indebted for its importance to recent finds. Besides tracing the history of the Capitol and its buildings in its