REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF PUBLICATIONS 199 probably concur with this judgement. It follows that few places in P.’s text seem to demand specific comment, at least from this reviewer. But I approve his preference for (omnt) aetati over aetate (§7), where it might be added to his arguments that ae¢as can then bear its common meaning of ‘persons of (a certain, here every) age’; his adoption of Madvig’s seni (§28); his preference for duritas over diritas (§65), and his proposed deletions at §50 of quidem ... quae and at §56 of appetentem. In the commentary no difficulties are skirted and P. always argues—when necessary, expansively—for his conclusions, and where certainty cannot be attained is commendably undogmatic. The notes are especially rich in parallels for the thought and language, and notable for sensitivity to style. There is perhaps an excessive inclusion of some matter too elementary for an edition of this kind. But such judgements are naturally subjective. So while prepared to dispense with comments on quintoque anno post (123), non dubitavit (136), vox (161), I welcome comment on quasi=sicut (244), the quid est aliud usage (169) and some similar things. I offer a few qualifications on other points. P.’s rejection of the attempts to extend the quotation from Caecilius Statius (§25, p. 156) may be right, but Nonius’ practice was inconsistent and he sometimes attributes even Cicero’s acknowledged quotations from others to Cicero (see H. D. Jocelyn, UCS 61 (1933), 74 n. 108). On Cicero’s relations with Greek philosophy I make three observations. First, the setting out in parallel columns of Plato, Rep. 328d-330a and Cicero’s ‘version’ (111-13), strongly reminiscent of the notorious parallel analyses appended to the Loeb edition of Seneca’s Tragedies, shows clearly that we are not dealing with ‘translation’ in the modern sense. It is, therefore, more fruitful to speculate here and elsewhere on Cicero’s reasons, often easily detectable, for diverging from his original, as P. frequently does, than to accuse him of inaccuracy, as P. sometimes does. On quem philosophum non contemnimus? (§12, p. 128), P. suggests that ‘this remark ... would not perhaps have been made in quite this way by Cicero in propria persona’. But Cicero can use the Greek word philosophus in not merely a neutral but even a disparaging sense, notably in the Tusculans (allowing that the formally anonymous chief speaker is certainly Cicero). Xenocrates (§23, Pp. 153) may have earned his ‘num to himself’ not only for stylistic reasons but because he actually did seem important: we must always beware of imposing our own perspectives on Cicero’s view of Hellenistic philosophy. In sum P.’s work is wide-ranging and acute, and an impressive contribution to Ciceronian scholarship. University of Birmingham A. E. Doucias ROBERT D. BROWN, LUCRETIUS ON LOVE AND SEX: A COMMENTARY ON DE RERUM NATURA IV, 1030-1287 WITH PROLEGOMENA, TEXT AND TRANSLATION (Columbia Studies in the Classical ‘Tradition xv). Leiden, etc.: Brill, 1987. Pp. x +392. ISBN 90-04-085 12-2. This book has been long awaited, and clearly shows the evidence of many years’ painstaking scholarship on every conceivable aspect of Lucretian studies. By any standards it is an extravagant book; over 400 pages on a mere 257 lines of text, a ratio which would make a complete commentary on Book Iv run to over 2000 pages. No stone is left unturned, as Brown subjects these famous lines to the most detailed scrutiny they have ever received since Lucretius first composed them. The Prolegomena would make a decent book by itself, and goes a long way towards compensating for the way B. has torn these lines of text from their rightful context within the book and the poem as a whole. In the Prolegomena he examines the wider coherence of Book 1v, both within itself and within the economy of the De Rerum Natura, the finales to the six books of the poem, the delicate question of the apparent contradiction between the hymn to Venus which opens the poem and the scathing jeremiad against the Good Goddess which ends this book, and finally the philosophical, cultural and literary background to this passage, looking at the rather obscure and confusing sources on Epicurus’ attitude to love, the types of attitude towards sex prevalent in the Roman world, and the literary sources which this poet drew upon. B. shows that he has read all the major books and articles on these topics, and one of the great strengths of the book is his ability to render a coherent and readable account of a wide range of (often inaccessible) scholarship on matters ranging from textual transmission to female ejaculation. In the welter of information and interpretation he offers, it is inevitable that some of his points are less well brought out than others. For instance, the vital point that