MISCELLANEA 685 understood the passage to concern influence rather than rank, since mention is made of auctoritasrather than dignitas. All these views are recorded in the commen- tary of K. Halm (Leipzig 1845), who ranged himself on the side of Garatoni and Goveanus. L. G. Pocock (London 1926) reported the views of Manutius and Abrami, but did not choose between them. J. Cousin (Paris 1965) revived the view of Manutius, without attribution. 9) Cf. P. Willems, Le Sénat de la Républiqueromaine, I (Louvain 1878), 481. 10) Taylor ignoted the ex at Vat. 16, which destroys all connection between the priesthood and the consularisauctoritas of Fannius. The ex is causal and makes the year 59 the only admissible date for Fannius' acquisition of consularisauctoritas. Taylor seems to have been misled by the description of Fannius as homo adulescens.It is worth noting that an aged Cicero (Phil. 2.118) recalled that he defended the state against Catiline while an adulescens;he was, of course, 43 years old at the time. 11) For that matter, the phrase consularisauctoritas itself is strange, not simply because Cicero employed it so rarely, but because of the absence of analogous phrases: Cicero never spoke of a pratoriorum or praetoria auctoritas, nor of an aediliciorumor aediliciaauctoritas. Cicero believed in an auctoritasinferior to the 'con- sular' kind, but he apparently did not believe that there was an auctoritaspeculiar to ex-praetors or ex-aediles. On one occasion Cicero spoke of an in praetoreauctoritas (Fam. 13.55.2), and on another of firaetoris...auctoritatem(Verr. 2.5.83), but both passages concern the position of a provincial governor. As for incumbent praetors, the one relevant passage (Man. 69) actually disassociates auctoritas from the praetorship: Cicero pledged that he would support the Manilian law with his potestaspraetoria, and in addition with his own auctoritas,fides and constantia. MARTIAL 9.95 AND THE CAP THAT FITS (EPIGRAMMATON LIB.IX) XCV Alphius ante fuit, coepit nunc Olphius esse, uxorem postquam duxit Athenagoras. XCV b Nomen Athenagorae credis, Callistrate, verum. si scio, dispeream, qui sit Athenagoras. sed puta me verum, Callistrate, dicere nomen: non ego sed vester peccat Athenagoras. (W.M. Lindsay's Oxford Classical Text 1903) Texts which are edited without commentary, or translation, or an apparatus criticus which finds room for editorial explanations, sometimes leave the reader in doubt as to how, and sometimes (dare one say it?) if, particular passages are understood by the editor who gives his imprimatur to them. The two epigrams above are a case in point. For baffled readers of Martial who turn for enlightenment to the standard annotated editions, where the exegete cannot both keep silent and be supposed to discharge his duty, will find none. W.C.A. Ker (Loeb 1920) declares that 'the point of this epigram (9.95) is unknown', and H.J. Izaac (Bud6 1934) com- 686 ments 'epigramme tout a fait obscure; et la suivante, bien que conjuguee avec elle, ne 1'est pas moins.' And can one blame them for failing to understand what proved totally incomprehensible to L. Friedlaender in his landmark edition of 1886? (Yes, one can: read on, benevolelector). The least that can be deduced from the text of 9.95 is that marriage has wrought a change in Athenagoras, and, because epigram rarely deals with improvements in behaviour, we may guess, without recourse to such examples in life and literature, that the change was for the worse. The modern university practise of using the letters of the Greek alphabet for purposes of grading has deep roots. Greek idiom could express the notions of 'first' and 'last', 'beginning' and 'end', by alphabetic symbols: dILLTo A xai r6 S2 (Apoc. 1.8; 21.6; 22.13). In 2.57.4 Martial dubbed Cordus 'alpha paenulatorum', 'a Grade A chap in cloaks', and, afraid that he might have given offence (as well as hinting what would prove an acceptable gift?), later in 5.26.4 encouraged Cordus to retaliate and call him beta... togatorum', 'a Grade B chap in togas'. The Latin alphabet's 'A' and '0' are the equivalents of `TOA' and 'r6 Q' . By substituting the latter for the former in 'Alphius', Martial signifies that the first has become the last; and, by attributing the change to marriage, he means that a 'first-class chap' as a single man is turning out to be the 'absolute end' in wedlock. This is the essential point of 9.95, and we cannot know whether or not Lindsay saw it because the conventions which govern the scope of the Oxford Classical Texts do not oblige him to say. If he consulted commen- taries available to him, he would have found only misguided attempts to connect Alphius with and the suggestion (which goes back to Domizio Calderini's Venice edition of 1474) that Olfius (sic)') is to be associated with olfacereand designates a cunnilingus. The essential point was first explained (to my knowledge) by O. Crusius in Philologus 65 (1906), 159-60, and again by Joachim Mussehl in Hermes 58 (1923), 238-9; their interpretation was accepted in a further discussion of the epigram by Karl Barwick in Philologus 87 (1932), 65. So one source of enlightenment was available to Ker, and three to Izaac, at the time of their respective editions2). 9.95b begins by imagining the reaction of Callistratus on reading 9.95. He believes, or may believe (would not the first line of 9.95b acquire a livelier tone if taken as a question?) that 'Athenagoras' is the real name of a specific individual. Martial swears he does not know who Athenagoras is-and so cannot know what he is like or has done. His pro- fessed policy (10.33.9f.) is to satirize the sin but not the sinner, at least not by his real name. But suppose that what is alleged about 'Athenagoras' fits some identifiable Athenagoras known to Callistratus and others3). Then, says Martial, it is not the poet who is at fault (his choice of name was fortuitous, and the substance of his allegation must be accurate and appropriate to be applicable); the fault lies with the .