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Mr A.G.Lee's acute consideration of my remarks on the maxim (PCPS n.s.21 [1975] 63—4) arrives at an important conclusion. This maxim, one of the basic rules of ancient and, with suitable qualification, modern scholarship, was first formulated in the fifth century B.C. I should be happy to believe that he is right, and that credit for a valuable idea should be given to a sophist whose identity can no longer be ascertained (cf. Dr N.J.Richardson, ibid., 65ff.). My reason for venturing to raise the matter again is a feeling that the premisses of his argument are not quite beyond dispute.In discussing the anecdote about Agathon Mr Lee says that the use of the verb is surprising, since would be expected. Perhaps I am insensitive to nuance, but I confess to being unable to follow him at this point. ‘To cause to disappear’ seems to me at least as good as ‘to strip’ in the context of the anecdote. Certainly LSJ suggest that the verb is common in several closely related senses in Attic authors of the classical period.

At the beginning of the dog's trial the prosecution state the charge and the penalty they propose. It seems to me that there may be a more complicated joke here than is generally realized. The penalty of a collar is appropriate for a dog and in real life was sometimes imposed on a slave or a prisoner (Xen. Hell. 3. 3. 11). The epithet applied to the collar is usually translated ‘of figwood’ and taken to be a pun on . Commentators see the same pun earlier in the play at 145, although in that passage the sense may be adequate without the pun; the adjective does not necessarily constitute a joke in itself but is perhaps chosen deliberately to lead into the joke.