26 NOVEMBER 1927, Page 44

OUR DEBT TO GREECE AND ROME series (English agents, Harrap,

5s.) has three new volumes which demand

consideration. The title of Dr. A. T. Allen's Stage Antiquities of the Greeks and Romans may deter some people ; but if, attracted by the illustrations, they take to the book, they will find an eminently readable account of theatres, actors, plays in classical times. And they may reflect, ' If Athenian choregi ran the Dionysia during the internecine Peloponnesian War, can we not afford a National Theatre ? " In Apickins and His Influence Dr. E. H. Haight tells us of that greatest Roman story-teller to whom poets and sculptors owe the " Psyche " legend, and whose Lucius the Fourfooted is the highly intelligent forerunner of Bottom. If you want to know Roman views on ghosts or the strange customs gathering round birth, marriage, and death, if it interests you that AristarChui of Samos anticipated Copernicus, and that Plato, becoming the enchanter Iflatoun, drained the plain of. Konia—read Greek and Roman Folklore, by Professor W. R. Halliday.