This volumes begins with a long essay on the nature and structure of Saturnian verse. This is followed by two studies of Plautus (the Menaechmi seen as a comedy of errors and the prologue of the Poenulus as an editor's conflation of several scripts). There is an essay on nine graffito epigrams from Pompeii, and an analysis of the poetic quality of the scientific passages in the De Rerum Natura. Catullus 64 is studied as an epitome of the whole age of heroes; and there are two essays on Horace (his handling of the rhetorical recusatio in the odes to Bacchus and his lyric prayers for poetic inspiration). The volume ends with an investigation into how much Ovid actually knew of the law, and how he exploited this knowledge with piquancy and inventiveness in his writings.