‘I have omitted Idylls xxiii and xxvi, because they are dull, stupid and worthless poems, and certainly not by Theocritus.’ R.C. Trevelyan’s words in the introduction to his translation of Theokritos (Cambridge, 1947, but the introduction significantly dates from 1925) make quaint reading today. I present no brief for the Erastes (Idyll xxiii), but even before the contribution made to the complexity of the Bacchantes (Idyll xxvi) by Pap. Antin. (3 in Gow’s sigla), it should have been obvious to the reader that the poem had the texture of quicksand and that its curious description of Pentheus’ offence and death, no less its elaborate protestations of piety, cried caution to the confident strider. But if there is tragedy in the failure to detect quicksands, the traveller can scarcely feel more secure in the services of three professional guides who have recently plotted three different courses for him.