In the course of examining the origin of evil in the De malorum subsistentia, Proclus reproduces a position that considers the maleficent (world-)soul as cause of evil. The same entity is held to co-govern the material realm alongside the beneficent world-soul. While scholarship tends to associate the testimonium with Plutarch (and Atticus), this survey shows why Numenius of Apamea is a much more probable candidate. The discussion concludes with further proposals for a new edition of Numenius, including possible traces of (...) Numenius in Iamblichus’ On Soul and Porphyry's On the Faculties of Soul. (shrink)

This paper argues that: (a) the transmitted text of Pind. Nem. 3.35–6 ποντίαν Θέτιν κατέμαρψεν | ἐγκονητί (‘[Peleus] caught the sea-nymph Thetis quickly’) is not the original text of Pindar; (b) ἐγκονητί does not fit the context, is not an attested Greek word and should be eliminated from dictionaries of ancient Greek; (c) Byzantine etymological works, followed by many modern scholars, base their explanations on the late antique form ἀκονητί, which should be eliminated from classical, Hellenistic and imperial texts; (d) (...) the tradition of the Etymologicum Magnum knows the variant ἐγκονιτί (conjectured for Pindar by Bergk) ‘with dust’ (‘with effort’), which seems presupposed by the scholia on Pindar; (e) the form ἐγκονιτί (created on the pattern of ἀκονιτί) is to be preferred in Pindar for reasons of language and content and should be added to the dictionaries of ancient Greek. (shrink)

In his brief comments on the Abraham-episodes of Genesis 15:1–11, Emperor Julian the Apostate indirectly attacks the apostle Paul's interpretation that Abraham exhibited πίστις as a justifying ‘faith’. Through a close reading of the biblical text, he interprets Abraham as, rather, receiving a divine πίστις—a ‘pledge’ or ‘confirming sign’—during two theurgical rituals. Although modern scholars have overlooked Julian's subtle argument, Cyril of Alexandria recognized Julian's strategy and responded directly. Attention to Julian's and Cyril's competing accounts shows that different conceptual grammars, (...) tied to rival traditional narratives, lay behind their incompatible claims to Abraham and his πίστις. (shrink)

This article identifies an ostracism joke in Menander's Samia (364–6) during a climactic scene in which the Athenian Demeas ejects the titular Chrysis from his house. The joke, uttered by a cook who is reacting to Chrysis’ expulsion, plays on the usage of ὄστρακα—broken pieces of pottery—as ballots in the institution of ostracism. The article proposes that the joke references the final abolition of ostracism during Demetrius of Phalerum's reign and reveals Menander's support for the regime.

In the fourth line of her first speech in Book 1, to Ilioneus and the Trojan castaways, Dido quotes the first word of the first line of Lucretius’ De rerum natura, and in the fourth line of her second speech, to Aeneas, she quotes the first words of the second line of the De rerum natura. This is not a coincidence but a signal of the importance of Lucretius and Epicureanism for the characterization of Dido in the Aeneid.

This paper argues that in Silvae 3.3, written to console Claudius Etruscus on the death of his beloved father, Statius reverses his own account of the contentious relationship between Tisiphone and Pietas in Thebaid Books 1 and 11 to present his patron's affectionate bond with his father as antithetical to Oedipus’ resentful relationship with his sons. In the Thebaid, Oedipus summons Tisiphone from the Underworld to punish his own children by stirring up civil war, and the Fury promptly obeys, banishing (...) Pietas from earth to prevent her from stopping the conflict. In Silvae 3.3, on the other hand, the poet asks Pietas to come back to earth, and urges the Furies to stay away from the deceased. The return of Pietas, also portrayed in Silvae 5.2, shows that in his collection of occasional poetry Statius rewrites his own epic to restore cosmos: while in the chaotic narrative universe of the Thebaid all fundamental values, including filial devotion, are turned upside down, the Silvae describe a more conventional and reassuring world, founded on virtue rather than vengeance. (shrink)

This article investigates why Lucretius does not dedicate any section of his poem to atomic size or provide a technical term to describe the concept. This absence is particularly significant because Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus both uses the term μέγεθος to indicate atomic size and contains a passage reporting specifically on this property. First, the article argues that atomic size and shape are causally redundant in Epicurus’ ontology. Second, it demonstrates that the origin of both shape and size is found (...) in the smallest magnitudes in Epicurean physics, the minima. Drawing on these findings, it concludes that, since atomic size violates the law of parsimony, it is a superfluous entity in the Epicurean system. After analysing passages from the De rerum natura, it suggests that the absence of atomic size in Lucretius may be deliberate. Lucretius’ microphysics works perfectly without introducing a philosophical notion of atomic size, and is more economical and efficient than that of Epicurus. (shrink)

Ancient testimonia on the Druids are few in number and sparse on details, and they have yielded a broad range of scholarly opinions on the Druids’ function among the Gauls. This article examines the suspiciously limited role played by the Druids in Julius Caesar's Gallic War (= BGall.). Considering the work of both classicists and archaeologists, it argues that, given Caesar's demonstrated propensity for tailoring his portrayals of northern Europeans to fit with his narrative objectives, he deliberately omitted the Druids (...) from nearly all of the Gallic War save for a brief ethnographic digression on the Gauls. This he did in order to downplay the sophistication of the Gauls, and the threat they posed to the Romans, since the Druids were likely a potent source of anti-Roman sentiment during Caesar's time in Gaul, just as they seem to have been in the Early Imperial period. (shrink)

About halfway through Terence's Hecyra, Pamphilus sends his slave Parmeno on a fool's errand to find Callidemides, a (non-existent) friend of his (415–50). Previous analyses of this unique exchange have revealed several layers of humour at work, but this article proposes a new reading of the scene through the lens of performance and staging which suggests that Pamphilus’ verbal description of Callidemides is lifted from the physical appearance of Parmeno himself. This scenario accounts for all the elements of the fool's (...) errand provided by Terence and ties the scene into the play's broader thematic interest in stock character subversion. (shrink)

One of the most remarkable features of the language of early Greek writing is a pervasive rhetorical strategy which consists in personifying objects for the purpose of identifying humans closely associated with them. Such ‘speaking objects’ have no Semitic parallel; how, then, is their conventional status in the Archaic Age to be explained? This article first considers the formulaic language of speaking objects, which is no straightforward transcription of speech, and seeks to explain where it comes from. It then turns (...) to the question of why writers employed the curious strategy of personification by setting it in the broader context of early Greek writing and literature. Variously analogous to herms, slaves and skytalai, speaking objects are shown to have been conceived as messengers acting on behalf of their senders by not speaking in their name. (shrink)

The anti-Catullan and anti-elegiac perspective characterizing Horace's erotic Odes builds on elements of the biography of his persona found in his juvenile collections, the Satires and the Epodes, where the construction of Horace's poetic autobiography as a lover brings together matters of didactics, ethics and literary criticism.

One of the most distinctive rituals of Roman imperial accession was the adlocutio, the speech delivered by the new emperor to a military assembly, which can be documented from the first to the fifth centuries a.d. This article seeks to explain the extraordinary endurance of this neglected genre of speech by examining its origins, setting and content. After outlining the unusual nature of the accession adlocutio when set against both earlier and contemporary Mediterranean practice, the first half of this article (...) traces its origins to the military culture of the late Roman Republic. In particular, the adlocutio is related to two other rituals which rose to new prominence in the era of the Civil Wars: the acclamation of the victorious general as imperator and the granting of military gifts. In the second part of this article, the setting for the typical adlocutio of the Imperial era is discussed using the often-problematic evidence of our ancient historical sources. The content of the speech itself is then reconstructed primarily through a close reading of our one surviving example, the brief address of Leo I preserved by Peter the Patrician. Finally, the evidence for the origins and content of the speech are brought together in an argument for the speech's survival as a useful tool for emperors seeking to establish a permanent bond with the soldiers they commanded. (shrink)

This article assesses whether Hellenistic war-elephants were given alcohol before battle. First recorded in 1 Maccabees’ account of the battle of Beth-Zechariah (162 b.c.e.), this unusual detail is supported by the later comments of Aelian and Philes of Ephesus. The idea also recalls a failed Ptolemaic attempt to punish the Jews in 3 Maccabees and in Josephus, and resonates with a longstanding association of elephants and alcohol in popular thought. Unfortunately, despite the recent rise in scholarly interest on war-elephants, this (...) issue remains overlooked. This article reassesses the complexities of our sources and the practicalities of Hellenistic battles. Adopting a comparative approach to contemporary Indian material for this practice, it considers the prevalence of elephants in musth in the Indian epics, alongside the etymological link between this condition and Sanskrit concepts of drunkenness. It argues that this connection may have prompted the idea of giving elephants alcohol before battle, despite its unlikeliness as a standard feature of elephant warfare. (shrink)

This article argues that Caesar puns on the cognomen of Pompey the Great through his use of the adjective magnus at least twice in his Bellum Civile. In each instance, the wordplay contributes to (1) evoking the memory of Pompey's past triumphs and (2) exploring the gulf between past reputation and present reality. By focussing on this particular wordplay, the article contributes to a wider discussion of Caesarean language and wit as well as to studies of Caesar's art of characterization.

Book 12 of Tacitus’ Annals spotlights the ascent of Agrippina, the new wife of Claudius and mother of Nero, to the heights of power in imperial Rome. This paper examines how Tacitus deepens and complicates that characterization through an allusion to Ovid's depiction of Augustus in Tristia Book 2. The allusion, coming in Ann. 12.22 as Agrippina is consolidating her power, serves to cast her as a figure of awesome anger and authority on a par with Augustus himself, but also (...) as lacking the ability Augustus had to put limits on that anger. The allusion thus underscores the Annals’ broader arc of the unruly collapse of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, while at the same time revealing the deftness of the historian of the Julio-Claudians at continuing and complicating the themes of the famed poet of Augustus. (shrink)

This article argues that at Lucr. 6.391 (icti flammas ut fulguris halent) fulguris is a corruption, and proposes to read sulpuris instead. While the case against fulguris may in itself not be incontrovertible, the advantages of sulpuris include the acquisition of a new Homeric intertext in Il. 8.135 δεινὴ δὲ φλὸξ ὦρτο θεείου καιομένοιο.

Different translations of Plutarch's De Pythiae oraculis 404B reflect an interpretative difficulty not yet adequately thematized by exegetes. Plutarch's dialogues on the Delphic oracle describe two perspectives on mantic inspiration: possession prophecy, where the god takes over the prophetess as a passive apparatus, and stimulation prophecy, where the god incites the prophecy, but the prophetess delivers the oracle through her own faculties. Plutarch understands the Pythia at Delphi to exhibit stimulation prophecy, not possession. One of his metaphors for inspiration comes (...) from the theatre: the god ‘puts the oracle into the Pythia's mouth, like an actor speaking through the mask’ (De Pyth. or. 404B [Russell]). Some translators take the metaphor as describing possession prophecy (Goodwin), while others take it as stimulation prophecy (Babbitt)—in other words, it may describe the view Plutarch affirms or the view he rejects. This article assesses the two alternatives, concluding that the theatre metaphor describes possession prophecy. (shrink)

This article examines the appearances of Augustus in Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars outside Augustus' own Life. It shows how Suetonius contrasts the positive image of Augustus drawn in the Life of Augustus with the distortion of this image by Augustus’ successors, depicted in the later Lives. In their reception, he is still presented as an ideal to follow, yet as a role model for cruelty (Tiberius), adultery and military failure (Caligula), or lyre-playing (Nero)—roles which Suetonius’ real Augustus never or (...) only marginally assumed. Thus in a series of close and intratextual readings, this article invites a more general reassessment of Suetonius’ work: it suggests that the Lives of the Caesars draw a more critical image of the Principate than has often been said, that they are more consciously part of an image-making process and, above all, that they should more commonly be understood as one whole work, rather than read individually and in isolation. (shrink)

This article proposes that untethering amerina at Stat. Silv. 1.6.18 from Pliny's mention of varieties of apples and pears called Amerina allows us to read the line as instead referring to a type of pastry originating in Umbrian Ameria, which is within ancient naming practices for pastries and fits better into the context of the catalogue in which the line occurs. In this case, the second half of the catalogue is closely akin to the crustulum et mulsum donative of wealthy (...) Italian patrons in the early empire. (shrink)

This note questions the transmitted word order at Pind. Ol. 2.100 and proposes a transposition to remove short open vowel at verse end.

Vernae—often but not exclusively taken to be home-born slaves—are usually thought to have had a privileged role within the ancient Roman household. While previous studies have highlighted how these individuals were represented with affection or as surrogate members of the freeborn family, this article uses epigraphic evidence from Pompeii to argue that the reality for at least some vernae was much more grim. A full examination of Pompeian attestations of the word verna reveals that there was a connection to prostitution (...) in over seventy per cent of extant appearances of the noun. Furthermore, contextualizing this phenomenon within the corpus of prostitution-related graffiti more broadly reveals that verna was the single most commonly used descriptor in advertisements for sexual services at Pompeii. Ultimately, the epigraphic evidence from Pompeii suggests that vernae were not safe from sexual exploitation, and it may have been their status as vernae that made them attractive to those wishing to purchase sex. (shrink)

Aristophanes’ Frogs was first performed at the Lenaea festival of 405 in competition with Plato's Cleophon and Phrynichus’ Muses. This paper argues that Frogs contains a series of agonistic jokes against Phrynichus, most of which have gone unnoticed because he shares his name with a tragic poet and a politician; Aristophanes plays with the ambiguity of the name Phrynichus to mock his Lenaean rival by comparing him unfavourably with his namesakes. Aristophanes ultimately claims that his comedy is superior to that (...) of Phrynichus because he is more successful than his rival in appropriating and redeploying other comedians’ material. (shrink)

This article questions the prevailing opinion that Domitian's prohibition of castration was intended as a protective measure devised to check masters’ abuses on their slaves, as part of a larger trend towards more enlightened attitudes towards slavery among the Romans. While brutal, castration was the only type of mutilation which increased the monetary value of slaves. Banning it curtailed slaves’ chances of social climbing and narrowed their channels towards positions of power. The emasculation ban is, instead, better understood as one (...) of the many measures directed towards the control of the sexual behaviour and the sumptuary practices of the Roman elite. Introduced as a censorial decree, the ban gave Domitian the opportunity to act as the upholder of Republican traditions at the same time as he impinged on the private lives of his subjects and put senators and equestrians under his thumb. The article also argues that, contrary to what is usually argued, the constant re-enforcement of the prohibition to castrate by Domitian's successors is an indication of the effectiveness of the Roman legal machinery and its capacity to reach the most distant corners of the Roman empire. (shrink)

This article analyses a clause of the alliance treaty between Sinope and Heraclea Pontica concerning the exiles of both cities (I.Sinope 1, lines 8–15). The clause in question states that the exiles may remain in the cities (ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι διατελεῖν) on condition that they do not commit any crimes and prescribes the measures to be taken should this occur. After explaining the content of the treaty, the existing interpretative proposals on the clause are discussed and the hypothesis that the (...) cities in question are Sinope and Heraclea is put forward; some examples of treaties showing a similar concern to regulate the issue of exiles are adduced. Lastly, considerations are offered as to the reasons that led Sinope and Heraclea to introduce such a treaty clause. (shrink)

In the 150 years since Schöll's seminal work, the Prytaneion Decree has been studied frequently. Of the groups of honourees mentioned in the decree, the agonistic victors have received the least attention. Most scholars have simply attributed them, without further discussion, to the sphere of war or to the sphere of religion. In this article, athletics is understood as a sphere of action with its own logic: the passages on athletes in the decree are examined in detail and situated within (...) the debate in classical Athens about whether victors of the Panhellenic Games should be honoured by the polis and to what extent. The strange duplication in the decree, which first regulates honours for agonistic victors in general and, in a second paragraph, honours for hippic victors, is related to some texts that viewed hippic victories more critically than gymnic ones. A precise dating of the decree is not possible, but there were several events in the fifth century that might have created the desire among Athenians for a general regulation of sitêsis for athletes. (shrink)

Numerous apprenticeship contracts survive among the papyri of Graeco-Roman Egypt, but scholars have been left guessing whether this documentation offers a sound comparison to job training in Classical Greece. This paper points out that such apprenticeship contracts are firmly attested in a work of Xenophon, revealing that, by the mid fourth century b.c., Athens was already home to the practice of formal apprenticeship.

This note shows that Virgil's description of Fama at Aen. 4.173 is inspired by Sappho, fr. 44.12 Voigt.

This paper investigates Neoplatonist literary criticism by framing the special interest in the target of each dialogue within the context of cosmo-literary theory. The starting hypothesis is that the themes of Plato's dialogues do not fully meet the expectations of a new didactics based on isagogical schemes as an image of Neoplatonic metaphysics. Among these schemes is the target of each dialogue, whose relation to the theme can be explained, in a fruitful and innovative way, through a cosmic analogy. Thus (...) after examining the more or less explicit criticism of literary criteria of analysis by Plato's ancient exegetes, this article will focus on how Neoplatonists load the Greek term skopos (target) with metaphysical content and, accordingly, on how we should translate it in accordance with the commentators’ intentions. It will show that the target is the literary counterpart to the One, but that it should not be confused with the theme because the latter must be seen as the literary counterpart to the Intellect. (shrink)

Against prevailing interpretations, this article contends that Plato's Sophist and Statesman accord the sophist a kind of ‘knowing-how’ (epistêmê). In Soph. 233c10‒d2, the Visitor and Theaetetus agree that the sophist has not truth but a δοξαστικὴ ἐπιστήμη. This phrase cannot mean ‘a seeming knowledge’, for –ικός adjectives formed from verbs express the ability to perform the action denoted by the verb—here, δοξάζω. Although not a first-order, subject-area knowledge, sophistry is a second-order knowledge of how to form and use judgements (doxai). (...) Other acknowledgements of the sophist's epistêmê and the ascription to him of τέχνη, ‘craft/expertise’, confirm that the Visitor's conclusion is not to be dismissed as irony. To critics who argue from the Gorgias and from other works that Plato must consider the Visitor's conclusion an error, the author replies: 1) other dialogues do not control the Visitor dialogues; 2) the Visitor does not validly demonstrate that the sophist lacks all knowledge; 3) by admitting sensibles into Being, the Visitor and Theaetetus allow the objects of epistêmê to include things in the embodied world, even likenesses. Non-philosophers’ epistêmê in the Visitor dialogues is not implicated in the difficulties that critics have raised about epistemology in the so-called Two Worlds dialogues. On this new ontology, even the sophist, if guided by philosophical rulers, can benefit citizens by employing his elenctic expertise as Socrates did, aiding their growth toward virtue. (shrink)

In his second appearance to Aeneas in Aeneid 4 Mercury drives the hero to flee Carthage with a false allegation that Dido is planning an attack, capping his warning with an infamous sententia about the mutability of female emotion. Building on a previous suggestion that Mercury's first speech to Aeneas is modelled on Athena's admonishment of Telemachus at the opening of Odyssey 15, this article proposes that Mercury's second speech as well is modelled on Athena's warning, in which the goddess (...) uses misdirection about Penelope's intentions and a misogynistic gnōmē about the changeability of women's affections to spur Telemachus’ departure from Sparta. After setting out how Virgil divides his imitation of Athena's speech verbally and thematically between Mercury's two speeches, the discussion turns to why both Athena and Mercury adopt these deceptive tactics. The speeches are shown to be culminations of the poets’ similar approaches to creating doubt and foreboding around the queens’ famed capacities for using δόλος. Common features in the ensuing hasty departures of Telemachus and Aeneas further confirm Virgil's use of Odyssey 15 in devising Aeneas’ escape from Carthage. (shrink)

The authenticity of the Additamentum Aldinum (Sil. Pun. 8.144–223) has long been a matter of debate. While many scholars have expressed doubts that it is by Silius and suggest rather that it is from the hands of a skilful humanist, it has not, up to this time, been possible to provide solid evidence to support their intuition. This paper not only re-examines the standard arguments for and against authenticity but brings the latest computational stylometric techniques to bear on the question. (...) These analyses reveal that the style of the Additamentum differs in statistically significant terms from the rest of Silius’ Punica.1. (shrink)

According to the standard view on the issue, the habit of marking questions with a particular typographical sign in Greek and Latin script does not arise prior to the eighth or ninth century. This period is generally credited with the ‘invention’ of the question mark (excepting Syriac evidence, which points to the fifth and sixth centuries). The purpose of the present article is to correct this view. It argues that the first indication for the use of a typographical sign that (...) marks questions can actually be detected no later than during the reign of Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 117–38), that is, more than half a millennium before the traditional date of the invention. The chief witness is Nicanor of Alexandria, who does not seem to have used question marks himself, but criticizes the misappropriation of another punctuation mark to that purpose. He thus indirectly testifies to the existence of question marks. Comparable traces can also be found later in the exegetical works of some Christian commentators. (shrink)

The following paper proposes that Sallust offers a conceptualization of civil conflict more in line with the Greek paradigm of stasis than with its Roman counterpart bellum ciuile. In doing so, it argues for the actual coexistence of these two differentiated conceptual strands in the political thought of the Late Republic. To this end, Sallust's corpus is analysed to identify the main threads that articulate civil strife in its multifarious manifestations: how it arises and who its protagonists are or, conversely, (...) how it is kept in check, how it is connected to the human passions that drive ideology, and the violence that stems from the clash between political and familial spheres of influence. The article shows how the pathos of familial drama is what characterizes civil conflict for Sallust, rather than the struggle for legitimacy found in Cicero's narrative. (shrink)

This article argues that the discovery of Pythagorean volumes in Numa's tomb in 181 b.c. may have played a significant role in the conception of the meeting between Numa and Pythagoras in the last book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, since several features of this event integrate very well into the discourse at the heart of Book 15 on the Greek origins of Roman culture and literature, on the immortality of poetry, and on the relationship between poetry and power. The article further (...) argues that Ennius’ Annals Book 15 may have covered the events up to 179, if that really was the year of Nobilior's dedication of the Aedes Herculis Musarum, and included the discovery of Numa's books in 181; and hence that Ovid may have used the Ennian account of this discovery as a model for the Numa–Pythagoras episode, appropriating the poetic and political meaning that it already had in Annals Book 15. (shrink)

This article examines the citation of Didymus’ ‘first’ commentary on Pindar's Paeans in Ammon. Diff. 231 Nickau. It argues that the commentary on the Paeans was the first volume in Didymus’ commentary to all of Pindar.

This paper defends an interpretation of Plato, Soph. 259c7–d7, which describes a distinction between genuine and pretender forms of ‘examination’ or ‘refutation’ (ἔλεγχος). The passage speaks to a need, throughout the dialogue, to differentiate the truly philosophical method from the merely eristic method. But its contribution has been obscured by the appearance of a textual problem at 259c7–8. As a result, scholars have largely not recognized that the Eleatic Stranger recommends accepting contrary predication as a condition of genuine refutation. After (...) reviewing various proposals to change the text, the paper defends this reading. Finally, the paper turns to the methodological significance of accepting contrary predication. The dialogue depicts contrary predication as an instance of a class of statements that compel the soul's disbelief. Soph. 259c7–d7 suggests that these kinds of statements are a crossroad: one can either reject them and turn to eristic discourse or accept them and practise genuine refutation. The paper reflects on what this indicates about Plato's meditations on contradiction and philosophy. (shrink)

Cassius Dio's fragmentary Roman History 15 contains an account of Archimedes’ role in defending Syracuse during the Roman siege of 213–212 b.c., incorporating a legendary tale about a solar reflector Archimedes constructed to burn Roman warships, and including details of his death when the city fell. The textual basis of this famous episode depends on two derivative twelfth-century works: Zonaras’ Epitome of Histories (9.4–5) and Tzetzes’ Chiliades (2.35). After clarifying the present state of enquiry, this paper introduces two new witnesses, (...) overlooked by editors of Dio and extensive scholarship on Archimedes, and assesses their value for reconstructing Dio's text. Comparative analysis of corresponding Dio-derived material in Tzetzes’ Carmina Iliaca and Hypomnema in S. Luciam, especially verbal correspondences with Zonaras’ Epitome, demonstrates that they are independent and, sometimes, superior witnesses to Dio's wording and content, reflecting Tzetzes’ selective use of the Roman History in different verse and prose compositions over several decades. The study considers editorial implications for this section of Dio's work and general characteristics of Tzetzes’ writings as repositories of testimonia and fragments. (shrink)

The Corinthian Speech (Corinthiaca) in the corpus of Dio Chrysostom (Or. 31) is attributed to Favorinus (c.80–160) based on internal criteria of content and style. This article argues that a reference to an author of a Corinthian speech found in a collection of sayings in codex Vaticanus Graecus 1144 is a unique external reference to Favorinus as author of this speech.

This article presents a new conjecture on Herodotus 1.51.3.

Two conjectures are proposed on Sophocles’ Thyestes (fr. 260a Radt) which restore Sophoclean language and metre.

The hairdresser who carries Ovid's invitation to his puella in Amores 1.11 is almost immediately blamed for his rejection in 1.12, before that blame is transferred to the tablets carrying that invitation. Nape (the enslaved hairdresser of the puella) has been linked to the character Dipsas, appearing in 1.7, specifically through the descriptor sobria. By focussing on the use of the verb uerto, the reference to the mythical strix, and curses related to the old age of both Dipsas and the (...) tablets in 1.7 and 1.12, this note demonstrates that the supernatural word choice further connects Nape with Dipsas. (shrink)

This article examines the reform of the comitia centuriata in the mid to late third century b.c.e. This involved demoting in voting order the six most prestigious cavalry centuries, distributing the centuries of the first class two per tribe, and assigning one tribe's iuniores to vote first as the centuria praerogatiua. The article argues that this gave more equitable representation to rich citizens from more distant parts of Roman territory, but still preserved the essential military character of the assembly by (...) ensuring that the serving men voted first in any election for consuls and praetors. (shrink)

An eighth-century Latin version of a Greek edition of Aratus preserves valuable ancient scholarship on the Phaenomena, including material not preserved in Greek. Examination of over thirteen thousand Latin–Greek correspondences enables one to interpret passages of the Latin that have so far resisted analysis, including information about an ancient edition equipped with critical signs and commentary, ancient discussion of the primary narratee in Aratus and Homer, and the alternative proem to Anclides (SH 84).

Lucian's Hippias or The Bath, traditionally considered to be a straight-faced encomium of a historical architect and real-life bath-house of the Antonine period, is now often judged to be a work of satire, though what exactly is being satirized has remained elusive. This article argues that the architect ‘Hippias’ is closely modelled on Plato's caricature of the sophist Hippias of Elis in the Hippias Minor, and that his bath-house is a comic extrapolation from the sophist's home-made oil-flask and strigil. Lucian's (...) Hippias should be read as a parody of contemporary prose encomia of public buildings. (shrink)

This article argues that the incomplete acrostic INCIP- at Ov. Met. 15.871–5 can be completed. If viewed as a ‘gamma-acrostic’, we can supply -iam from line 871, so that it receives its termination in retrospect. Ovid's manipulation of gamma-acrostic conventions caps his persistent confusion of beginnings and endings, and emphasizes the role of the reader as co-creator of his metamorphic œuvre.

It is argued that Tertullian's relatively lengthy description of a chameleon in his De pallio serves as a metaphor not so much for the convert to a philosophical way of life in general but for the convert to Christianity in particular. The argument rests on the unusual emphases within this description which recall different features of Christianity or popular beliefs about the same.

This paper explains the motivation behind Aristotle’s appeal in Nicomachean Ethics 1154b7–9 to the physiologoi, who notoriously declare that animals are constantly in pain. It argues that the physiologoi are neither the critical target of this chapter nor invoked to verify Aristotle’s commitment to the imperfection of the human condition. Rather, despite doctrinal disagreement, they help Aristotle develop a naturalistic story about how ordinary people easily indulge in sensory pleasures.

Hermodorus of Syracuse, a Sicilian disciple of Plato, is reported by Simplicius to have set out a classification of beings, which is of a piece with an argument for principle monism (in Ph. 247.30–248.18 > F 5 IP2; 256.28–257.4 = F 6 IP2). A similar classification appears in Sextus Empiricus’ Aduersus mathematicos X (262–75), where it is officially ascribed to some ‘Pythagoreans’ (Πυθαγορικοί) or ‘children of the Pythagoreans’ (Πυθαγορικῶν παῖδες), but seems ultimately based on Early Academic material. Virtually all commentators (...) have read these classifications conjointly. More radically, both have been taken to record Plato's oral teaching and to give essentially the same categorial scheme, which is regarded as the most developed instance of a so-called ‘Academic doctrine of the categories’. This article re-examines these texts and provides an alternative reading. Section 1 focusses on Hermodorus and defends three theses: (1) there was never such a thing as an ‘Academic doctrine of the categories’; (2) Hermodorus does not seem to recount what Plato said, but to propose an integrated interpretation and defence of aspects of his thought; (3) Hermodorus’ pronouncements about principles are incompatible with other testimonies on Plato's unwritten teaching, notably Aristotle's. Section 2 moves to Sextus and defends a fourth thesis: (4) despite their similarities, the classifications of Hermodorus and Sextus’ Pyrhagoreans are considerably different, though perhaps originated from the same debate. (shrink)