The metrical technique of Catullus in his elegiac verse has not yet received the detailed examination that has been given to the usage of Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid by Platnauer in his Latin Elegiac Verse (Cambridge, 1951). Robinson Ellis in the Prolegomena to his Commentary on Catullus (Oxford, 1876) introduced this part of his subject in these words: ‘If we examine the metrical peculiarities of these elegies, we shall find their defects to lie mainly in the too exclusive imitation of Greek models.’ He then goes on to speak of the Greek practice of allowing the thought to run on uninterruptedly without necessarily a pause at the end of the couplet, and of the Greek freedom in admitting words of any length in the last place in the pentameter: ‘in these respects the Catullian elegy is completely Greek.’ In the Introduction to the Select Elegies of Propertius (Macmillan, 1884) by J.P. Postgate there is a brief reference to what is described as the ‘carelessness’ of Catullus about the ending of the pentameter, and a further censure is implied in the mention of ‘his extraordinary number of elisions’; in short, Postgate describes the elegiac of Catullus as ‘still semi-barbarous’. Clearly, we have a problem here, since it is hard to reconcile the two descriptions of verse which in some respects is ‘completely Greek’ and in others ‘semi-barbarous’.

In an article published in this journal several years ago, Dr B. Rawson put forward the suggestion that the temple of Hercules associated with Pompeius' building activity should be assigned to an early period in his career, either 79 or (more likely) about 70 B.C. If the latter, she connects it with a competition between Pompeius and Crassus to secure the mantle of military prowess as the heir of Sulla, manifest in the lavish sacrificial feast given by Crassus in 70 B.C. which she says he made at the festival of Hercules Invictus on 12 August, in thanks for the military success which the god had secured for him in the recent slave war, and which was designed to steal Pompeius' thunder as the games celebrating his Spanish victories were due to begin a few days later on 15 August (Cic. Verr. i 31).

Herodotus has a lot to say about slavery and about particular slaves and groups of slaves. The broad theme was, of course, central to his historical conception and presentation of the Persian Wars and of warfare in general, as well as being key to the contrasting nomoi whose range and significance he is concerned to explore. Against that large background, I wish to examine Herodotus' understanding of slavery and slave-trading on the north coast of the Black Sea, with a view to a fuller appreciation of his Histories and of exchange in the region. Three broad observations will assist.

Standard text-books have usually presented a cut-and-dried account of three stages of Roman education: primary from age seven, with the grammaticus from age twelve, and rhetoric from about fifteen or sixteen. Most detail is devoted to the rhetorical stage, as that is where the future leaders (politicians, lawyers, army generals) were trained; so there is much detail on rhetorical exercises, declamation, and the like. Such accounts present the Romans as formalistic and rigid, and the focus on adolescent upper-class males tells us nothing about the socialisation and training of younger children, of girls, the lower classes and slaves. (Slaves comprised at least a quarter of the population of a large city like Rome in the late Republic and High Empire, which had a total population of about one and a quarter million at its height, in the 2nd century of this era.)

In the consideration of ancient Greek verbal syntax there are three main factors: the lexical meaning, or range of meanings, of each verb, the possible range of significance of its inflexion, including aspect, voice and mood (or mood-substitute), and the context. The interaction of these is such that the understanding of the complexities of each depends to some extent on its relationship to the others. Although we naturally describe the lexical meaning in terms of our own language, it is, of course, the ancient Greek meaning of the stem that is really relevant. For example, the dominant translation usually proposed for is ‘conquer’, yet in Greek terms it really means ‘am victorious’, for it appears to be a stative verb, one of ‘being’ or ‘having’, like , rather than an action verb, one of ‘doing’, like , . The context factor is not confined to the immediate context, the rest of the clause or sentence in which the words under consideration occur, but may involve the wider context embracing the paragraph, the chapter and the nature of the whole work, and also the assumed or external context of what the speaker or writer could assume to be commonly accepted in his society or might expect his audience to know or recognise. However one defines the various circles of context, it is important for modern readers to recognise that unexpressed assumptions, whether based on physical observation of gestures or on the shared habits of an ancient society, can sometimes lead to misunderstanding and to overconfident misjudgment.

In the negotiations which were concluded by the Peace of Philocrates, Philip hoped to gain control of the Greek states so that he could invade Persia with his own kingdom secure from invasion by powerful enemies in his rear. Elimination of the Thebans as a leading state was an essential step in his plan, because he could foresee that the only combination sufficiently strong to thwart him would be Athens and Thebes. For this reason he insisted on an alliance with the Athenians as a necessary condition for the peace: he hoped that on the basis of this alliance the Athenians would send hoplites to Thermopylae who would aid him both in the suppression of his Theban allies and in the expulsion of Phalaecus and his mercenaries from the forts. He expected that, when the Thebans learned that the tyrant and his troops were to be punished severely and the Phocian people treated leniently, the Thebans would be provoked into attacking him and the Athenians would come to his aid by taking them in the rear.

According to St. Matthew, Pontius Pilate had a wife; after a warning dream, she spoke out against her husband’s decision concerning Christ. The gospel does not mention her name, but a number of apocryphal writings, composed between the third and seventh centuries, give her the cognomen of Procia, under which name, and as the wife of Pilate, she is included in the calendars of the Greek Orthodox and Ethiopian Churches. The earliest source which adds the nomen Claudia to the cognomen Procla was available to St. Jerome, and so extant in the early fifth century — but versions of it surviving today are said to bear little relation to the one he referred to, and their authenticity is doubtful. The name Claudia Procia nevertheless attached itself to the legend, and under it Pilate’s wife has survived even into the fiction of this century.

Sophokles’ Elektra has been the subject of considerable interpretative debate this century. Is it a tragedy that ends on a note of clear and unequivocal triumph for the two children engaged in avenging their father and recovering their rightful heritage? Or are we to detect a much more ambivalent attitude to the matricide and to perceive a thread of darkness and ruin running through the play as we see the disintegration of Elektra as a person? The divine element is an important aspect of every one of Sophokles’ extant plays; and for Elektra that means Apollo above all. Other gods are invoked in prayers or alluded to occasionally — especially Zeus at 1095-7 — but Apollo is the deity most frequently in our minds throughout this drama.

Agrarian legislation in the immediate aftermath of the Gracchi is the subject of continuing debate. Appian (BC i 27) records three laws, the last two of which are specified as being tribunician: the first removed the inalienability of land holdings; the second was perhaps the measure of Sp. Thorius, mentioned also by Cicero, which stopped land distribution, confirmed possession rights on the land and imposed a rent, the proceeds of which were to help the poor; the third abolished this rent. Appian provides chronological clues of a sort: the first measure came ‘not long after’ the death of C. Gracchus, the third ‘not long after’ Thorius’ law, and the whole business was perhaps finished within fifteen years άπò τῆς Γράκχου νομοϑεσίας. I say ‘perhaps’ because it remains arguable whether the point of reference for these fifteen years is Tiberius or Gaius Gracchus. I intend to argue elsewhere that Tiberius is meant, but as such an argument cannot be regarded as conclusive, there is still a point in this respect in examining the lex agraria which is the inscription CIL i2 585. The law is naturally important in its own right. It is dated internally to 111 B.C. and attempts have been made to equate it with either the second or third of Appian’s laws. If it was the second, this allows a retention of the fifteen years and the placing of the third law in 109 or 108. But if Appian has accurately reported the second law, it imposed a rent, while the first part of the inscriptional law talks of removing rent.

The defeat of Bardylis ‘the king of the Illyrians‘ was one of the decisive battles of ancient history. It ended forty years of military ascendancy by the Illyrians, during which huge losses had been inflicted on the Molossians, Amyntas III had twice been driven out of Macedonia, and Perdiccas III and 4,000 Macedonians had been killed ‘in a great battle’ of359B.C.(Diod. 16.2.5). One reason for that ascendancy was that the Illyrians adopted Greek hoplite equipment and tactics earlier than their opponents. The victory of Philip marked the beginning of Macedonia’s progress to a military supremacy, of which the marks were the infantry fighting with the pike (sarissa) and the cavalry exploiting a break in an enemy line. Evidence about the battle is provided only by Diodorus andFrontinus, and there are uncertainties about the background to the affair. I think that progress can be made if we ask the appropriate questions.

The dichotomy between lover and poet; the relationship with comedy; the force of the metre: these are the considerations that have told most in recent years in the interpretation of Catullus' poem 8, Miser Catulle.

Wheeler, following Morris, takes the poem as a comic exercise. Fordyce, Fraenkel and Quinn think of it as a serious examination of the lover's internal conflict. Commager (‘if it would be foolish to deny the poem's comic overtones, it would be equally foolish to maintain that those are the only ones’) juggles with the two. One conviction that seems shared by most, however, is that the poem, in a sense, describes full circle, returning to its starting point.

In recent years philosophers working within the field of Platonic studies have begun to stress the relationship between form and content in Plato’s works. This ‘revelation’ in its turn has led to a richer understanding of Platonic texts; no longer (or at least not so often) do we find a Socratic argument excised from its dramatic context and syllogistically and analytically examined. Analysis, of course, can never be divorced from philosophy but with respect to the corpus Platonicum philosophical analysis has been supplemented by a sensitivity to the denouement of an argument, in other words, the dramatic context.

This paper discusses a series of archaic poems in which one poet responds directly to the work of another, identifying the other by name or by direct allusion (for example, Simonides frag. 542 PMG, Solon frag. 20 West, Sappho frag. 137 Voigt). Such responses often disagree with their models, and this disagreement is frequently constructed in terms of a correction, not only to the subject matter, but also to the way in which the original is composed. These responses, therefore, not only reflect the pattern of improvisation and ‘capping’ common to much Greek poetry, but form an ongoing debate on the nature and role of the poet and his poetry. The construction of such responses also serves to underline both the importance of improvisation and the permanency of the fame conveyed by the completed poem.

The clades Variana was a major Roman defeat, occurring over three days of fighting in AD 9. Three Roman legions and several units of auxiliaries were destroyed, and their commander, Publius Quinctilius Varus, died at the climax of the fighting. Suetonius said that the army paid the price for its general's temeritas and neglegentia, and many other commentators, both ancient and modern, have condemned Varus as a general ever since. This paper re-evaluates Varus’ competence as a general by re-examining the extensive literary and archaeological evidence for the clades, with reference to comparative literary evidence that shows how Roman generals usually reacted in comparable situations. It will be argued that Varus’ aggressive march towards a rumoured rebellion with a large baggage train, his re-organisation of the baggage train, his change of course westwards, and even his fatal advance into the defile at Kalkriese, were logical decisions in the context of standard Roman military responses to crisis. It is shown that Varus was hamstrung by intelligence and logistical limitations that were not peculiar to him but were systemic to the Roman army at the time. Varus’ generalship is thus contextualised as relatively competent, although uninspired.

This article compares the use of certain literary, structural and historical features by Polybius, Livy and Silius Italicus in their representations of the battle of Zama in 202 BC between the Romans and Carthaginians. It is argued that through their application of these features they present the battle as an iconic event and position it as a grand finale to the Second Punic War. The comparisons highlight some of the literary constructs in Polybius’ Histories and illustrate how some later authors adapt and possibly respond to Polybius’ presentation.

Similarities in presentation to emphasise the importance of the battle do not necessarily mean that the authors convey the same message over the long term effects of its outcome. For example, where Polybius’ special treatment of the battle of Zama, Hannibal and Scipio reflects his belief in the pivotal role the Roman victory played in changing the balance of power across the ancient Mediterranean world (15.9.2, 10.2), Silius Italicus’ special treatment may also be read as presenting the outcome of the battle in terms of causing a shift in power balance, in this case within the city of Rome, and leading to the development of the principate and the one-man rule of imperial Rome (17.653-4, 3.261-4).

The Corinthian piece belongs to the early series of pegasi with incuse pattern reverse. Due to the flattening of the under-type, a confident identification with one of the obverses illustrated by Ravel is impossible.

It has been claimed that there are no examples of overstriking of the earliest wide-flan staters of Magna Graecia on pegasi. This contention is now invalidated as far as Kroton is concerned.

Sallust had something to say about Cicero. It could not be otherwise in the circumstances: the conspiracy of Catiline was the chosen subject of his first historical essay, and he agreed with Cicero that it was a crime unparalleled to that date. Cicero's activities in suppressing it would be central to the narrative, and his character relevant to anything in it covered by the term ‘human interest’. Even minimisation of Cicero would require preparation in the text for the natural questions of Sallust's readers. As he wrote, Cicero was either engaged in a political duel with Mark Antony or had recently succumbed. Was the orator a troublemaker or a hero? He would be the same man in 44-3 as he was in 63 unless the historian enforced a contrast; which he does not.

Plutarch reports that when Sulla was giving himself airs after his successful service under Marius in the Jugurthine war (107-105 B.C.), one of the nobility reproached him with regard to his improved circumstances. (It is my guess Sulla had asserted that his achievements in Numidia heralded a return of his family's interrupted renown — with all the social, moral and financial assumptions this implied.) The riposte was, according to Plutarch: (Sulla 1.4), which Plutarch took to mean (i) that Sulla's patrimony had been negligible (having already stated categorically that Sulla was reared in unenviable domestic circumstances — intelligence he seems to have gathered from this item and one other [discussed below] which he proceeds to relate as evidence) and (ii) that his wealth had been gained subsequently (and, it goes without saying, from other quarters). Plainly the antagonistic observation implied that Sulla's fortune was outside the bounds of what was proper. Sulla was demeaned. The biographer comments for his readers' information that ‘… though the age of pure and upright manners had passed and people had degenerated and given way to their appetites for luxury and extravagance, yet [the Romans of that period] still thought that to forsake one's hereditary poverty was just as disgraceful as to squander a fortune that one had inherited‘ (ibid).

In part I of a recent article entitled ‘Entertainment in the Prytaneion at Athens’ Michael Osborne deals with the rationale of invitations extended by the Athenians by decree, whether for a single occasion (δεῖπνον, ξἐνια) or as a permanent award (σίτησις). The present paper is concerned only with the former, and will address itself in particular to two interrelated matters: I. the eligibility of benefactors (as opposed to envoys) to receive invitations; and II. the differentiation between citizens and foreigners as regards the type of entertainment provided.

The primary purpose of this essay is to illustrate from Greek the tendency for rare phonetic features of a language to become still rarer or completely lost. In the main the period studied will be that from Homer to classical Attic and Ionic, and the features studied will be initial consonant groups. This will lead sometimes to the consideration of the circumstances in which words with such features that have become rare are used in classical literature.

Some attempt is made also to account for the rarity of some phonetic features and for the presence in Greek of combinations rare in it and related languages, from some point of view abnormal to their patterning. The raw material and occasionally the interpretation of it is taken from standard works.