bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Plutarch'sde Fortuna Romanorum
Authors: Swain S. C. R.
Published: February 2009

Plutarch's essayde fortuna Romanorumhas attracted divergent judgements. Ziegler dismissed it as ‘eine nicht weiter ernst zu nehmende rhetorische Stilübung’. By Flacelière it was hailed as ‘une ébauche de méditation sur le prodigieux destin de Rome’. It is time to consider the work afresh and to discover whether there is common ground between these two views. Rather than offering a general appreciation, my treatment will take the work chapter by chapter, considering points of interest as they arise. This method will enable us to compare what Plutarch says on particular subjects and themes inde fort. Rom.with what he says or does not say about them elsewhere. We shall thus be able to see clearly that for the most part the ideas he presents in the essay correspond with his thoughts about the rôle of fortune expressed in more serious writing, and that, where there is no correspondence, this is attributable to the rhetorical background. I do not intend to address directly the frequently discussed but insoluble question of whether we have inde fort. Rom.only one of two original works, that is whether there was once ade virtute Romanorumwhich Plutarch composed or answered.De fort. Rom.itself in fact gives almost as much prominence to άρετή as to τúχη, and their competing roles will be carefully evaluated. Nor do I look at the dating of the work (an early date has been suggested on grounds of genre, a later one on grounds of the essay's familiarity with Rome, but there is not enough evidence for a firm conclusion).
Aristophanes, Clouds 1158–62: A Prosopographical Note
Authors: Storey Ian C.
Published: February 2009

In his article on the early career of Aristophanes, in particular on the relevance of the thiasotai on IG ii2.2343 and the importance of Herakles in the plays of Aristophanes, David Welsh has supported the thesis of Dow, that several of the thiasotai are mentioned by Aristophanes in his plays (e.g. Simon, Amphitheus, Antitheos). He suggests that another of these thiasotai, Lysanias, may be alluded to at Clouds 1162. Here the unusual word λυσαν⋯ας in the text means ostensibly ‘deliverer’, but Welsh argues that in view of the rarity of the word ‘the spectators would have been put in mind of a contemporary individual…a Lysanias who was known for his filial piety or forensic ability (or lack of the same).’
A Note on [Lysias] 6, Against Andokides
Authors: Furley W. D.
Published: February 2009

There is a problem in §23 of Against Andokides, the sixth speech of the Corpus Lysiacum. The passage in question runs: ⋯κ δ᾽ οὖν το⋯του το⋯ τιμ⋯ματος ⋯δ⋯δετο ⋯γγὺς ⋯νιαυτ⋯ν … ‘And as a result of the proposed penalty he was imprisoned for nearly a year …’. The speaker's context is as follows: he is castigating Andokides in connection with his trial in 400/399 for impiety and describing his lawless life since his (alleged) part in the great scandals of 415, the mutilation of the Herms and the profanation of the Mysteries. The problem in the text concerns the words ⋯νιαυτ⋯ν ‘for nearly a year’, as the statement contradicts what we learn about Andokides' imprisonment in 415 from his own defence speech (On the Mysteries) and above all from Thucydides.
The New Gallus and the Alternae Voces of Propertius 1.10.10
Authors: O'hara James J.
Published: February 2009

In CQ 34 (1984), 167–74, Janet Fairweather makes the interesting suggestion that the elegiacs by Gallus on the Qasr Ibrim papyrus should be understood as ‘a fragment of an amoebaean song-contest’. This hypothesis, as she notes, might explain why the papyrus' quatrains are set apart by spaces and by an odd type of symbol, and treat ‘separate, indeed discrepant, topics’, yet show ‘unmistakable verbal and thematic connections’. Fairweather's discussion is thorough, but overlooks one small piece of evidence for Gallan amoebaean verse.
Manilius 1.88
Authors: Knox Peter E.
Published: February 2009

Manilius begins his first book with a brief summary of the early history of astronomy, leading to a sketch of the rise of civilization. In the following passage, printed as it is found in one of the principal manuscripts M, he describes the invention of language, agriculture and navigation:

1.85 tune et lingua suas accepit barbara leges,

et fera diuersis exercita frugibus arua,

et uagus in caecum penetrauit nauita pontum,

fecit et ignotis inter commercia terris.
Procopius, Justinian and the Kataskopoi
Authors: Lee A. D.
Published: February 2009

Among the accusations Procopius brings against Justinian in the Secret History is the following:

The matter of the kataskopoi is as follows. From ancient times many men were maintained at public expense. They would enter enemy territory and gain access to the palace of the Persians, either under the guise of trading or by some other ploy. After investigating everything thoroughly, they would return to Roman territory and be able to report all the secrets of the enemy to the government officials. Forewarned, they were on their guard and nothing unforeseen would take them by surprise.
Doublets in the Odyssey
Authors: O'Nolan K.
Published: February 2009

The purpose of this article is to examine a neglected formulaic element in Homer, which we may call the doublet, and to establish its nature and function by comparison with—mainly—Irish narrative literature. By doublet is meant a combination of two terms which are to all intents synonymous. Without attempting to give a new definition of formula it may be useful to say that both the doublet and the noun-epithet formula—and perhaps only these two—are formulae of the style of heroic narrative.
A Note on ‘Pursuit’ in Arrian
Authors: Hammond N. G. L.
Published: February 2009

Arrian was better qualified to understand the nature and significance of ‘the pursuit’ in Macedonian warfare than any modern scholar. He had himself fought and commanded in a very similar kind of warfare, and he was keenly interested in the study of military tactics. He was also better informed about the pursuits which Alexander had conducted, because he was able to use the accounts of Alexander's contemporaries, Ptolemy and Aristobulus. Anyone today who wishes to question the veracity of Arrian's reports of these pursuits cannot do so of his own experience. He should therefore turn to comparable pursuits of recent times which have been reported accurately beyond any shadow of doubt.
The Neoteric Poets
Authors: Lyne R. O. A. M.
Published: February 2009

In 50 B.C. Cicero writes to Atticus as follows (Att. 7.2.1): ‘Brundisium uenimus VII Kalend. Decembr. usi tua felicitate nauigandi; ita belle nobisflauit ab Epiro lenissimus Onchesmites. huncsi cui bolespro tuo uendito.’ The antonomasia, the euphonic sibilance, and the mannered rhythm (the five-word line with fourth foot homodyne; the spondaic fifth foot) are all prominent in Cicero's hexameter. The line is a humorously concocted example of affected and Grecizing narrative. But it is also a line which, Atticus is to suppose,would value; presumably therefore it is meant to hit off characteristics of their style. Cicero must in fact beparodyingwhat he regards as atypical‘neoteric’ line, and the significance of this simple fact has perhaps been underestimated.
The Textual Tradition of Calpurnius and Nemesianus
Authors: Reeve M. D.
Published: February 2009

Recent months have brought forth a new edition of Nemesianus and a 294-page study of the textual tradition that he shares with Calpurnius. The edition, prepared by P. Volpilhac for Budé (Paris, 1975), offers nothing new on the tradition beyond reports of a few manuscripts known to previous editors; but Luigi Castagna's book I bucolici latini minori: una ricerca di critica testuale (Florence, 1976) makes an earnest attempt at solving once and for all the problems that survived the last contribution of any weight, Giarratano's edition (Naples, 1910). Though most of what Castagna says is true, however, his readers may be cushioned against the sharper points by an undue amount of padding, which also fails to hide gaps. Before he proceeds to his own edition of Nemesianus, therefore, a few things can usefully be said.
Propertius 4.7.26
Authors: Muecke Frances
Published: February 2009

Of all the explanations of this line the most sensible seems to be that first proposed by Beroaldus: ‘Conqueritur Cynthia sibi defunctae tegulam fractam mutilatamque sub capite fuisse suppositam, quum debuerit amator puluinos molles delicatosque subiicere.’ That Cynthia is talking about the performance of funeral rites is confirmed by Shackleton Bailey's discussion of 1.25 (CQ 63 (1949), 28 f.). In default of ancient parallels, I offer a modern one. In the last wishes of the Princess Teresa Uzeda in the novel I viceré by Federico De Roberto, first published in 1894, is included the provision:
δOYλOσ OY BAσIσλEωδ The Politics of Translation
Authors: Missiou Anna
Published: February 2009

Students of the relations between Greeks and Persians in classical antiquity usually depend entirely on Greek authors, as there are no extensive narrative texts among the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, our extant Oriental sources for the history of the Persian empire. Hence modern scholars have raised the question of the reliability of the Greek sources and emphasized the need to reveal the ideology and presuppositions of the Greek writers. For, if language embodies social reality, the assimilation of information is conditioned by the character of the mind, individual or collective, which comprehends the data within its own terms of reference, fits them into its own set of concepts and records them in that form. Thus, it has been argued that ‘the impression we get of the Persians in the Greek authors is in some ways a deceptive one. Too much emphasis is laid on what is pejorative’, that the labelling of Persia ‘as an Oriental Monarchy: a state and society ruled less by rational actions than by the writing and caprices of its king and court… is to be traced back directly to the Greek sources on Persian history’; and that the ‘discourse of barbarism’ which projected upon the Persians ‘the opposite of qualities admired’ in the Athenian society, ‘is ultimately to be referred to the ideology binding together democratic Athens and her empire’.
Perdiccas and the Kings
Authors: Bosworth A. B.
Published: February 2009

New evidence often complicates as much as it clarifies. That truth is well illustrated by Stephen Tracy's recent and brilliant discovery that a tiny unpublished fragment of an Attic inscription belongs to a known decree (IG ii. 402). The decree has hitherto been recognised as an enactment of the oligarchy imposed by Antipater in 322. Its proposer, Archedicus of Lamptrae, was a leading member of the new regime and held the most influential office of state, that of anagrapheus, in 320/19.2 Appropriately enough the decree confers honours upon members of the Macedonian court, but as the stone now reveals, it is phrased in a remarkable and anomalous manner: ‘in order that as many as possible of the friends of the king and of Antipater may be honoured by the Athenian people and confer benefactions upon the city’. There is no question about the meaning. The decree refers to friends of an unknown king, who are also friends of Antipater. But after Alexander's death there was a dual kingship. Philip III Arrhidaeus and Alexander IV reigned jointly and are generally termed ‘the kings’. How can the singular singular be explained?
Lost Voices: Vergil,Aeneid12.718–19
Authors: Wheeler Stephen M.
Published: February 2009

Here, in the middle of the well-known simile that depicts Aeneas and Turnus as bulls fighting for territory and a herd (12.715–22), Vergil registers the reactions of the onlookers. Commentators and lexicographers disagree about what the heifers are doing, interpreting ‘mussant’ in different ways. Servius (followed by Conington–Nettleship) glosses the verb as ‘dubitant’. By contrast, Heyne offers the paraphrase ‘anxii expectant’, responding to the theme of fear in the two preceding cola: cf. ‘pavidi’ and ‘metu’. Forbiger's explanatory ‘tacite expectant’ stresses rather the note of silence introduced by ‘stat pecus omne metu mutum’. Lewis and Short (s.v., II) and Georges (s.v., 112) concur with Forbiger when they translate ‘mussant’ ‘expect in silence’ and ‘stumm harren’. Other authorities, however, underscore the verb's onomatopoeic sense. Julius Caesar Scaliger, for example, observes of Vergil's usage: ‘sane verbum factitium, neque absonum a bourn voce’. Accordingly, some older commentators interpret ‘mussant’ as a restrained form of ‘mugiunt’. More recently, theOLD(s.v., 3a) andTLL(s.v., II2b [8.2.1709.26–32]) citeAen.12.718 under the definitions ‘mutter in indecision’ and ‘mussantem (i.e. murmurantem) dubitare’. Although there is general agreement that ‘mussant’ (followed by indirect deliberative questions) connotes uncertainty, there still remains the problem of whether it indicates silence, faint lowing, or muttering. The purpose of this note is to call attention to an unrecognized etymological wordplay in line 718 (‘stat pecus omne metumutum, mussantqueiuvencae’) which helps explain what the heifers are doing and why there are varying interpretations of ‘mussant’.
Dionysiac Tragedy in Plutarch,Crassus
Authors: Braund David
Published: February 2009

It has recently and rightly been observed that Plutarch is exceptional as a prose author in the finesse with which he employs tragedy in his Lives. And, one might add, in the extent to which he does so. His dislike for the sensationalism of ‘tragic history’ was no obstacle to his use of ‘the sustained tragic patterning and imagery which is a perfectly respectable feature of both biography and history’. The primary purpose of the present discussion is to draw attention to the profound importance of tragedy, particularly of Euripides'Bacchae, to the Carrhae narrative in Plutarch'sCrassus. It is argued that details inCrassus'; version of Carrhae recall the tragedy of Pentheus and, in so doing, substantially advance the portrayal of Crassus' character.
The Harmonious Pulse
Authors: Holford-Strevens Leofranc
Published: February 2009

Gell.NA3.10.13 citing Varro'sHebdomades uel de imaginibus, reports:

Venas etiam in hominibus, uel potius arterias, medicos musicos dicere ait numero moueri septenario, quod ipsi appellant τν δι τεσσρων συμφωναν, quae fit in collatione quaternarii 〈et ternarii〉 numeri.

He also states that doctors who make use of music theory declare that the veins, or rather arteries, in human beings move in accordance with the number seven; they call this motion ‘the consonance of the fourth’, which is produced by the proportional relation of the numbers four and three.
La Femme Retrouvée?
Authors: Mayer Roland
Published: February 2009

In C.Q. 42 (1992) 551–2 E. J. Kenney impugned the appropriateness of femina in 28 on the grounds that it sabotages the poet's disclaimer to be treating not of women generally, but only of women not ruled out of bounds by the stola and uittae. Hesitantly he proposed to read in its place non or nee proba. It should be borne in mind that when a word has intruded itself from a nearby line and expelled the authentic reading, the ductus litterarum is no guide to emendation. The door stands open to bold measures. I propose to read Thais. The name of the famous courtesan well serves as the type with which Ovid proposes to deal. But what advantage has she over, say, Lais or even Phryne, whose names would fit here as well as hers? The answer comes from Remedia Amoris 385–6 Thais in arte mea est: lasciuia libera nostra est; nil mihi cum uitta; Thais in arte mea est.
Octavian and Orestes in Pausanias
Authors: Cecioni Natale
Published: February 2009

M. J. Dewar argues that in Georg. 1.511–4 Virgil may have been drawing a disquieting parallel between Orestes, evoked through an imitation of Aeschylus (‘Choeph.’ 1021–5), and Octavian, present a few lines above (498ff.).

Pausanias probably supports this suggestion; he shows that the link Octavian-Orestes existed quite early and in a sense favourable to Octavian, even though it may soon have been used in a negative sense by anti-Caesarian propaganda on account of the dark side of the myth. In front of the temple of Hera in Argos there was still visible in the second century a statue representing Orestes, but identified by the inscription as Augustus. Certainly this parallel Augustus-Orestes was not proposed-and preserved - with polemical purpose in a famous sanctuary and in the Augustan age. Given the resemblance between history and myth and the moral weight of the famous myth itself, it is unlikely that we have to do with the mere re-use of any old statue.
Single Combat in the Roman Republic
Authors: Oakley S. P.
Published: February 2009

In his discussion of Roman military institutions Polybius described how the desire for fame might inspire Roman soldiers to heroic feats of bravery, including single combat: (6.54.3–4)τ⋯ δ⋯ μέγιστον, οἱ νέοι παρορμ⋯νται πρ⋯ς τ⋯ π⋯ν ὑπομένειν ὑπ⋯ρ τ⋯ν κοιν⋯ν πραγμάτων χάριν το⋯ τυχεῖν τ⋯ς συνακολουθούσης τοῖς ⋯γαθοῖς τ⋯ν ⋯νδρ⋯ν εὐκλείας. πίστιν δ' ἔχει τ⋯ λεγόμενον ⋯κ τούτων. πολλο⋯ μ⋯ν γ⋯ρ ⋯μονο-μάχησαν ⋯κουσίως Ῥωμαίων ὑπ⋯ρ τ⋯ς τ⋯ν ὅλων κρίσεως κτλ. Modern scholars, however, have taken little notice of this remark and some have tried to belittle the importance of single combat at Rome. Thus G. Dumézil alleged that the Romans fought few single combats and that this was significant for their outlook upon war, while R. Bloch described the duels in the seventh book of Livy as ‘un mode de combat absolument étranger à la tradition romaine, mail auquel les Romains ont été contraints par les habitudes et par les défis des Celtes’. W. V. Harris is the only scholar to have understood the importance of monomachy in the Roman Republic, but even he has not assembled all the evidence necessary for an accurate assessment of the phenomenon. This essay is intended to provide a full treatment and thus to make some contribution in a limited but interesting area to our understanding of Roman attitudes to warfare. I have included a list and discussion of all instances of single combat from the Roman Republic which I have discovered and have argued that the custom continued from prehistoric times at least to 45 b.c.
The Cook Scene of Plautus' Pseudolus
Authors: Lowe J. C. B.
Published: February 2009

H. Dohm has amply demonstrated how the cook of Plautus, Pseud. 790ff. exhibits characteristic features of the mageiros of Greek comedy. He has also argued, however, that this scene contains substantial Plautine expansion, comparable with that which has been recognised in the cook scene of the Aulularia. I wish to suggest that Dohm is largely right but that the Plautine expansion is even more extensive than he supposes.

In 790–838 Plautus is probably for the most part following his Greek model fairly closely. One can trace a logical sequence of ideas, as follows. Ballio: ‘I couldn't have found a worse cook’ (792–7). Cook: ‘Why did you hire me then?’ (798–9a). Ballio: ‘You were the only one left. And why was that?’ (799b–801a). Cook: ‘I am expensive, but nowadays people look for cheap cooks, who produce only concoctions of seasoned vegetables. That is why men are so short-lived’ (801b–25). Ballio: ‘You can make men live longer then?’ (826–8a). Cook: ‘Certainly, for 200 years’ (828b–30). The cook then proceeds to give a list of his fantastic sauces for fish and meat (834f. Neptuni/terrestris pecudes), until he is cut short by Ballio's ‘Damn your lies’ (836–8). We have here a typical comic mageiros: he is loquacious and boastful (794 multiloquom, gloriosum), claims magic powers (829f.), denigrates his rivals (810–25), reels off lists of foods, real and fictitious (814–17, 831–6), and uses grandiose language (834f. Neptuni pecudes).

Within this essentially Greek section there are three short passages which look like Plautine additions. First, Dohm is surely right, following E. Fraenkel, to see 790f. as a Plautine addition.
Eurykleia and Odysseus' Scar:Odyssey19.393–466
Authors: De Jong Irene J. F.
Published: February 2009

In this article I shall argue for an interpretation ofOdyssey19.393–466 as a flash-back taking place in the mind of Eurykleia at the moment she recognises Odysseus' scar. That Eurykleia somehow forms the connection between main story and digression has been suggested before, but so far other interpretations have been defended with more fervour.

Most famous of these interpretations is the one given by E. Auerbach in the first chapter of hisMimesis. He had chosen 19.393–466 to illustrate his thesis that in Homer everything is ‘fully externalized’ and that there is no background, only a ‘uniformly illuminated’ foreground. According to Auerbach the digression on the scar stands in complete isolation to its context. It is meant to ‘relax the tension’, to make the hearer/reader ‘forget what had just taken place during the footwashing’, and although it might have been presented as a recollection of Odysseus (by inserting the story ‘two verses earlier, at the first mention of the word scar’), this ‘subjectivisticperspectivistic procedure, creating a foreground and background’ was not chosen, being ‘entirely foreign to the Homeric style’.

Some twenty years later this interpretation was challenged by A. Köhnken, who, however, stuck to the idea that the digression is not told from the restricted perspective of one of the characters but from the perspective of the omniscient narrator; he claims that foreground and background are marked as such through a difference in narrative style: ‘berichtende Erzählung’ for the digression itself and ‘szenische Darstellung’ for the context. I disagree with both points.
A Supposed Testimony to Bion of Borysthens
Authors: Kindstrand J. F.
Published: February 2009

In hisIndex Bioneus, containing all instances in which Bion of Borysthenes is mentioned or quoted in ancient literature, O. Hense also included a reference to Philodemus,Rhetorica2.55 Sudhaus, whereτ⋯ν Βορυσθενίτηνis mentioned, but gave no further treatment of this item. In my edition of the testimonies to and fragments of Bion I did not include this passage, not because the name Bion does not occur, but because I did not think that it really was a reference to Bion. As M. Gigante and G. Indelli have objected to this procedure and seem to be convinced that the passage really is a definite reference to Bion of Borysthenes, I think it deserves a somewhat closer interpretation. I start by giving the crucial text:

Τ[ί] γ⋯ρ μ⋯λλον αἰσχρ⋯ν

ἧν] σιωπ⋯ν, Ἱσοκράτην

δ' ⋯⋯ν λέγειν ἢ κατ⋯ πό-

λιν ζ[⋯ν], Μάνην δ⋯ [σ]κα-

π[αν]εύειν ⋯⋯ν, κ[⋯ν τ]⋯ι

γ⋯]ι διατρ[ί]βειν, ⋯π[ικ]υ-

μα]τί[ζ]εσθαι δ⋯ τ⋯ν [φο]ίνι-

κα κ]α⋯ τ⋯ν Βορυσθε[νείτη]ν,

κα⋯ ⋯σɸ]α[λέστ]ατα [μ]⋯ν ὅ[λον

τ⋯ν βίον] ἰδιω[τεύειν,

Θεμι]στο[κ]λέα δ[⋯ οτ]ρα-

τεύειν] ⋯⋯ν.

In this part of hisRhetoricaPhilodemus attacks the philosophical schools which pursue the study of rhetoric, and especially Aristotle. Philodemus takes as his starting point a well known parody of a line from Euripides,Philoctetes(fr. 796 Nauck), by which Aristotle is said to have justified his teaching of rhetoric:αἰσχρ⋯ν σιωπ⋯ν, Ἱσοκράτην δ' ⋯⋯ν λέγεινwhich was quoted already inRhetorica2.50 Sudhaus. Philodemus here sets out to prove that the attitude of Aristotle is wrong by ridiculing his view that it is shameful to abstain from a certain activity and leave it to someone else.
Xenophon'sDefence of Socrates: The Rhetorical Background to the Socratic Problem
Authors: Gray V. J.
Published: February 2009

The death of Socrates gave birth to an industry of biographical literature which often took the form of a defence (apologia) or prosecution (katēgoria), sometimes purporting to be the actual defence or prosecution conducted at his trial. Plato and Xenophon wrote works in his defence. Among his critics, one Polycrates had a certain notoriety. Lysias, Theodectes and Demetrius of Phalerum, orators and rhetoricians like Polycrates, were credited with further works of apology. There were doubtless many others. The aim of this paper is to show that Xenophon wrote hisDefencein the light of the rhetorical theory that required that a speaker utter words and thoughts appropriate πρεποντα to his character.
Causation And The Authority Of The Poet In Ovid's Fasti
Authors: Harries Byron
Published: February 2009

The two central themes of Fasti are twice (1.1, 4.11) linked in this way. The association, which at once gives the poem the appearance of having a literary ancestry in the aetiological tradition, might have seemed inevitable: any verse narrative account of a festival is very likely to contain an αἲтιоν of it. Callimachus' hymns illustrate this assertion, and there are clearly defined hymnic elements in Fasti to bear out the comparison, for example the listing of Venus' ⋯αεтαί and Πρáξεις at 4.91ff. and the instructions to the devotees of Pales at 4.731–48. 4 To state the obvious fact that the poem combines Roman antiquities with Alexandrian aetiology, a blending of which more straightforward examples are to be found in the fourth book of Propertius, is only a prelude to establishing what Ovid really achieves in Fasti. Traditional elements are, as I hope to show, cunningly exploited to create ‘counter–effects’ and to subject the material to the constantly varying and wide–ranging influences of the poet's literary background. Though the notion of causa is central to Fasti, the poem is much more than an amalgam of such influences as the aetiological prose works of Varro and (possibly) Verrius Flaccus with the aetiological poetics of Propertius 4.5 These sources combined to provide material for the foundation of the finished structure, which was to be the creative manipulation of these antiquarian and literary stimuli directed at providing a vehicle for the regular themes of the Ovidian persona.
Galen and the Best of All Possible Worlds
Authors: Hankinson R. J.
Published: February 2009

Voltaire's Pangloss, the man who held among other things that noses were clearly created in order to support spectacles, is the very archetype of the lunatic teleologist; a caricature of sublimely confident faith in the general and undeniable goodness of the world's arrangement, a faith that managed astoundingly to survive the Lisbon earthquake and his own subsequentauto dafé. Voltaire, of course, is poking fun at such conceptions; and, no doubt, in their extreme sanguinity as well as in their apparent imperviousness to devastating empirical counter-evidence, they do seem to be eminently risible notions. In the face of them we might be tempted to abandon ‘métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie’, and to agree with Candide that ‘Cela est bien dit, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin’.
Taplin on Cocks
Authors: Fowler Don
Published: February 2009

In PCPhS 213 (NS 33, 1987), 92–104 at 93–6, Oliver Taplin suggests that the Getty vase published by J. R. Green in 1985 represents not Aristophanes' Birds but the first version of Clouds. The purpose of this note is to offer some support for this, while perhaps raising further problems.
Polybius 16.3.8.: Anaσteipoσ
Authors: Casson Lionel
Published: February 2009

In his account of the great naval battle in 201 B.C. off Chios between the fleet of Philip II and the combined fleets of Pergamum and Rhodes, Polybius notes a curious exchange of ram blows that took place at one point:

Δεινοκρ⋯της μ⋯ν πρ⋯ς ⋯κτ⋯ρη συμπεσὼν αὐτ⋯ς μ⋯ν ἒζαλον ἒλαβε τ⋯ν, πληγ⋯ν, ⋯ναστε⋯ρου τ⋯σ νεὼσ οὔσησ, δ⋯ τ⋯ν πολεμ⋯ων τρώσας να⋯ν ὑπ⋯ τ⋯ *β⋯αϰα τ⋯ μ⋯ν πρ⋯τον οὐκ ⋯δ⋯νατο ϰωρισθ⋯ναι, κα⋯περ πολλ⋯κς ⋯πιβαλ⋯μενος πρ⋯μναν κρο⋯ειν κτλ.

Dinocrates, who was one of the commanders on the Pergamene side, attacked a Macedonian οκtêrês and, it would appear, struck it with his ram below the waterline; τ⋯β⋯αϰα is unattested elsewhere and its precise meaning is obscure, but the phase ὑπ⋯ τ⋯β⋯αϰα in this context clearly refers to a part of the oktêrêŝ hull that was immersed in water. In the process his own ship was hit; the blow that it took landed above the waterline because the oktêrês that delivered it was a ‘vessel that was anasteiros’ a word also unattested elsewhere. For well over a century there has been universal agreement that it means ‘with a high prow’.
Pastoralem Praefixa Cuspide Myrtum (Aeneid 7.817)
Authors: Tarleton N.
Published: February 2009

At the end of the catalogue of Italian troops comes Camilla, the warrior-maid, leading her columns of Volscian cavalry. In a passage reminiscent of ll. 20.226ff. (the powers of the horses of Erichthonios) Vergil illustrates her seemingly superhuman speed and lightness of foot, before passing on to the impression she made upon the watching population who have swarmed out of their homes and fields to mark the finery of her appearance and equipment:

illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa iuventus

turbaque miratur matrum et prospectat euntem,

attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro

velet honos levis umeros, ut fibula crinem

auro internectat, Lyciam ut gerat ipsa pharetram

et pastoralem praefixa cuspide myrtum.
Notes on Aristophanes' Knights
Authors: Sommerstein A. H.
Published: February 2009

(1) I do not think it is possible to show beyond reasonable doubt that the two slaves who open the play either must have been, or cannot have been, visually identifiable by portrait-masks or otherwise as Demosthenes and Nikias. I wish however to point out a piece of evidence that appears to have gone unnoticed.
The Construction of Terence'sHeautontimorumenos
Authors: Brothers A. J.
Published: February 2009

In the twentieth century the question of the relationship of Terence'sHeautontimorumenosto its Greek original has been largely neglected or else dismissed on the grounds that it presents no major problem. It is true that, because of the new light which the discovery of the Cairo codex of Menander shed on the nature and role of the chorus in Greek new comedy, there was a flurry of activity concerning the difficult passage 167 ff.; but the far more fundamental problem ofcontaminatioin general and of the meaning and interpretation of lines 4 to 6 of the play's prologue has attracted comparatively little attention. H. Marti produced a two-part survey of work done on Terence in the years 1909 to 1959; in it he says that in the period under review the question ofcontaminatio in Heauton–in the sense of the fusion of two originals –has been totally abandoned, with the exception of one article by F. Skutsch in which he holds to his earlier views on the subject. Marti also refers to Kohler's earlier work on the same problem, and to the discussion to be found in Kuiper's more comprehensive work on Roman comedy, but that is all.
Some Passages in Virgil's Eclogues
Authors: Hudson-Williams A.
Published: February 2009

The expression transuersa tuentibus hircis has been liable to misunderstanding. Conington, Sidgwick, and Page offer no comment; Perret is puzzled; Coleman explains ‘either literally “peeping out of the corner of their eyes” or figuratively “looking askance”; cf. Greek This was too much even for the lusty goats …’; others, e.g. Holtorf, detect humour in the words. A more realistic view was taken by some earlier editors (cf. Forbiger), who saw in the sidelong looks of the goats a sign of envy and desire;
Vergil, Aeneid 2. 250–2
Authors: Mack Sara
Published: February 2009

These lines from the second book of the Aeneid introduce the night on which Troy falls. They have always been felt to be impressive: rich in allusion, noteworthy for the monosyllabic ending of the first line, and memorable for the majestic zeugma of the last two lines. Line 250 opens by incorporating a half line from Ennius:

vertitur interea caelum cum ingentibus signis (Ann. 211)

and closes with a near-translation of the substance (as well as the rhythm) of a half-line from Homer:
Notes on the Text of Ovid's Remedia Amoris
Authors: Henderson A. A. R.
Published: February 2009

Part I examines various readings about which there persists editorial or other disagreement, Part II argues that six couplets are not from Ovid's hand. The lemmata give the reading of the Oxford Classical Text (Kenney, 1961/5), followed by the rejected variants and any conjectures. ‘Goold’ = G. P. Goold, ‘Amatoria Critica’, HSCP 69 (1965), 1–107. ‘Geisler’ = H. J. Geisler, P. Ovidius Naso Rentedia Amoris mit Kommentar zu Vers 1–396 (Inaugural Dissertation, Berlin, 1969). Normally only the principal manuscripts are cited individually.
Poseidon Hippios in Bacchylides 17
Authors: Janko R.
Published: February 2009

It used to be a commonplace that Bacchylides made profligate use of epithets to adorn his poetry, and not always in an appropriate fashion. More recently, there has been a healthy reaction against this attitude, with attempts to seek more subtle relationships between epithets and the contexts in which they occur. Recent study of poem 17 has concentrated on the conflict of character between Theseus and Minos, and the structure of the Ode, but the epithets have received some attention.
Simulator Simius
Authors: Anderson Graham
Published: February 2009

Claudian compares Eutropius in his consular robes to a monkey, dressed in silk to amuse dinner guests, but with his buttocks bare (Eutr. 1.300–8). The situation has not failed to attract the notice of scholars. Christiansen and Fargues called attention to the striking and original use of the monkey-simile (though the latter notes that the monkey itself is a banal subject for similes, and compares Juvenal 10.194). Alan Cameron has suggested that the present example is drawn from life: ‘Who can doubt that this was a typical dinner divertissement in the elegant circles of Claudian's day-or at least one Claudian himself had witnessed?’ He cites E. R. Curtius's assertion that metaphorical apes are uncommon in ancient literature (as opposed to medieval); that may be relatively true, but when Demosthenes is entitled to address his opponent as similar licence in subsequent invective is unlimited.
Herodotus and Histiæus
Authors: Blamire A.
Published: February 2009

‘He who tries to play a double part, and fails in the attempt, as Histiaeus did, is not likely to occupy an honourable place in history. He seems to have been of great and selfish ambition, without the capacity to form a judgement as to the means requisite to carry it out, and without any scruple as to the means he did adopt.’ Grundy's judgement has proved widely influential among modern scholars. It has been seriously questioned only by Heinlein, who, in making Histiaeus the loyal confidant of Darius, offered a radically different interpretation of his political career. But the wild and undisciplined nature of many of Heinlein's conjectures prevented his hypothesis from winning acceptance. In this paper I venture to suggest that the accepted view of Histiaeus as a private adventurer might be false, and that a revaluation of his career along the lines proposed by Heinlein might be profitable.
The sea of love
Authors: Murgatroyd P.
Published: February 2009

The sea of love (a convenient heading under which to group the various marine and nautical metaphors, similes, parallels, allusions, and analogies applied to love and sex) was one of the more important amatory figures. It featured in both Greek and Latin from earliest until latest times, was employed in several genres of verse (dominating whole poems on occasion), appearing in prose as well, and reached an advanced stage of development in the hands of the Alexandrians and particularly the Augustans. The purpose of this article is to provide the first comprehensive and detailed study of the sea of love from the archaic period until late antiquity.
Notes on air: four questions of meaning in Empedocles and Anaxagoras
Authors: Kingsley Peter
Published: February 2009

In fragment 38 Diels–Kranz, Empedocles turns to describe the creation of ‘everything that we now see’:

γαî τε κα πντος πςλυκμων ἠδ' ὐγρς ρ

ιτν ἠδ' αἰθρ σΦγγων περ κκλον ἂπαντα.

Here, as so often with Empedocles, the influence of Zeller and Diels has proved decisive in determining later interpretations of the text. They understood the words ιτν ἠδ' αἰθρ as meaning ‘and Titanaither’; ‘; the text has been mistranslated ever since. In fact the conjunction ἠδ is never postponed. This means that—as scholars earlier in the nineteenth century well understood—‘Titan” must be an item on its own, distinct from theaither:

earth and wavy sea and moistaer,

Titan andaitherbinding everything in its circular grip.
Thrasymachus and the thumos: a further case of prolepsis in Republic I
Authors: Wilson J. R. S.
Published: February 2009

In a recent article, C. H. Kahn addresses an ‘old scholarly myth’, namely the idea that Book I of the Republic began life as an earlier, independent dialogue and was subsequently adapted to serve as a prelude to the much longer work that we know. The case for this hypothesis rests both on stylometric considerations and on the many ‘Socratic’ features that Book I, unlike the rest of the Republic, shares with Plato's earlier works. Having disposed of the positive arguments in favour of the ‘myth’, Kahn turns to the contrary—and in his view overwhelming—evidence that Book I was composed from the start as an integral part of the longer Republic. He catalogues 12 passages in Book I, accounting for roughly half its length, whose full significance will, he argues, only emerge if they are seen as instances of prolepsis, deliberate anticipations of what is to come in later books.
Polus, Plato, and Aristotle
Authors: Renehan R.
Published: February 2009

In the famous opening chapter of the Metaphysics Aristotle, in his analysis of σοϕία, introduces the important concept μπειρία, ‘experience’. In the course of the discussion he cites the sophist Polus, 981a 1–5:

κα δοκεῖ σχεδν πιστήμῃ κα τέχνῃ μοιον εἶναι μπειρία, ποβαίνει δ’ πιστήμη κα τέχνη δι τς μπειρίας τοῖς νθρώποις μν γρ μπειρία τέχνην ποίησεν, ς ϕησι Πλος, ρθς λέγων, δ’ πειρία τύχην.
Quintus Fabius Maximus and the Dyme affair (Syll3684)
Authors: Kallet-Marx Robert M.
Published: February 2009

The most striking example of Roman intervention in the affairs of mainland Greece between the Achaean and Mithridatic Wars is provided by an inscription now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This stone bears the text of a letter to the city of Dyme in Achaea from a Roman proconsul named Q. Fabius Maximus, which describes his trial and sentencing of certain men of Dyme whom he had judged responsible for a recent disturbance in that city. One crux to be resolved is chronological: A date of c. 115 b.c. has long been generally accepted, but recently evidence from another, still unpublished inscription has been thought to point to the year 144. Further, the letter of Fabius Maximus has long been held to exemplify the close supervision that most scholars, regardless of their position on the vexed question of Greece's formal status after 146, assume was exercised over Greece by Roman commanders in Macedonia from the time of the Achaean War. The document has also often been cited to bolster the claim that Rome pursued in second-century Greece a conscious policy of suppressing democracy or the political aspirations of the lower class. This is not, of course, the place for reassessment of these old, complex controversies. My purpose here is rather to show that interpretation of the letter of Fabius Maximus has not always been sufficiently mindful of the many obscurities of the text and, consequently, of the events that lie behind it; too often the great lacunae in our knowledge have been filled with assumptions that beg the questions that are under debate.
Fabulae Praetextaein context: when were plays on contemporary subjects performed in Republican Rome?
Authors: Flower Harriet I.
Published: February 2009

Thefabula praetextais a category of Roman drama about which we are poorly informed. Ancienttestimoniaare scanty and widely scattered, while surviving fragments comprise fewer than fifty lines. Only five or six titles are firmly attested. Scholarly debate, however, has been extensive, and has especially focused on reconstructing the plots of the plays.1 The main approach has been to amplify extant fragments by fitting them into a plot taken from treatments of the same episode in later historical sources such as Livy, Dionysius, or Plutarch.2 This method was extended by Mommsen and others in their efforts to identify new titles and plots by isolating passages in the historians which seem written in a dramatic style, and could therefore be interpreted as derivations from historical plays.3 Such a line of approach is both risky and subjective. It is based on the desire to recover a lost genre, which modern scholars feel must or should have existed. It is tempting to imagine that the Romans would have encouraged a thriving national theatre on historical themes. Such a genre, it is argued, would have been influential in shaping the average Roman's view of past events and the treatment of famous episodes by later historians.4 The conclusions reached have virtually no basis in the ancient sources we actually have. The result is largely a fiction created by the scholarly imagination.
Ovid's use of Lucretius inMetamorphoses1.67–8
Authors: Wheeler Stephen M.
Published: February 2009

Here Ovid treats the demiurge's disposition of weightlessaetherover the other elements. This section of the cosmogony follows one that is devoted to the sphere ofaer(52–66) where the creator settles the turbulent winds and other threatening meteorological phenomena. Recently Denis Feeney has suggested that Ovid's demiurge ‘does not act in a very epic manner’ by placing weightlessaetheron top of the winds. He argues: ‘The oddness of the control is caught in a moment of comparison with Vergil's universe: Vergil's Jupiter controls the winds by putting on top of them a mass of mountains(Aen.1.61), while Ovid'smundi fabricatorplaces above them theaether, explicitly “liquid and lacking weight, containing nothing of earthly sediment” (liquidum et gravitate carentem/aethera nee quicquam terrenae faecis habentem, 1.67–8)’. Feeney's observation has much to recommend it. To begin with, Ovid's excursus on the cardinal winds (57–66) evokes Vergil's set piece on the cave of Aeolus inAeneid l. And the demiurge's subsequent placement ofaether (‘haec super inposuitliquidum et gravitate carentem / aethera’) seems to echo the action of the Vergilian Jupiter(‘hocmetuens molemque et montisinsuperaltos /imposuit,’ Aen.1.61–2). However, Feeney's conclusion that the demiurge's action is ‘redolent of anti-epic allegiances’ needs some adjustment.4 For his reading neglects an important verbal and structural allusion to the cosmogony of Lucretius (D.R.N.5.495–501). Accordingly, the conclusion to be drawn from lines 67–8 may be, not that Ovid momentarily reveals his Callimachean colours in an epic context, but that he plays Lucretius off against Vergil and so establishes his own position in the epic tradition of cosmological poetry.
A rediscovered text of Porphyry on mystic formulae
Authors: Callanan Christopher K.
Published: February 2009

Students of later Platonism know well the significant role Porphyry played in the development of what we now call Neoplatonism. His own biography of Plotinus makes clear that we probably owe the very existence of the majority of Plotinus' written works to Porphyry's nagging. Having cajoled the master into penning a large number of works during his latter years, Porphyry then edited and published them, giving them the title Enneads which they have since borne. We must, of course, take Porphyry's claims regarding the importance of his own influence with a grain of salt. Still, with the sole exception of Plato himself, no figure in the Platonic tradition had ever enjoyed Plotinus' good fortune in the transmission of his complete works, and none would again, for which we clearly have Porphyry to thank.
Doors and Perspective inChoe
Authors: Whallon William
Published: February 2009

There is evidently no skene in the early plays of Aeschylus and the locale changes easily. But in theOresteia(and afterwards) a skene fixes the locale, though only for what happens on the stage. InAg.it represents an outer wall. InChoe.it is not at first in the arena of action and so not in the path of vision, but it represents the wall by 584 when Electra enters the house, or at least by 653 when Orestes shouts to a doorkeeper. InEum.1–234 the skene represents (unless I am mistaken) an inner wall; the stage is an interior; and when Apollo enters from the far side at 179 (to our surprise), he seems to be coming from the adyton. The orchestra is still a locale unbounded as it was before. The tomb of Agamemnon inChoe.1–651 is thought an indefinite distance from the house, not merely a lion's leap away. A temple of Athene becomes the Pnyx atEum.566 and then the hill of Ares at 685.
Incest and ridicule in the Poenulus of Plautus
Authors: Franko George F.
Published: February 2009

Readers of Plautus’ Poenulus are struck by the generally ‘sympathetic’ portrayal of the title character Hanno, a portrayal somewhat surprising to us since the play was produced shortly after the Second Punic War.1 Contrary to what we might expect, Hanno the Carthaginian is neither villain nor scapegoat, and he even exhibits the Roman virtue of pietas.2 However, Hanno's portrayal is not wholly positive, for Plautus delineates his character principally by endowing him with the negative stereotypes of Punic physiognomy, dress, speech, and behaviour familiar to his Roman audience.3 Hanno's Punic ethnicity is not merely an incidental matter of fact, as it is with his relative Agorastocles, but an essential part of his characterization that serves to isolate him from all the other characters of the palliata. While some of Hanno's vices—deceit, licentiousness, and effeminacy—are not exclusive to Carthaginians and are shared by other Greek characters in the palliata, there is one vice peculiar to Hanno. In this paper I argue that Plautus ridicules Hanno through arecurrent insinuation of incest. The insinuation of incest has not, to my knowledge, been noted previously, but our text does imply it in three conspicuous places.
A new fragment of Posidonius?
Authors: Nutton Vivian
Published: February 2009

Galen's intellectual autobiography,On my own opinions, has challenged, and frustrated, potential editors for over a century. It is preserved in Greek excerpts, in a Latin translation made from the Arabic and with a spurious conclusion, and, for its last three chapters, in a passage of continuous Greek that circulated under the misleading title ofOn the substance of the natural faculties. Around 1340, the Italian translator Niccolo da Reggio made an extremely faithful Latin version from a Greek manuscript of the last two chapters. Although by itself no one source offers a complete text of the treatise, together they apparently cover it in its entirety. The Latino-arabic version, called variouslyDe sententiis, De sententiis medicorum, andDe credulitate Galeni, is the most extensive, but, as a comparison with the surviving Greek shows, it frequently departs considerably from the wording, and even general meaning, of the Greek. Indeed, without the availability of many parallel passages elsewhere in the Galenic corpus, much of this Latin translation would remain unintelligible.
Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture
Authors: Murray Oswyn
Published: February 2009

Our understanding of the world is not static; it can both expand and contract, and it can also stagnate. In history the expansion of the known universe has come about from various causes, from scientific advance, the slow processes of trade and exploration, from, colonization, and especially from conquest. Periods of expansion produce often a re-evaluation of the external world, both that which was already known and that which was previously unknown, or on the fringes of the known. But no one is wholly capable of a direct response toreality: reality as soon as it is experienced is perceived, organized: ‘Die Welt ist die Gesamtheit der Tatsachen nicht der Dinge’ (the world is the totality of facts, not of things).