Ajax is unmatched among the works of Sophocles in its barren, cruel atmosphere and its repulsive view of society. The dominant mood is hatred; sometimes it simply breaks out; but always it is there in language and action. Ajax’ curious emotional appeal to us was noted by earlier critics. ‘Odysseus is the wise man, Odysseus adopts the correct attitude, but it is to Ajax that the heart goes out.’ More recently, Kitto and Knox have modified the conception of an Ajax deserving of our pity. His suffering is largely self-inflicted, and is admirable solely because he labours so fiercely to purge his reputation of the damage caused by his wrongdoing. ‘Ajax had little Wisdom in the handling of his life, and his lack of Wisdom destroyed him, but nevertheless Ajax was magnificent.’ This view typifies the conventional opinion. Knox finds the essential issue to be the inadequacy of the old morality (τούς μέν φίλους εΰ ποιεϊν, τούς δ’ έχϑρούς κακῶς — to help your friends, harm your enemies). Its disadvantages are illustrated in Ajax’ blind retaliation at whatever cost. Knox builds a superb case from the scene where Ajax awakens to the fluctuation of human relationships in his famous soliloquy about the inroads of time (646 ff.). The instinctive resilience and self-control of Odysseus make him the triumphant figure. Indeed, the emergence of these qualities softens and harmonizes a discordant presentation of the hybris-ate motif. ‘The nature of man’s life in time, its instability, is recognized by all three parties, Ajax, Odysseus, the Atridae. The only code of conduct proper to such a vision of the human condition is that of Odysseus, a tolerant and tragic humility.’

In the history of Philip II’s conquest of Greece the part played by Boeotia must weigh heavily. Recently the view has been urged that in 346 B.C. Philip intended to bring Boeotia low by breaking the predominance of Thebes within the Boeotian federal state but was prevented from having his way by the successful scheming of his opponents in Athens, who persuaded their countrymen to frustrate Philip’s plans by withholding their co-operation, so that Philip was compelled to treat Thebes favourably. As a corollary to this view it is thought that Demosthenes, the foremost of Philip’s opponents at Athens, aspired from the time of the Peace of Philokrates on, if not earlier, after an alliance between Athens and Boeotia as the only realistic way of resisting Philip. At the same time Philip is believed to have preferred, if only he could have had his own way, to have Athens as some kind of partner and to make Thebes alone his enemy. Rebuttal of this view of Philip’s policy in 346 has been prompt and telling and no more may need to be said about it now that G.T. Griffith’s magisterial account of Macedonia has shown, amidst so much else, how Philip’s relations with Greek states are to be understood in the light of Philip’s own changing views of his interests.

Our level of tolerance of solar and lunar symbolism is now much lower than it was when devotees went questing in the fields of mythology in the nineteenth century. Should a scholar now appear automatically to equate an epiphany of Apollo with the rising of the sun, he will find it hard to carry conviction, and rightly so. At the other pole is the thesis of J.E. Fontenrose, recently accorded the accolade by G. Karl Galinsky as neither to be ‘ignored nor disputed’. He argues that, while Diana was clearly identified with the moon in Roman literature of the first century B.C. because of her association with Hecate in the triformis dea, Apollo was never equated with the sun until the Imperial period.

In the Ajax of Sophocles Ajax, deprived of his intended revenge over the Greek leaders who deprived him of the arms of Achilles, has resolved on suicide. Tecmessa has sought to dissuade him, appealing to the need to care for their baby son; Ajax has rejected her, saying that he is too old to be taught lessons. But suddenly all is apparently changed. He re-enters and talks of the changes brought by time and seasons; he himself has learnt his lesson, and will purify himself, bury his sword, and seek reconciliation with his enemies. The speech is a very vexed problem in the interpretation of the Ajax, especially since, when he next appears, Ajax seems to have forgotton all about it, and proceeds with his suicide without any reference to his previous change of mind, if such it was. But this is a complex problem, requiring full discussion elsewhere.

It is curious that, although a whole Life of Plutarch is devoted to Marcus Crassus, so little is known as to the facts and dates of his cursus honorum. His praetorship is a fact, but of uncertain date. Plutarch is often interpreted as associating it with his special command against Spartacus in 72; Appian can be read as placing it in 71. A virtual consensus of scholars follows Broughton in favouring 73. It is contended here that Crassus' destined year was 75, when he turned 40. That it was his actual year is supported by his nobility, ambition and talent: one of eight places should have been his. No province is attested or likely. But the limited availability of praetorian provinces in these years and Crassus' known interest in special commands make this unproblematic.

The early dating proposed makes sense of the absence of an aedileship. It creates, however, an expected consular year of 72. The blocking of this is associated with the discourse of rivalry between Crassus and Pompey: the very odd trial for incestum with a Vestal Virgin finds explanation in this context. The article aspires to shine a light on the post-civil war period in which Crassus, no less than Pompey, is both player and exemplar.

In an age when size really did matter, the length of the long pike (sarissa) employed by armies of the Hellenistic Age (c. 350-168 BC) was consistently altered by successive armies trying to gain an advantage over their opponents. These alterations are well attested in the ancient sources — albeit in an ancient Greek unit of measure. But how big were these pikes in terms of modern units of measure? This has been a topic of scholarly debate for some time. This article engages with these debates, and the evidence and theories that these arguments are based upon. A critical review of this evidence not only allows the changing length of the sarissa to be calculated in a modern unit of measure, but also examines descriptions in the ancient sources that suggest the forerunner to the Hellenistic pike phalanx was created a generation before the rise of Macedon as a military power in the mid fourth century BC. This, in turn, allows for the configuration of one of the weapons that changed the face of warfare in the ancient world to be much better understood.

It is widely assumed that the aoidoi, the original performers of Homeric poetry or its antecedents, sang a chant restricted to three or four notes, to the accompaniment of a 4-stringed instrument (Danek and Hagel 1995, Marshall 2002). The prestigious later performers from classical times, the rhapsodes, did not have the instrument, and the vocal characteristics of their performances are quite uncertain. In this paper I will discuss various aspects of a conjectured rhapsodic style, based on the reconstruction of the Ancient Greek pitch accent by Devine and Stephens (1994), together with some consideration of issues concerning the hexameter rhythm. For some initial orientation, it might be useful to listen to the short sample on the CD accompanying this issue; various features of the style will be discussed with reference to that.

It may well be that the much-debated question whether the HA is the work of one or more authors can be settled finally on linguistic grounds. Elsewhere I have produced some linguistic evidence which points to unity of authorship, and in this article I discuss some more evidence of the same kind which suggests the same conclusion.

Dessau drew attention to certain expressions which occur in all or most of the Scriptores and which he regarded as inconsistent with multiple authorship. His remarks are interesting but inconclusive, for most of the expressions could be cliches in use in literary varieties of Latin or borrowed by one Scriptor from another. Conflictum habere (= proelium committere), for example, which he had found nowhere else (op. cit. 387), occurs not only in Augustine (Civ. xix 4) and Hegesippus (i 30.7), but also in Vegetius’ Epitoma rei militaris (i 16). It may have been current in military Latin in the fourth century. To be decisive linguistic evidence must consist of unobtrusive mannerisms common to most of the Scriptores which were not general in literary Latin.

In a recent article Benjamin Meritt and Malcolm McGregor have sought to refute my criticisms of their text of the publication formula in the Athenian decree concerning relations with Mytilene.

In a recent note in Historia Léonie Hayne has written the following:

Partly on the basis of this she suggests that Cn. Servilius Caepio, cos. 141 and eventually censor in 125, may have suffered a repulse in the censorial elections of 131, having stood in tandem with Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus. Those elections, of course, produced the first all-plebeian censorial college.

Hayne, therefore, has used data on censors arranged in an extensive chronological framework in the middle of which stand the elections in question. My own attempts to present patterned data which may help to elucidate the phenomena of Roman politics have made me particularly aware of the necessity to arrange such data in compartments of defensible significance. So here I must object to the use of ‘after 218’ as a proper time reference for the evidence. The plebeian college of 131 would seem to present one significant point of division. This was in fact realized by Suolahti, who uses two periods, not one, namely 218-133 and 133-30, and who is much more cautious and much less specific about patricians. Yet, even so, one must be careful about assembling or describing the data in convenient periods. Perhaps this is especially so with the censorship, a position only filled once every five years in normal circumstances, so that to have a reasonable number of censors on which to base statistical conclusions, one must necessarily encompass a considerable span of time.

This is the text of Meritt, McGregor and H.T. Wade-Gery published in ATL as D 22, except that has replaced their in line 20.

In 1980 the restoration of line 22 was challenged by A.S. Henry: Vindex Humanitatis, Essays in Honour of John Huntly Bishop, edited by B.A. Marshall (University of New England Publishing Unit, Armidale), 17-33. He pointed out that is a reflexive pronoun, which must refer to the subject of the verb to which it is attached. The subject of on the other hand, is ; our restoration, he concluded, is therefore impossible.

In this paper I argue that Panegyric VIII (V) was delivered on 25 July 311, at the completion of the celebration of Constantine’s Quinquennalia, and that Constantine always regarded 25 July as his dies imperii.

The purpose of Panegyric VIII (V) is to thank the Emperor Constantine for benefactions to the speaker’s civitas Autun. It adheres closely to its theme, offering few allusions to events unconnected with these benefactions, unlike, for example, Mamertinus’ Panegyrics II (X) and III (XI), which retail the recent achievements of his Emperors. What is the occasion and date of its delivery? The answers to these questions will be seen to have a wider significance.

For those who study the Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul — let it be said at once — there is little or no hope of writing an adequate historical account. To say this is not to disparage what has been done. The subject has been treated admirably, with full critical care, by scholars who combined intimate knowledge of the region with personal feeling for its importance in Italian history, in the light of Gallic social conditions and Roman policy and military methods — always with the reservation ‘as far as the recorded evidence allows’.

In spite of their amorphous appearance Martial's books of epigrams are carefully crafted, especially at the beginning of the volumes where the poet typically sets the scene and outlines ideas to be expanded in the body of the collection. Any analysis of the opening of Book 1, however, is complicated by the likelihood that the surviving text is a revised version (subsequently published as part of a codex edition of two or more books), the original having been released on its own in traditional roll form. So, among others, 1.1 and 1.2 are generally considered to be later additions, written for the compendium, leaving 1.3 as the first epigram and intended introduction of the original book. Regardless of the date of the first two epigrams, 1.3 does seem in both tone and content to perform a prefatory role, as Citroni especially has argued.

For a long time, the classical profession of the hetaira, or paid female companion, has eluded definition. The hetaira has often been described as a ‘courtesan’ and her work as a ‘form of prostitution’, yet these appellatives often conflict with depictions of the hetaira by classical authors. Accordingly, in this article I will argue that the hetaira was perceived by the Greeks as an elite entertainer whose service of companionship emphasized flirtation and intimacy with a cultivated woman instead of the sale of sex. In order to demonstrate this understanding of the hetaira, I will cite evidence from a wide range of classical writings, particularly legal orations, and will ultimately propose that, when used to indicate a professional, the classical Greek term hetaira should be translated as ‘entertainer’.

This article examines the public image of the emperor Carausius, a Roman army officer who claimed authority over Britain and parts of Gaul between 286 and 293, in opposition to Diocletian and his Tetrarchic colleagues. Carausius’ coinage celebrated his fleet, his naval prowess, and his divine support from Neptune and Oceanus. These designs were created as part of a strategy to refashion Carausius’ humble background as a sailor into a statement of imperial suitability. However, Carausius’ claims were undermined by the orators who delivered speeches in praise of his Tetrarchic rivals, Maximian and Constantius, in the years 289, 291, and 297. Their panegyrics subverted Carausius’ naval experience and claim to control the Ocean, instead portraying him as a pirate, brigand, and threat to the people of Gaul. After the reconquest of Britain, the medallions and monuments of the Tetrarchic regime commemorated their own naval success and control over the Ocean, suppressing the claims of Carausius. The propaganda campaign against Carausius was driven by the fact that he was an emperor of undistinguished origin, who had risen up through the ranks of the army, just like the Tetrarchs themselves. The emperors wished to distance themselves from their former colleague in order to discourage further rebellion from within the officer corps.

Psychoanalysis is born of the fact that the notion of the self appears unable to take account of the whole of psychological life. Rejecting the limits of the self is recognizing the fact that it is invaded by forces which are completely other than it; it also involves both an analysis of why these are not understood, and a recognition that it is possible for the self to be obliterated. Plotinus asks: “But we . . . who are we?” (6.4.[22].14, 16). Does it involve flagrant anachronism to establish a link between the contemporary philosophy of the limits of the self and the Plotinian opening up to what is activity beyond the self? That this is not merely an arbitrary comparison may be demonstrated firstly on negative grounds, in that psychoanalysis rejects the cogito, exactly in the manner of Plotinus; the subject is born neither of itself nor of thought. However psychoanalysis, while accepting the partial state of the self, affirms the constitutive value of narcissism. The child’s identification with his image, called the mirror stage by Lacan(Écrto 1.89ff.: 1966 edn.), is the crucial stage in the building of the self. If this identification fails, or the image of the self is rejected, serious personality destructuring results. We are not here in the business of confusing philosophy with psychology, or child personality development with the progress of the spirit, but Plotinus’ reticence about images throughout the Enneads does bear a connection with Porphyry’s anecdotes in theLtfe of Plotinus: “Plotinus was ashamed of being in a body”; Plotinus refused to divulge any details of his family, or his place of birth; Plotinus was opposed to a portrait being made of him (Vita Plotini 1). This concurrence of life and writing cannot be neglected: Plotinus refused to allow Porphyry to write his biography, as if to assert the paradox of such an undertaking: an effort to paint the portrait of one who rejected all portraits.

The Medicean Scholiast on 168 paraphrases The Scholiast has apparently misunderstood the image, since it does not seem to be a question of the ‘poor enjoying the pleasure [or the power] of light’. Broadhead’s explanation of 166-7 seems plausible: ‘wealth, deprived of men, will not win respect, and … ἀναρχία may follow the news of a great disaster’ (The Persae of Aeschylus [Cambridge, 1960], p. 74). But how can this be got out of the Greek? R. D. Dawe’s Repertory of Conjectures on Aeschylus (Leiden, 1965) lists numerous attempts to emend 166, but the real trouble seems to lie in 167. After discussing various interpretations of 167 as it stands, Broadhead expresses some doubts (‘if the text is sound’). He notes Lawson’s suggestion of φωσίν ὅ for φς ὅσον. Dawe records Blaydes’ ὅσοις. Broadhead also reports a suggested transposition of 166 and 167 (A. ‘Ludwig and others’), which does not really affect the issue of how 167 is to be interpreted. Πάρα at the end of 167 = πάρεστι according to LSJ, of which I fail to make any acceptable sense; Broadhead gives the words the only meaning they will bear: ‘For those lacking in wealth what strength they possess does not shine as a light’ (p. 74 n. 1), but his paraphrase, ‘does not bring salvation, or success’, is hardly justified by the Greek.

I have no intention of putting forward yet another theory of composition for the work of Herodotos. This type of study is frequently unsatisfactory, as it tends to depend either on subjective judgements or on circular arguments regarding, for example, the date of composition of particular passages (‘this passage belongs to Herodotos' “developed style” and was therefore written later than such and such a passage occurring later on in the existing arrangement of the work’); alternatively it may tend to force the content of the History into some pre-selected mould, a glaring example of which procedure is ‘pedimental structure’ (Herodotos was not building a temple, and there is no reason why he should have felt symmetry to be a necessary feature of history); or it may establish some kind of moral canon to which Herodotos is alleged to have thought all history conformed.