This study examines in detail the handling of an ancient story by three poets of widely differing dates and also considers what is known of lost versions from the surviving prose summaries. It does not speculate on origins or seek to reconstruct the historical connexions between lost and surviving versions, since neither activity can lead to certain results. Origins in religious cult were very much the concern of O. Crusius in an article entitled ‘Der homerische Dionysoshymnus und die Legende von der Verwandlung der Tyrsener’ (Philologus 48 [1889], 193-228), and this should be used as a warning example. His main purpose, however, was to establish the antiquity of the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus and in this he amply succeeded. Although it is impossible to date the hymn within a century or two, no one is likely to dispute that it is the oldest extant version of the story, and no more than that is assumed in this study. In the last part of his article (pp. 218-28) Crusius briefly examines the prose summaries and later poetic versions of the story, and here he makes a number of valuable observations, which I shall acknowledge or dispute wherever relevant. The justification for the present study is that it takes the examination of the material very much further and offers some original interpretations. Care will be taken throughout to be fully intelligible without obliging the reader to turn to the relevant texts, although it will be an advantage to have the texts of the Homeric hymn, Ovid and Nonnus at hand. References to Crusius’ article are made by means of his name and the page-number. The only other unusual abbreviation is ‘A.H.S.’ for the edition of the Homeric hymns edited by T. W. Allen, W. R. Halliday and E. E. Sikes (Oxford, 1936).

During the classical period Athenian women gathered once a year to celebrate the Adonia. With ritualised lament they shared Aphrodite's grief over the death of Adonis, her youthful lover. This was not an official festival of the state or any of its political subdivisions; it was not publicly financed or regulated. It was celebrated informally by small, ad hoc groups of women (citizens and non-citizens, friends, relatives, neighbours) on the roofs of their houses. This unusual festival has long intrigued modern commentators, who have suggested a wide variety of interpretations regarding its nature and meaning—including one recently offered by this author. My purpose in this short article is to focus on one particular aspect of the Adonia—its date. Like almost everything else about this festival, its celebration-date has been the subject of scholarly controversy. Three seasons of the year have found advocates, winter being the lone discard.

This paper uses the Greeks' understanding of the optative mood over many centuries to enlarge our knowledge of the origins of formal grammar, of the vernacular Greek language in post-classical times, and of the limitations which imitative Atticism faced when it tried to give new life to a verbal form which had virtually disappeared from the spoken language. Starting with the very beginnings of grammar as a discipline, it argues that Protagoras' contribution to the study of verbal mood has been overlooked, and the Stoics given too much credit. This observation has implications for the larger issue of whether the origin of formal grammar is to be found amongst students of literature or of philosophy. The rest of the paper works through the standard uses of the optative found in Attic and Homeric Greek, examining the explanations and paraphrases of these usages found in ancient and medieval grammarians and scholiasts, and arguing that this material confirms the evidence for the vernacular suggested by the New Testament and papyri, and can also explain some non-classical uses of the optative found in Atticising writers.

After the suppression of Ti. Gracchus, the Roman establishment acted savagely. The bodies of the hundreds killed in the initial massacre were thrown into the Tiber, probably at night, setting a grisly precedent (in that use of the river) that would be followed by Opimius, the younger Marius and Sulla. The action was supervised by an aedile, a certain Lucretius, who thereby acquired the cognomen Vispillo (or Vespillo), no doubt a pejorative title, but one in which he or his family seemed to take pride. The motivations behind the undertaking were possibly various. Removal of the evidence with minimal fuss may have been seen as a desirable way of avoiding further clamour. Hence the night-time operation. If so, it was done from inexperience. Experience would demonstrate that the bodies might neither remain sunk nor float discreetly to the sea. The establishment might also have hoped that the gesture carried with it some of the symbolism of a procuratio prodigiorum—though the agency of an aedile was hardly appropriate for such a commission. Probably the denial of proper burial was foremost in the minds of the enemies of Gracchus.

A. H. McDonald's contribution to the study of Rome's reconquest of Gallia Cisalpina raises several important questions concerning that momentous development. Momentous it surely was, for it brought under Roman rule a territory which was to be one of the heartlands of Roman, indeed western, culture in later ages. Another look at some aspects of the conquest and reconquest may thus be forgiven.

It seems clear that the use of the optative mood declined after the classical period, so that it is less common in New Testament Greek and eventually disappeared, but there is room for some doubt about the rate and manner of its decline, especially as some of the evidence is potentially complicated by literary reminiscence, and the Attic revival apparently brought back some features that were no longer fully understood. A simple counting of occurrences is insufficient to establish statistical trends, for even in the classical period the possibilities for the use of the optative vary according to context: e.g. wishes may occur in dialogue and speeches, but are not normal in historical narrative.

The study of verbal nouns in Homer is of considerable importance for the understanding of the development of Greek language and thought and hence of methods of expression in the languages of Western Europe. Verbal nouns function primarily in much the same way as verbs, i.e. they express the same ideas as do verbs, and on the other hand they play similar parts in the structure of the sentence to other nouns. From this second aspect there evolves the tendency to particular reference, the ‘concrete’ use. The two functions of verbal nouns are a commonplace of semantic studies. In English we can say (1) in the building of houses=when one is building houses, (2) he came out of the building, and, in the plural, an important step, these buildings are to be demolished. The suffix -ing would be the nearest equivalent to -σις, capable like it of construction from any verb. The particular interest of nouns in -σις and -τύς in Homer is that the secondary type of use is still very rare, for example these nouns hardly ever occur in the plural, and thus the development of the ‘concrete’ use can be observed at a very early stage. The only functionally similar nouns in Homer, of types still in ‘free’ use, are those in -θμóς and -σἰη, which for reasons of space will be mentioned only incidentally, as their use impinges on that of the two other classes.

The arrival of Aristeides, Miltiades, Solon and Perikles in Eupolis' Demes was arguably one of the most celebrated scenes of Attic Old Comedy. Platonios (diff. char. 13-4) praises Eupolis for ‘being capable of resurrecting (ἀνάγειν) from Hades the characters of lawgivers and through them to discuss the establishment or the repeal of laws.’ Aelius Aristides (3.365) observes that ‘a certain comic poet depicted four of the Athenian leaders as coming back to life (ἀνεστῶτας).’ Platonios uses the verb ἀνάγω to refer to the ascent of the four statesmen to the upper world, whereas Aelius Aristides chooses ἀνίστημι. Both ἀνάγω and ἀνίστημι describe an upwards movement, and suggest a return to the world of the living. Neither of them, however, specifies the nature of this journey.

In Silvae 3.5, published towards the end of A.D. 94, Statius announced his intention to leave Rome and spend his remaining years in Naples, his birthplace. The tranquility offered by his native city seems particularly appealing to the poet. For here, he says, is a place where both the climate and the sea are gentle, and where it is possible to enjoy an untroubled life, in sharp contrast to the violence and litigiousness of Rome (3.5.83-88). Here too, graceful architecture is complemented by literary festivals which rival those of the capital (89-92). In addition, Naples was also the home of some of Statius’ patrons, most prominently Pollius Felix to whom this third book of Silvae is addressed, and whose newly built shrine to Hercules on his Surrentine estate is the subject of Silv. 3.1. The latter poem, it has been noted, seems to be intended as a counterweight to Silv. 3.5, with the aim of establishing Naples as a primary focus of the whole book.

There is no agreement on when international amicitia between Rome and Athens was first established. This article proposes that the most likely date for it belongs in the context of the later stages of the First Macedonian War (215-205) – specifically, during the mediation attempts of 209 or 208 – rather than the other commonly canvassed candidates, 228,205 and 201-200.

This article highlights the significant role played by Constantia, posthumous daughter of the emperor Constantius II, in late fourth century dynastic politics and ideology. Though Constantia has generally been neglected in modern studies of the period, close examination of the surviving sources reveals her pivotal position, even from her earliest years, as a coveted link between the Constantinian dynasty and new emperors seeking to establish themselves and their families in the turbulent years of the 360s, 370s and 380s AD. Through investigation of the source material relating to Constantia’s short life, we gain further vital insight into the perennial importance to imperial politics of dynastic loyalty, and specifically loyalty to the Constantinian house, in the late fourth century, as well as emerging new ideas about the complexities of the marriages of imperial women.

It may be helpful to the non-specialist for me to make, by way of introduction, some general observations on the use of similes by the poets from whom my examples are taken.

Already with the similes of the Iliad and the Odyssey it is apparent that we have to do both with a repertoire of themes that have become traditional and at the same time with a considerable number of verbal pictures which have the appearance of being the free invention of a particular poet. This situation remains broadly true of the similes of later Greek epic, but with the major difference that at least with several of the surviving poems from the Hellenistic period onwards the traditional becomes relatively much less prominent than the freely original, both in subject-matter and in form. However, a point that must be stressed at the outset is the sustained effectiveness of the Homeric similes as models and sources of inspiration. That Homeric dependence for subject-matter should be more prominent in the similes than in the narrative of later epics is only to be expected, except perhaps in such works as Quintus’ Posthomerica, where there is a close affinity with the narrative of the Homeric epics, and to a large extent dependence in formal expression goes together with thematic dependence.

Ancient historians offered various explanations for the war that broke out in 264 B.C. For Polybius a century later it was the Roman’s first step outside Italy in a drive to world hegemony; also a properly defensive counter to a looming Carthaginian threat to Italy. Much of later Roman historical tradition lauded it as due to pious fides towards a hapless ally, the ex-Italian Mamertines of Messana, under siege by Punic and Syracusan foes. That, it seems, was already the Roman line in 264 itself. At all events we find King Hiero of Syracuse chiding them then for ‘chattering about fides’ even as they allied themselves with the faithless brigands of Messana. For pro-Roman writers, the sanctity of alliances and the right of self-defence made a satisfying pair of historical justifications.

While the exact meaning of Res Gestae 34, the powers of Augustus at various moments in his principate, and the significance of his auctoritas have been extensively argued, more practical questions about how his political arrangements might have been set into action have not generally excited much interest. In 1974 I put forward a suggestion about how the so-called first settlement of 27 B.C. came about. It was, in brief, that Octavian, as he then was, used the traditional consular mechanisms, and proposed for debate in the Senate a motion, de provinciis consularibus, and this explains why, on the one hand, the result of the debate was that he had provinces allocated to him, and, on the other, claims could be made that the res publica was restored, because one of the things which characterized res publica (as distinct from dictatorship or triumviral rule) was that the determination of who should command which army stationed in the provinces now lay, ostensibly at least, with the publicum consilium, the Senate.

If in New Comedy someone opens the door of a stage-house from within to come out, a person already on the stage often describes this occurrence by a phrase including the verb ψοφεϊν, such as άλλα την θύραν ψοφεϊ τις έξιών (Perik. 126), or έψόφηκεν ή θύρα, προέρχεται τις (Pap. Hibeh 6.1). Owing to an odd ancient explanation, the derivation and exact signification of these expressions have long been doubtful, in spite of their frequency and stereotyped form. Today most scholars agree on their meaning, but the case has not been put as cogently and extensively as it could have been, so that some uncertainty still remains. Therefore it seems reasonable to undertake a fresh consideration, which is to set out the whole material (considerably augmented since 1958), point out the problems, and show what evidence is available to tackle them.

In one of his fragments, Empedocles addresses his protégé Pausanias, predicting or promising that he will learn pharmaka, a word that is usually understood to mean herbal ‘drugs' or ‘remedies’ for disease, an interpretation that in turn seems to have been encouraged by a modern understanding that Empedocles was an empirically minded medical doctor. An alternate interpretation is suggested, however, by the recently published Getty Hexameters which use the word pharmaka several times to refer to hexametrical incantations that will protect a group of houses or a city from danger. These hexameters, moreover, are inscribed on a lead tablet of late-classical date that most probably came from the Sicilian city of Selinus, a date and a provenance that put its composition in close proximity to Empedocles himself.

The literary evidence for the Trajanic period presents a remarkably difficult problem; for though a fair number of writers whose work is extant today lived and sometimes wrote during the period, they provide information which is disproportionately and disappointingly little in quantity, and in the main highly tendentious. We also lack a biography of Trajan, since Suetonius ended his series not so much at a round dozen as at the end of a dynasty, while the egregious compiler of the Augustan History elected to begin with Hadrian. The reason in the former case is clear and compelling; whatever the motive in the latter, the value of what we have missed as a result is to say the least dubious. Frontinus has no observations on matters outside the scope of his technical discourses; Pliny’s letters, the most extensive of the Latin prose sources, throw valuable light on certain aspects of imperial administration, and offer a rather gingerbread portrait of his own circle of career civil servants and literary dilettanti. In Greek literature, Plutarch is almost devoid of contemporary references, while the orations of Dio Chrysostom have been milked dry, without providing us with any real factual material.

A small but significant aspect of Lucan's presentation of both Pompey and Caesar in the Bellum Civile is the use of complementary and contrasting doublets. In the case of Pompey, the doublet comprises the two dreams narrated at the beginning of Book 3 (of his dead wife Julia) and the beginning of Book 7 (of the crowd acclaiming him in his theatre); in the case of Caesar, it comprises the apparitions that mark the beginning and end of his presence in the poem, the first of the goddess Roma and the second of Scaeva, which because of their position have an obvious framing function.

Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 345-411 A.D.) is one of the most important Latin translators of Greek texts in Late Antiquity. In the summer of 397 A.D. he returned to the west, after some 25 years spent in Alexandria and Jerusalem. He brought with him a considerable library of Greek manuscripts. The first task he undertook—very shortly after his arrival—was to translate Basil of Caesarea's Asketikon, which became known in its Latin dress as the Regula Basili. This paper is dedicated to examining the translation techniques used by Rufinus in the Regula Basili.