<Nocte> tamen insequenti ipso pervigilante in eodem loco alia excitata turris prima luce miraculo hostibus fuit. Simul et oppidi turris quae maximum propugnaculum fuerat, subrutis fundamentis, dehiscere ingentibus rimis et tum [xvi litt.] ṭọ [iii litt.] igni coepit; incendiique simul et ruinae metu territi Contrebienses de muro trepidi refugerunt; et ut legati mitterentur ad dedendam urbem ab universa multitudine conclamatum est. Eadem virtus quae irritaverat oppugnantem victorem placabiliorem fecit. Obsidibus acceptis pecuniae modicam exegit summam armaque omnia ademit. Transfugas liberos vivos ad se adduci iussit; fugitivos, quorum maior multitudo erat, ipsis imperavit ut interficerent. Iugulatos de muro deiecerunt.

Cum magna iactura militum quattuor et quadraginta diebus Contrebia expugnata, relictoque ibi L. Insteio [xvi litt.] ipse ad Hiberum flumen copias reduxit. Ibi hibernaculis secundum oppidum quod Castra Aelia vocatur aedificatis ipse in castris manebat; interdiu conventum sociarum civitatium in oppido agebat. Arma ut fierent pro copiis cuiusque populi per totam provinciam edixerat; quibus inspectis referre vetera arma milites iussit, quae aut itineribus crebris aut oppu [c. xxx litt.] facta erant, novaque iis per centuriones divisit. Equitatum quoque novis instruxit armis, vestimentaque praeparata ante divisa, et stipendium datum.

The earliest surviving poetic representation of Euripides, outside of comedy, appears in a piece of early third-century Alexandrian poetry and the picture it paints of the Athenian tragedian is in some ways a surprising one. In his ‘Catalogue of loves’, a terribly corrupt fragment from the third book of the Leontion, Hermesianax of Colophon introduces his lines on Euripides' doomed romantic infatuation with the affirmation that ‘even he’ (ϰἀϰεîνον), that notorious hater of women, was once ‘struck by the crooked bow’. Night did not relieve his suffering,

ἀλλὰ Μαϰηδονίων πάσας ϰατενίσατο λαύρας
Αἰγάων μεθέπων Ἀρχέλεω ταμίην, 66
εἰσόϰε <δὴ> δαίμων Εὐριπίδῃ εὕρετ᾿ ὄλεθρον
Ἀρριβίου στυγνῶν ἀντιάσαντι ϰυνῶν. (7.65–8)

66 Αἰγάων Bergk: αἰγιεων A

Rather he went down all the alleyways of Macedonian Aegae
in pursuit of the housemaid of Archelaus,
until a daemon found death for Euripides
when he came across the hated hounds of Arribius.

While one of the themes Hermesianax' catalogue foregrounds is how lovesick poets of the past left home to pursue their beloveds abroad, the lines on Euripides are remarkable for their elision of this poet's native Attica.

The Aulularia has always been one of the most popular and most studied of Plautus' plays, both because of its intrinsic interest and quality and also because of its later influence in the European dramatic tradition. In the large amount of scholarly work which has been devoted to this play the identity of the author of Plautus' Greek model and the alterations which Plautus may have made in this model have been much discussed. Research on these questions was, however, placed on a quite new footing in 1958 by the publication of Menander's Dyscolus: the striking similarities between these plays have now produced a loose consensus of scholarly opinion, although the dissenting voice can still be heard. The two conclusions upon which most scholars who have written recently on this subject seem to agree are that the Plautine changes to the Greek model were relatively minor, consisting in the omission of one or two scenes and the expansion of a couple of others, and that Menander was the author of the Greek original. Although it will become clear that I am very sceptical of the former of these propositions and have at least an open mind on the latter, the aim of this present paper is simply to re-open discussion of the relationship between the Aulularia and its Greek original by pointing to some problems which have been neglected and to others which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. In Part I I discuss the division of the Greek original into five acts and the conclusions to be drawn from difficulties in this division and in Part II I examine a further problem in the Aulularia which might have some bearing on the question of the authorship of the Greek original.

At Aeneid 1.148–56 Neptune's stilling of the storm roused against Aeneas and the Trojans by Juno is compared with the calming of a mob by a great statesman:

ac ueluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est

seditio saeuitque animis ignobile uulgus

iamque faces et saxa uolant, furor arma ministrat.

tum pietate grauem ac meritis si forte uirum quem

conspexere silent arrectisque auribus astant;

ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet:

sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, aequora postquam

prospiciens genitor caeloque inuectus aperto

flectit equos curruque uolans dat lora secundo.

As has been often remarked, this simile, prominently placed as the first in the poem, is evidently programmatic for the value system of the Aeneid. The ‘pietate grauem ac meritis…uirum’ standing up to and defeating the violence of the mob gives a highly Roman rôle-model (not always successfully followed) for Aeneas, the destined hero overcoming the forces of irrationality, something confirmed by the details of the poem as well as the events of its plot; Aeneas is similarly proclaimed by the Sybil in the Underworld as ‘pietate insignis et armis’ (6.402), while the soothing words of the statesman to the mob (153 ‘ille regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet’) are clearly echoed in the soothing words Aeneas addresses to his storm-shaken sailors in the very next scene of the poem (197 ‘dictis maerentia pectora mulcet’).

My concern is with the account in Ennius’ Annals of Romulus and Remus and the foundation of Rome, in particular with the verses which Cicero made his brother Quintus quote at Diu.I. 107 (= Ann. 77-96 V2)

Reunited after nearly twenty years' separation, Odysseus and Penelope retire at last to bed, οἱ μὲν ἔπειτα | ἀσπάσιοι λέκτροιο παλαιοῦ θεσμὸν ἵκοντο (Od. 23.295–6). This, we are told in the scholia, was for the two greatest Homeric scholars of antiquity the τέλος; of the Odyssey: τοῦτο τέλος τῆς Όδυσσείας φησὶν Άρίσταρχος καὶ Άρισιοφάνης (H, M, Q), Άρισιοφάνης δὲ καὶ Άρίσταρχος πέρας τῆς Όδυσσείας τοῦτο ποιοῦνται (M, V, Vind. 133). The interpretation of this testimony poses one of the most important problems of Homeric scholarship; Bethe did not exaggerate its significance when he wrote ‘Es hängt von der Auffassung dieses Scholions die Beurteilung unserer Homerüberlieferung überhaupt ab und mit ihr die Frage, was der Kritik gegenüber der Ilias und Odyssee erlaubt ist’. (‘The interpretation of this scholium is of vital significance for our view of the transmission of the Homeric text as a whole, and for the question of the proper limits of criticism where the Iliad and Odyssey are concerned’.) Here, as all too often, we are frustrated by the abbreviated condition of the Odyssey-scholia which, as the poem draws to a close, reflect in their increasing concision the diminishing energies of those to whom we owe our knowledge of ancient Homeric scholarship, Prima facie, the note tells us that Aristophanes and Aristarchus took 23.296 as the limit of the Odyssey; this is commonly understood to mean that they judged the Epilogue to be unhomeric, but this interpretation is not free from difficulty, and some have maintained that the note represents aesthetic criticism.

Philostratus’ Heroicus betrays an obsession with statues that demands explanation. Just as cult statues of epic heroes litter the contemporary second-century CE landscape, so do they litter Philostratus’ text. No story of a hero is distinct from an ecphrasis of that hero's statue, and in practice a request for the one is a request for the other. Lifeless heroes (Protesilaus first and foremost) become vividly ‘alive’ in the imagination of their devotees and, occasionally, their Zoilean adversaries. As the lines between reality and fantasy blur, Philostratus’ critique of material cultural practices accompanies and fortifies his better known Homerkritik.

This paper looks beyond Ptolemaic Alexandria to consider the literary dynamics of another Hellenistic kingdom, Attalid Pergamon. I offer a detailed study of the fragmentary opening of Nicander's Hymn to Attalus (fr. 104 Gow–Schofield) in three sections. First, I consider its generic status and compare its encomiastic strategies with those of Theocritus’ Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Idyll 17). Second, I analyse its learned reuse of the literary past and allusive engagement with scholarly debate. And finally, I explore how Nicander polemically strives against the precedent of the Ptolemaic Callimachus. The fragment offers us a rare glimpse into the post-Callimachean, international and agonistic world of Hellenistic poetics.

Greek comedy is full of quotable maxims. According to a literal reading, the comedians might be seen as custodians of traditional gnomic wisdom, along with their tragic counterparts. Nevertheless, it is argued here that maxims in comedy are different from maxims in other contexts. Comic maxims typically appear ‘within inverted commas’, not just in a literal sense (because of their inherent ‘quotationality’) but in a figurative sense (because of their pervasive irony and self-consciousness). Examples from Menander, Antiphanes, Diphilus and others are used to demonstrate that the comedians can be seen as playing around with the content and form of traditional wisdom. Sometimes they seem to be poking fun at the maxim as a medium of expression, or at tragic maxims, or at the habit of quotation itself.

This article is the first to consider book 8 of the Palatine Anthology as an integrated collection. Book 8 consists of funerary epigrams of Gregory of Nazianzus. We consider how the book is structured as a coherent collection, what its place in the Palatine Anthology is and, above all, how these underdiscussed poems contribute to the changing discourse of death in fourth-century Christianity. We also look at how the poems contribute to the Byzantine culture in which the Palatine Anthology was put together. The article reveals how Gregory rewrites both the positive values of death in a Christian community and negative descriptions of those who transgress such values.

This article argues that the attribution to Lysias of the erōtikos (230e6–234c5) in Plato's Phaedrus is more significant than has generally been acknowledged. The erōtikos is attributed to Lysias because he is a logographer, whose success is dependent on writing speeches for other people. A careful consideration of both the context and the content of the speech encourage us to consider its relevance to Socrates. By attributing an (underwhelming) attempt at Socratic rhetoric to Lysias, the Phaedrus frames his speech as an example of the potential pitfalls of putting words into Socrates’ mouth. As such, the speech has broader significance for our understanding of what it means to write Socratic logoi.

Past responses to ancient literature and the reading practices of previous centuries are of central relevance to the contemporary exegesis of Greek and Roman authors. Professional classicists have at last come to recognise this. However, accounts of reception still tend to engage in a traditional form of Nachleben, as they unselfconsciously describe the extent of classical influences on later literary production. This process of influence is not as straightforward as it may first seem. It is often taken for granted in practice, if not in theory, that the movement is in one direction only – from antiquity to some later point - and also that the ancient text which ‘impacts on’ on the culture of a later period is the same ancient text that we apprehend today. Of course it is never the same text, even leaving aside the problems of transmission. The interaction between a text and its reception in another place, in another time, in another text, is really a dynamic two-way process. That interaction (which has much in common with intertextuality) involves, or is rather constituted by, our own interpretation of it.

Aeneas begins his narrative with the story of the Trojan Horse. The Greeks, after constructing a huge wooden horse, within which they hide a great many armed soldiers, flee the land. The Trojans rejoice, thinking that they have driven off their opponents. Lines 27–8 express the joy of the Trojans as they visit the Greek camp:

iuuat ire et Dorica castra

desertosque uidere locos litusque relictum

It is disputed whether desertos and relictum are used with an attributive or predicative function. The repeated desertus (24 huc se prouecti deserto in litore condunt, i.e. the Greeks) directs the reader's attention to its earlier use in an attributive function (‘they hid on the vacant shore of Tenedos’). The image of the deserted shore of Tenedos is clearly meant to suggest the potential destructiveness of the Doric camp and shore deserted now. Such an interpretation seems to be further supported by the predicative use of desertos and relictum, since we see the Greek camp through the eyes both of Aeneas and of his countrymen.

a quo [sc. Deo] si non esset lapsus Adam, non diffunderetur ex utero eius salsugo maris, genus humanum profunde curiosum et procellose tumidum et instabiliter fluidum

This paper begins with a puzzle, a passage of Confessions 13 which has left commentators baffled. How can Adam have a uterus? Gibb and Montgomery, in 1927, gave the problem a name; O'Donnell, in 1992, opted for citing their comment with a quiet gloss of his own

utero G–M (understatement): ‘A remarkable example of catachresis. It is to be explained, no doubt, by the fact that “Adam” is used generically rather than personally.

This article analyses how Callimachus was cited in ancient scholarship on Pindar. A survey of references to literary authors in the scholia establishes that commentaries provided only minimal specification of relations between the texts concerned. Despite this, commentaries were important intertextual sites. In providing information that supplements Pindar's texts, citations of Callimachus contribute to the latter's canonical status by treating his poetry as an authoritative source of mythological and historical details. The juxtaposition of the two authors in commentaries also allowed for an exploration of their literary relationship.

This article explores two contrasting accounts of the exposure of Cyrus the Elder: the lengthy version in Herodotus, replete with characteristics of the infancy of royal mythological heroes, and that in Isocrates’ Philippus, in which the ekthesis implies illegitimacy and inferiority, as part of Isocrates’ political agenda. Cyrus’ alleged exposure is an ideal case study for the ambivalence of infant exposure in classical Greek discourse, either to signify heroicity in an individual destined for greatness and the founding of a dynasty (as in Herodotus), or to allude to illegitimacy and so exclude the individual from civil society (as in Isocrates).

A new reading of a passage in Philodemus' Index Academicorum reveals that Philo of Larisa died in Italy during an influenza wave spreading over the entire world, a hitherto unknown fact. The new reading also allows for a reappraisal of the intriguing question of who was Philo's (institutional) successor. Furthermore, this reading offers improvements which, by illuminating the syntax and context, corroborate the interpretation of a participle construction as referring to a sojourn of Philodemus in Alexandria (PHerc. 1021, cols. 33.42–34.7).