Pliny the Elder in Natural History, xiii, 74–82, described in detail specifications for the manufacturing of papyrus. However, there was a spurious omission pertaining to the height (the term length was also used by some authors) of the manufactured sheet in sentence 78. Johnson has listed the different theories explaining this as an oversight or that a standard height-to-width ratio existed, thus making the specification of the height redundant. The latter is not substantiated by the measurement of the dimensions of extant papyrus rolls. Johnson proposed a more rational theory, that it was most important to specify the width but this does not explain the absence of any specification of height, even as a measurement of secondary importance.

The two years which intervened between the consulship of Pompey and Crassus 70 B.C. and the tribunate of Cornelius in 67 B.C. are for the most part neglected in standard histories of the period. It is true that they were uneventful, if by uneventful meant the absence of open hostilities between the two political parties. a careful investigation of the political affiliations of the men who were prominent these years, and of the significance of events which usually are considered of moment, reveals political undercurrents which go far towards explaining meaning, not only of what happened in 67 B.C, but also of the more serious four years later.

The Aristophanic relevance of IG ii2 2343, a late fifth or early fourth century cult table; of Heracles, listing a priest and fifteen thiasotai, was first argued by Sterling Dow. Dow's summary of the communication which he presented to the Archaeological Institute of America is brief and a number of his conclusions may be too confident, but something of substance appears to remain.

Editors of Lysistrate have regarded this passage as a kind of cursus honorum of a well-brought-up young Athenian lady: the chorine first served at the age of seven as a bearer of the sacred casket (arrephoros); then at the age of ten as miller of corn for Athena Archegetis (aletris); then followed service as a ‘bear’ (arktos) of Artemis at the Brauronia; finally, she returned to Athens as a basket-bearer (kanephoros), holding a string of figs, when a fair young girl. After this, presumably, she married.

There are several difficulties in this interpretation: notably, the intrusion into service apparently wholly devoted to Athena of a spell as one of Artemis' servants at Brauron; moreover, the evidence is that Artemis' ‘bears’ were pre-pubescent, not young girls on the verge of marriage, as the above interpretation seems to require them to be. Another weakness lies in the period of service as an arrephoros: this passage seems to be the only direct evidence that arrephoroi might be seven-year-old, rather than adolescent, girls.

A more extreme interpretation is that of A. Brelich, who regarded this passage as proof that there existed in fifth-century Athens a system of universal female initiation, based on four successive grades, arrephoria, aletria, arkteia and kanephoria. I do not propose to comment in detail upon Brelich's hypothesis, but critics of it might begin by questioning the age and number of the arrephoroi, and the function and location of the kanephoroi.

This paper originated in an attempt to come to terms with the problems which arise from the structure of the Politics. It is no news to anyone who has the slightest familiarity with the Politics that the work reads, to borrow a phrase of Barker's, not as a composition, but as composite. Broadly speaking, it falls into three parts: Books I–III, Books IV-VI, and Books VII-VIII.

It is now generally agreed that the Satyricon was written in the age of Nero by the Emperor's Arbiter elegantiae. The view that it should be dated to the age of the Antonines has been reasserted since the war, and the work of scholars who have refuted it has produced several new arguments of value; notably in the matter of the economic and social background in the Satyricon. H. C. Schnur has recently restated the economic arguments for the Neronian date, with some new points, and with convincing force.

Philoxenus of Cythera's dithyramb, Cyclops or Galatea, was a poem famous in antiquity as the source for the story of Polyphemus' love for the sea-nymph Galatea. The exact date of composition is uncertain, but the poem must pre-date 388 B.C., when it was parodied by Aristophanes in the parodos of Plutus (290–01), and probably, as we shall see below, post-dates 406, the point at which Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse (D.S. 13.95–6). The Aristophanic parody of the work may well point to a recent performance in Athens, perhaps the first, and it is hard to identify any more significant reason for mentioning the poem. Previous accounts of the poem have concentrated on two main points, its supposed satirical purpose, and the possibly dramatic nature of its performance, but there has been no attempt to consider these two points in relation to each other, or to assess in detail the value of the source-material. I argue that although there is some evidence to support the satirical reading of the poem, the main value of this tradition is that it reveals Philoxenus' comic treatment of his subject, and that while the Galatea motif has previously been considered the essential element in this comic treatment, it was probably a small part of the plot, perhaps only briefly alluded to. Finally I provide reasons for doubting the prevalent view that the performance included dramatic elements.

This is the only undisputed fragment of Nero's poetry which is longer than a single line. It is preserved for us by the scholiast on Lucan 3.261, who gives us the additional piece of information that it belongs to Nero's ‘first book’. It is overwhelmingly likely that this refers to the first book of Nero‘s epic Troica, his most famous work and the only one, as far as we know, to have been comprised of several books.1 Since the fragment is the most significant surviving, but this attribution to the Troica cannot be quite certain, Morel and Büchner list it as fragment 1 with the simple heading ‘E libro primo’ and scrupulously keep it entirely separate from Servius’ two testimonia (frr. 9 and 10) on the content of the poem. This entirely sensible procedure, however, may trap the unwary reader into assuming that not a word of Nero's epic actually survives.

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's Crassus. It is argued that details in Crassus'; version of Carrhae recall the tragedy of Pentheus and, in so doing, substantially advance the portrayal of Crassus' character.

When first confronted by the Historia Romana of Velleius Paterculus, it is easy for a reader to assume on the basis of the title and the surviving part of the text that it is a history of Rome, albeit a short one. In the following discussion I intend to demonstrate, first, why that initial assumption should be rejected and, secondly, how the work fits into the tradition of Roman historical writing.

In the Severan period the proconsulship of Africa or Asia was normally held some 15 to 17 years after die consulship. Although there are comparatively few consuls in this period whose ages can be firmly established, what evidencethere is suggests that the consulship was normally held in the early forties, on occasions as early as the mid thirties: a consularis could, therefore, hope to attain a premier proconsulship aged about 60. Thus the future emperor P.Helvius Pertinax, who was born on 1st August 126, held the proconsulship of Africa, probably in 188/9, at the age of 62. M. Didius Julianus, the imperial successor to Pertinax, also succeeded him in Africa aged about 56. C. Vettius Sabinianus was born before 136 and his proconsulship fell about 192/37 whenhe was at least 56 years old.

The speech Against Euergos and Mnesiboulos describes a dispute over some naval gear. The dispute occurred early in the year 357/6 b.c. ⋯π' Ἀγαθοκλ⋯ους ἄρχοντος, Dem. 47.44), when the speaker was a trierarch and supervisor of his symmory (τρɩηραρχ⋯ν κα⋯ ⋯πɩμελητ⋯ς ὢν τ⋯ς συμμορ⋯ας, Dem. 47.22), and he refers to ‘the law of Periandros, by which the symmories were organized’ (⋯ νóμος ⋯ το⋯ Περɩ⋯νδρου…καθ' ὃν αἰ συμμορ⋯αɩ συνετ⋯χθησαν, Dem. 47.21). There is no other specific reference to the law of Periandros. If 357/6 was the first year of its operation, it was probably passed in 358/7, but that is not known for certain. The identity of the man is likewise uncertain, though it has plausibly been suggested that he was Periandros son of Polyaratos (Dem. 40.6–7) and that he was the Periandros who proposed an alliance between Athens and Arkadia in 362/1 (IG ii2 112 = Tod 144). However, his identity is of no importance for the present article. Here I am concerned only to try to reconstruct what the law said about the symmories. Despite a great deal of modern discussion this question has still not been satisfactorily solved.

The word συμμορ⋯α means ‘group’ or ‘division’ and does not necessarily have a technical or legal sense. But most of the Attic instances do have the special sense of a group of persons formed for the purpose of making payments of a compulsory tax or levy: either the property tax called εἰσɸορ⋯, which was imposed at irregular intervals, or payments towards the maintenance of ships in the Athenian navy, which were required every year. A fragment of Philokhoros says that Athenians were divided κατ⋯ συμμορ⋯ας for the first time in 378/7, and it is generally agreed that this means that symmories were first formed in 378 for the payment of eisphora. For the navy, however, there is no trace of symmories before the 350s, and everyone agrees that it was the law of Periandros which introduced the use of symmories for maintaining ships, which had previously been the sole responsibility of one trierarch or (more usually in the fourth century) a pair of syntrierarchs for each ship.

In one form or another an elevated, pleasure-transcending view of love is common, we might say natural. For readers of Latin poetry Catullus is perhaps the most impressive spokesman. In many respects, of course, Catullus is special. His particular values and choice of terminology, in his time and situation, mark him out from his crowd; in the Roman world indeed, ‘whole love’, perhaps rather its utterance, is hard to document before him. But a belief that love is powerful and profound, an important if not the most important thing in life, this is not a rarity. Roman tombstones attest to love and devotion, and myths inherited from Greece enshrine love's power, endurance, and transcendence.

Socratic irony is potentially fertile ground for exegetical abuse. It can seem to offer an interpreter the chance to dismiss any claim which conflicts with his account of Socratic Philosophy merely by crying ‘irony’. If abused in this way, Socratic irony can quickly become a convenient receptacle for everything inimical to an interpretation. Much recent scholarship rightly reacts against this and devotes itself to explaining how Socrates actually means everything he says, at least everything of philosophical importance. But the fact that a commentator needs to argue that Socrates is really serious when he disavows knowledge or claims to be the saviour of Athens is by itself sufficient to establish that there is an abundance of what I will call ‘play’ in the Socratic dialogues. The term ‘play’ refers to occasions when Socrates at least appears not to be speaking straightforwardly. ‘Play’ covers cases of real or apparent humour, mockery, teasing, irony, and sarcasm, without differentiation or further elaboration. When left undefined, as often, the phrase ‘Socratic irony’ seems to be used to refer to what I am calling ‘play’.