When Andromache emerges from the inner chamber in Book 22, ascends the walls of Troy and looks out over the plain, she beholds a spectacle of ruthless brutality. She who has not been aware of the final combat, nor of the slaying of her husband, is suddenly confronted by the receding trail of utter defeat. Swift horses drag her husband's corpse into the distance, the cherished head disfigured as it is dragged, raking the dust of what was once their homeland. The violence of the scene is forcefully conveyed by one word in particular. The swift horses drag Hektor ⋯κηδ⋯στως (22.465)—without κ⋯δος without care, ‘sans soucier de, brutalement’. In itself the word ⋯κηδ⋯στως provides a definition of violence, one captured in Shakespeare's phrase ‘careless force’. Violence is, in its harsh brutality, specifically heedlessness, an absence of any form of care. When Achilles hurls the slain suppliant Lykaon into the river he utters the taunt, ‘the fish, ⋯κηδ⋯ες, will lick clean your wound's blood’ (21.122–3). The discarded corpse is denied funeral rites: in place of the care that the relations of the dead traditionally bestow in tending, washing, enshrouding, lamenting, and burying the dead, here the heedless creatures of nature, fleeting visitors, will attend to the corpse, ‘clean’ it, but utterly without care, completely oblivious to the oblivion they create by destroying. In Book 24 Achilles will describe the gods themselves as ⋯κηδ⋯ες (526).

Herodotus has often been considered the Father of Ethnography no less than the Father of History. It comes as a paradox, then, that he has been taxed with confusion in his use of two terms that recur over and over in his discussion of peoples, ἕθνος and γνος. Here is the formulation of Raymond Weil:

Hérodote definit mal l‘ethnos’. C'est pour lui tantôot une subdivision du ‘génos’, tantôt au contraire un ensemble de ‘géné’. Ainsi 1' ‘ethnos’ des Médes, comme celui des Scythes, groupe plusieurs γνεα. Mais cet ‘ethnos’ scythe porte aussi le nom de ‘génos’, et comprend des ἕθνεα. Les Athéniens sont un ‘ethnos’ hellénique qui fait partie du ‘génos’ ionien, les Lacédémoniens un ‘ethnos’ pélasgique à rattacher au ‘génos’ dorien.

With the dawn of the day of the Battle of Salamis in ch. 83 of Book 8, Herodotus heightens the tone of his language. An unfortunate result of his more elaborately worked writing has been failure to understand his words, and hence much misplaced editorial intervention. In particular, the words at 8.83.1, προηγρενε εῢ ἒΧοντα μν κ πντων Θεμιστοκλης, have regularly been mistranslated. Powell even wanted to rewrite the Greek here to read: ἠγρευε μν πρó πντων Θεμιστοκλης (‘And Themistocles was chosen to pronounce the exhortation’). Few would wish to follow such a drastic and arbitrary alteration of the transmitted text, but the conjectural emendation highlights the difficulty of understanding Herodotus' words at this point.

‘Hoplites are troops who take their name from their shields’. ‘The individual infantryman took his name, hoplites, from the hoplon or shield’. Such is the orthodox view. This paper will endeavour to show that its basis is inadequate. Rather, we shall argue, hoplites took their name from their arms and armour as a whole, their hopla in that all-encompassing sense; so that the original and essential meaning of the word hoplite was nothing more than ‘(heavily-)armed (infantry-)man’.

This article has been prompted by two recent interesting papers on the reading off Heraclitus' fragment B 125 as quoted by Theophrastus, De uertig. 9. Here are, with; full apparatus (such as they will appear in the Theophrastean chapter of my Traditio Heraclitea) the three main texts I shall be dealing with.

This paper is based on two separate, though partly overlapping, registers (Registers I and II) of male Athenian citizens known to have been in the public eye between theyears 432/1 and 405/4 B.C., inclusive. Register I comprises those who are known inthis period to have held important elective public office, or to have proposed andcarried resolutions in the Assembly; a total of 176 persons. These are singled out fromthe much wider range of ‘officials’, most of them chosen by lot, to be found in theprosopography of Develin 1989, because they are those who actively, and in somemeasure successfully, competed for the political favour of the Athenian public. Theimportant elective public offices I take to be those of general, proboulos (in 413–411), member of any embassy, and delegate for swearing to an international treaty. Register II comprises those who are known in this period to have been referred to asindividuals in Athenian comedies; a total of 224 persons. Both lists inevitably havesomewhat fuzzy edges, mainly over questions of identification and dating; doubtfulcases are briefly discussed in the notes to the Registers. Probably no other scholar willagree with every one of my decisions in these matters, but the general validity of thepicture here presented is unlikely to be affected. Within Register II can be identifiedtwo small but important subgroups: those who are referred to not, as is normal, fordisparagement but for praise; and those to whom is devoted an entire play or a largepart of one. I will be returning to these.

It hardly needs to be said that the parallel between mental and physical health plays an important part in Plato's moral philosophy. One of the central claims of the Republicis that justice is to the soul what health is to the body (443b–444e).1 Similar points are made in other dialogues.2 This analogy between health and sickness on the one hand and virtue and vice on the other is closely connected to the so–called Socratic paradoxes. Throughout his life Plato seems to have clung in some sense to the ideas that justice is our greatest good, that the unjust man is correspondingly miserable and that no one is therefore willingly unjust. It follows from these ideas that the unjust man, like the sick man, is in a wretched state which is not of his own choosing.

‘The issues surrounding Orestes’ purification are some of the most difficult in all of Aeschylus’ wrote A. L. Brown in 1982. Despite the appearance since then of an overall treatment of pollution and three editions of the play, there continue to be disagreements about the matter. In this paper I suggest that we may be better able to understand the treatment of purification if we focus on the importance of Orestes’ pollution to the particular version of the story constructed in Eumenides.

Aeschylus' imagery has for some time now been discussed as a feature of his dramatic technique which does more than merely adorn his work. Lebeck, for example, has described how images articulate the Oresteia:

The images of the Oresteia are not isolated units which can be examined separately. Each one is part of a larger whole: a system of kindred imagery. They are connected to one another by verbal similarity rather than verbal duplication. Formulaic (verbatim) repetition is rare, except in the cases of single ‘key’ words; it is replaced by associative or reminiscent repetition. Such repetition may evoke several different passages, yet correspond exactly to none. Each occurrence adds a new element to those with which it is associated. Often this expansion will be a blend of two images previously separate, preserving features reminiscent of both. In this way the different systems of imagery are intricately interwoven. The significance of a recurrent image unfolds in successive stages, keeping time with the action of the drama.

In the Rhetoric Aristotle frequently illustrates the points he is making with examples drawn both from oratory and from other literary genres. Although some of these citations have been used to date the work, they have never been systematically examined. It is the contention of this article that, when Aristotle gives examples from speeches, he quotes exclusively from epideictic works, and that this fact tells us much both about the circulation of written speeches at Athens and about the preoccupations of Aristotle and his pupils.

Astyages, son of Cyaxares, now inherited the throne. A daughter was born to him, whom he called Mandane; and Astyages dreamed that she urinated so much that the urine filled his city, then went on to flood all of Asia. He consulted the dream-experts among the magi, and was alarmed by the details which he heard from them. Later, when this Mandane was already old enough for marriage, he did not give her as wife to any of the Medes who were worthy of him, because he was fearful of the dream; instead he gave her to a Persian named Cambyses, who, he discovered, belonged to a good house and was mild in nature, but was still—he thought—far inferior to a Mede of even middling status.

Professor N. G. L. Hammond has of late published some of his thoughts on the activities of Philip II in 347 and 346 B.C. In addition he has treated aspects of Philip's earlier involvement in Thessalian, Thracian, and Phokian affairs. In the process he has in many instances disagreed with a number of current findings. Among those challenged are some of mine. Healthy scholarly debate is always desirable, and in this f spirit I should welcome an opportunity to contest Professor Hammond's views on several points, the most important being the basic factor of methodology and the interpretation of various factual details.

Between Ennius and Vergil the Latin epic hexameter underwent dramatic changes in both prosody and diction.1 The precise history of these changes remains obscure, although it is clear from Catullan spondiazontes and Lucretian archaisms, from variation in the use of enjambment and the history of Hermann's bridge, that the versatile and expressive instrument the hexameter was to become in Vergil's hands was not the result of linear development. In fact, despite the pivotal role often assigned to Cicero, 2 in many ways the last one hundred years of the Republic is better characterized as a period of poetic variety and innovation than one of linear progress toward classical perfection. The fragments of Furius Antias can shed light on this period of change. They show remarkable prosodic characteristics and verbal finesse, and they appear to have influenced both Vergil and Ovid.

Confronted with the suggestion that he contrived to see Candaules’ wife naked, Gyges immediately expresses his horror (Herodotus 1.8.3–4):

Cicero's Topica is transmitted as part of the so-called Leiden corpus; but it appeared in only two of the three Carolingian manuscripts carrying that corpus (Leiden, Voss. Lat. F. 84 = A and Lat. F. 86 = B; their agreement is dubbed β), and in both it lacked 1–3, 28 (magis)tratuum–73 Haec. During the ninth century, however, B was supplemented by the addition of folios (BA) which completed the text. In 1860 these folios were officiously transferred to A. There are a large number of integri, dating from the tenth century on. Editors have picked more or less at random from this pile to back up the evidence of β. They are also blessed with a detailed and intelligent commentary on the Topica written by Boethius. ‘That the text of the commentary influenced manuscripts of Cicero has been suspected but not proved’ (M. D. Reeve).

Rather than apologize for taking up this battered subject once again, let me compare scholarly treatment of the passage to such ancient rites as singing the skolion, where every member of the symposium was supposed to give his variant of a given theme. First we must have the passage before us. Phaidra, after first appearing on stage in a delirium where her speech is by no means coherent, addresses the chorus of women of Troizen from line 373 on in rational terms, explaining her predicament and behaviour. Peoples' lives, she says, are not ruined by lack of intelligence, but by failure to live up to their recognition of right and wrong. Some fail to realize (381 ⋯κπονεῖν) their high ideals through laziness or inertia (381 ⋯ργ⋯ας ὓπο), others by putting some dubious pleasure before the good (382–3 οἱ δ' ⋯δον⋯ν προθέντες ⋯ντ⋯ το⋯ καλο⋯ / ἂλλην τιν').

Athenian officials in the fifth century maintained careful records of treasure owned by their gods, and of the expenditures and receipts of sacred moneys and dedications. These records are conventionally divided into two main types: (i) ‘inventories’ or annual lists of the treasure located in a particular repository, and (ii) ‘accounts’ or documents recording the receipts and expenditures (or loans) of sacred treasuries over a given period. A few documents seem to combine both these elements, and have been called ‘accounts-inventories’ In a well-known example, Athena's treasurers maintained records of valuable items located in three cellae of the building moderns call the Parthenon. Moreover, they published their records of these items in three separate series of inscriptions, one each dedicated to the pronaos, the hekatompedos and the parthenon; these records are conventionally referred to as the ‘inventories’ of Athena's treasure and are extant from 434/3.

Caesar left off writing de Bello Gallico at the end of the Alesia campaign in 51 B.C., and his account of the civil war begins in January 49. There was therefore a gap ofa year and more between the narratives in the two collections of Caesar's own Commentaries. Some time soon after Caesar's death, his officer A. Hirtius decided toknit together these unlinked narratives, supplying a preface to account for hisprocedure. It is usually assumed, and it is assumed here, that this Preface, whichappears at the start of B.G. 8 in the MSS, should be taken to mean that its author wasthe author too of the book immediately following, which connects de Bello Gallico with de Bello Civili by narrating, essentially, the transactions of the year 50.

Between the first eight lines of Propertius 3.7, addressed to ‘pecunia’, and the lover's farewell couplet to Aquilo, the narration of Paetus′ shipwreck and death has first bewildered and then inspired generations of readers either to defend the basic order of verses given in the manuscripts or to create a more satisfactory arrangement through transposition. To some, the inherited poem presents a catastrophe equal to Paetus′ own dismemberment: Aquilo blew the pages around, a scribe playing Neptune took pleasure in his own power to change, while the uncontrollable seas of error scattered couplets far and wide and altered the shape of words and letters. To others, the textual problems of 3.7 can be explained with appeals to parallels or to Propertius′ stylistic intentions.

This article is concerned with reminiscences of Homer in Thucydides' History. The principal aim is to raise questions as to what extent Thucydides' account of the Sicilian venture is a conscious response to some Homeric journey narratives. Such questions are worth asking because Thucydides refers to the (mythical/Odyssean) Cyclopes and Laestrygonians at the beginning of his story (6.2). It will be argued that this reference is intended not solely for the sake of mythical history, but to broaden the context in which Athenian actions can be seen. As well as this direct mythical allusion there are other Homeric reminiscences, including topographical features, that help to convey the notion that the expedition to Sicily is a kind of heroic quest into the unknown that goes disastrously wrong. It is a venture of epic proportions with heroic aspirations, but one whose consequences have a grim and immediate reality. In the light of these Homeric associations, it is argued that the expedition to Sicily is to be seen both in its recent historical context (the Persians) and in its mythological (Homeric) context. The Athenians not only fail to learn the lessons of their most glorious military moments, but they also make the mistake of treading on the same disastrous path as Homer's Odysseus.