The beginning of Pindar's Olympian 10 for Hagesidamos of Lokroi Epizephyrioi, winner of the boys’ boxing contest at the Olympic games of 476 bce, revolves, untypically, around ideas of debt, interest, and repayment:

Τὸν Ὀλυμπιονίκαν ἀνάγνωτέ μοι
Ἀρχεστράτου παῖδα, πόθι φρενὸς
ἐμᾶς γέγραπται· γλυκὺ γὰρ αὐτῶι μέλος ὀφείλων
ἐπιλέλαθ’. ὦ Μοῖσ’, ἀλλὰ σὺ καὶ θυγάτηρ
Ἀλάθεια Διός, ὀρθᾶι χερί
ἐρύκετον ψευδέων                    5
ἐνιπὰν ἀλιτόξενον.
ἕκαθεν γὰρ ἐπελθὼν ὁ μέλλων χρόνος
ἐμὸν καταίσχυνε βαθὺ χρέος.
ὅμως δὲ λῦσαι δυνατὸς ὀξεῖαν ἐπιμομφὰν
τόκος. ὁράτω νῦν ψᾶφον ἐλισσομέναν
ὁπᾶι κῦμα κατακλύσσει ῥέον,               10
ὁπᾶι τε κοινὸν λόγον
φίλαν τείσομεν ἐς χάριν.
8 καταίσχυνε Boeckh : καταισχύνει codd. 9 ὁράτω Fennell : θνατῶν codd. : ὁράτ’ ὦν Schneidewin : ὀνάτωρ Hermann : ἀνάτως (uel ἀνατί) Erbse

Pindar's odes for Aeginetan victors revolve around two major Aeginetan virtues: inborn excellence (phya) and generous guest-friendship (xenia). The latter virtue is, of course, one of the most pervasive themes in Pindar's poetry, in which the poet's relationship with his patrons is presented in terms of guest-friendship, with the odes themselves as the poet's gift to his guest-friends. As for the former virtue, the Aeginetans’ inborn excellence is implicit in the mythic section of almost all Aeginetan odes, which focuses on the line of Aiakos, the progenitor of two of the greatest Greek heroes, Achilles and Ajax. In view of this almost exclusive emphasis, one might be forgiven for assuming that the Aiakidai were the mythical progenitors of the Aeginetans. However, this is simply not true, as Pindar himself was fully aware: in fact, the Aeginetans were a Doric tribe whose ancestry was no more remarkable than that of other Doric cities; at best, they could claim the Aiakidai as their ancestors only metaphorically.

Isthmian 2 was composed for Xenokrates of Akragas’ chariot victory, probably in 471–470 bc. The winner was dead by the time that the ode was performed, and as a result the recipient of the ode was his son, Thrasyboulos. The victor's family, the Emmenidai, was politically prominent and one of the founding families of Akragas: Theron, son of Ainesidamos and tyrant of Akragas (488–487 bc), was Xenokrates’ brother, and Xenokrates is also commemorated by Pindar in Pythian 6 for his victory at a chariot race (490 bc).

If there was an ‘aristocracy’ in the archaic and classical polis, how was it differentiated from the rest of the polis? There are various possible criteria for differentiating a socio-political elite, notably birth, legal status, education, virtue, power, access to deity, wealth, and performance (or display). European history has left us with a strong association between ‘aristocracy’ and the criterion of birth, which produces a relatively closed elite. As for the ancient Greek polis, however, an excellent recent collection of essays entitled ‘Aristocracy’ in Antiquity edited by Nick Fisher and Hans van Wees generally rejects earlier assumptions that a hereditary aristocracy is clearly identifiable, and gives some prominence instead to the criterion of display or performance (such as competing in Panhellenic games or erecting an image of an ancestor). My concern is not directly with this interesting controversy, but rather with a historical process that is almost entirely omitted by ‘Aristocracy’ in Antiquity (and by most other discussions of Greek aristocracy), namely the monetization of the polis that was made pervasive by the invention of coinage and its rapid spread in Greek culture from the early sixth century bce.

The Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek (CGCG) arrived just too late for mention in the last batch of reviews, but the wait has turned out to be providential: I've now had time to use CGCG as my reference grammar for undergraduate teaching. I must confess that I do not like teaching grammar, and am not very good at it; and, by happy chance, I have not been called upon to teach grammar for a surprisingly large number of years. So being assigned to teach a grammar class at short notice was a mildly traumatic experience. But at least it has made it possible for me to become familiar with CGCG in practice. The authors’ suggestion that ‘CGCG’s coverage is such…that it could be used in the context of undergraduate and graduate language courses’ (xxxii) is carefully formulated: it could be. But the undergraduate class that I have been teaching would, I am sure, have been intimidated by the mass of grammatical detail if confronted with CGCG in the raw. I can, however, testify that at least one reluctant, out-of-practice language tutor has found the volume amazingly helpful in planning grammar classes. The clarity and logic of its presentation and explanations, its well-chosen examples, and its carefully designed aids to navigation (table of contents, cross-references, index) are virtues that I do not normally associate with texts on grammar: or, at any rate, not in the same degree. CGCG’s virtues will make it an invaluable resource for advanced students, and for tutors. For a surprisingly reasonable price, purchasers get 300 pages of phonology and morphology and 350 pages of syntax, plus 90 excellent pages on textual coherence, covering particles, and word order. ‘Still’, as the authors modestly observe, ‘there are many subjects about which we might have said much more and some about which we have said almost nothing’ (xxxii).

Cicero has a unique place in the history of Latin. A political and intellectual figure elevated to iconic status both by his own efforts and by posterity; author of more extant prose – dozens of speeches, the treatises philosophical and rhetorical, and nearly a thousand letters – than any other pagan Roman; model of good style and set-text author par excellence, from antiquity to modernity. So far, so uncontroversial. But when and how did he acquire this place atop the canon? It's a question that Caroline Bishop, Thomas Keeline, and Giuseppe La Bua have each asked, and one to which they offer some interestingly different answers.

Pride of place in this review goes undoubtedly to Sally Humphreys’ monumental study of kinship in ancient Athens. A work in progress for four decades, it is finally published in two volumes of almost 1,500 pages. The book's coverage is vast: the first volume focuses on interactions among kinsfolk (legal, social, economic, and ritual), while the second volume explores the various Athenian corporate groups which employed kinship as their organizing principle (phratries, gene, tribes, and trittyes) and provides an exhaustive discussion of kinship networks attested across all Athenian demes. As a result of its size and encyclopaedic coverage, I suspect that most readers will approach this work in a piecemeal fashion, looking for a particular phenomenon or searching for a particular kinship network; the lack of a detailed introduction or conclusions – features that would have been essential in a work of this size and ambition – does not help in this respect. But this work needs to be assessed as a whole, for three main reasons. The first is that households were the main organizing units of Athenian society, while most Athenian groups were organized on a kinship principle. Their roles were crucial, and they need to complement the social models of Athenian society we employ, alongside class and status. The second reason is that Humphreys makes a very good job of exploring the various contradictory tendencies at work in how Athenian kinship operated: the interests of male heads; of wives, children, and relatives; of wider kinship networks; and of the political community. The third is the combination of literary, epigraphic, and material evidence of Athenian kinship, which reveals in often impressive ways the contradictions and gaps of our various sources: not only will this work be essential reading for those working on Athenian oratory, archaeology, or economy, but its accumulated detail offers the basis for writing a novel history of Athenian society. Of course, a work gestated for forty years will also show the unavoidable flaws of its piecemeal construction; but these are largely of secondary importance, compared to the value of the end product.

Some questions never go out of fashion. My main focus in this issue is the spread of Roman power across the Mediterranean, with multiple new publications appearing on this oldest of subjects. First up is Dexter Hoyos’ Rome Victorious. This work of popular history aims to cover what Hoyos dubs in his subtitle The Irresistible Rise of the Roman Empire, though that is rather an odd choice, since Hoyos stresses that Rome's imperial efforts did not always succeed. Hoyos walks us through the unification of Italy and the acquisition of the Republican provinces in the first two chapters, taking the narrative up to the death of Caesar in 44 bc. The next two chapters consider the consequences of those conquests: what a province actually meant, how it was controlled, and the effects both on the new territories’ inhabitants and on Rome's social and political make-up. In Chapter 5, Hoyos turns to the extensive imperial efforts of Augustus and those around him; those of his successors over the next two centuries are dealt with in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 surveys the shifting make-up of the Romans as a result of their conquests, focusing on the spread of citizenship and the changing origins of senators, generals, and artists. Chapter 8 looks at legitimate and illegitimate rule in Rome's provinces, Chapter 9 considers both Rome's self-reflexivity on imperial questions and the view from those regions themselves, and Chapter 10 bolsters the latter by treating concrete resistance to Rome. Chapter 11 looks at the degree to which the provinces became Roman.

‘An anonymous product of an impersonal craft’: that is how Rhys Carpenter characterized Greek sculpture in 1960, and it's an assessment that has long dominated the field. Carpenter was challenging the traditional workings of classical archaeology, not least its infatuation with individual ‘masters’. While responding to past precedent, however, his comments also looked forward in time, heralding a decidedly postmodern turn. From our perspective in 2020, six decades after his book was first published, Carpenter can be seen to anticipate what Roland Barthes would dub the ‘death of the author’: ‘the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author’, as Barthes put it.

G. E. R. Lloyd's economically persuasive study addresses the question of the universalism or relativism of rationality. Drawing careful comparisons, primarily between ancient Greek and Chinese thought, but also more widely, Lloyd introduces a range of disciplinary perspectives and specific points of focus. In doing so, he challenges his reader to think critically about their own assumptions and concepts. In particular, he asks us to consider the degree to which our own broad concepts, especially oppositions such as between rationality and irrationality, are themselves informed by their derivation from ancient Greek thought. His first chapter (‘Aims and Methods’) introduces his central commitments. Rationality and irrationality are not universal across societies in such a way that they can be judged by a single set of criteria. But nor are they just cultural constructs, so that the possibility of mutual intelligibility collapses. The truth lies somewhere in between, in the recognition of the heterogeneity to be identified in what is shared across cultures. Lloyd argues that ancient China is a particularly useful foil for a consideration of these questions, since it provides a perspective from beyond the reach of the Graeco-Roman legacy. His subtle middle road is further supported by his second chapter (‘Rationality Reviewed’), which summarizes some influential accounts of rationality and considers the ‘state of play’ across a variety of disciplines, including palaeontology, child development, and psychology, all of which present evidence of continuities between societies. The next four chapters approach the question of the diversity and commonality of reason from a range of perspectives, including cosmology, metaphysics, language, epistemology, and religion. In the case of cosmology, for example, Lloyd argues that we can identify a difference between the Greeks’ tendency to focus on the thing that is ‘Nature’, and the Chinese interest in natural phenomena and processes, absent a concept of ‘Nature’ itself. He is careful to note the difficulty of generalizing across all Greek or all Chinese thinkers. We can, however, identify a significantly similar belief in the two societies: that understanding the cosmos matters for the sake of the life you live as a result of that knowledge. In the case of the binary ‘Seeming and Being’ (as discussed in Chapter 4), Lloyd argues that the Chinese shared with the Greeks an awareness that appearances can be deceptive. However, their conception of the fundamental binary yin and yang is one of interdependence rather than sharp differentiation, such as we sometimes see in Greek thought between Being and Becoming. Throughout the volume, Lloyd argues for the need to recognize both the similarities and the differences identified as a result of careful comparative study. He ends with a recommendation for his readers to reconsider the universal applicability of certain key Western concepts, without resorting to a claim that it is impossible to recognize or communicate similarities. We must, he suggests, work from a position that demonstrates ‘due recognition both of the commonalities in human cognitive capacities, and of the differences in their deployment’ (96).

Chris Davies’ Blockbusters and the Ancient World is the latest addition to a growing body of scholarly literature on cinematic receptions of antiquity. The author takes as his focus the swathe of ancient world epics produced since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, ranging from movies set in the ancient Greek world (including the 2004 films Troy and Alexander, and, from 2007, 300) to the Roman occupation of Britain – as seen in King Arthur (2004), The Last Legion (2007), Centurion (2010), and The Eagle (2011) – as well as those which concentrate on aspects of Christianity (Agora, of 2009, set in Alexandria in the early fifth century ce, as contrasted with the 2004 biblical epic The Passion of the Christ). Structured around a series of case studies of these individual films, the book undoubtedly adds a set of valuable contributions to the scholarly literature on each piece; its real strength lies, however, in the way in which the author draws comparisons between these case studies while simultaneously situating the movies within their wider historical, political, and cultural contexts. Davies’ introduction alone – with a broad overview of the development of cinematic depictions of antiquity from the birth of cinema to contemporary productions, along with definitions of key terms – provides an excellent starting point for those new to thinking about ancient world films, and a comprehensive filmography of works referenced is a useful research tool. There is much here too, however, which will be of value to those seeking more in-depth discussion. Detailed analysis of the films themselves – with attention to staging, casting, and characterization – is accompanied by discussion of critical responses and evidence from published interviews with directors and producers. The author is careful to point out that artistic products often resist straightforward interpretation, and that multiple readings of each film are possible (for example, the critical reception of a movie may infer a different relationship to contemporary politics than the stated intentions of its creative team). He also explores the development and fluidity of genres, and the ways in which several of these films hybridize more than one genre (for example, traces of the western are strongly evident in the Roman Britain epics; and The Passion of the Christ carries striking elements of the horror genre). What results is a sensitive exploration of the films’ relationship to US politics, in the particular context of the ‘War on Terror’ and the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which examines ways in which the films ‘have inspired allegorical and metaphorical readings in which the past has been used to contextualise, warn or parallel the present’ (209).

When I set out to read the new complete English translation of Cassiodorus’ letters (the quotation is from the preface to Book 1, paragraphs 4–5), I certainly did not expect to be transported to the picket lines of the currently ongoing industrial action of the British University and College Union, and yet the overwhelming administrative workload and the avalanche of tasks that Cassiodorus describes have much in common with the academic pressures many are facing today. Nevertheless, Cassiodorus persevered and published many works, including a collection of no fewer than twelve books of letters, the latter in the middle of the eighteen-year Gothic War (536–54). He did not have to worry about his pension, though, as he was a scion of long line of wealthy and prominent property owners and aristocrats from Calabria and was himself a highly placed magistrate at the court of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy. Cassiodorus was responsible for official state correspondence, and his letters are either written in the name of the Amal kings Theoderic, Amalasuntha, and Athalaric, or are appointments to public office, honorary titles, and legal and administrative decisions. They span thirty years of his career in administration and are a prime source for the political and social history of Italy in the sixth century ad.