This article examines the ethical and theological universe of the Homeric epics, and shows that the patterns of human and divine justice which they deploy are also to be found throughout the wider corpus of early Greek hexameter poetry. Although most scholars continue to stress the differences between the Iliad and Odyssey with regard to divine justice, these come not (as is often alleged) from any change in the gods themselves but from the Odyssey's peculiar narrative structure, with its focus on one hero and his main divine patron and foe. Indeed, the action of the Iliad embodies a system of norms and punishments that is no different from that of the Odyssey. Values such as justice are shown to be socially constituted in each epic on both the divine and human planes, and each level, it is argued, displays not only a hierarchy of power (and the resulting tensions), but also a structure of authority. In addition, the presentation of the gods in the wider hexameter corpus of Hesiod, the Epic Cycle and the Homeric Hymns is analysed, revealing a remarkably coherent tradition in which the possibility of divine conflict is combined with an underlying cosmic order. Finally, consideration of Near Eastern myths relating cosmic order to justice brings out the distinctiveness of the Greek system as a whole and, in particular, of the way it uses the divine society under Zeus's authority as a comprehensive explanatory model of the world.

In Pyth. 2.52–5 Pindar describes Archilochus as ‘growing fat on dire words of hatred’. This article argues that Pindar portrays Archilochus as a glutton in the manner of iambic invective. A glutton is seen as a person who grows fat at the expense of others, and so fails in the matter of χάρις. In this light, Archilochus, the poet of blame, stands with Ixion in the poem as a negative paradigm, serving as a foil to Pindar's praise of Hieron. Praise is thus placed in a setting that recognizes its opposite: praise is only meaningful when seen in relation to blame. Pindar's poetry is not the product of gluttony; it is a return that offers a necessary recognition of excellence.

Xenophon's Cyropaedia can be read as a proto-novel, a biography, or as an essay on leadership or constitutional theory. This article argues that the Cyropaedia can and should also be read as a pamphlet on practical military reform with special relevance to the Spartan state.

The inclusion of a series of proposals for the reform of the Spartan army in the Cyropaedia has not heretofore been recognized because Xenophon presented those proposals in the guise of a reform of the Persian army undertaken by Cyrus. There was no historical basis for this part of the Cyropaedia, and there is no trace of a major military reform in either the Greek or the Persian tradition about Cyrus as it existed before Xenophon. Cyrus' military reform was thus an authorial invention that presumably served some important narrative purpose.

Xenophon inserted a military reform into the Cyropaedia as a way of presenting a proposal for the restructuring of the Spartan army. When Xenophon wrote the Cyropaedia, the Spartans were struggling desperately to maintain their position in the face of a powerful Boeotian army. The Boeotians could put many more hoplites into the field and had a large cavalry force that they were using to excellent effect. The obvious response on the part of the Spartans was to take whatever measures were necessary to increase the number of men in their phalanx and to assemble a sizeable, highly trained group of horsemen. The programme of military reform enacted by Cyrus in the Cyropaedia produces just this result. If implemented in Sparta, this programme would have involved the wholesale addition of non-Spartiates to the Spartan phalanx and the conversion of the Spartan homoioi into an all-cavalry force.

Xenophon thus used Cyrus' army in the Cyropaedia to show what a revamped Spartan military might look like. The use of fictional narrative to explore ideas with immediate application to the real world has long been recognized as an integral part of the Cyropaedia. This aspect of the Cyropaedia has in the past been explored largely in regard to Xenophon's thinking about leadership and ethics, but it can and should be extended to include military reform in Sparta.

It has long been known from the extant ancient Greek musical documents that some composers correlated melodic contour with word accents. Up to now, the evidence of this compositional technique has been judged impressionistically. In this article a statistical method of interpretation through computer simulation is set forth and applied to the musical texts, focusing on the convention of correlating a word's accent with the highest pitch level in the melody for that word: the Pitch Height Rule. The results provide a sounder basis for judging evidence for the operation of this convention in specific pieces and a sharper delineation of its use in the history of ancient Greek music. The ‘rule’ was used by at least some composers from the late second century BC through the second century AD, but there is no certainty that it was used before or after this period. In some cases where previous scholars have discovered the rule's operation, statistical analysis casts doubt. Of special interest is the showing that one piece long judged as offering no evidence of the use of the rule probably displays an inversion or parody of the rule for rhetorical-musical effect.

The dialogue Xenophon stages at Cyropaedia 3.1.14–31 constitutes a sophisticated theoretical treatment of Greek foreign-policy motivations and methods, and offers an implicit rebuttal to Thucydides' realist theses about foreign relations. Comparison of this passage to the historians and Attic orators suggests that Xenophon was attempting to systematize conventional Greek conceptions: the resulting theoretical system, in which hybris is regarded as the main obstacle to interstate quiet, and control of other states depends not only upon fear but upon superior excellence and the management of reciprocity, is likely to approach closer than Thucydides' theses to mainstream classical Greek thinking about foreign relations.

After dismissing various possible approaches to the question of audience competence in fifth- and fourth-century Athens, this article proposes to tackle this important and notorious problem with a novel strategy that is not ‘top-down’ but ‘bottom-up’, starting with spectators rather than plays and focusing on the bottom-line of expertise which can be taken to be shared by the majority of audience members. An umbrella-notion of ‘theatrical competence’ is established before two central characteristics of drama performed in Athens are exploited: the participation of spectators in the citizen-chorus at the Great Dionysia, and the implications for the competence issue of frequent exposure to an art form which is as formally conservative as preserved Attic drama. What emerges is a model of stratified decoding by spectators (élite and non-élite) who share a considerable level of theatrical competence. In a final step, this model is applied to a number of case studies taken from fifth-century comedy.

This article uses evidence drawn from hymenaios and wedding ritual to reach a new interpretation of the third stasimon of the Hippolytos, and its rôle in the play. There is longstanding contention about whether a second (male) chorus participates in the ode, singing in antiphony with the existing tragic chorus. Even scholars who accept that a second chorus is present have tended to regard it as an aberration which needs to be explained away, rather than a deliberate choice with poetic significance. I discuss the cultural implications of such a chorus, examining our evidence for real-life mixed choruses, and then applying this to the ode itself. The evidence for mixed choruses suggests they are strongly associated with marriage. Looking more closely at the language and imagery of the ode, there are allusions to the topoi of wedding songs and ritual running through it. The ode can use these as a device to trigger deep-rooted responses and associations from the audience, as these motifs are drawn from the cultural tradition which the audience shares. The topoi tie in with the theme of marriage and sexuality within the Hippolytos as a whole. But while their usual purpose is to set up conventional models and ways of thinking, the way they are deployed in the ode in fact serves to undermine these models, and to put a darker spin on the norms of sexual behaviour. This strand of imagery therefore also provides a filter for interpreting Hippolytos' own attitude towards sexuality, and a guide to how we are meant to respond to it.