The purpose of this paper is to present a particular model of how Roman politics worked, and of what Roman politics before the Social War was ‘about’. In essence I want to place in the centre of our conception the picture of an orator addressing a crowd in the Forum; a picture of someone using the arts of rhetoric to persuade an anonymous crowd about something. The most important subject of oratory, and the most important fundamental right exercised by whoever came to vote, was legislation. Yet the greatest of all the extraordinary distortions which have been imposed on our conception of Republican politics in the twentieth century is that the process of legislation, and the content of the legislation passed by the people, have both ceased to be central to it. With that we have ceased to listen sufficiently to the actual content of oratory addressed to the people, to the arguments from rights, from the necessities of the preservation of the res publica, from historical precedents, both Roman and non-Roman, and from social attitudes and prejudices. In the second century above all, we can see how the prestige which the office-holding class derived from family descent and personal standing on the one hand was matched on the other by popular demands for appropriate conduct, and by popular suspicions of private luxury, of profiteering from the conduct of public affairs, and of improper collaboration with wrong-doers both at home and abroad.

If great men were the driving force in historical development, the history of antiquity according to Beloch could not be written; our knowledge of their actions is incomplete and their personalities are virtually unknown. ‘In the best case we have only a couple of anecdotes of altogether dubious value, but almost never a line from their own hand; the first and nearly the last of whose character we can form a picture in some degree adequate is Cicero; apart from him we may perhaps count Julian, who already stands on the threshold of a new age.’ In this judgement there are obvious exaggerations, but its truth in many instances is beyond question, and those historians who feel obliged to hold that the course of history is not entirely determined by impersonal factors, which may also be no better known, must acknowledge that any reconstruction of developments in the ancient world is speculative to a greater degree than for some more recent periods.

This article is intended to be read in association with that of Schofield which follows. They share a common outlook—for we both believe that an understanding of the literary form of De Divinatione is integral to an understanding of its philosophical and historical point. But in detail our approaches are rather different. My own paper is the work of an historian and is concerned principally with the intellectual and cultural context of De Divinatione. My analysis of the text, highlighting its tensions and unresolved contradictions, follows from my analysis of that broader context. Schofield, by contrast, studies De Divinatione as an example of Hellenistic philosophical argumentation and explores the ways Cicero translates this not merely into Latin, but into a specifically Roman rhetorical mode. Other differences—in particular some disagreement as to how far it is possible to identify a ‘Ciceronian position’ on religion—are signalled in the text and notes of what follows.

This paper is a study of the way Cicero wrote philosophy. Or rather a way: as one would expect of an author of his ambition and versatility, Cicero produced different sorts of philosophical writing in different works. What I am considering here, accordingly, is the way Cicero wrote philosophy in one particular treatise, de Divinatione. Section I examines the place of Div. in his philosophical oeuvre, and asks why he should have decided to devote a treatise to the topic. It suggests inter alia that he was attracted by the special opportunities for philosophical rhetoric which it afforded him. Section II explores the two distinctive styles of rhetoric in Div., and proposes that they are best seen as a particular kind of marriage of the Greek and the Roman. Section III discusses the claim that Div. is to be read as a tract against superstition, and opposes to it a conception of the work—at once more straightforward and more nuanced—as an exercise in the opposition of arguments. It focuses particularly on the avowedly Socratic dimension of Div. Section IV supports the same view of the dialogue by emphasizing the philosophical weight of the arguments for as well as against divination.

Epictetus speaks: Just as it is not open to the banker or the greengrocer to reject the value of Caesar's coin, but he is obliged, whether he likes it or not, when you offer it, to hand it over for what he has for sale in exchange for it, so it is with the soul. The good on its appearance instantly attracts to itself, the bad repels. The soul will never reject the worth of something with the manifest appearance of goodness, no more than one would reject Caesar's coin.

The first part of this study (hereafter Panhellenion I) considered the nature of Hadrian's Panhellenion by looking at its known membership and activities and its social context, and reviewed the impact of the league's foundation on Athens, its capital city, and Eleusis, Attica's most prestigious sanctuary.

Here we concentrate on three Dorian member-cities: Sparta and Argos in the province of Achaia, and Cyrene in Crete-and-Cyrene. In doing so we sometimes need to go beyond the evidence relating specifically to the Panhellenion, since certain features of Greek city-life under the Antonines are best explained in the larger framework of Hadrian's initiatives in the Greek world: in particular a pre-occupation with civic origins, relations of kinship (syngeneia) and recognition through ‘diplomacy’ of the historic primacy of Achaia's most famous cities. In the archaeology of Cyrene and Argos it is possible to discern, as at Athens, a phase of urban development which owed its impetus to Hadrian and which, at Cyrene, embraced a marked archaism of style.

One morning early in the year 363, the citizens of Antioch awoke to find, prominently displayed outside the imperial palace, a lengthy and vehement communication from their emperor. He begins with an attack on his own beard, and we know the satire today as the Misopogon, or ‘Beard-Hater’. But it also bore the title ‘Oration on Antioch’ (Antiochikos). The double title is indicative of a parodox in its rhetorical strategy. Normally an Antiochikos would be a panegyric, and normally a rhetorical description of an emperor's person and achievements should conform to the encomiastic formulae of the basilikos logos. But Julian in his satire turns the panegyrical topoi upside down, and abuses the city by joining its citizens in abuse of himself. In so doing he paints a vivid contrast between the emperor, breast shaggy like a lion, beard alive with vermin, fingers stained with ink, and the smooth-skinned Phaeacians of Antioch. Scholars have been embarrassed at the spectacle. Was Julian sufficiently conscious of the dignity of his position?

Excavations were resumed at Vindolanda in the pre-Hadrianic section of the site in the summer of 1985. The prediction that the area was likely to contain further deposits of writing-tablets was strikingly confirmed and it can now be confidently stated that the publication, by the present authors, of the tablets discovered in 1973-5 was only the first instalment. It is as yet unclear when the full publication of the new finds can be expected or what precise form it will take. This is the justification, if any is needed, for presenting this summary account of the 1985 material. The inventory numbers under which the new tablets are catalogued run to almost 340; many contain several fragments; most, but not all, have at least traces of writing. It is at present envisaged that three more seasons of excavation will be undertaken in 1986, 1987 and 1988, investigating an area which extends some 15–20 metres to the north of the present terminus. There is some reason to think that the writing-tablet deposit may cover the whole or a substantial part of this area and it is therefore possible that the subsequent seasons may yield as many tablets as that of 1985.

Like the survey of 1981, this is the product of a team: Reynolds is responsible for the introduction and sections II–VI, Beard for sections I, VII–IX and XI, Roueché for section X. Reynolds has, as previously, acted as editor; it is planned that from the next survey in 1991 Beard will take over this role.

In the spring of 1981, on a hill called Molino del Postero, in undulating territory 5 km south-west of El Saucejo and 3 km north-east of Algámitas, in the province of Seville, a group of men looking for ancient coins and armed with metal-detectors discovered six bronze tablets and some small fragments of other tablets, containing part of the municipal law of a hitherto unknown town, the Municipium Flavium Irnitanum. Although the name of the town was probably Irni, since ancient place-names in Spain ending with -i are very common, such as Astigi, Ucubi, Tucci, Iptuci etc, a name such as Irnium remains possible.