For the Argonauts of Valerius Flaccus the Black Sea and its surrounding lands are an alien world. As Argo leaves the Mediterranean behind and enters the Propontis, we are told that the Minyans begin to gain ‘a view into another world’ (alium prospectus in orbem, 2.628). So too when the ship makes its way through the Bosporus, on the point of entering the Black Sea, we are told that the Greeks ‘see all things new’ (noua cuncta uident, 4.424). Clearly this voyage is presented by Valerius as a major event in world history.

One question which must confront any reader of Valerius’ poem is whether the effects of this voyage should be viewed negatively or positively. Indeed the poem itself poses that question at the outset, through its inclusion of two versions of Argo's destiny: the negative prophecy of Mopsus (1.211-26) and the more reassuring prediction of Idmon (1.234-38). In this paper I propose to consider aspects of this problem through an examination not of Valerius' treatment of the voyage itself, but of its consequences as they are presented in the second half of the poem.

Chthonic scenes have often been considered in terms of their metapoetic potential. The very nature of such episodes, in which protagonists typically encounter characters from the literary-mythological past, arguably encourages a kind of artistic self-consciousness. In Currie's words,

This article examines whether the portrayal of ghosts in the necromancy of Statius Thebaid Book 4 can be read as a meditation on the poem's place in the literary tradition. It views the scene as a commentary on the epic's artistic practices, wherein Statius both acknowledges his predecessors, especially Ovid and Seneca, and asserts his own literary contribution through the appearance of the ambushers depicted earlier in the poem. It then argues that Statius validates his place in the canon by enacting the integration of the ambush scene into literary and Theban history.

In 364 BCE Clearchus, a former student of Isocrates and Plato, staged a coup d'état in his native city of Heraclea Pontica and made himself tyrant. Twelve years later in 352 Clearchus fell victim to a conspiracy led by another former student of Plato and native Heraclean, by the name of Chion. Some centuries later an author whose name we do not know and about whose date and place of residence we can only speculate fixed on this event as the basis of a historical epistolary novel, which comprises a sequence of seventeen letters purportedly written by Chion himself. The novel survives in a number of manuscripts, the majority of which give it the title Letters of Chion. It is with this text that this article is concerned.

The sequence tracks Chion's progress from the time he leaves home in order to pursue his studies at the Academy to two days before the assassination. Most of the letters are addressed to Chion's father Matris, and so fall into the category of ‘letters home’ in which Chion narrates and reflects on his encounters and thoughts at various stages of his sojourn abroad. The final one however is written from Heraclea back to Athens; it is addressed to Plato, and from its tone and content Chion clearly expects of his master that he regard the upcoming assassination as his student's graduation summa cum laude in the field of political ethics. Critical opinion on the Letters is largely unanimous in maintaining that the author shares this view; that the whole sequence is designed to show Chion developing the philosophical acumen needed to make the right decision on the on the ethical issues that confront him and the emotional maturity needed to take decisive political action at the appropriate time.

In this article I suggest ways in which a gorgeously crafted, colourful, compelling 20th century painting of an abandoned Ariadne highlights both her tragic and comic presence in classical literary representations. Joseph South-all's 1925-6 work Ariadne in Naxos (tempera on linen, 83.5 × 101.6 cm), reproduced below, can be viewed in all its glory in the Birmingham City Art Gallery (bequeathed by the artist's widow, Anne Elizabeth, in 1948) but it was featured to fine effect in the 2007 exhibition The Parrot in Art: From Dürer to Elizabeth Butterworth, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham. It was in this psittacine (psittaceous?) context that I first encountered Ariadne's parrot so the bird perhaps loomed larger in the painting than it might as a stand-alone Southall on its home ground in the Gallery.