This paper shows that our principal ancient source for the metaphysical views of the second-century Platonist Harpocration of Argos drew on his interpretation of Plato's Cratylus. This is important because there is no other evidence of the Cratylus being read for its metaphysical content until Proclus, 300 years later. It also changes our understanding of Harpocration: he is generally supposed to share the metaphysical views of Numenius, but his exegesis of the Cratylus reveals him to be a faithful student of Atticus.

Persian troops denominated by Greek writers as κάρδακες appear infrequently in our sources for Achaemenid history, though they are recorded as having a substantial presence at Issus (333 BC). A comprehensive study of these troops is lacking and is of potentially great importance to our understanding of the military system of the Achaemenids, particularly after Xerxes' failed enterprise against Greece, and in light of the 10,000 Immortals' general disappearance from the literary record. Whether they were (a) light or heavy infantry and (b) mercenaries or native Persians has long been the subject of debate, with no particularly conclusive results. This study dismisses Strabo as a useful source on the κάρδακες, and attempts to reconcile the divergent source traditions of Arrian, who describes them as , and Callisthenes (recorded by Polybius), who writes of Persian πελτασταί at Issus. From an investigation of a wide variety of texts, together with lexicographical sources, it is possible to conclude that the hitherto enigmatic κάρδακες were general-purpose infantry not dissimilar to Iphicratean πελτασταί, and that, collectively, they constituted an ethnically diverse infantry force.

Xenophon participated in the March of the Ten Thousand, but in the Anabasis, instead of parading his autopsy, he keeps his narratorial persona separate from his character. This separation, however, is subtly blurred when, on the one hand, the narrator adopts the perspective of the character, who is by far the most prominent focalizing instance in the narrative, and, on the other hand, the character appropriates narratorial functions: Xenophon the character comes to the fore as embedded narrator and commentator of the events. Furthermore, his references to the past can be read as meta-historical, i.e. they shed light on the commemorative act of the Anabasis. While the choice of a hetero-diegetic narrator helps Xenophon to enhance the credibility of the account of his deeds, the intricate entanglement of narrator and character contributes to the characterization of himself as the privileged agent in the March of the Ten Thousand.

The ‘hierarchy of herdsmen’ in pastoral (cowherd > shepherd > goatherd) as discussed by ancient critics of Theocritus and Virgil was an important facet of ancient readers' engagement with this literature; it was known to imperial authors of prose pastoral Longus (1.16.1) and Alciphron (2.33.1-2), who each allude to it and adapt it to their own unique receptions of the pastoral tradition. Alciphron is concerned with hierarchies of wealth and status among his ‘low’ characters; he uses his readers' awareness of hierarchy as a theme of his pastoral hypotexts to sustain a theme of social status throughout his Letters and to order his four books according to their protagonists' position in the hierarchy. His relocation of ‘Idylls’ to a Classical Attic setting, and transposition into the Sophistic Atticizing prose valued by contemporary authors, follows up Longus' attempt to reclaim the pastoral tradition from Virgil for Greek literature. Menander is proposed as an authorial figure for Alciphron in Letters 4.18–19.

Porphyry's criticism of Origen (in c.Christ. fr. 39 Harnack) is usually interpreted as expressive of the ‘double apostasy’ accusation: Christians had not only abandoned their pagan religious traditions (‘Hellenism’) but also their new religious host, Judaism, whose texts they misappropriated for themselves. Reading key elements of the fragment within Porphyry's broader philosophical thought prompts suspicion of this cultural interpretation of the fragment, and instead points to a serious Platonic reaction to Christianity.

The selective survival of the corpus of ancient Greek historiography was in large part due to Byzantine historical and religious interests, combined with the ancient valorization, on literary grounds, of the three Classical historians. Our corpus generally reflects the Byzantine interest in Roman history, especially regime-changes, and sacred history, especially the Hellenistic context of Jewish history. Selections from ancient historians dealing with those themes were, in some cases, circulating independently already from the tenth century. The Byzantines had little interest in Hellenistic or local histories. This paper concludes by examining two moments (or ‘indices’) of survival and selection, Photios' Bibliotheke and the Constantinian Excerpta. Our corpus was largely in place by the time of the Excerpta, and the loss of some texts read by Photios may have been facilitated by the process of transliteration but was due to the same selective interests.

The presentation of Lokris and the Lokrians in the Iliad is problematic. The entry for Lokris in the Catalogue lists an unusually large number of towns for such a small area, but many of those towns are obscure. Despite the small size of the region of Lokris, it has given the epic not one but two major heroes of very different characters: the Lokrian commander Oilean Aias and Patroklos, Achilles' friend and warrior companion. Although Aias is praised in the Catalogue entry as the greatest of Homeric warriors, elsewhere in the Iliad he is only a second-rank hero and his men, the Lokrians, are relatively insignificant archers. Seeking a resolution of these difficulties, this paper integrates information derived from the text of the Iliad with what is known of the topography and archaeology of Lokris between the Late Mycenaean and Archaic periods. It is concluded that Aias, the more traditional hero, is firmly embedded in Lokris, whereas Patroklos, who appears to be ‘reinvented’ by the poet of the Iliad, has no traditional connection to the land. The contrast between these heroes may reflect the division between the mountainous Epiknemidian and the urban Opountian parts of Lokris. Oilean Aias encapsulates the ancient virtues of the mountain warrior and is linked with Epiknemidian Lokris; Patroklos, with his gentle disposition, is representative of the citizen of the polis and as such is linked to Opous, the capital of Lokris.

The story of the Athenian Tyrannicides Harmodios and Aristogeiton is well known to modern scholars who agree that the two men were figures of cult. The occasion for these rituals has inspired rather less agreement and the rites have often been connected with the Epitaphia. In this article, I re-examine the ritual setting of the cult. As I argue, evidence not previously brought into these discussions identifies the Panathenaia as the primary occasion for the Tyrannicides' rituals. This connection is further reinforced by other visual imagery (Panathenaic amphorae, sculpture, vase-painting) which links Harmodios and Aristogeiton to the festival of Athena and its celebration of divine victory over the Giants.

This paper seeks to establish an intellectual context for the periplous of Pseudo-Skylax (probably written in or near Athens in 338 to ca. 337 BC). The unknown author is aware of the work of contemporary natural philosophers, including those in the post-Platonic Academy and those who were to form the Peripatos, especially Aristotle, Theophrastos and Dikaiarchos. Among known writers, Dikaiarchos is most likely to have written the periplous; but the case remains unproven. Doubts are also raised as to the validity of the so-called periplographic genre.

This article investigates how flight in battle is presented in the newly discovered Archilochus fragment (P.Oxy LXIX 4708) and compares it to the Homeric treatment of the issue. It argues that the traditional dichotomy between scholars who see Archilochus as ‘subverting’ epic values and those who see him as continuous with them is too simplistic, and that the new poem provides clear evidence of a more nuanced approach to epic material. The fragment's approach reflects many of the subtleties found in Homeric attitudes to flight, and in this respect we see Archilochus using the cultural authority of epic to add weight to his argument. Nevertheless, the choice of the Telephus myth, which tells the story of a mistaken conflict, is an ironic one, and the narrative foregrounds the ways in which the Achaeans at Mysia fall short of heroic norms and perhaps casts aspersions on the contemporary scenario to which the mythological conflict appears to be compared. Hence the poem contains competing strands of consolation, celebration of an aristeia and mockery in a way which demonstrates Archilochus' varied and subtle relationship to epic.

This paper reviews and discusses two major publications on Greek comedy (J. Rusten, The Birth of Comedy and I. Storey, Fragments of Old Comedy) in the light of recent advances and trends in scholarship. It focuses in particular on periodization of the genre, including an evaluation of the contribution of ancient scholarship; the evidence for variety in Old Comedy; the different perspectives on competition within the genre; and the presentation and implications of the comic body. An assessment is offered of the impact on scholarship of large-scale research projects such as Kassel and Austin's Poetae Comici Graeci and Koster et al.'s Scholia in Aristophanem, as well as the growing material evidence for Greek comedy, its context and reception. Some significant ongoing problems are identified which require further study.