This article demonstrates that the spatial category of depth is crucial for understanding Aeschylus' Persians. Underground spaces are often symbolically represented in Greek drama not only on a vertical axis but also by the interior of the stage-building (skene). By investigating the connections between ‘interiority’ and ‘depth’, this article argues that the most economical and effective reconstruction of Darius' apparition is to suppose that he emerged from the interior of the skene, whose existence at this date is often disputed. The article furthermore analyses the multifaceted concept of the earth in the Persians, to suggest new ways in which underground, ground and interior spaces can be connected holistically to other spatial and natural imagery.

The third part of the Timaeus, where the account is focused on the cooperation of reason and necessity, has received far less attention than the opening two sections. Particularly, the description of irrigation, digestion and respiration constitutes a challenging passage that has been conspicuously overlooked by scholarly research. Virtually the only modern explanation for the passage was devised by Cornford, and despite several inaccuracies it has been unanimously accepted by all commentators. This paper will challenge Cornford's interpretation, and use some modern biological concepts to provide an alternative approach to the passage more compatible with an actual human body.

The Freudian engagement with the classical world represents one of the most important and intriguing episodes in the ongoing dialogue between antiquity and modernity. That Freud returned to antiquity to formulate his revolutionary theories of the human mind should strike classicists and psychoanalysts alike as a fascinating enigma. And yet classicists have to a large extent given short shrift to this issue. They have not only shown themselves indifferent to the question of why Freud takes the ancient world as the starting-point for his examination of modern man, they have also, by and large, rejected psychoanalysis as a methodological tool for providing insights into the classical world. Even those classicists who are most open to the benefits of contemporary theory have largely isolated psychoanalysis as a uniquely inappropriate methodology for understanding antiquity.

So, for instance, those classicists who display an interest in the complex series of discourses and practices which surround the construction of the ancient self have explicitly distanced their analyses from the insights of psychoanalysis. Thus in Christopher Gill's 500-page work on ‘Personality’ in Greek culture, Freud gets a mere three perfunctory citations.

Pausanias' qualities as a historian have long been the subject of scholarly attention, not least because some of his historical accounts present modern commentators with seemingly insurmountable problems. In fact, there is no denying that at times, Pausanias gets his history spectacularly wrong. Such apparent errors are all the more problematic because Pausanias' version is sometimes incompatible with major historical works which he, as a very well-read man, should have known. Do we have to assume that Pausanias sometimes chose to present historical accounts which he himself could identify as inaccurate or at least as clashing with other literary works?

In this article I investigate Pausanias' description of Mantinea which contains two of the most blatant examples of his inaccurate historical accounts, both set in the third century BC, and both incompatible with alternative sources: we are offered a lengthy description of a battle that probably never took place, and Pausanias' version of Mantinea's fate after its defeat in 222 BC seems a complete reversal of what Polybius reported much closer to the time. I use these examples to demonstrate how such idiosyncratic versions of history could develop and survive within their local context, and why they may have seemed an attractive addition to Pausanias' Periegesis.

The relationship between poetry and the visual arts is seldom close and never simple. But special difficulties attend the study of it in the eighth century before Christ in Greece, when evidence is not only in excessively short supply but, when it does come, is almost by definition ambiguous. On the whole question of the interpretation of Late Geometric vase-painting and other eighth-century art, there are well-established opposing positions: each new discovery finds a different interpretation on the part of what may be called the optimists – those who seek for correspondences between the Homeric epics and the visual arts – and of the sceptics, who habitually argue that there is no evidence for anything of the kind. Each party appears to have found an outlet for the promulgation of its view, inasmuch as many general or semi-popular accounts of Geometric and other early Greek art present it as having a major mythological content derived from epic poetry; while many closer scholarly studies, deploying an array of iconographical learning and strict logic, nowadays reach the opposite conclusion, that there is little or no narrative content of any kind, mythological or otherwise, and no significant contact with epic, until the end of the Geometric period.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Statius' Thebaid is a rarity. More of the surviving Latin epics of the classical period are incomplete or unfinished than not: Lucan's Bellum civile, Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Statius' Achilleid, perhaps Silius Italicus' Punica and of course Virgil's Aeneid (although his dissatisfaction may relate to polish rather than scope: we do not know). Only Ovid's Metamorphoses and Statius' Thebaid seem complete. Yet the question of epic endings casts a fascination upon critics, especially perhaps where the ending does not exist or where there is evidence that it is not the ending planned by the author. Critics use their interpretations of the endings to inscribe meaning in the preceding text and to clinch one reading against another. The readings advanced enact different kinds of closure or refuse to see any closure at all.

It seems paradoxical that one of the few epics to survive complete has not yet received a full stint of attention devoted to its ending. In this paper, my purpose is to situate the end of the Thebaid in its literary and ideological context. This involves examining how the close of the poem interacts with earlier epic, particularly with the Aeneid. My argument is that Statius offers a supplement to, or even a critique of, the open-endedness of the Aeneid in the form of a triptych of resounding endings. I shall then suggest that there are other elements in Statius' closural strategy which are highlighted by a consideration of his Romanisation of his Greek material.

§1. The Homeric case form in -ϕι corresponds to the Indo-European instrumental plural morph *-bhi(s)2 which roughly corresponds to the senses of the English preposition with, expressing both the instrument of verbal action (‘He killed Dr Black with the lead piping’) and the notion of comitativity (‘He was with Col. Mustard’): yet Homeric -ϕι seemingly stands as a generic oblique case marker in all numbers. Except for literary dialects in which it may be regarded as an epic feature, it was unparalleled in Greek until the decipherment of Linear B demonstrated that Mycenaean knew a case form spelled -pi, which may be taken as standing for /-phi/ (the Linear B script making no distinction between the voiced, voiceless and aspirated stops), functioning probably only as a plural, and in declensions other than the thematic. While -ϕι and -pi have a certain degree of overlap in their function and formations, the Homeric and Mycenaean forms also show significant differences; this paper examines and attempts to explain those differences.

Xenophon records that in 371 an embassy was sent from Athens to Sparta in order to negotiate a settlement. His account contains several peculiar features concerning both the procedure of the embassy and the personnel employed. To submit the historical writings of Xenophon to close and detailed scrutiny is often an unrewarding task, yet it is well to bear in mind that at the time of the events under discussion Xenophon, who had been exiled from Athens, was resident in the Peloponnese and he ought therefore to have been in a position to combine an understanding of the political workings of Athens with a knowledge of what went on in Sparta.

We read that Callias the son of Hipponicus, Autocles the son of Strombichides, Demostratus the son of Aristophon, Aristocles, Cephisodotus, Melanopus and Lycaethus, seven names in all, were sent as envoys, and further that the popular orator Callistratus was also present in Sparta. Included in the account are three speeches which at first sight are discordant and which Xenophon attributes to Callias, Autocles and Callistratus.

Theocritus, Idyll 26 is short, starkly dramatic, and highly puzzling. Gow (1952) and his predecessors generally regarded it as bad, or even un Theocritean; and many of its details remain obscure. Lines 27–32 in particular present acute problems; and, as Gow (1952) II.475 wrote, ‘no explanation of the poem as a whole can be satisfactory unless it accounts for these mysterious lines’. No ancient scholia survive (except for scraps in P3), and Idyll 26 in isolation offers scant indications of a cultural or social context. In consequence any new attempt to increase understanding of Idyll 26 must inevitably be speculative, particularly when it moves from text-based, literary aspects to more general questions about the idyll. Such an effort may, however, seem more worthwhile nowadays, when the characteristics of professional hellenistic poetry can more easily be recognised in Idyll 26.

In his Panathenaicus, which was issued in 339 BC, Isocrates condemns Athenians for their rampant bribery:

[Formerly] those who had been elected to office were expected to neglect their own property, and also to abstain no less from those perquisites (λημμάτων) which nowadays the officials have become accustomed to gain than from the sacred treasures; who under the current circumstances would have such sense of self-restraint? (Isoc. 12.145)

There are many references suggesting that the Athenians not only deplored but also had strict attitudes towards bribery, which they considered to be a distinct crime. What should not be overlooked, however, is that the Greeks had their traditional values concerning gifts and reciprocity, according to which they were expected to give in return when given something. In so-called Homeric society gift-giving was one of the most fundamental principles of social relationships, as is notably pointed out by M. I. Finley. That the Greek word dôra, which is most commonly used to mean bribery, originally refers to gifts in general epitomises the ambivalence of Greek values concerning bribery.

<Nocte> tamen insequenti ipso pervigilante in eodem loco alia excitata turris prima luce miraculo hostibus fuit. Simul et oppidi turris quae maximum propugnaculum fuerat, subrutis fundamentis, dehiscere ingentibus rimis et tum [xvi litt.] ṭọ [iii litt.] igni coepit; incendiique simul et ruinae metu territi Contrebienses de muro trepidi refugerunt; et ut legati mitterentur ad dedendam urbem ab universa multitudine conclamatum est. Eadem virtus quae irritaverat oppugnantem victorem placabiliorem fecit. Obsidibus acceptis pecuniae modicam exegit summam armaque omnia ademit. Transfugas liberos vivos ad se adduci iussit; fugitivos, quorum maior multitudo erat, ipsis imperavit ut interficerent. Iugulatos de muro deiecerunt.

Cum magna iactura militum quattuor et quadraginta diebus Contrebia expugnata, relictoque ibi L. Insteio [xvi litt.] ipse ad Hiberum flumen copias reduxit. Ibi hibernaculis secundum oppidum quod Castra Aelia vocatur aedificatis ipse in castris manebat; interdiu conventum sociarum civitatium in oppido agebat. Arma ut fierent pro copiis cuiusque populi per totam provinciam edixerat; quibus inspectis referre vetera arma milites iussit, quae aut itineribus crebris aut oppu [c. xxx litt.] facta erant, novaque iis per centuriones divisit. Equitatum quoque novis instruxit armis, vestimentaque praeparata ante divisa, et stipendium datum.

The Neopythagorean Diotogenes, author of a lost treatise On Kingship of which some fragments have come down to us in Stobaeus’ Anthology, is a largely neglected writer. Scholars either ignore him or briefly discuss him in the context of general overviews of Greek political thinking, usually comparing him to other Neopythagoreans such as Sthenidas and Ecphantus. This article argues that Diotogenes deserves to be read for his own sake, as a creative and subtle thinker who managed to contribute to his own philosophical tradition by benefiting from Homeric exegesis and by taking into account the more concrete demands of daily life.

Philostratus’ Heroicus betrays an obsession with statues that demands explanation. Just as cult statues of epic heroes litter the contemporary second-century CE landscape, so do they litter Philostratus’ text. No story of a hero is distinct from an ecphrasis of that hero's statue, and in practice a request for the one is a request for the other. Lifeless heroes (Protesilaus first and foremost) become vividly ‘alive’ in the imagination of their devotees and, occasionally, their Zoilean adversaries. As the lines between reality and fantasy blur, Philostratus’ critique of material cultural practices accompanies and fortifies his better known Homerkritik.

This paper seeks to highlight and assess the presence of allusions to Roman military apparatus in Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe. In the introduction, I contextualise the argument within the history of scholarship on the novel, and discuss issues relating to the author's date, Aphrodisian provenance and readership. I then divide the argument into three parts. At the end of the novel, Chaereas returns to Syracuse and publicly displays the spoils won from the east in a manner that, I argue, is highly suggestive of the Roman triumph (Part i). He then extends a grant of citizenship to the Greek element of his army and issues them cash donatives, while Hermocrates gives farmland to the Egyptians. As I demonstrate, this is characteristic of what happens upon the demobilisation of Roman military manpower (especially the auxilia) (Part ii). I then draw out the ramifications of an imperial-era author who represents Greek military exploits against the Persians, writing during a period in which Greeks were not interested in military endeavours (Part iii).

The object of this paper is to demonstrate an intimate coherence of thought on the problems of flux and language between the Cratylus, Theaetetus and Timaeus, and as a consequence to salvage the traditional view that the Theaetetus and Timaeus both propound versions of Plato's own theory of perception. This undertaking will involve grappling with views which were given their most forceful expression by Owen, but which have frequently been adopted and marshalled afresh since his classic article. The burden of these views is that the Cratylus and Theaetetus are engaged in analytical work which is more sophisticated than anything in the Timaeus; that this is supported by a number of points on which they are demonstrably correcting the Timaeus (and other earlier works); and that the similarities on the subject of perception, for example, are to be explained on the grounds that Plato in the Theaetetus is concerned to expose the essential incoherence of the basis on which a theory such as that of the Timaeus rests. It will be desirable, therefore, to examine first the passages on which this argument is principally based.

The Aulularia has always been one of the most popular and most studied of Plautus' plays, both because of its intrinsic interest and quality and also because of its later influence in the European dramatic tradition. In the large amount of scholarly work which has been devoted to this play the identity of the author of Plautus' Greek model and the alterations which Plautus may have made in this model have been much discussed. Research on these questions was, however, placed on a quite new footing in 1958 by the publication of Menander's Dyscolus: the striking similarities between these plays have now produced a loose consensus of scholarly opinion, although the dissenting voice can still be heard. The two conclusions upon which most scholars who have written recently on this subject seem to agree are that the Plautine changes to the Greek model were relatively minor, consisting in the omission of one or two scenes and the expansion of a couple of others, and that Menander was the author of the Greek original. Although it will become clear that I am very sceptical of the former of these propositions and have at least an open mind on the latter, the aim of this present paper is simply to re-open discussion of the relationship between the Aulularia and its Greek original by pointing to some problems which have been neglected and to others which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. In Part I I discuss the division of the Greek original into five acts and the conclusions to be drawn from difficulties in this division and in Part II I examine a further problem in the Aulularia which might have some bearing on the question of the authorship of the Greek original.

In section III, 12, of the Rhetoric, Aristotle discusses the style of practical oratory, λέξις ἀγωνιστική, as opposed to the literary style, λέξις γραφική. While in the latter a compact construction is necessary, the former uses an asyndetic composition which gives it the character of natural speech and a dramatic potential conformable to ὑπόκρισις, the artistic delivery. As far as Aristotle deals with stylistic composition in a larger sense (up to the beginning of ch. 4), his comments seem clear. In chapter 4 he passes to a more definite plane of syntactical notions: .

The interpretation of this passage offers more than one difficulty, contained both in its first section which ends with the example and in its last sentence.

1. The standard translation of the first section is as follows: ‘The asyndeton has a further peculiarity: in an equal space of time many things appear to be said. Just as the connective particle turns a number of statements into one, so its omission does the opposite: turns a single statement into many. Thus an asyndeton produces amplification, e.g. I came, I talked (with him), I entreated (him).’