This article analyses the ‘politics of humanity’ in Cicero’s philosophical and rhetorical works, the practice of projecting and shifting the moral and political boundary that separates the ‘human’ from the ‘inhuman’, the ‘inept at being human’, and the ‘undeserving of being human’. This practice has many affinities with the relatively modern phenomenon of ‘dehumanisation’. In the first part, the emphasis is on Cicero’s humanism, in particular his ideas on human nature as they appear in De Officiis. Here I also show the impact of this practice on Roman ideas of self-fashioning, ‘sincerity’ and social performance. In the second part, I observe the way in which Cicero’s political and legal theory fits within this ideological project. I further argue that Cicero’s humanism provided a conceptual background to the rhetorical dehumanisation of his political enemies, that is, to the claims in his invective that these men could no longer be considered as proper human beings. My final suggestion is that the goal of this practice, at least some of the time, was to make a case for excluding these individuals from the state’s legal system and thus depriving them of its protections.

The sources which refer to Silvanus and his abortive usurpation are few and varied. They include a secular historian with a military background (Ammianus Marcellinus), a Roman emperor (Julian) and a lesser group composed of secular and ecclesiastical historians, orators and priests. Epigraphical evidence is slight. These sources are not of equal merit or value nor are they in absolute agreement. Indeed, the two major sources, Ammianus and Julian, differ substantially.

Herodotus has a lot to say about slavery and about particular slaves and groups of slaves. The broad theme was, of course, central to his historical conception and presentation of the Persian Wars and of warfare in general, as well as being key to the contrasting nomoi whose range and significance he is concerned to explore. Against that large background, I wish to examine Herodotus' understanding of slavery and slave-trading on the north coast of the Black Sea, with a view to a fuller appreciation of his Histories and of exchange in the region. Three broad observations will assist.

It seems that not just anyone, however qualified by age and distinction, could sue for plebeian office. I have interpreted the lex Atinia (perhaps about the time of the Hannibalic War or shortly thereafter) as removing the prohibition on members of the senate becoming tribunes. That regulation, I would conjecture, had been operative since the early days of plebeian consulates, reflecting perhaps a tension between the popular office and the aristocratic council. But at the same time that this restriction was probably becoming out-moded or dysfunctional, another, more peculiar one was still alive and well.

There is surely no one any more who requires convincing that the basis of the Augustan principate was the control of the legions. Augustus may have paraded his tribunician power and played down his potestas as a magistrate, but the Res Gestae is above all else the record of the generalissimo in control of the entire military resources of the empire. That control remained almost unchallenged for forty-four years.

William Harris brilliantly demonstrated that under the Republic military glory was the preeminent virtue of Roman politicians. The state was now in the control of one man, but nothing had changed, except that the stakes were higher. Edward Gibbon, of course, detected the truth. He had, after all, both political and military experience – however inglorious.

The Corinthian piece belongs to the early series of pegasi with incuse pattern reverse. Due to the flattening of the under-type, a confident identification with one of the obverses illustrated by Ravel is impossible.

It has been claimed that there are no examples of overstriking of the earliest wide-flan staters of Magna Graecia on pegasi. This contention is now invalidated as far as Kroton is concerned.

Sophokles’ Elektra has been the subject of considerable interpretative debate this century. Is it a tragedy that ends on a note of clear and unequivocal triumph for the two children engaged in avenging their father and recovering their rightful heritage? Or are we to detect a much more ambivalent attitude to the matricide and to perceive a thread of darkness and ruin running through the play as we see the disintegration of Elektra as a person? The divine element is an important aspect of every one of Sophokles’ extant plays; and for Elektra that means Apollo above all. Other gods are invoked in prayers or alluded to occasionally — especially Zeus at 1095-7 — but Apollo is the deity most frequently in our minds throughout this drama.

According to St. Matthew, Pontius Pilate had a wife; after a warning dream, she spoke out against her husband’s decision concerning Christ. The gospel does not mention her name, but a number of apocryphal writings, composed between the third and seventh centuries, give her the cognomen of Procia, under which name, and as the wife of Pilate, she is included in the calendars of the Greek Orthodox and Ethiopian Churches. The earliest source which adds the nomen Claudia to the cognomen Procla was available to St. Jerome, and so extant in the early fifth century — but versions of it surviving today are said to bear little relation to the one he referred to, and their authenticity is doubtful. The name Claudia Procia nevertheless attached itself to the legend, and under it Pilate’s wife has survived even into the fiction of this century.

The primary purpose of this essay is to illustrate from Greek the tendency for rare phonetic features of a language to become still rarer or completely lost. In the main the period studied will be that from Homer to classical Attic and Ionic, and the features studied will be initial consonant groups. This will lead sometimes to the consideration of the circumstances in which words with such features that have become rare are used in classical literature.

Some attempt is made also to account for the rarity of some phonetic features and for the presence in Greek of combinations rare in it and related languages, from some point of view abnormal to their patterning. The raw material and occasionally the interpretation of it is taken from standard works.

The defeat of Bardylis ‘the king of the Illyrians‘ was one of the decisive battles of ancient history. It ended forty years of military ascendancy by the Illyrians, during which huge losses had been inflicted on the Molossians, Amyntas III had twice been driven out of Macedonia, and Perdiccas III and 4,000 Macedonians had been killed ‘in a great battle’ of359B.C.(Diod. 16.2.5). One reason for that ascendancy was that the Illyrians adopted Greek hoplite equipment and tactics earlier than their opponents. The victory of Philip marked the beginning of Macedonia’s progress to a military supremacy, of which the marks were the infantry fighting with the pike (sarissa) and the cavalry exploiting a break in an enemy line. Evidence about the battle is provided only by Diodorus andFrontinus, and there are uncertainties about the background to the affair. I think that progress can be made if we ask the appropriate questions.

In part I of a recent article entitled ‘Entertainment in the Prytaneion at Athens’ Michael Osborne deals with the rationale of invitations extended by the Athenians by decree, whether for a single occasion (δεῖπνον, ξἐνια) or as a permanent award (σίτησις). The present paper is concerned only with the former, and will address itself in particular to two interrelated matters: I. the eligibility of benefactors (as opposed to envoys) to receive invitations; and II. the differentiation between citizens and foreigners as regards the type of entertainment provided.

When in A.D. 378 Ammianus Marcellinus fails us we have for the rest of the century and, indeed, for the whole history of the Theodosian house in the East a considerable amount of varied documentation. But, lacking ‘an accurate and faithful guide’ like Ammianus, for a coherent picture of the political and military activity of the period we must have recourse to the inferior and derivative New History of Zosimus, partisan ecclesiastical histories, and late and skimpy chronicles. In these circumstances the fragments of the History of Eunapius, preserved mostly in the Excerpta of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, but also in some notices of the Suda, have considerable value. For, despite Eunapius’ clear inferiority to Ammianus as an historian, he was a contemporary of the events which he described. The fragments have been underused, which is probably due to the common, though not wholly accurate, opinion that Zosimus, being nothing more than a slavish copier of Eunapius, faithfully preserves what his source wrote. Yet (ignoring the problem of the degree of Zosimus’ dependence) he greatly condensed his source, and thus there is much in the Eunapian survivals that is not in the New History. The final fragments (80-88), to which I wish to address myself, are especially important because much of their material corresponds to a lacuna in Zosimus’ text, and the ecclesiastical historians,who make some use of Eunapius, appear to have deserted him here, probably because they found his version of events, especially those involving John Chrysostom, unpalatable.

Plutarch reports that when Sulla was giving himself airs after his successful service under Marius in the Jugurthine war (107-105 B.C.), one of the nobility reproached him with regard to his improved circumstances. (It is my guess Sulla had asserted that his achievements in Numidia heralded a return of his family's interrupted renown — with all the social, moral and financial assumptions this implied.) The riposte was, according to Plutarch: (Sulla 1.4), which Plutarch took to mean (i) that Sulla's patrimony had been negligible (having already stated categorically that Sulla was reared in unenviable domestic circumstances — intelligence he seems to have gathered from this item and one other [discussed below] which he proceeds to relate as evidence) and (ii) that his wealth had been gained subsequently (and, it goes without saying, from other quarters). Plainly the antagonistic observation implied that Sulla's fortune was outside the bounds of what was proper. Sulla was demeaned. The biographer comments for his readers' information that ‘… though the age of pure and upright manners had passed and people had degenerated and given way to their appetites for luxury and extravagance, yet [the Romans of that period] still thought that to forsake one's hereditary poverty was just as disgraceful as to squander a fortune that one had inherited‘ (ibid).

In the negotiations which were concluded by the Peace of Philocrates, Philip hoped to gain control of the Greek states so that he could invade Persia with his own kingdom secure from invasion by powerful enemies in his rear. Elimination of the Thebans as a leading state was an essential step in his plan, because he could foresee that the only combination sufficiently strong to thwart him would be Athens and Thebes. For this reason he insisted on an alliance with the Athenians as a necessary condition for the peace: he hoped that on the basis of this alliance the Athenians would send hoplites to Thermopylae who would aid him both in the suppression of his Theban allies and in the expulsion of Phalaecus and his mercenaries from the forts. He expected that, when the Thebans learned that the tyrant and his troops were to be punished severely and the Phocian people treated leniently, the Thebans would be provoked into attacking him and the Athenians would come to his aid by taking them in the rear.

Of all the extant sources, Suetonius' Life of Augustus contains the fullest, and certainly the most systematic, treatment of the supernatural indications of the future Augustus' greatness. Suetonius deploys the full range of divinatory techniques – both those administered by the institutions of the Roman state religion (augurs and haruspices) and those excluded from its ambit (astrology and dreams) – to underline divine approval for the dominance of Augustus. Scholars have readily explained the appearance of this unparalleled congeries of supernatural support by adducing the personal belief in supernatural phenomena of Suetonius and Dio, the two principal mediators of this material.

This paper discusses a series of archaic poems in which one poet responds directly to the work of another, identifying the other by name or by direct allusion (for example, Simonides frag. 542 PMG, Solon frag. 20 West, Sappho frag. 137 Voigt). Such responses often disagree with their models, and this disagreement is frequently constructed in terms of a correction, not only to the subject matter, but also to the way in which the original is composed. These responses, therefore, not only reflect the pattern of improvisation and ‘capping’ common to much Greek poetry, but form an ongoing debate on the nature and role of the poet and his poetry. The construction of such responses also serves to underline both the importance of improvisation and the permanency of the fame conveyed by the completed poem.

My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate, if possible, the essential unity of many phenomena which are common throughout the field of human civilization. While the occurrences of these phenomena are widely separated in place and time, it would be best if we tried to explain them by ascribing them to a common origin. Where today we find similar elements in the folklore of races dwelling far apart, these were once the common property of peoples living in close contact with one another. After examining some of the most characteristic phenomena from the point of view of geography, anthropology, material and intellectual culture, I shall then try to demonstrate this point by means of archaeological evidence. For this purpose I shall isolate a single popular belief, namely that fertility may be ensured by means of the rite of swinging. This belief is well attested in classical Greece, as part of many religious rites and traditions, and is known as αỉώρα, the ‘swing’.

The dichotomy between lover and poet; the relationship with comedy; the force of the metre: these are the considerations that have told most in recent years in the interpretation of Catullus' poem 8, Miser Catulle.

Wheeler, following Morris, takes the poem as a comic exercise. Fordyce, Fraenkel and Quinn think of it as a serious examination of the lover's internal conflict. Commager (‘if it would be foolish to deny the poem's comic overtones, it would be equally foolish to maintain that those are the only ones’) juggles with the two. One conviction that seems shared by most, however, is that the poem, in a sense, describes full circle, returning to its starting point.

Agrarian legislation in the immediate aftermath of the Gracchi is the subject of continuing debate. Appian (BC i 27) records three laws, the last two of which are specified as being tribunician: the first removed the inalienability of land holdings; the second was perhaps the measure of Sp. Thorius, mentioned also by Cicero, which stopped land distribution, confirmed possession rights on the land and imposed a rent, the proceeds of which were to help the poor; the third abolished this rent. Appian provides chronological clues of a sort: the first measure came ‘not long after’ the death of C. Gracchus, the third ‘not long after’ Thorius’ law, and the whole business was perhaps finished within fifteen years άπò τῆς Γράκχου νομοϑεσίας. I say ‘perhaps’ because it remains arguable whether the point of reference for these fifteen years is Tiberius or Gaius Gracchus. I intend to argue elsewhere that Tiberius is meant, but as such an argument cannot be regarded as conclusive, there is still a point in this respect in examining the lex agraria which is the inscription CIL i2 585. The law is naturally important in its own right. It is dated internally to 111 B.C. and attempts have been made to equate it with either the second or third of Appian’s laws. If it was the second, this allows a retention of the fifteen years and the placing of the third law in 109 or 108. But if Appian has accurately reported the second law, it imposed a rent, while the first part of the inscriptional law talks of removing rent.

Sallust had something to say about Cicero. It could not be otherwise in the circumstances: the conspiracy of Catiline was the chosen subject of his first historical essay, and he agreed with Cicero that it was a crime unparalleled to that date. Cicero's activities in suppressing it would be central to the narrative, and his character relevant to anything in it covered by the term ‘human interest’. Even minimisation of Cicero would require preparation in the text for the natural questions of Sallust's readers. As he wrote, Cicero was either engaged in a political duel with Mark Antony or had recently succumbed. Was the orator a troublemaker or a hero? He would be the same man in 44-3 as he was in 63 unless the historian enforced a contrast; which he does not.