For a long time, the classical profession of the hetaira, or paid female companion, has eluded definition. The hetaira has often been described as a ‘courtesan’ and her work as a ‘form of prostitution’, yet these appellatives often conflict with depictions of the hetaira by classical authors. Accordingly, in this article I will argue that the hetaira was perceived by the Greeks as an elite entertainer whose service of companionship emphasized flirtation and intimacy with a cultivated woman instead of the sale of sex. In order to demonstrate this understanding of the hetaira, I will cite evidence from a wide range of classical writings, particularly legal orations, and will ultimately propose that, when used to indicate a professional, the classical Greek term hetaira should be translated as ‘entertainer’.

This article examines the public image of the emperor Carausius, a Roman army officer who claimed authority over Britain and parts of Gaul between 286 and 293, in opposition to Diocletian and his Tetrarchic colleagues. Carausius’ coinage celebrated his fleet, his naval prowess, and his divine support from Neptune and Oceanus. These designs were created as part of a strategy to refashion Carausius’ humble background as a sailor into a statement of imperial suitability. However, Carausius’ claims were undermined by the orators who delivered speeches in praise of his Tetrarchic rivals, Maximian and Constantius, in the years 289, 291, and 297. Their panegyrics subverted Carausius’ naval experience and claim to control the Ocean, instead portraying him as a pirate, brigand, and threat to the people of Gaul. After the reconquest of Britain, the medallions and monuments of the Tetrarchic regime commemorated their own naval success and control over the Ocean, suppressing the claims of Carausius. The propaganda campaign against Carausius was driven by the fact that he was an emperor of undistinguished origin, who had risen up through the ranks of the army, just like the Tetrarchs themselves. The emperors wished to distance themselves from their former colleague in order to discourage further rebellion from within the officer corps.

Shakespeare’s Et tu, Brute has been influential in shaping a tradition that interprets Caesar’s last words as an expression of shock at Brutus’ betrayal. Yet this interpretation is not suggested in the ancient sources that attest the tag καὶ σύ, τέκνον (‘you too, son’). This article argues that Caesar’s dictum evokes a formula of funerary epigrams, which refers to death as the common lot of all mortals. The epitaphic connotations of καὶ σύ or tu quoque feature in epic poetry, a connection that lends a Homeric dimension to Caesar’s last words. The dictator’s oral epitaph predicts the death of Brutus as a consequence of his involvement in the assassination. It means ‘You too, son, will die’. The Greco-Roman belief that a dying man can foresee the future invests Caesar’s last words with prophetic authority.

The socio-economic composition of the assembly and the law-courts in the period from the mid-fifth century to 322 B.C. constitutes one of the most intractable problems in the history of Athenian public life. The difficulties arise from two major sources: the paucity and the character of the evidence, and the possible range of variables that may have affected participation in the Ekklesia and the Dikasteria.

In a number of Near Eastern texts dating to the period of the Hittite New Kingdom, the term Lukka appears as a geographical and/or ethnic designation for one of the Late Bronze Age population groups of western Anatolia. Unfortunately we have no documents which deal primarily or specifically with the Lukka people; what we know of them rests essentially on incidental references in Hittite treaties, letters, prayers and historical records, along with several references in non-Hittite sources. Yet although the evidence is meagre, it still provides a relatively clear picture of the general character of the Lukka people and the role they played in the political and military affairs of Hittite Anatolia.

The force of example is nowhere greater than in the adaptation of institutions observed abroad and modified for local conditions. Is it not possible, that in addition to his Stoic mentors, in addition to the radical ideals of Agis and Cleomenes, Tiberius Gracchus may have had the practical inspiration of a contemporary system of land settlement before him? It is my suggestion that Ptolemaic Egypt offered Roman agrarian reforms in the second century B.C. an example worthy of imitation, either in part or whole, and that such nobiles as M. Aemilius Lepidus, Laelius, Aemilianus and, not least, Tiberius Gracchus himself were attracted by the way the Ptolemies ran the rural sector of their economy.

The normal interpretation of the oath μή μνησικακεĩν in Greek legal terminology is ‘to forget past wrongs’. Conventionally, the Athenian amnesty of 403 BC, in which the phrase is best documented, has been understood as an undertaking by both sides to draw a line under the past and prevent revisitation of cases which predated the restoration of democracy in that year. This article defends that view against the revisionist interpretation of E. Carawan in JHS 122 (2002) and CQ 62 (2012), which claims (a) that there was no general amnesty when democracy was restored to Athens, and (b) that the scrutiny of laws which followed was limited to ones affecting the amnesty’s beneficiaries. The oath forbade prosecution of all crimes committed in the time of the Thirty or before, and was therefore more than a mere technicality which sealed specific terms of agreement between the warring factions who came to terms. The scrutiny of laws encompassed all the laws of Athens and not a subset pertaining to a limited set of concerns. The revised laws were re-inscribed in the environs of the Stoa Basileios for future consultation.

The end of Iliad 3 presents the reader with a strange spectacle. The duel between Paris and Menelaos has been summarily curtailed by the intervention of Aphrodite; Paris has been spirited away from the battlefield and deposited in his bedchamber, there to enjoy with Helen the fruits of his labours; and meanwhile Menelaos

In a recent paper (Antichthon 9 [1975], 81-3), Brian Croke usefully draws attention to Getica xxviii 145, wherein Jordanes seemingly makes a fool of himself by connecting Eugenius with the murder of Gratian. There is one immediate dividend to be had: this reference (and also Jordanes’ other discussion at Romana 317-18) may be used to supplement the entry for Eugenius in The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, which ignores Jordanes. However, it is not enough to accuse the chronicler of ‘the most vile error’ and leave it at that. Other explanations are possible, and merit a hearing. Hence a warrant for the following remarks.

In this paper, I offer a cognitive analysis of the invocations of the Muse in earliest Greek epic poetry that is based on recent advances in cognitive science in general and the cognitive science of religion in particular. I argue that the Muse-concept most likely originated in a feeling of dependence on an external source of information to provide the singer with the subject matter of their song. This source of information is conceptualised as an ontological type (or template) ‘person’ by means of the hyperactive agency detection, and the Muse’s full access to strategic information, along with other characteristics, establishes her as a minimally counter-intuitive concept (that is to say a concept that conforms to most of our intuitive expectations and runs counter to a few of them), which, in turn, significantly increases the probability of the acquisition and transmission of the Muse-concept within the culture.

In his article ‘Notes and Conjectures on the Astronomica of Manilius’, Antichthon ii (1968), 63 ff., of which he has been kind enough to send me a copy, Mr D. B. Gain discusses the following passage:

687 artibus Housman, urbibus Ω 689 Pella Schrader, ilia Ω 690 utrisque Gain, ripis Ω

In his article ‘Clouds, Mysteries, Socrates and Plato’ (Antichthon 4 [1970], 13-24), Professor A.W.H. Adkins starts from the agreed fact that certain passages of the Clouds compare entry to the phrontisterion to initiation to mysteries. He argues from this (and here I should not necessarily disagree with him) that Socrates was in the habit of using initiation-language when speaking of philosophy and that Aristophanes, shocked by such blasphemy, ‘used it as one more weapon against Socrates and the New Thought in his Clouds’ (24).

In 125 B.C. the Latin town of Fregellae rebelled against Rome and was captured and destroyed by the praetor L. Opimius. A year later Fabrateria Nova was founded near the site of the defunct municipality. There has been a tendency, especially among English-speaking scholars, to treat the revolt as an isolated event; David Stockton, for example, has recently stated that ‘no other community joined in the revolt.. .’ Such views have gained wide currency, possibly because our sources for the event are diverse and rather unattractive; there is, however, evidence to suggest that the insurrection was more widespread than Stockton (inter alios) would have us believe. We need to re-examine this anti-Roman outbreak in such light as might be shed on the matter by certain neglected source material.

This article offers a new examination of the place of philosophy in Catullus’ Carmina. It focuses on Egnatius, the ‘smiling Spaniard’ of poems 37 and 39, and argues that Catullus’ attacks on this character make use of many standard invective tropes against Epicureans in the late Republic. More than merely an opportunity to show off his whitened teeth, Egnatius’ smile may well have been proof of his philosophical detachment and ataraxia. Yet Catullus maliciously misrepresents this mark of Epicurean virtue as a social gaffe, and an unflattering reminder of Egnatius’ provincial origins. I then reinterpret poems 37, 38, and 39 as a poetic series unified by the ‘banalization’ of philosophical ideas. Ultimately, Catullus creates his own singular voice – the arbiter of style and taste – by representing aspects of other people's behaviour as trite and ordinary. To banalize is an act of power, and it is a weapon that Catullus wields to articulate a sense of difference from other poets and thinkers in his intellectual world.

For a century and a half, since at least the appearance of probably the first general monograph on Livy, Hippolyte Taine's Tite-Live, in 1856, scholars have argued over one of the most fundamental questions which can be raised about the character of the historian: was he a ‘Republican’ or an ‘Augustan’ writer? The answers have been much more varied than might be expected, but have mostly relied on an endless discussion of the same few pieces of ‘evidence’: Livy's few mentions of Augustus and the usually quite misquoted reference in Tacitus (Ann. 4.34).

In 55 BC, Caesar massacred reportedly 400,000 Usipetes and Tencteri. When a supplicatio was proposed in the senate, M. Cato moved instead that Caesar should be surrendered to the enemy. This paper offers a technical analysis of an episode which, while well known, has not always been well understood. What Cato proposed was deditio (surrender) on the grounds that Caesar had committed a breach of fides (breach of truce and/or mistreatment of ambassadors) and thus an offence against the gods. Deditio was a means of expiation, so that Caesar alone should suffer for his crime, as in the famous case of C. Hostilius Mancinus in 136. Cato’s motivations were obviously political, but the technical and religious nature of his allegations meant they could not be ignored. Caesar, I argue, felt obliged to respond, and does so in BG 4 within particular constraints imposed by the nature of fides and deditio.

The period in Parthian history between Mithradates II and Phraates 111 is one about which very little is known. Events in West Asia were in turmoil with Rome's involvement becoming ever larger, but Parthia took little or no part in the wars between Rome and the allies, Pontus and Armenia. The reason for Parthia's inactivity can only be guessed. After a summary of recent developments in the understanding of early Parthian history we will give a reconstruction of events in Parthia and her non-involvement in West Asian affairs between 90 and 70 B.C. This is only one combination of possible explanations for the several problems.

Gaius Marius (157-86 BC) is widely known as one of the most innovative commanders of the Roman military. In 101 BC Marius implemented an alteration to the design of the heavy legionary javelin (pilum). However, unlike Marius' previous reforms, this modification of an elemental aspect of the Roman legions was not adopted as a standard military practice. An examination of the evidence relating to the reform and of the events surrounding the time of its implementation demonstrates that the benefit of the modification was different from that currently accepted by scholars. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that the reason why this reform failed to be adopted by the legions was not that it provided no clear tactical advantage on the battlefield, but was due to the course of Roman political and military history immediately after it had first been implemented.