This short document from the fourth century gave guidance to students who were getting an education in the tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman schools. Basil came out more strongly than any other early Church theologian in favour of the view that pagan literature, while not being authoritative, could be studied by Christians at school to their advantage. This view held good for many Christians in the Greek-speaking Byzantine world for the next thousand years and was endorsed in the West at the Renaissance when the Address was published in many editions throughout Europe. Leonardo Bruni first translated it into Latin in 1405, and it paved the way for his translation of classical texts, of Demosthenes, Aeschines, Plutarch and Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle.

A murder is always a dramatic event, and, since the dramatic nature of it depends to a large extent on it being witnessed and reported, one would hope that a good author would ensure his or her report of a murder reflected that. Agrippina's death, a matricide, has often been labelled as ‘dramatic’ by modern commentators, yet a comprehensive and satisfactory analysis of the reports as described in three ancient sources is still outstanding. A number of papers have given partial attempts at offering proof of the dramatic nature of the reports. My aim in this paper is to bring in two further significant connections between the historians’ accounts and other domains (Greek drama, rhetoric) which have to my knowledge been overlooked. These new factors force us to re-evaluate earlier attempts of finding the sources of inspiration for Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio. I will do this by spelling out certain allusions implicit in all three authors, but with special emphasis on Tacitus, showing that, despite its understated nature, his succinct account could be highly evocative to his audience, alluding to the pathos appropriate to both tragedy and rhetoric. These two strands of influence on the reports not only enhance the effect of the passage at issue, but also make a full and proper reponse of the audience to it more plausible.

This article deals with three aspects of Aristotle's account of absolute rule in the Politics: firstly, the extent of Aristotle's debt to and divergence from Plato; secondly, the exact nature of the qualities which fit a man for absolute rule; thirdly, the relevance of Aristotle's account of absolute rule to his general political principles. Ancient historians will be eagerly waiting for the name of Alexander. They will not be altogether disappointed but will have to be content with a few general and inconclusive remarks at the end.

There are several ancient and Byzantine accounts of the assassination of the emperor Gallienus (253-68), who was murdered while besieging a rebellious general, Aureolus, at Milan in early September 268. But few of these accounts agree fully on those who were responsible for the killing, and some are openly contradictory. Modern scholars, in turn, have not been in accord on the members of the conspiracy. A close examination of these sources demonstrates that only three men are reliably attested to have been involved: Heraclianus, Gallienus’ praetorian prefect; Claudius II Gothicus, emperor in 268-70; and Aurelian, emperor in 270-75. In addition, the investigation provides further insights into the development of the historical traditions pertaining to this period of Roman history.

Ever since A. W. Schlegel the role of the Sophoclean chorus has been the subject of debate. To him the chorus was ‘the ideal spectator’, by which he meant that it moves at a deeper level than the actors and interprets the meaning of the play to us: it is as Schiller put it, ‘not an individual, but a general reflection’. This might be called one of the extreme views of the role of the chorus; even those who do not take it in general, such as Helg and Helmreich, still see some of the choral odes as a kind of parabasis, in which Sophocles lets the plot go and speaks to us in person. The main candidates are the first stasimon of the Antigone and the second stasimon of the Oedipus Rex. It is not clear whether these ‘messages’ were for posterity or Pericles; in my view these odes are entirely explicable in the dramatic context in which they occur; at least, the burden of proof lies with those who would maintain otherwise.

It is not certain that the ten annotated plays of Euripides came to be grouped by a process of selection based on some definite critical principle. In any case, it is something of a paradox that the Andromache, which has a long history of negative criticism, finds itself alongside plays, the reception of which has been much more favourable. The remark found in the second, probably Aristophanean, hypothesis: τό δέ δρμα τν δευτέρων has met with the agreement of several scholars who have found the play unsatisfactory. Verrall believed that on a straightforward reading the drama was worthless and unintelligible; Wilamowitz came to the conclusion that the play is ‘euripideisch in Gutem und Bösem und verdient die Zensur τν δευτέρων, die Aufnahme in eine Auswahl schwerlich’. According to Schmid-Stählin Euripides himself was not unaware of the drama’s shortcomings, for, as can be deduced from the scholium on 1. 445, he was too ashamed to produce it in Athens, and he did not, it seems, produce it in his own name.

Vespasian was proclaimed at Alexandria on July 1 of the year 69, in Judaea on July 3, and the legions of Syria under Licinius Mucianus quickly followed suit. After a meeting at Berytus to make plans for the war Mucianus set out with an army. The Historiae of Tacitus furnish no details of time or place for defining the itinerary – only the mention of Byzantium.

Meanwhile the Flavian partisans in the Balkan and Danubian lands, Antonius Primus in the forefront, had moved to rapid action. Not content with holding the Julian Alps, they decided, in a council of war held at Poetovio, to launch an invasion of northern Italy. They defeated the Vitellian forces in battle outside Cremona on October 24, they captured Rome on December 20. By good fortune, the first date is correct to within a day, and the second is certified.

Dionysius asserts more than once that Thucydides is superior to all other historians and poets in delineating , in vividly portraying disaster and arousing the reader’s feelings. For Dionysius and other Greek critics, a capacity to evoke ‘pathos’ (emotion) was a requirement for the orator and the historian. The rhetorician ranked Thucydides far above Herodotus in ‘dramatic’ ability, and ‘pathos’ was central to that judgment. He never comments on Thucydides’ rare use of moral and ethical judgments, although such judgments were the Hellenistic historian’s goal, for which ‘dramatic effect’ was but a tool.

The tribunes of the people at Rome were an immensely significant constitutional institution and are intimately associated with the early days of the Republic. The sources present a varied account of their origin and powers, and the debates visible in those versions are strongly related to the disputed nature of the plebs and its role in the formation of Rome's political community. Moreover, the close connections of the tribunes with writing, record-keeping and with Greekness all raise questions about the sophistication of the early Republic, but are also implicated in debates over the reliability of the historiographical tradition. This paper considers the arguments for accepting the reliability of some aspects of that tradition and presents an account of the tribunes' functions in the early Republic, including their sacrosanctity.

In this article it is argued that Philip developed a considerable navy in the course of his reign, and that Alexander took that Macedonian navy as well as the Greek navy when he first entered Asia in 334 B.C. I shall discuss the literary testimonia in two sections, one for Philip and the other for Alexander.

1. Aeschines 2.72.

Setting out from Macedonia, Philip was contending with us no longer for Amphipolis but already for Lemnos, Imbros and Scyros, our possessions. And our citizens abandoned the Chersonese, which was by general agreement an Athenian property.

Towards the end of the first extended discussion of poetry in the Republic, Socrates and Adeimantus formulate criteria for the admission of poets into their ideal state. Dramatists are clearly excluded, but the acceptable poet is enigmatically described, according to the usual translation, as ‘the unmixed imitator of the good man’ (, 397d), and as ‘one who will imitate for us the speech of the good man’ (, 398b). ‘Imitation’ has been earlier so defined that it applies to direct impersonation such as is found in drama and the speeches of epic, and accordingly it might seem that, as an imitator, he should be himself a dramatist. This however is ruled out by the run of the argument, which requires us to associate him with a style which contains but little impersonation (396e). On the other hand, if a non-dramatic poet is in view, it seems paradoxical to call him an imitator when imitation has been defined in the way that it has.

Studies of aspects of ‘the Roman family’ have developed so quickly and so prolifically in recent decades that it is already possible to write of work of the 1980s as the accepted orthodoxy and to have new, vigorous debates which are stimulating and questioning and deepening our understanding of the complexities of that central institution of Roman society. Other social histories of Rome are now taking account of this, in ways that go far beyond earlier histories' legalistic or political approach to Roman families. The role of children can now be studied against that nuanced and variegated background. There is already one full-length study (Wiedemann 1989) and I expect to have another ready soon.

Was there a slave-freedman ‘cursus’ or career structure in the Imperial administration? And if so, on what criteria was advancement within it based? Did promotion depend on seniority or merit or both together? How impersonal and rational was the regulation of the system, i.e. what degree of bureaucratization was reached, or, on the other hand, what was the extent of patronage inside the slave-freedman service? These are all important and difficult, even impossible, questions for the student of the Roman Imperial administration.

Salax taberna vosque contubernales,

a pilleatis nona fratribus pila,

solis putatis esse mentulas vobis,

solis licere, quidquid est puellarum,

confutuere et putare ceteros hircos? 5

an, continenter quod sedetis insulsi

centum an ducenti, non putatis ausurum

me una ducentos irrumare sessores?

atqui putate: namque totius vobis

frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam. 10

puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit,

amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla,

pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata,

consedit istic. hanc boni beatique

omnes amatis, et quidem, quod indignum est, 15

omnes pusilli et semitarii moechi;

tu praeter omnes une de capillatis,

cuniculosae Celtiberiae fili,

Egnati, opaca quem bonum facit barba

et dens Hibera defricatus urina. 20

Randy tavern and you tavern-men, nine pillars from the cap-clad brothers, do you think that you alone have pricks, that you alone are permitted comprehensively to fuck whatever girls there are and to consider the rest of us goats? Do you really think that, because you sit there, silly fools, one hundred or maybe two hundred in a row, I won't dare to mouth-fuck you as you sit there, all of you at once? Well, you had better believe it. For I will inscribe the front of the whole tavern for you with obscene graffiti. For my girl, who has fled from my embrace, beloved by me as no other woman will be loved, for whom great wars have been fought by me, has taken her seat there with you. Her all you great and rich men love, and – what is shameful – all of you cheap back-street lechers: you above all, you outstanding member of the long-haired crew, son of bunny-infested Celtiberia, Egnatius, to whom a thick beard and his teeth brushed in Spanish urine give respectability.

In a speech, delivered early in 59 B.C. and recorded by Dio, Pompey supported Caesar’s agrarian proposal. At the beginning of the speech, as recorded in Dio xxxviii 5. 1-2, Pompey mentioned a proposal, approved by the Senate on a former occasion, which related to the provision of land allotments for his own troops and those of Metellus:

Some recent treatments of the Augustan Principate have discussed the title Pater Patriae (= PP) as the expression of a relatively detached and uncontroversial idea. In earlier papers on the significance of this title, however, I have tried to describe its political volatility for both Cicero and Caesar. Cicero's title was applied to him in the wake of his execution of the Catilinarian conspirators; it was meant to characterise him as Rome's saviour, rather than as a murderous tyrant and oppressor. Caesar's title was equally a counter to accusations of murderous tyranny; he did not take Roman lives through civil war, he saved them through the exercise of dementia. Caesar's honour, furthermore, was clearly decreed to him in the form Parens Patriae – parens being a widely used, positive term for a benefactor; Cicero is referred to as both pater and parens in the fractious discourse which followed his consulship. Given the ever-present dichotomy between the father and the tyrant, and the general environment of élite competition, it appears that the form of Caesar's honour implies a deliberate contrast with the claims of Cicero, viz. Caesar's paternal role was certainly about giving or enhancing life, rather than taking it.

The ways of emotions are difficult to track, and yet positive affects, such as goodwill and affection, play an important part in both self-definition and social interactions. In western societies popular conception generally considers emotions to be universal spontaneous reactions, but in fact the nature of emotion is an issue debated by both psychologists and cultural theorists. In this paper I wish to investigate the role of positive affects (encapsulated to some degree in the Greek term , which could range in meaning from benevolence and goodwill to affection, and for which a more precise translation depends on context) in Greek interstate relations. I will argue that was a socially constructed emotion which was implicated in -relationships, and therefore that the terminology of contained the expectation of an affective content (whether or not any given -relation in reality contained any positive emotion).

Emphasizing what he saw as the weakness and docility of the Spartan assembly M.I. Finley wrote:

‘I will put the question very bluntly. Can we imagine that the obedient, disciplined Spartan soldier dropped his normal habits when he was assembled not as a soldier but as a citizen, while he listened to debates among those from whom he otherwise was taught to take orders without questioning or hesitation?‘

In the 270’s and 260’s B.C. Syracuse found an energetic new leader, Hiero son of Hierocles, fought her last victorious war under his leadership and rewarded him with the title of king. How this came about has a more than Sicilian importance, for the same war indirectly and unexpectedly brought the Romans onto the scene and launched them on the First Punic War. But understanding Hiero’s first ten years is not easy. The sources are scrappy where they are not terse, and modern reconstructions vary widely, above all on the chronology — with crucial implications for his policies and position (not to mention for the run-up to the First Punic War) and for the reliability or the opposite of the main source, Polybius. The solutions in this paper will, I hope, help clarify a difficult period in Sicilian history, as well as throwing some light on the compositional method of Polybius.

It is generally agreed that during the first century BC the Euphrates River came to represent a negotiated boundary of Roman and Parthian power in the Near East, and that this remained the case until the overthrow of the Parthians by the Sassanians in the third century AD. It was during the first century BC that the term imperium began to be used in the context of expressions of corporate Roman power; this eventually saw an additional important usage of the term evolve to that of an expression of physical territory, that is, empire, by the end of the reign of Augustus. This paper argues that it is possible to link the development of the Euphrates as a boundary of Roman and Parthian power in the first century BC with developments and changes in the usage of the term imperium. It traces the history of Roman and Parthian agreements and conflicts throughout the first century BC in the context of the development of the Euphrates as a boundary. The paper also argues that only the upper section of the Euphrates came to play this role and that previous analyses of the middle Euphrates have produced a misleading understanding of Roman and Parthian activity on this section of the river. The analysis of archaeological evidence from the first centuries BC and AD from the middle Euphrates site of Dura Europos is employed to illuminate the analysis of the Euphrates as a boundary. We arrive at a better understanding of Dura's history during this period if we considert Dura in the broader context of the Euphrates’ role in dividing Roman and Parthian power.