This paper explores the use of utopian motifs in early Greek concepts of the afterlife. The notion of a paradisiacal existence for selected heroes after death is widespread in Greek thought, going back at least as far as Hesiod, and appearing in such diverse sources as Pindar, the Orphic gold leaves, Attic comedy, and Lucian. Such idyllic afterlives share various features common to Lewis Mumford’s ‘utopias of escape’ (The Story of Utopias, London, 1922, 15), such as the absence of pain and toil, plentiful and self-supplying food and drink, the company of one’s peers, and so forth. They also share the utopian ideals of selective and restricted citizenship – although the requirements for entry may vary. The popularity of eschatological utopias is associated with the theme of a lost ‘Golden Age’ and the consequent assumption of the inevitable decline of human societies. Although often regarded as escapist fantasies, eschatological utopias do react, often critically, to perceived issues in the societies that constructed them. Their unreal nature is regarded as problematic, and through their association with Kronos and the Golden Age they exemplify the dangers of anomia. But they also provide a means by which an individual can preserve his consciousness and identity in death.

In the second half of the 6th century BC four South Italian Greek colonial cities – Sybaris, Croton, Metapontum and Caulonia – were minting silver-copper alloy coins, all in the incuse fabric, with the same weight standard of c. 8gm. These incuse coins were to remain in production at Croton and Metapontum for the next 100 years.

Coins hoards indicate that these four cities began minting their coinage at the outset as very fine, artistic – even exquisite – objects of fine crafts-manship. Each coin was thin (1mm), broad (30mm) and of a consistently uniform weight and diameter, and each coin was struck between dies of exceptional quality. During subsequent decades the diameter of the coinage was progressively reduced.

At Monash University in 1980 we conducted experiments in coin manufacturing to determine how the minters at Croton in the 6th century produced these thin, incuse coins from only a small amount (8gm) of silver alloy, how they maintained a consistent weight standard across a century of minting, and why they progressively reduced the size of their coins during this period.

It is well-known that the manufacturing processes of objects made from metal alloys can be revealed by examining their crystal structures.

In our experiments in manufacturing broad, thin ‘Monash coins’, we examined the crystal structures at various stages throughout the process. To do this we made coin blanks of various diameters, all made from 8gm of silver-copper alloy. These blanks were subjected to hardness tests and photographs were made of the alloy’s crystal microstructures. ‘Coins’ were then minted by striking blanks between two manufactured replica dies, and their microstructures were compared with the microstructures of a genuine Croton incuse coin fragment.

This is the first time these results have been published.

In accordance with its notoriously rich plot, Phoenician Women explores diverse aspects of fear that affect, and are thematised by, various parties at different stages of the plot.1 Against the background of a virtually ‘irrational’ and inescapable divine necessity (treated as a source of dread in itself), Euripides presents the play’s central crisis as being largely determined by rational and controlled decision-making, within an array of moral disputes that enter the scene. The agents’ decision-making standardly comprises diverging, conflicting, or inconsistent attitudes towards fear and related emotions, such as shame (in both past and present).

The rhetoric of fear thus reflects and further highlights the characters’ conflicting viewpoints, as well as Euripides’ trademark tendency to toy with his audience’s expectations and assumptions about ethical values and what is ‘right’. This article argues that his approach is substantially different from the Aeschylean treatment of the same myth (Seven against Thebes). By offering a concrete and abstract treatment of the situational anxieties over war and familial feud, Euripides’ rhetoric of fear ultimately shifts the focus to the complexities and contradictions of human motivation.

This article addresses the neglected problem of elite sport in classical Athens. Democracy may have opened up politics to every citizen, but it had no impact on sporting participation. Athenian sportsmen continued to be drawn from the elite. Thus it comes as a surprise that non-elite citizens judged sport to be a very good thing and created an unrivalled program of local sporting festivals on which they spent a staggering sum. They also shielded sportsmen from the public criticism that was otherwise normally directed towards the elite and its exclusive pastimes. The work of social scientists suggests that the explanation of this problem can be found in the close relationship that non-elite Athenians perceived between sporting contests and their own waging of war. The article’s conclusion is that it was the democracy’s opening up of war to non-elite citizens that legitimised elite sport.

The censors of 154/3 commissioned a stone theatre which was almost completed when it was demolished on the exhortations of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica. The sources suggest that this destruction was as late as 151 or 150. Though an array of scholars has seised on Nasica’s claims that a theatre would soften Rome’s moral strength, there has been no satisfactory explanation of this peculiarly long delay between commencement of construction and final demolition. Something must have happened between 153 and 151 which would explain the late objection. This article proposes that Nasica’s awakening was spurred by the death of the princeps senatus and pontifex maximus, M. Aemilius Lepidus. The vacuum left by his death led Nasica to ‘audition’ for the role as Rome’s new leading voice. To demonstrate his worthiness, however, he needed a cause, and the widespread refusals to serve in the Spanish campaign of 151 offered just such an opportunity. Nasica seised upon the most shocking political crisis of the times – the refusal of young men to enlist – in order to parade his guardianship of Rome’s moral worth, and the destruction of a costly and undoubtedly popular theatre constituted the bravura performance he needed.

In 133 BC, when Scipio Aemilianus heard of the violent death of his cousin and brother-in-law, Ti. Gracchus, he uttered a line from Homer: ‘Thus perish all who attempt such.’ In effect, this endorsed the lynching of Gracchus. At a deeper level, it cast Gracchus (in the Homeric context of that quotation) as the tyrant Aegisthus. It may also have suggested an image of moral turpitude, Aegisthus having debauched his cousin Agamemnon’s wife. By analogy (if intended), that would have suggested an adulterous union between Gracchus and his sister Sempronia. It is further suggested that gossip arising from this extraordinary insinuation might have prompted a special reading of the claims circa 102 BC of L. Equitius to be the bastard son of Gracchus.

In a recent article in this journal, Kathryn Welch and Hannah Mitchell examined a much debated question: to what extent did Roman commanders, and in particular Pompeius, model themselves on Alexander the Great?1 The opposing views on this question are best encapsulated by Peter Green on the one side, and Erich Gruen on the other.2 One piece of evidence used in this continuing debate is an aureus of Pompeius, but there are two disputes related to it: the date of its issue and the iconography of its obverse. Unfortunately, due to a lack of specific evidence the discussion trying to resolve these disputes often ends without a clear conclusion, and we are left with speculation and conjecture.

The reverse of the aureus shows a triumph, and the nub of the question about dating the coin is which triumph does it depict. The argument here is that the coin depicts Pompeius’ third triumph in 61 BC, when he celebrated his extensive conquests in the East. That date will help the argument that the personification on the obverse has Alexander overtones, as some scholars suggest. If that can be established, it will give some idea of Pompeius’ intentions in minting the coin: Pompeius was not only channelling Alexander, but also trying to imply that he had surpassed the Macedonian king’s achievements.

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.

This article highlights the significant role played by Constantia, posthumous daughter of the emperor Constantius II, in late fourth century dynastic politics and ideology. Though Constantia has generally been neglected in modern studies of the period, close examination of the surviving sources reveals her pivotal position, even from her earliest years, as a coveted link between the Constantinian dynasty and new emperors seeking to establish themselves and their families in the turbulent years of the 360s, 370s and 380s AD. Through investigation of the source material relating to Constantia’s short life, we gain further vital insight into the perennial importance to imperial politics of dynastic loyalty, and specifically loyalty to the Constantinian house, in the late fourth century, as well as emerging new ideas about the complexities of the marriages of imperial women.