Parrhêsia has been understood as a right under the Athenian democracy, roughly equivalent to the right of free speech in modern democracies, including the privilege of speaking in the assembly. In this paper, I argue that the notion of ‘rights’ is anachronistic in this connection; more particularly, parrhêsia was less a right than an expectation, the idea that one might freely express even unpopular opinions without fear of repression. But unpopular opinions might run athwart notions of public decency, and free expression might tilt over into license or shamelessness. Examples are given of how Athenian discourse, in tragedy (especially Euripides' Phoenician Women) and oratory, negotiated the delicate balance between forthrightness and insolence.

De Ste. Croix famously argued that Aristophanes had a conservative political outlook and attempted to use his comedies to win over lower-class audiences to this minority point of view. The ongoing influence of his interpretation has meant that Old Comedy has been largely ignored in the historiography of Athenian popular culture. This article extends earlier critiques of de Ste. Croix by systematically comparing how Aristophanes and the indisputably popular genre of fourth-century oratory represented the social classes of the Athenians and political leaders. The striking parallels between the two suggest that Aristophanes, far from advocating a minority position, exploited the rich and, at times, contradictory views of lower-class citizens for comic and ultimately competitive ends. As a consequence his plays are valuable evidence for Athenian popular culture and help to correct the markedly fourth-century bias in the writing of Athenian cultural history.

This paper argues that the six-book Republic used by the lexical author known as the Antiatticista is not, as hitherto conveniently assumed, our Republic arranged in fewer books, but a sub-final version lacking certain parts, most obviously VIII and most of IX, and possessing interesting variations. The argument rests on what would otherwise be a very high error-rate (38%) compared with the more reliable citations of other Platonic works, and with the citations of Herodotus and Thucydides. It demonstrates that VIII and most of IX belong stylistically to the opposite extreme from I, and may therefore be the last composed. It argues that the Platonic collection used by the Antiatticista antedates hiatus-avoiding dialogues, and belongs to a location other than Athens or Alexandria, and probably in Sicily or Italy. It concludes that one cannot trust any attempt to arrange our Republic by the notional six-book order.

In an age when size really did matter, the length of the long pike (sarissa) employed by armies of the Hellenistic Age (c. 350-168 BC) was consistently altered by successive armies trying to gain an advantage over their opponents. These alterations are well attested in the ancient sources — albeit in an ancient Greek unit of measure. But how big were these pikes in terms of modern units of measure? This has been a topic of scholarly debate for some time. This article engages with these debates, and the evidence and theories that these arguments are based upon. A critical review of this evidence not only allows the changing length of the sarissa to be calculated in a modern unit of measure, but also examines descriptions in the ancient sources that suggest the forerunner to the Hellenistic pike phalanx was created a generation before the rise of Macedon as a military power in the mid fourth century BC. This, in turn, allows for the configuration of one of the weapons that changed the face of warfare in the ancient world to be much better understood.

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.

The idea that ‘the republic died at Philippi’ was an essential element in the discourse of the principate because it denied legitimacy to the resistance that followed. Yet, until 36, the republicans' control of the seas under Sextus Pompeius' leadership allowed the continuation of military resistance which all too often was embarrassingly successful. Restoring Sextus Pompeius to his rightful place in the alliance against the triumvirate allows us to rethink the narrative of the war as well the ways his supporters contributed to the politics of the novus status even after his defeat.

Kolossai, an anciently-celebrated south-west Phrygian town, now lies dormant as a denuded mound three kilometres north of the modern Turkish town of Honaz. It is not over-endowed with published discoveries of material remains. In the last few years, two new inscriptions plus one recorded in an early epigrapher's notes and two new coins found in situ have been published. The total is now twenty-seven inscriptions and 157 or 158 coins. The most systematic material analysis of the site has focused on the surface pottery remains. The attempted compensation for this dearth by previous historians in over-reading the testimonia for the site is hardly satisfying, and one awaits with anticipation the fruit of those who are able to garner permission to survey the site completely and commence excavations. Meanwhile, each small discovery is valuable, and I am grateful to Professor Ender Varinlioğlu for permission to publish this inscription.

This article argues that the emperor Macrinus initiated an overhaul of the ranks of provincial governors after he came to the throne in 217. He removed several of Caracalla's legates in the Danubian region and in the provinces along the eastern frontier, replacing them with his own appointees. This interventionist approach to provincial administration was a significant departure from the usual practice of emperors retaining their predecessor's governors. It is argued that Macrinus' break with tradition was motivated by the fact that he was the first emperor to be elevated from the ordo equester, and wanted to consolidate his position by ensuring that the provinces were entrusted to trustworthy legates.