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.

In the prologue of the Women of Trachis, Deianeira is telling Hyllus of an oracle concerning her husband, Heracles, which is about to be fulfilled. The relevant passage (lines 76-85 of the OCT) is:

As Deianeira states it, a critical issue is about to be decided. Hitherto she has had an absentee husband; Heracles has visited her but rarely, spending most of his time abroad in various exploits – humanitarian, military, and sexual. But the gods (to be exact, the oracle of Zeus at Dodona) have decreed that this half-marriage will not continue. Either her husband will die, in which case she has no interest in surviving him, or his labours will come to an end and he will live in peace, which she interprets as a life of domestic bliss with her. She sends their son, Hyllus, to help him; later she will act more drastically and send a robe dyed in what she believes is a love-charm to rekindle his love for her, but is in fact a deadly poison. By the time he is brought back in his mortal agony, she will have killed herself, and his only feeling for her will be regret that her suicide has deprived him of taking vengeance on her. Such will be the consequences of her interpretation of the oracle.

John Whittaker has again challenged the assumption that Numenius fr. 13 (des Places = fr. 22 Leemans) requires emendation at the beginning of the second sentence:

Without doubt he is correct in assuming that Numenius must have been familiar with the Judaeo-Christian manner of referring to the supreme God as ‘he who is’; one notes that other philosophers of his age, less concerned than he with Jewish religion, had adopted doctrine which would support such a formula; and it does not seem inappropriate that Numenius, who was capable of referring to this divinity as αύτοὸν (fr. 17 dP = 26 L), should use the expression ὸ ὢν as well. I have little doubt that the text does not require emendation, but I do not believe that the principal factor which has led Dodds, Thillet, and Dillon to propose emendations has been fully understood; and a more difficult problem concerning the fragment’s relation to Timaeus 41a ff. requires considerable discussion.

, gloated Roman soldiers after the battle of Magnesia. To the historian they have left the task of assessing the ex-greatness of the Seleucid empire under the shadow of the victor. That all subsequent Seleucid rulers were compelled to play to the Roman audience when acting on the Mediterranean stage needs no emphasis. However to gauge more precisely the degree of their dependence is much more difficult.

Prima facie, the literary tradition offers at least one document that clearly delineates the extent of Roman control over Seleucid affairs. The Treaty of Apamea established φιλία (= amicitia) between the Roman people and King Antiochos III , and it is widely assumed that this treaty governed relations between Rome and the Seleucids during the subsequent half-century. However, a cursory reading of the literary sources immediately reveals two or three striking facts that contradict this assumption.

Antiochos Epiphanes, King of the Seleucid empire, began his political career as a hostage, sent by his father to Rome in 188. About a decade later, when Antiochos’ elder brother Seleukos sent his own son Demetrios to Rome, Antiochos was permitted to leave the city.

He went to Athens, and it was probably there that he learned of his brother’s sudden death. Seleukos purportedly fell victim to a palace conspiracy. The king’s syntrophos Heliodoros, accused by Appian of heading the plot, assumed power in Antioch. Inevitably, Antiochos presented a claim to the throne. He was undoubtedly supported by Athenian diplomacy. The Attalid kings of Pergamum, who had not been on good terms with Seleukos, supplied Antiochos with money and an army. In a matter of weeks he was King in Antioch.

The elucidation of the laws which altered and dismantled the Gracchan agrarian legislation makes many demands on those who approach it. One has to consider possible textual emendation, the probable meaning of expressions in our texts, how this can best fit into a reasonable interpretation. Specifically we have three laws mentioned by Appian, a lex Thoria which appears twice in Cicero, and an inscriptional lex agraria. The last (CIL 12. 2. 585) I have attempted to remove from association with measures mentioned elsewhere on the ground that it is not tribunician. In any event, it will emerge that the laws of Appian should have been passed well before the inscriptional law (dated 111 B.C.). My concern, therefore, is with the process indicated in Appian.

In 66 B.C. P. Cornelius Sulla and P. Autronius Paetus, consuls designate for the following year, were convicted of ambitus under the Lex Calpurnia and their accusers, L. Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus, were elected to fill their place and entered office as consuls on 1 January, 65.

It has often been noted that the Chronographer of A.D. 354 differs from all other sources, literary and epigraphical, in recording not Cotta and Torquatus but Sulla and Paetus as consuls for 65. Anyone familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the Chronographer and aware of the close connexion between his list of consuls of the Republic and that of the Fasti Capitolini will be unlikely to contest the validity of the inference that for the year 65 the Fasti Capitolini recorded first the names of the two men originally designated, then the fact of their condemnation (before entering office) and their replacement by Cotta and Torquatus, who entered office on 1 January 65 strictly speaking as consules suffecti, not ordinarii.

The consular fasti for the first two years of the reign of Gaius have their full complement of consuls. Degrassi lists them as follows:

1. 37* Cn. Acerronius Proculus, C. Petronius Pontius Nigrinus

   k. Iul. C. Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Ti. Claudius Nero Germamicus

   k. Sept. A. Caecina Paetus, C. Caninius Rebilus

2. 38* M. Aquila Iulianus, P. Nonius Asprenas

   k. Iul. Ser. Asinius Celer, Sex. Nonius Quintilianus (Quinctilianus)

The most noteworthy feature about these years is that in 37 there is a change in the normal pattern for allocating consulships within each year. This pattern had been established by August in 5 B.C. In those years in which an ordinarius left office before the end of the year, he did so at the end of June and was replaced by a suffectus on the first day of July who remained in office for the remainder of the year. However since the year 37 saw the beginning of a new reign, the change is not difficult to explain. It is also noteworthy that Gaius and his uncle Claudius took office for only two months and then allowed A. Caecina Paetus and C. Caninius Rebilus to assume the consulships for which they had been designated. The year 38 shows a return to the regular pattern.

For the history of the Roman administration in the early Imperial period we would seem to be well placed. There is an abundance of data on officials at all levels, their functions, careers, families, status and power – and from sources of every kind, literary, epigraphic, juridical, papyrological and archaeological. We know of hundreds, even thousands of such officials. The time would therefore seem ripe for not only a comprehensive descriptive account of the Imperial administration but also for a structural analysis of the system itself, the relationship to one another of the main institutional elements that constituted it: the emperor, the senatorial and equestrian hierarchy, the Imperial freedman and slave officials, and the interaction of all these with administration at municipal level. But a prime requirement for such an account and analysis is the assurance that we can organize the data and place the officials in the right chronological order. A reliable chronology is essential if we are to trace institutional change in the medium and short term. In this regard the Imperial freedman and slave officials are of major importance. In training and experience they make up the professional ‘civil service’ of the early empire – as contrasted with the relatively ‘amateur’ administrative role played by senatorial legati and equestrian procuratores, whose more spasmodic careers were more susceptible to influences of patronage. But it is precisely in the careers of the Imperial freedmen and slaves that chronological problems are most acute and caution most necessary, partly because of the numbers involved and partly in the interpretation of nomenclature.

The reader of the Letters of Synesius will soon perceive that Synesius tends, with surprising frequency, to repeat combinations of words and phrases which he has used elsewhere, both in letters and in occasional speeches. Although this habit has on occasion received scholarly attention, it has not yet been subjected to systematic analysis. My method, in undertaking this task, will be first to present the evidence in the form of an exhaustive list of examples. This will be followed by a brief discussion of the significance of the repetitions for our understanding of the Letter collection as a whole.