In Book 19, chapter 9 of the Nodes Atticae Gellius describes the birthday party of a young Greek of equestrian rank at which a group of professional singers entertained the guests by performing poems by Anacreon, Sappho, ‘et poetarum quoque recentium ⋯λεγεῖα quaedam erotica’ (4). After the singing, Gellius goes on, some of the Greek συμπόται present challenged Roman achievements in erotic poetry, excepting only Catullus and Calvus, and criticized in particular Laevius, Hortensius, Cinna, and Memmius. Rising to meet this charge, Gellius’ teacher of rhetoric, Antonius Julianus, admits the superiority of the Greeks in what he calls ‘cantilenarum mollitiae’ in general (8), but to show that the Romans too have some good erotic poets, he recites four early Latin love epigrams, by Valerius Aedituus (frs. 1 and 2), Porcius Licinus (fr. 6), and Lutatius Catulus (fr. I). The same three poets are listed in the same order in Apuleius’ Apology in a list of amatory poets which he provides in order to establish precedents and thus invalidate his prosecutors’ referral to his erotic poems in their accusation (Apul. Apol. 9). Catulus is also enumerated in Pliny's list of Roman dignitaries who composed ‘uersiculos seueros parum’ like his own (Ep. 5.3.5), and an amatory epigram of his is cited by Cicero in De Natura Deorum 1.79 (fr. 2). We possess no further evidence connecting the other two with the composition of either erotic or, more generally, ‘light’ verse, but a poem by Porcius Licinus on Roman literary history is attested by several sources including Varro, Suetonius, and Gellius himself.

This paper will examine the circumstances that inspired the famous utterance attributed to the haruspex Spurinna, ‘Beware the Ides of March!'1 Recently the argument has been made that this warning to Caesar was based upon an astrological calculation, rather than on the usual arts of an haruspex who read signs of the future by inspecting the entrails of sacrificial animals (exta) or by interpreting bolts of lightning (fulgura) and portents (ostenta). As intriguing as this astrological theory is, I am convinced that it is fatally flawed, and I intend to show why it must ultimately be rejected. The question is not merely an academic one, having to do with the methods employed by a particular seer on a given occasion. Rather, if it can be established as even probable that Spurinna based his prophecy upon an astrological calculation, which helped convince the conspirators that Caesar was vulnerable to attack on the Ides as being an unlucky day for him according to the stars, then we are presented with a very significant and hitherto unsuspected instance of astrology influencing the course of public affairs at Rome several decades before astrology came into its own under the early emperors. According to such a reconstruction, astrology played a key role in determining the date of one of the most fateful murders in Roman history. It is the contention of this paper, on the contrary, that there is no reason whatsoever to attribute Spurinna's prophecy to an astrological calculation.

Our limited evidence for the formula of the Roman sponsio is enough to clear up lingering controversy about two otherwise obscure speeches preserved only in testimonia and fragments. The elder Cato wrote a speech whose title is variously cited by our sources: ‘si se Caelius tribunus plebis appellasset’; ‘in M. Caelium si se appellasset’; ‘contra M. Caelium’ (Fest. p. 266L); ‘in Marcum Cae[ci]lium’. On the reasonable postulate that these are variations on a single original, the fullest expression is relatively easy to reconstruct: ‘si se M. Caelius tribunus plebis appellasset’.Doubts about the sense of these words have led to more radical proposals which have little to recommend them, especially in view of the new analysis I intend to offer. The conclusion among those who have attempted to explain the obvious reading has been that the title of the speech is a condition contrary to fact referring to a hypothetical situation to which the speech responded: some have suggested that Cato wrote the speech against the possibility that Caelius might make an accusation against him; Antonio Cima suggested that Caelius had made a speech against Cato without naming him and that Cato had responded, ‘if Caelius had meant to refer to me… ’.

The idea that ‘Horace repeatedly puns on his name’ has recently sprung up again. Flaccus we are told means ‘limp’ and Horace uses his name to make various jokes about impotence. This is a load of cobblers.

That Sallust owed a considerable debt to the writings of Cato the Censor was observed in antiquity, and the observation has often been discussed and expanded on by modern scholars. The ancient references to Sallust's employment of Cato are mainly in the context of his adoption of an archaic style, and specifically Catonian vocabulary. But the choice of Cato as a model had an obvious significance that went beyond the purely stylistic. Sallust's works articulate extreme pessimism at the moral state of late-Republican Rome, and do so partly by contrasting the modern age with a prelapsarian time of near-untrammelled virtue, brought to an end only by the fall of Carthage and the consequent dominance of Roman power, which in turn led to moral corruption. Similarly, Cato famously stood in his own day for moral rectitude—and specifically appealed to past virtue as the standard to which he wished to hold his contemporaries. Sallust, by writing in a Catonian style, aligns himself with that tradition.

‘To attempt to say anything new about Horace may seem absurd.’ To attempt to say anything new about the Roman Odes may seem still more absurd; my purpose, nevertheless, is to reconsider the lines of Carm. 3.3 set out above, and to reinterpret an argument begun by the editor of the Delphin Horace (1691) in which the authority of Bentley is against me. My question is: what does Horace mean the reader to understand by describing Augustus as drinking nectar ‘purpureo ore’?

The necessity of emending immundas… dapes in 78 to immundos… pedes has long been recognized, but I argue here that the text is unsatisfactory in three further respects: (1) the difficulties of style, sense, and punctuation in 73–75; (2) diuitiis in 76, wrongly retained by most editors and, when emended, wrongly emended to deliciis; and (3) raros in 77, of which no satisfactory explanation has been offered.

I shall argue the likelihood that Vergil took Aeacus’ speech as his model for Charon's, as part of Aeneas’ newly created journey through Vergil's expanded topography of Hades.

The four Greek verses just quoted, addressed by Aeacus to Heracles, and Heracles’ reply in twelve, were first published separately by Rabe, and then inserted by Page as verses 16–19 and 20–31 between surviving frs. 1 and 2 of P.Oxy. 2078, to be ascribed in all likelihood to the lost Pirithous of Euripides, rather than to the slightly later Critias.

Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia provide an opportunity of seeing how an undistinguished talent responded to the demise of the republic and the establishment of an imperial system. Fergus Millar has argued that we should view Valerius as a contemporary of Ovid, that is as an author influenced by the last years of Augustus and writing in the early years of Tiberius’ reign, but the internal evidence of Facta et dicta memorabilia better fits publication in the early 30s a.d. in the aftermath of Sejanus’ unsuccessful conspiracy. Although this does distance Valerius further from the key years of transition, he is not remote—and because of the relative paucity of prose authors of the period his presentation of the domus Augusta and of Augustus and Tiberius repays attention.

Ovid regarded the Epistulae Heroidum as a collection with a consistent theme. He indicates as much at Am. 2.18.18–26, where he describes the unified conception of nine or ten of the Heroides as the result of Amor's insistence that he be an elegiac poet:

In his account of Nero's last months Suetonius describes the various ways in which the emperor, after he heard the news that Galba had decided to take on the leadership of Vindex’ revolt, tried to raise troops and to extract money from the inhabitants of Rome. On top of all this, so says the biographer, Nero incurred invidia by profiteering from the high price of grain, and this invidia grew greater because it happened too that while the inhabitants were suffering from hunger, news came that a grain ship from Alexandria had arrived carrying nothing but sand for the court wrestlers (Nero 45.1: ‘ex annonae quoque caritate lucranti adcrevit invidia; nam et forte accidit, ut in publica fame Alexandrina navis nuntiaretur pulverem luctatoribus aulicis advexisse’). Although this episode undoubtedly belongs in 68, there is little to be said for the argument, now generally accepted, that this shortage of grain was caused by L. Clodius Macer, legionary legate of Africa Proconsularis. As I hope to show, the dearth resulted from Nero's own attempts at self-defence.

According to Tacitus, this was Galba's verdict on Nero's fall. The tyrant's undoing had been of his own making. As for what determined the outcome, Galba is unequivocal. Two factors had proved decisive: Nero's immanitas and luxuria.

At their first meeting Polynices and Tydeus come to blows. They are reconciled by Adrastus, who expresses the hope that their quarrel will lead to loyal friendship between them, as it did.

Esse pro fuisse dixit, says Lactantius, more ingenuously than Klotz, who tries to make the same thing more palatable by saying esse est pro imperfecti quodammodo infinitiuo. Some have taken the accusative and infinitive to be a general statement, but Heuvel is clearly right in saying that it is Tydeus and Polynices whom the poet has in mind. The most favoured solution has been Grater's conjecture isse, but (as Helm says) that produces an unnatural expression (the passages adduced by Mueller are not parallels); Mozley renders it by ‘grew’, thereby translating not what stands in his text but what ought perhaps to stand there, namely <cr>esse, a conjecture of Gil, which has been almost entirely overlooked. This contracted form is found in extant literature only at Lucretius 3.683 and (concresse) Ovid, Met. 7.416 (at 3.200 Statius flesse). The first letters of a line are particularly liable to omission; despite Hill, I do not find it at all surprising that at 1.544 perseus lost its first letter and the remnant became aureus.

Only we must guard against this—not to strain our voice too roughly when conscious of a full stomach or (recent) sexual intercourse or physical fatigue. Many politicians and sophists experience this, being induced to engage in competitive debates, some through considerations of glory and ambition, others for pay or political contests. Thus our fellow citizen Niger, when a professional sophist in Galatia, happened to have swallowed a fishbone. But as another sophist had appeared on the scene from abroad and was engaged in declaiming, Niger, fearful that he give the impression of having yielded to the newcomer, himself gave public performances, although the fishbone was still stuck in his throat. A serious and persistent inflammation in consequence developing, as he could not endure the pain, he submitted to a deep surgical incision from without. The fishbone was then removed through the wound site but thereafter the wound itself, becoming troublesome and purulent, caused his death.

The Latin word ulpicum is attested thirty-one times. The literary texts in which the term occurs range in date from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. It denotes a plant used in antiquity both as a foodstuff and as an officinal substance in human and animal prescriptions, but discussions of ulpicum in the work of classical scholars show that there is no agreement about its identity. This lack of clarity consequently obfuscates the understanding of the passages in which reference is made to the plant. Furthermore, those students of ancient medicine, botany, and horticulture who depend on translations receive an inaccurate and even misleading impression of the original Latin sources. I propose to demonstrate the present unsatisfactory state both of translations of the term and of efforts by classical scholars to identify the plant, then to review the data supplied by the ancient sources. Following this, I shall suggest that what Latin writers referred to as ulpicum is, in fact, the plant known to modern botanists as Allium ampeloprasum L., ‘great-headed garlic’. Finally, I shall investigate its function in the Roman diet and pharmacopeia.

At Quaestiones Graecae 32.298c–d, Plutarch raises the question, τίνες οἰ ειναται παρᾰ Μιλησίος, ‘Who were the Perpetual Sailors among the Milesians?’ he frames the circumstances of his answer using a genitive absolute clause: τν περ Θόαντα κα Δαμασήνορα τυράννων καταλυθέντων (‘when the tyrants around Thoas and Damasenor had been overthrown’). In the absence of any other mention of these men in the extent sources, these words—especially the appellation τυράνων—have caused concern among editors and commentators of Plutarch. In the Teubner edition of 1935 Titchener changes τυράνων to the accusative τυράννους, while Halliday in his Oxford commentary suggests that the word should be deleted as a gloss. Each of these suggested changes to the received text is motivated by the occurrence here of the common idiom οἵ πεί ⁺ Accus. nominis proprii. This expression is, from the time of Polybius on, frequently used by Greek historians to indicate succinctly a group or faction, especially one centred around an important personage. Furthermore, a rather odd periphrastic usage of this phrase has been identified by scholars of Greek grammar as common from at least the Roman period. In this usage, οἱ περί τινα I serves as the equivalent of the simple proper name. Thus τν περ Θόαντα κα Δαμασήνορα may be a periphrasis for Thoas and Damasenor alone.

Around 87 b.c. during the turmoil of the first Mithridatic war, Philo of Larissa, head of the so-called Fourth Academy, fled from Athens to Rome. There he gave lectures on philosophical topics and taught rhetoric. His classes were attended by a young man called Cicero, who was inspired by him to include in a work on rhetorical theory, somewhat inappropriately, a fervent confession of scepticism to which he stuck for the rest of his life. Later Cicero claimed to be—as an orator—not a product of the workshops of the teachers of rhetoric, but of the spacious walks of the Academy. And he developed the ideal of the philosopher-orator. Scholars disagree whether the idea to bring philosophy and rhetoric together is Cicero's own invention or an adaptation from someone else, for instance Philo.

One of the best-known bits—perhaps the best-known bit—of the inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda is frs. 2–3, in which the author explains what motivated him to display Epicurean doctrines in epigraphical form.

In chapter 6 of Alcinous’ Handbook of Platonism we find a discussion of categorical, hypothetical, and mixed syllogisms. Alcinous distinguishes three figures of the hypothetical syllogism, and illustrates each figure with a syllogism based on an argument from Plato. Here he remarks in passing that most people called the second hypothetical figure the third and that some called the third figure the second. We may assume that those who called the third figure the second and those who called the second the third were the same. In a parallel passage, Alexander of Aphrodisias advocates the same ordering of figures of hypothetical syllogisms as Alcinous, and reports that Theophrastus, in the first book of his Analytics, had the second and third figure in reverse order. Combining these passages, we can infer that at the turn of the second century A.D. there existed two different views on the ordering of the figures of the hypothetical syllogisms, of which one goes back to Theophrastus, whereas the other presumably was the result of a later change.

A long-lasting and sometimes acrimonious debate over the correct vocative form of second-declension Latin words in -ius began more than 800 years ago. For the past century most classicists have considered the matter to be settled, and little discussion on the subject has taken place. Yet the century-old conclusions we now so unthinkingly accept are based on very little evidence and are internally inconsistent in some of their details. The past hundred years have provided us not only with more Latin to work with, better tools for search and analysis, and a more complete knowledge of the history of the Latin language, but also with a new understanding and respect for the ancient grammarians and their views on the structure of their language. It is time to re-examine the ancient and modern views on the vocative of -ius words, to see whether any viable conclusions can be drawn and whether the ancient grammarians may have more to contribute than our predecessors believed.