The year of Livia's birth is nowhere explicitly recorded in any ancient sources, and can be determined only by calculating back from the date given in the sources for the year of her death. Both Tacitus and Dio place that death securely in A.D. 29. Tacitus limits himself to the observation that by then she had lived into extreme old age, aetate extrema, but Dio adds the more precise and useful information that at the time of her death she had lived for eighty-six years: ef ἒξ καì ὀγδο⋯κουτα ἒτη ζ⋯σασα Less usefully, Pliny the Elder states that Livia herself attributed her eighty-two years to her consumption of Pucine wine, which she drank exclusively (although in a different section Pliny adds his own observations on the beneficial effect of her daily dose of elecampane). Whatever the merits of Pliny's health tips, his chronological information is of little service in determining when she was born.

The phrase combining the terms κάλλ0ς and ἀπoρρoή to my knowledge does not occur anywhere else in the Greek Corpus in the context of contemplating a beautiful beloved. Achilles Tatius (second century a.d.) therefore must be making an allusion to Plato. This can hardly come as a surprise considering that Phaedr. 251, which describes the influence of the appearance of beauty on the soul of the lover, is one of the most famous and widely known Platonic passages. However, the context within which these two allusions to Plato are introduced deserves attention. Adding a certain learned touch to the description of erotic episodes in his novel, Achilles Tatius presents a ‘scientific’ explanation of the mechanism of visual perception. The consistency of both accounts suggests that he draws on some scholarly theory of vision which was part of his general educational background. But, unlike the above mentioned allusions, this theory is hardly Platonic.

The retired Byzantine bureaucrat, Zosimus, wrote his New History in the early sixth century. This work is not only one of the primary sources for the history of the Later Roman Empire in the fourth and early fifth centuries a.d., but it is also the primary witness to the now fragmentary Histories of Eunapius of Sardis (a.d. 347–c. 414) which it faithfully epitomizes. In the last part of the New History which depends upon Eunapius, two lacunae have been detected which are of interest with respect to the original texts of both authors.

I refer to the editions of the third book of Columella by S. Hedberg (Uppsala, 1968) and J. C. Dumont (Paris, 1993).

… nullus tamen uel iniquissimus locus non maiorem quaestum reddet quam acceperit inpensam: siquidem, ut cultoris neglegentia sex milia seminum intereant, reliqua tamen decem milia tribus milibus nummorum libenter et cum lucro redemptorum erunt… 3.3.12–13

At the peak of this heated confrontation between Nero and Seneca, in which the latter exhorts the emperor to seek the people's love and trust rather than their hatred, Nero retorts that it is meet for the people to fear their prince (457–8). This is unsurprising and represents Nero as merely the latest in a long line of tragic tyrants (in the wake of Atreus' oderint dum metuant in Accius [203–4 R.]). In the exchange that follows, however, is the slightly puzzling (458): ‘metuant necesse est’:: ‘quicquid exprimitur graue est’. It is not only that Nero simply reiterates a concept already asserted in the line before (’decet timeri Caesarem’) which had prompted Seneca's ‘at plus diligi’. More than that, Seneca's exprimitur (‘all which is extorted is disliked’) is a non sequitur after ‘metuant necesse est’. exprimere is to ‘squeeze out’, ‘to extort’, ‘to elicit’, but in Latin metus is hardly ever ‘extorted’, exprimere, on the other hand, is commonly said of sincere or pretended assent, applause, jubilation, or forced admission. The verb occurs again at 494 ‘humiles … uoces exprimit nostri metus’; 581 ‘exprimere ius est, ferre quod nequeunt preces?’; elsewhere in Sen. Oed. 529 ‘ulline poena uocis expressae fuit’; Clem. 1.1.7 ‘omnibus … nunc ciuibus tuis … haec confessio exprimitur esse felices’; Plin. Pan. 2.2 ‘uoces illas quas metus exprimebat’.

(The text is that of the most recent edition of Silius Italicus: Punica, by Josef Delz [Stuttgart, 1987].)

Terpsicles is neglected in all current Histories of Greek Literature and Dictionaries of Antiquity, except for a five-lines-long entry by E. Bux in Real-Encyclopädie V.A. 790. He is the author of a treatise Περί ἀΦροδισίων, which is only known from two references in Athenaeus—7.325d and 9.391e—and seems to have been a collection of sex-related marvels. In the first passage he provides a piece of information on the red mullet:

In fr. 69 Smith, the Epicurean Diogenes of Oinoanda, like Lucretius 4.353–63, explains why a square tower viewed from the distance appears to be round. The explanation is that εἲδωλα, filmy atomic images, emanating from the tower, are forced out of shape by the air through which they pass on their way to our eyes. Diogenes’ account is fragmentarily preserved on a stone which I discovered in 1970. The stone bears the right half of one fourteen-line column and the left half of a second one. I first published the text in 1971. When, twenty years later, I came to deal with it again, in preparing an edition of all the known fragments, I was able, thanks in no small measure to the discussions and suggestions of other scholars, whose names can be seen in my apparatus criticus, to print a text which represents a considerable advance on that of the editio princeps. However, with so much of what Diogenes wrote missing, there has remained scope for further progress, and in this note I correct an error—an error present not only in my text, but also on the stone itself.

This translation of καì αὐτɂυ ῥυπŵυτα ('and a dirty one at that’) gives the sense we need. But the words mean something different: ‘and it too was dirty (like Epaminondas)’. Cf. VH 12.1 πευομέυη δέ ༐καì τρεøομέυη ὑπɂ πατρì καì αὐτŵι πέυητι (‘she was poor and was looked after by her father who was poor too’). See LSJ αὐτóc 1.8, KG 1.653 (f).

The history of Ammianus Marcellinus states that Constantius II (337–61) renamed the Pontic diocese Pietas, in honour of his second wife, Aurelia Eusebia (353–60?). pietas refers to sacred dutiful conduct toward all, specifically gods, state, and family. Constantius’ purpose in renaming the diocese poses an interesting question because it holds an important key to understanding the role Eusebia played in supporting her husband's position as emperor. In other words, what kind of part could an empress play in the Late Empire? Constantius may indeed have been honouring his wife. Why, however, would he honour her so? Is pietas just a play on the empress's name, which means ‘piety’ in Greek, or is there a deeper meaning? A search of late Imperial evidence on this woman and etymology on this word is needed.

Bentley's emendation in Horace, Ep. 1.14.9 (avet for amal has been accepted by many scholars as correct and harmonizes with the tone of Horace's letter, in which he expresses his impatience to go back to the countryside and at the same time his inability to fulfil his desire (Ep. 1.14.6–9: Me quamvis Lamiaepietas et cura moratur, / fratrem maerentis, rapto de fratre dolentis / insolabiliter, tamen istuc mens animusque / fert et avet spatiis obstantia rumpere claustra).

The recension G of the Vita Aesopi has received a fair amount of attention after the editio princeps by Perry. In recent years, Papathomopoulos and Ferrari have emended scores of corrupt passages in their fine editions. I will offer only one note, dealing with a section that has been left unclear.