In Ps.-Plutarch's epitome, Doctrines of the Philosophers (Plac.), lemma 4.11 bears the heading: Πῶς γίνεται ἡ αἴσθησις καὶ ἡ ἔννοια καὶ ὁ κατὰ ἐνδιάθεσιν λόγος (‘How sense perception, conception, and internal reason come to be’). The text reads:

Frontinus appears only once in Tacitus' Agricola, at a moment in the text where Tacitus is filling in some background, sketching a rough history of the Roman occupation of Britain up to the time when Agricola took over as governor of the province. His appearance is brief, and the momentum of the whole section makes it tempting to see him as a mere footnote in the tale of Agricola's life and career. I will argue, however, that Frontinus' role in the text is more significant than that. Indeed, it is my contention that he is closely bound up with – and helps Tacitus and his readers to explore – one of the text's most pressing concerns: namely senatorial conduct, status and identity, in Domitianic and post-Domitianic Rome.

Some of the best recent work on Roman priesthoods under the Republic has engaged with the issue of priestly authority and its role in defining the place of priesthoods vis-à-vis other centres of power, influence and knowledge. The aim of this paper is to make a contribution to this line of enquiry by focussing on the concept of priestly auctoritas, which has seldom received close attention. The working hypothesis is that the study of priestly auctoritas may contribute to a broader understanding of the place of priesthood in Republican Rome, and especially in the Late Republican period, from which most of the evidence derives. The link between religious authority and religious expertise requires special attention.

In his Life of Aemilius Paulus, Plutarch (quite naturally) rehearses the initial phase of Aemilius Paulus' campaign against Perseus, when the Macedonian had occupied a position on the northern bank of the river Elpeus so strongly fortified that any direct assault could only be disastrous for the attackers. Aemilius instead resorted to a cunning strategy of synchronized surgical strikes, while a detachment, the departure and direction of which were successfully disguised, managed to round the Macedonian camp. Perseus' position was thus compromised, and in reaction the monarch hastily retreated to Pydna, where in the end his luck was even worse. Embedded in this narrative is the report that, prior to Aemilius' dislodging of Perseus, the morale of the legions was sorely depressed. The reason was simple and straightforward: they were suffering from a shortage of satisfactorily potable water. This difficulty Aemelius resolved by digging wells.

Paideia – i.e. Greek culture, comprising, amongst other things, language, literature, philosophy and medicine – was a constituent component of the social identity of the elite of the Roman empire: as a number of influential studies on the Second Sophistic have recently shown, leading members of society presented themselves as such by their possession and deployment of cultural capital, for example by performing oratory, writing philosophy or showcasing medical interventions. As the ‘common language’ of the men ruling the various parts of the empire, Greek culture became a characteristic of, and thus a de facto condition for, leading socio-political positions. Whilst most elite men would have taken for granted a good cultural education no less than a leading position, an outstanding command of the classical Greek language, literature and tradition as displayed in epideictic performances allowed some orators, philosophers and doctors to move distinctively up the social ladder, sometimes reaching the ears of, and thereby wielding influence over, the emperor himself.

Cicero's letter to his brother Quintus from February 54 is best known for containing the sole explicit contemporary reference to Lucretius’ De rerum natura, but it is also notable as the source of the only extant reference of any kind to another (presumably) philosophical didactic poem, Sallustius’ Empedoclea (Q. fr. 2.10(9).3= SB 14):

In February 54 b.c. Cicero concludes a missive to his brother with a passing and – for us – tantalizing remark: Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum veneris. virum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris; hominem non putabo. Quintus had, it seems, read De rerum natura, or at least parts thereof, just before he left Rome for an undisclosed location nearby, and he shared his enthusiasm with his brother per codicillos. Meanwhile, he was corresponding with Julius Caesar, whose staff in Gaul he was about to join. When, a few months later, he was stationed with Caesar, he was involved in another literary affair, this time concerning his brother who wrote to him, inquiring about his autobiographical De temporibus suis:

During the Late Roman Empire Terence was the most revered and the most quoted classical Latin poet after Virgil. Among authors both pagan and Christian, none (to judge, of course, by the surviving written record) made as frequent or as creative literary use of his comedies as Jerome, one of the most accomplished polymaths in all of Latin antiquity. In his estimation Terence ranked, alongside Homer, Menander and Virgil, as one of the greatest of all poets. Jerome had an encyclopedic knowledge of Terence's dramatic corpus and quoted or appropriated phraseology from all six of his comedies. A significant number of these reminiscences have already been identified, but others await discovery. The purpose of the present study is to make a further contribution to this particular branch of Hieronymian Quellenforschung by adducing and analysing two hitherto unrecognized allusions in Jerome's correspondence to Terence's Eunuchus, apparently one of the biggest blockbusters in the history of the Roman stage.

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,
sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri 5
per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli.
sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere
edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,
despicere unde queas alios passimque videre
errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae, 10
certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
noctes atque dies niti praestante labore
ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.
o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca!
qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis 15
degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest! nonne videre
nil aliud sibi naturam latrare, nisi utqui
corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mensque fruatur
iucundo sensu cura semota metuque?
(Lucr. 2.1–19)

It is pleasant, when the winds stir up the waters on the great sea,
to watch the great struggle of another from land;
not because it is a great pleasure that anyone be troubled,
but because it is pleasant to observe the troubles you yourself lack.
It is also pleasant to watch the great contests of war 5
spread out over the plains without taking any part in the danger.
But nothing is more pleasing than to hold lofty yet calm temples
that are well defended by the teachings of wise men,
from which you can look down and see others everywhere
go astray and wander while seeking the path of their life, 10
competing in wits and contending over their nobility;
throughout nights and days they strive with outstanding labour
to come out at the peak of riches and have power over everything.
O wretched minds of men, O blind hearts!
In what shadows of life and in how many dangers 15
is this bit of life, whatever it may be, being spent by you! Do you not see
that nature barks for nothing other than this – that
grief be separated from the body and far away, and that the mind enjoy
pleasant feelings cut off from anxiety and fear?

At Aristophanes, Birds 172ff., Peisetaerus persuades the Hoopoe that the birds would be better off building a city in the clouds. The Hoopoe announces that he will go off to summon the other birds to an assembly, so that the proposal may be approved. ‘How will you summon them?’, asks Peisetaerus. ‘That's easy’, replies the Hoopoe:

ΕΠΟΨ
δɛυρὶ γὰρ ἐμβὰς αὐτίκα μάλ' ɛἰς τὴν λόχμην,
ἔπɛιτ' ἀνɛγɛίρας τὴν ἐμὴν ἀηδόνα,
καλοῦμɛν αὐτούς· οἱ δὲ νῷν τοῦ ϕθέγματος
ἐάνπɛρ ἐπακούσωσι θɛύσονται δρόμῳ.     205

ΠΕΙΣΕΤΑΙΡΟΣ
ὦ ϕίλτατ' ὀρνίθων σύ, μή νυν ἕσταθι·
ἀλλ', ἀντιβολῶ σ', ἄγ' ὡς τάχιστ' ɛἰς τὴν λόχμην
ɛἴσβαινɛ κἀνέγɛιρɛ τὴν ἀηδόνα.

At Book 5.324–37, the DRN’s narrator says that the world is young, claims that the nature of the world has been understood only recently (with the advent of Epicureanism), and asserts that he is either the ‘very first’/‘most pre-eminent’ or, as I suggest here, ‘among the first’/‘among the most pre-eminent’ to turn (vertere) Greek Epicureanism into Latin. It is the last of these three claims that concerns us:

denique natura haec rerum ratioque repertast   335
nuper, et hanc primus cum primis ipse repertus
nunc ego sum in patrias qui possim vertere voces.

This note concerns the meaning of the phrase μελήσει ταῦτα and the anomalous use of the singular demonstrative pronoun in Aristophanes, Wealth 229. Although the manuscripts are unanimous in their readings, I argue that the paradosis should be emended to μελήσει ταῦτα.

In the course of its 53 Stephanus pages Plato's Protagoras uses the verb διαλέγεσθαι 32 times: a frequency considerably greater than that of any other dialogue. The next largest total is 21 occurrences in the Theaetetus (68 Stephanus pages). In the vast bulk of the Republic διαλέγεσθαι occurs just 20 times over 294 Stephanus pages. The ratios are striking. In the Protagoras the verb turns up on average once every 1.65 Stephanus pages; in the Theaetetus once every 3.25 pages; in the Republic only once every 14.7. The statistics reflect a fact evident to any reader of the Protagoras and Theaetetus, that the first of these dialogues is Plato's most sustained treatment of the comparative merits of the many different forms of διαλέγεσθαι, the second his most ambitious exhibition of the type of dialectic (as he has taught us to call it) with which Socrates there wins his contest against Protagoras. It is the former dialogue that interests me here.

The tale of Gyges' ring narrated by Cicero at De officiis 3.38 is of course originally found, and acknowledged as such by Cicero, in Plato (Resp. 359c–360b). I would like in this paper to address two questions about Cicero's handling of the tale – one historical, one philosophical. The purpose of the historical question is to evaluate, with respect to the Gyges narration, Cicero's quality as a reader of Plato. How well does Cicero understand the role of the story in its original Platonic context? The motivation for the question is that, at first blush, Cicero seems to have badly misunderstood it. I shall argue that the appearance is illusory, and that Cicero understands the tale's Platonic provenance perfectly well. Now it should be noted that the question of Cicero's grasp of the tale's purpose in Plato is distinct from the question whether Cicero himself puts the story to the same or a different use than Plato did. I shall suggest that while there are striking points of contact between the two treatments, on one crucial feature – namely the tale's ostentatiously far-fetched nature – Cicero is instructively more explicit than Plato.

Without doubt, veni vidi vici is one of the most famous quotations from Antiquity. It is well known that it was Julius Caesar who coined the renowned expression. Less frequently discussed is the fact that ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ was announced as written text. According to Suetonius, Caesar paraded a placard displaying the words veni vidi vici in his triumph held over Pontus in 46 b.c. (Suet. Iul. 37.2):

Anyone familiar with the work of Friedrich Münzer knows that he possessed an unrivalled knowledge of the Roman aristocracy of the Republic. On the rare occasion when something escapes Münzer, it is apt to pass altogether unnoticed. The following is one such instance.

In mid-February 45 b.c.e., in a tragedy that was to plunge the orator into seemingly irreparable despair, Cicero's beloved daughter Tullia died. She had given birth nearly a month before and at first seemed to be doing well. Soon, however, her health gave out and Cicero took her to his Tusculan villa to recover. In the end, there was little that could be done. After her funeral, Cicero stayed for about three weeks with Atticus in Rome, but the constant stream of visitors offering condolences became too much to bear, and on the sixth of March the heartbroken father retired to a villa he owned on the coast at Astura, some 45 miles south of Rome. Three days later he dispatched the following anguished epistle (Att. 12.15):

The compact formed between Antonius, Lepidus and Octavian near Bononia in November 43 b.c. (Dio Cass. 46.55.1–3), commonly named the second triumvirate, was characterized by civil conflict. The major battles at Philippi, Perusia and Naulochus led to the presence of many legions in Italy. In addition, a large number of time-served soldiers were settled throughout the peninsula. The requirement of land for the veterans meant conflicting interests arose with landowners who were dispossessed to make way for them. The impact of the army on Rome itself and on the population of the Italian countryside was great during the late first century b.c.

Horace, Satires 1.3.117–23, as transmitted:

adsit
regula, peccatis quae poenas inroget aequas,
ne scutica dignum horribili sectere flagello.
nam ut ferula caedas meritum maiora subire     120
uerbera non uereor, cum dicas esse paris res
furta latrociniis et magnis parua mineris
falce recisurum simili te, si tibi regnum
permittant homines.

Over the past century or so, questions concerning the word ‘meaning’ have been understandably prominent in the field of the philosophy of language. There is, however, a historical aspect to the debate that is of especial interest to literary critics – the fact that verbs and expressions of meaning have been applied to different kinds of things in a number of languages spanning the western literary tradition. I shall introduce the topic by focussing on the Latin expression sibi uelle and on how Roman authors exploited its ambiguities for the purposes of humour (§§ I and II). I shall then move on to a discussion of a later Latin phrase familiar from the pages of the Virgilian commentator Servius, hoc uult dicere, and argue that the assumptions we have about expressions of meaning may lead us to adopt a particular interpretation of it (§§ III and IV). In the final part of the paper (§§ V, VI and VII) I shall proceed to a discussion of why it is important for modern literary critics to pay attention to how they use verbs such as ‘to mean’: I argue that the different functions of the verb facilitate a personification of the text that allows us to equivocate about the role of the author.