Among the one-word fragments from unknown plays of Sophocles, fr. inc. 1111 R. (φίλανδρον) has been treated as one of the more straightforward. It derives from a passage in Hermogenes of Tarsos’ treatise Περὶ Ἰδεῶν (late second century c.e.), which includes the Sophoclean adjective, its referent and a brief gloss: … ὁ Σοφοκλῆς … φίλανδρόν που τὴν Ἀταλάντην εἶπε διὰ τὸ ἀσπάζεσθαι σὺν ἀνδράσιν εἶναι (‘… Sophocles called Atalante philandros somewhere because she enjoyed being with men’). Brunck assigned the fragment to Sophocles’ tragic Meleagros; most subsequent editors have edited the fragment as sedis incertae while commenting favourably on Brunck's ascription. This suggestion has also found support beyond Sophoclean scholarship, and, to my knowledge, no alternative has been brought forward. While the ascription of the fragment to the Meleagros is prima facie not implausible, I shall argue that a thorough analysis of the difficult passage in Hermogenes calls for a revision of the current lexicographical accounts of the word φίλανδρος—as well as φιλανδρία—and suggests that fr. 1111 may in fact originate in a satyr-play.

In this paper I discuss the ways in which the early Christian writer Arnobius of Sicca used rhetoric to shape religious identity in Aduersus nationes. I raise questions about the reliability of his rhetorical work as a historical source for understanding conflict between Christians and pagans. The paper is intended as an addition to the growing literature in the following current areas of study: (i) the role of local religion and identity in the Roman Empire; (ii) the presence of pagan elements in Christian religious practices; (iii) the question of how to approach rhetorical works as historical evidence.

In Book 9 of his Confessions, Augustine recounts that his mother Monica told him how ‘a weakness for wine gradually got grip upon her’ as a little girl. After some time, so the story goes, God healed her from her bad habit. In this context, Augustine observes: ‘When father and mother and nurses are not there, you are present. You have created us, you call us, you use human authorities set over us to do something for the health of our souls.’ Even though at first sight this passage does not seem to pose any problems, one wonders about the exact meaning of the last part: etiam per praepositos homines boni aliquid agis ad animarum salutem. First, it is to be noted that Henry Chadwick's translation cited here leaves etiam untranslated. Moreover, it is not certain at all that Augustine really wants to say that God heals human souls ‘even by those human beings who are set over us’. As the subsequent lines of this paragraph make clear, God freed Monica from her sin through her servant, who scoffingly called her young mistress ‘a little boozer’ (meribibulam). This renders the phrase etiam per praepositos homines problematic, on the one hand, because the meaning of etiam (which often implies a kind of gradation) is unclear and, on the other, because it is difficult to regard Monica's servant as one of the ‘human authorities’. Nothing in the text compels us to identify this servant with the old famula of Monica's parents who, according to the preceding paragraph (9.17), was ‘vehement with a holy severity in administering correction and soberly prudent in her teaching’. At any rate, the ancilla mentioned here (9.18) is depicted not as an authoritative person but rather as someone who quarrels with her young domina (that is, with Monica), not in order to heal or educate her but merely to irritate her.

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius repeatedly presents a disjunction between two conceptions of the natural world. Either the universe is ruled by providence or there are atoms. At 4.3, we find perhaps its most succinct statement: ἀνανεωσάμενος τὸ διεζευγμένον τό⋅ ἤτοι πρόνοια ἢ ἄτομοι (recall the disjunction: either providence or atoms). The formulation of the disjunction differs; at 7.32, being composed of atoms is contrasted with a stronger sort of unity (ἕνωσις) that may survive death. In 10.6 and 11.18 Marcus simply offers φύσις (nature, construed in the Stoic manner as providentialist and causally efficacious) in opposition. On the surface, the contrast between the theory of atomism and the acceptance of providence seems to not warrant the term ‘disjunction’; it seems possible to accept both atomism and a causally determined providential universe. Yet, it is agreed on all sides, in the recent literature, that the relevant contrast for Marcus is not between the atomist and the non-atomist views of the constitution of the natural world as such but between two entailments that follow from the atomist Epicurean and the non-atomist Stoic advocacy of these positions. The contrast is between the providential ordering of the Stoic universe and the chaotic chance-ridden Epicurean model.

The Ostrogothic king Theoderic I (a.d. 475–526) drew on his experience of ruling post-imperial Italy when he famously remarked that ‘The poor Roman imitates the Goth and the rich Goth imitates the Roman’. Written well after the fall of the western Roman empire, these words have prefaced many discussions of the process of Roman and barbarian assimilation and mutual acculturation. This topic has long captured the imagination of scholars, who have approached the topic from many different angles, such as archaeology, religion, prosopography and literature.

In this article I want to clarify the text of one of the short maxims assigned to Pythagoras in the ancient tradition, which are known as symbola or acusmata. Before I turn to the acusma in question, it is important to understand the context in which it appears. It occurs in Chapter 17 of Book 4 of Aelian's Historical Miscellany (ποικίλη ἱστορία). Aelian's work was written in the early third century a.d. in Rome, and is a ‘miscellaneous collection of anecdotes and historical material’. It consists of short chapters, usually a page or less long, that are for the most part independent of one another. Chapter 17 of Book 4 is about a page long and is devoted to the sayings and doings of Pythagoras. There is no particular connection between it and the surrounding chapters, and it is clearly meant to stand on its own. The preceding chapter (16) tells us that if we went to Callias for guidance he would turn us into drinkers, … if to Alcibiades, arrogant cheats, if to Demosthenes, orators, … if to Aristides, just men, … if to Socrates, wise men. The following chapter (18) recounts an anecdote about Plato's arrival in Sicily and his reception by the tyrant Dionysius the Younger. The chapter that I am concerned with, Chapter 17, begins by asserting that Pythagoras taught that his ‘lineage was superior to that of ordinary mortals’. This is followed by a list of superhuman acts and traits of Pythagoras, for example his ability to be in Metapontum and Croton at the same time and his golden thigh. The second two-thirds of the chapter are then devoted to the miscellaneous teachings of Pythagoras. Most of these take the form of the brief taboos and maxims known elsewhere as symbola or acusmata, among which is the text on which I want to focus here.

Bacchylides 16 is a hybrid poem. It sets out to explore the relation of cognate types of choral song, the paean and the dithyramb, in one and the same narrative. To that end, it poses a ritual section, which deals with Apollo's stop by the banks of the river Hebrus on his way back from the Hyperboreans to Delphi (16.1–12), ahead of a mythic section whose thematic spine focusses on the aftermath of Oechalia's sack by Heracles and his marital crisis with Deianeira leading up to his death and deification (16.13–35). My concern, here, lies with the very beginning of the Apolline paeanic section, which lacks a gratifying supplement of the few words missing, so one can get a glimpse of how the poet's voice positions itself with respect to the god's (envisioned) upcoming arrival at Delphi. I understand the first line in the following way (Bacchyl. 16.1–4):

Λοξ]ίου [ἀ]ίο[μεν] ἐπεὶ
ὁλκ]άδ’ ἔπεμψεν ἐμοὶ χρυσέαν
Πιερ]ίαθεν ἐ[ΰθ]ρονος [Ο]ὐρανία,
πολυφ]άτων γέμουσαν ὕμνων

We sense Loxias (approaching) ever since
Ourania of the fair throne sent me
from Pieria a golden cargo
fraught with much-praised songs.

‘Everyone who now reads and writes in the West, of whatever racial background, sex or ideological camp, is still a son or daughter of Homer.’ While the extent to which this claim is accurate has been disputed, it is not wrong in our own day to grant the highest honours for ongoing influence to the author of the Iliad. All the more so in Late Antiquity, a period frequently viewed as hermetically isolated from the classical world, but which resolutely viewed itself as part of that unbroken cultural and literary continuum. One of those who made repeated use of Homer's epic was the Emperor Julian (a.d. 331–63), one of the most prolific writers among Rome's emperors. In the fourth century a.d., Homer's influence was still predominant, not only being Julian's favourite and most frequently cited author but also forming for Libanius of Antioch ‘one of the pillars of rhetorical teaching’. Despite Glen Bowersock's statement that Julian's many writings offer unique insight into his character and disposition, Julian is still a historical character who is not easy to ‘know’. Julian's life was shaped by the murder of his father, brothers and uncles by a cabal involving, if not orchestrated by, his cousin Constantius II. This was followed by the removal of his trusted confidant Salutius, again by Constantius. These experiences exhibit an unusual phenomenon, in that, when Julian referred to them, they were prefaced by a spate of Homeric allusions. Julian's wrath at people taken from him was both genuine and politically useful, but the expression of it was dangerous enough that he expressed it obliquely in the language of Homer. These citations and allusions, drawn primarily from the Iliad, were far more than Julian's flaunting of his education, but were rather a tool for subtly conveying his desired message, a message with strong political tones. I will treat these passages in the order in which Julian wrote them, although that places the events reminisced about in the reverse order.

In a well-known parable, told by Xenophon but credited by him to the sophist Prodicus, the young Heracles setting out on the road meets two women whose appearance turns out to be in accord with their characters and names, which are soon proclaimed by each to be Virtue and Vice. The former comports herself as a proper Greek woman should, ‘becoming to look at and freeborn by nature, her body (σῶμα) adorned with purity, her eyes with shame, her stature with moderation (τὸ δὲ σχῆμα σωφροσύνῃ), dressed in white’ (transl. Mayhew). Vice, on the other hand, is self-absorbed and slutty: ‘well nourished to the point of fleshiness and softness, made up to appear whiter and redder than she was in fact’, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα ὥστε δοκεῖν ὀρθοτέραν τῆς φύσεως εἶναι, ‘with wide-open eyes, dressed to show off her ripeness, often checking herself out and seeing whether anyone was looking at her, often even looking at her own shadow’.

This is the text of Hdt. 6.105.1–2, as printed by the most recent editors, Wilson and Hornblower–Pelling:

MSS Ἀθηναίοισι … ἀπαγγεῖλαι Wilson Ἀθηναίους … ἐπειρωτῆσαι

In 1977, French excavations at Aï Khanoum in north-east Afghanistan—a foundation of Antiochus I Sotēr and subsequently one of the major cities of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom—of a building dating to shortly before the destruction of the place in 145 b.c.e. uncovered inter alia the remains of a papyrus and a parchment document. The papyrus text, dated by Cavallo on the basis of its letterforms to the mid third century b.c.e., preserved a fragment of a philosophical dialogue seemingly to be associated with the Peripatetic school. The second document consisted of two separate portions of a piece of parchment roughly assigned on the basis of its letterforms to the second half of the third or the first half of the second century b.c.e.; as also in the case of the papyrus, the letters survived not on the parchment itself but impressed upon the hardened dirt that surrounded it. Only column II of the original editors’ ‘Texte 2a’ (the more substantial of the two parchment fragments) contains a significant amount of text, which appears in neither TrGF nor PCG. I present it here without regard to standard editorial niceties, which are rendered impossible by the desperate state of the original document, now almost certainly lost, and the nature of the original publication.

At Leg. 666b7, Burnet's emendation of the transmitted λήθην to λήθῃ has been widely accepted. Newly discovered support for this emendation comes from an Arabic version or adaptation of Plato's Laws, most likely Galen's Synopsis, quoted by the polymath Abū-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (a.d. 973–1048) as Kitāb al-Nawāmīs li-Aflāṭun in his ethnographic work on India. I transliterate and translate the passage below, proposing two incidental emendations to the Arabic:

In the fifth book of Plato's Laws (745e7–746a8), the Athenian stranger concedes that some requirements posed in the description of the ideal city might be unrealistically demanding. The passage quotes the due limits fixed with regard to wealth and the regulations about the number of children and the size of the family, as well as the rules to be observed in the allocation of houses in the city and in the countryside. The latter requirement is recalled at 746a6–7 (ἔτι δὲ χώρας τε καὶ ἄστεος, ὡς εἴρηκεν, μεσότητάς τε καὶ ἐν κύκλῳ οἰκήσεις πάντῃ), where the word μεσότης is unanimously understood as indicating a geographic notion of ‘middle’, with regard to either the position of the houses in the ideal city, or that of the city in the territory.

(1) 2.4:

Alcibiades relates Socrates' warning on his proposal for a reciprocal exchange of beauty; he should take a better look (ἄμεινον σκόπει) in case he is mistaken about Socrates' beauty and true worth: ἥ τοι τῆς διανοίας ὄψις ἄρχεται ὀξὺ βλέπειν ὅταν ἡ τῶν ὀμμάτων τῆς ἀκμῆς λήγειν ἐπιχειρῆι· σὺ δὲ τούτων ἔτι πόρρω, ‘the sight of the mind, you know, begins to see sharply when the sight of the eyes attempts (?) to fade from its prime—but you (are) still far from these (developments).’

Towards the beginning of Book 3, Lucretius starts his description of the soul. According to Epicurus, the soul is divided into two, an irrational part, which is coextensive with the body, and a rational part, the ‘mind’, which is located in the chest. This position is a relic from an earlier, non–philosophical tradition, and was adopted by several different philosophers. But Alexandrian doctors would soon correctly locate the mind in the head, and later Epicureans would have to defend an increasingly uncomfortable and out-of-date position.

Varro's De lingua Latina (= Ling.) is a treasure trove of information. Of the originally twenty-five books, six have come down to us more or less complete. Among these, Books 5–7 give us many hundreds of etymologies, and Books 8–10 discuss the question whether Latin morphology is regular or not. What Varro rarely comments on is sociolinguistic variation. The sociolinguistic comments in Varro's work can almost be counted on one hand. For instance, in 5.162 Varro remarks that cenaculum, from cena ‘dinner’, means ‘attic’ in Roman Latin, but that the original meaning was, as one might expect, ‘dining-room’, a meaning preserved in the non-Roman dialects of Latium, Falerii and Corduba in Spain; the meaning also lives on in religious uses in Lanuvium. In 7.96, Varro tells us that some words are pronounced with -ae- by some, but with -ē- by others. We know that non-Roman varieties of Latin monophthongized -ae- earlier than the Roman dialect did. Varro mentions pairs like scaena / scēna ‘stage’, a loan from Greek σκηνή, which shows that -ae- is hypercorrect here. Interestingly, only in one such pair is the variant with -ē- ascribed to country people, in the name Maesius / Mēsius, and this is indeed the only pair where the diphthong -ae- is original rather than the result of hypercorrection.

The epitome of Athenaeus does not retain all the details of how these comic fragments were embedded in the conversation which Athenaeus originally presented, though the extract's first sentence shows that one purpose was to exemplify the application of βρέχω to drinking. Editors of both Athenaeus and Eubulus have left the connection of the latter's fragment to its conversational context at that. I submit that what follows in the epitome, as well as what precedes, casts light both on that connection and on how we should restore the text.

(1) 1.21: