In the opening chapter of his Annals Tacitus gives us a potted history of Rome to the point at which his work begins. First, there were kings; then, with Lucius Junius Brutus, came liberty and the consulship (or, as we would say, the Republic); from time to time there were periods of one-man rule, most of them short-lived; and finally there was Augustus, who found the whole state exhausted by civil strife and therefore took it all into his own control and began what we call the Principate.

It is just 2,000 years since two boys complained that their schoolmaster furenter irasci. He, however, as such people will, had anticipated their complaint with a report of ambiguously qualified praise, and managed to retain parental confidence in his moral and intellectual qualifications. But the boys probably felt that lessons were out of place. They were abroad for the first time. There had been two grand feasts, a round of sightseeing, a voyage in open boats, a stay on an island, sleeping in tents, and six months at the court of a native prince. A story might have been written about this, but it was Cicero's proconsular year and he had other fish to fry. His was a province already subjugated more Romano with pilum and syngrapha, yet his anxieties were manifold: to meet the outgoing proconsul and tidy up the mess which that gentleman had made; to face a Parthian invasion; to catch a brigand; to square the legal and the economic rates of interest; to restrain his staff from making requisitions, and to dun the bankrupt king of Cappadocia. Then, at Rome, seven weeks' journey away, the republic was tottering, his daughter Tullia was on the marriage-market for the third time, water was being laid on at his suburban villa, and no—he really couldn't supply leopards for the arena, but please, please, would everyone see that his term of office in that dreadful province wasn't extended to a second year.

So Cicero only really noticed his son Marcus and his nephew Quintus when they were a nuisance.

Golden statues, either made of gold or gilded—the distinction is not always made clear —were exceptionally popular among many of the peoples of the ancient world and it is not difficult to see why. Easily worked, perennially bright and practically indestructible, gold surely had something of the divine about it. In Egypt for instance gold's qualities made it the flesh of the sungod; just like the sun itself, the hotter the fire, the purer and brighter the metal glowed. In Greece, too, gold had divine associations and by virtue of its indestructibility acquired a symbolical value far beyond its actual worth; practically anything that is worth having and keeping is ‘golden’ as far as Pindar is concerned. Even for such a hard-headed race as the Romans gold seems to have had an aura of magic about it, at least in early times. The clause in the Twelve Tables mentioned by Cicero, prohibiting the burial of any gold with the dead, except for their false teeth, surely springs as much from an instinct for the metal's mysterious properties as from any parsimonious desire to control funerary expenditure.

The historical landscape of the Greeks was bounded to the north by the Scythians, a fierce race renowned for milking mares (Hesiod Fr. 55 Rzach), for drinking wine without water (Hdt. vi. 84; Athenaeus 427 a–c), and for living not in fixed houses but in house-wagons, the Mongol yurt (Aeschylus, Prom. Vinct. 709 sq.; Hdt. iv. 46). Plato mentions them along with the Thracians as representatives of those in whom the spirited part of the soul predominates, meaning that they acted with indomitable energy but without their actions being guided by reason (Rep. 435b). The Athenians, quick to espy anyone's good points, employed them as policemen (Aristoph. Thesm. 1017, Lys. 451).

What did Athenians think about when they talked about ‘the poor’? The question is worth asking for two reasons: first, if we are to judge from our texts, the Athenians talked a good deal about ‘the poor’, and it will help our understanding of these texts to know something about the presuppositions which author and audience had about ‘the poor’; and second, since the way a society stereotypes its members tells us something about that society, a study of Athenian presuppositions about ‘the poor’ should provide a further insight into Athenian social relations. In what follows I do not mean to suggest that all Athenians shared these presuppositions, any more than we share the stereotypes of poverty common today. Whatever individual Athenians may have believed, however, the assumptions to be considered here were a part of the landscape of Athenian public discourse, as it were, and so had to be taken into account when Athenians talked about ‘the poor’. Finally by way of preface I should also add that the present study deals, as its title says, with only some Athenian presuppositions about ‘the poor’. In particular, I do not consider here the large group of texts which, making a virtue of necessity, praise the poor for not succumbing to the vices (especially hubris) typical of the rich.

Few places in the world can possess more historical associations than the small stretch of country that reaches from Naples west-ward to the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is known as the ‘Campi Flegrei’, ‘the Burning Fields’, on account of the volcanic activity that has characterized it from the earliest times, and which the recent eruption of Vesuvius shows to be still a formidable feature of the neighbour-hood. In a space of some fifty square miles it contains names which have become the commonplaces of history and legend—Baia, Cuma, Pozzuoli, Averno—places associated for ever with a thousand famous and infamous men—Nero, Ovid, St. Paul, Hannibal, Augustus, Gregory the Great, Totila, Petrarch, Garibaldi. But for many it will be best remembered and most eagerly studied as the scene of the sixth book of the Aeneid; for the story of the Trojan hero's descent to the regions of the dead, while it is one of the greatest pieces of imaginative writing in existence, has a solid foundation in reality. Not only its atmosphere but also its topography can be recaptured to this day in the ‘Campi Flegrei’ a few miles from Naples.

That Virgil was well acquainted with this district is beyond doubt, even without the evidence of the sixth book of the Aeneid. The Georgics were written at Naples; and the poet, as friend and admirer of Augustus, must have spent many days among the emperor’s favourite haunts, examinig the famous landmarks and whatching the progress of the great engineering programmes that were being carried out in the Gulf of Pozzuoli.

The present paper is an attempt to show the far-reaching effect on history of a single economic factor, namely, the gold supply.

To collect something or another, stamps, coins or butterflies, is a universal pastime, and it needs no explanation or excuse save the satisfaction which it brings. One may play the same game in another way, by collecting information; but the facts which one accumulates must be remote from one's duty and avocation. An old scholar taught me the game more than fifty years ago and I have never stopped playing it; it is such an easy and so engrossing a game. You choose some subject or other which takes your fancy; you buy a note-book and label it with the title of your theme; and you keep jotting down therein whatsoever bears upon the subject, as it comes your way, in all your reading, observation and reflection. I have had many such note-books, and some I have soon grown tired of; but others have lasted long and served me well. One of these is called De Ludis Antiquorum; it is grown old and shabby, for I played with it during many years. Your subject opens out wonderfully as time goes on; it tempts you into by-ways, it carries you afield; if you play the game aright it never comes to an end. It grows in interest continually, for things are interesting only in so far as they relate themselves to other things; only then can you put two and two together and tell stories about them. Such is science itself and such is all the knowledge that interests mankind.

The chronology of the Social War has for a long time been a source of dispute amongst historians of fourth-century Athens. The central problem has been the confusion that Diodoros, our main source for the period, got himself into. In the first of his two references to the Social War Diodoros refers to the outbreak of a ‘three-year war’ in the archonship of Cephisodotos (358/357). However, later on he refers to the closure of the war in the archonship of Elpines (356/355) after a ‘four-year war.’

This decisive engagement in the Revolt of the Ionian Cities against Persia has its name from Lade Island, a dissected ridge of rock in the entrance to the roadstead of Miletus, where the naval contingents of the allied Ionian cities were concentrated to oppose a fresh Persian armada of Phoenician, Cypriote, Cilician, and Egyptian ships, 600 in all (vi. 9), of which 353 were war-vessels, probably the provincial levies; but their commanders collaborated (vi. 6). They had two immediate objects: to destroy the Greek squadrons, and to effect a landing in the home territory of Miletus, where a provincial land-force was to meet them for the siege of the city, advancing by the Maeander valley road from beyond Mount Grion and probably based also on the fertile valley of Mylasa about twenty miles south-east.

Europa was the daughter of Phoinix or Agenor, king of Phoenice, and Telephassa; her brother was Cadmos. Zeus came in the form of a bull and carried her away to Crete, where she gave birth to Minos, also Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon the elder. Afterwards she married Asterios (or Asterion), who reared her children.

A generally recognized achievement of Horace is his working into Latin lyric poetry the moral teachings of Greek philosophy. But it is still worth while to ask how deeply he absorbed, and how significantly he shaped them. This question demands not a sweeping answer based on a mere set of references, but patient examination of individual odes; for as a poet, Horace naturally couches his thought in poems, which are, as it happens, highly elaborate works of art. This paper takes two pieces for such consideration and suggests that the coherence of their argument and the particulars of their diction may be better appreciated if they are read in relation to Epicurean ethics. My method is tentative and cumulative: there is no reason to presuppose the justice of such a reading, and it is justified only if it illumines the whole poem in detail (as it surely does 3.29). The purpose of this paper, then, is not to attach a scholastic label to Odes 1.20 and 2.3, but to bring out their meaning and coherence.

If Herodotus borrowed from Homer the way the later tradition of historical battle description described fighting, adapted the array of the armies from the Homeric catalogue, and himself invented the ‘weighing’, the historian's declaration about why one side defeated the other, Thucydides was the creator of the battle speech – the paraklēsis or parainesis, cohortatio in Latin – that so frequently became a part of the depiction of ancient battles. There is, of course, a great deal of incidental talking and encouragement during fighting in Homer, and many of the sentiments that later authors were to use can be found in Homer as well. Herodotus borrowed from him the habit of including incidental snippets of encouragement before or during battles by the way (6.11, 8.83, 9.17–18, 9.42), and the habit was adopted here and there in later authors, and especially by Livy. So similarly the epipōleēsis, the general's going along the ranks of his army and addressing a few appropriate remarks to each different contingent: this imitated Agamemnon's tour of his forces in Book IV of the Iliad, and was to have a long life in historical authors.

On a day without precise date some time in Judaea in the first century of the common era, an interview of exceptional historical importance took place between a representative of Roman power and a Jewish prophet. What passed between them has left an indelible imprint on history, although religious believers, historians, and theologians have struggled for almost two thousand years to comprehend the legacy. The Roman was Titus Flavius Vespasianus, general of a vast army on its way to Jerusalem, and the Jewish prophet, priest and pharisee was Yosef ben Matthityahu.

The year was AD 67. In the summer of the previous year, the priests of the great temple of the Jewish God in Jerusalem had suspended the sacrifices which had been held twice a day for more than two generations in honour of the emperors of Rome. The suspension marked the formal beginning of a disastrous revolt mounted by the Jews against the empire of Rome in the East. Josephus had been appointed as a commander as soon as the revolt broke out and he had been sent to Galilee, some 50 miles north of Jerusalem, to organize resistance there. After initial success, he had been besieged by Roman forces at Jotapata, 10 miles from Nazareth. And when it became clear to the rebels that they were likely to fall into Roman hands he alleges that they carried out an elaborate mass-suicide, killing their comrades, starting at the lowest levels in the command and working up.

Judges, and tabloid newspapers, have a habit of saying that violent criminals ‘behaved like animals’. After all those years of David Attenborough they ought to know better: very few other species behave as badly as humans. But they are invoking the ancient belief that animals have neither reason nor justice. Consequently, ‘animal passion’ is fierce and overpowering. Animals are beasts. They are savage and unsocial. They cannot control their passions by reason and are unrestrained by respect for others, by a sense of fairness or by social order.

Optimates and Populares, Roundheads and Cavaliers, Whigs and Tories, Cowboys and Indians: the neat antitheses polarize views and enlist sympathies. Nor are they all misleading. What of ‘Julians and Claudians’? These labels were invented to distinguish ‘factions’ or ‘parties’ within the family of Augustus; the issue between them was the succession and the struggle continued until the end of the principate of Augustus' heir Tiberius. Thus comprehensible order is brought to the confused mass of information and opinion that the sources offer us. Moreover, the labels have a respectable pedigree in modern writing. They are constantly employed by F. B. Marsh in his authoritative work and survive as valid and useful in articles more recently published; where historians have trodden so boldly literary critics have not hesitated to follow. My purpose, at the cost of destroying neat and treasured theory, is to show that these terms are inapplicable to the two groups to which they have been applied, and therefore misleading. They are an impediment to serious inquiry into. complex and changing situations.

For Roman politicians, marriage could be a tool of advancement, a way of forging alliances among the influential and the wealthy. The major figures of the late Republic used marriage to realize their political hopes and to increase their political power. Such marriages and their consequences have been discussed often and much scholarly energy has been expended in exploring the ramifications of these alliances.

The aim of this article is to briefly discuss the ingenious interpretations of Od. 13.104 and 11.122–3 that were put forward by Numenius of Apamea. As our understanding of this fascinating second-century forerunner of Neoplatonism has significantly improved over the last years, Numenius’ importance is now generally recognized to be twofold. First, he was instrumental in establishing a framework within which numerous philosophers from Plotinus onwards would operate. Second, he skilfully employed allegoresis for pedagogical purposes, which not only helped to promote his exposition of philosophy, but also stimulated critical investigations into the nature of myth and poetry. In that, however, Numenius’ hermeneutics marks a serious departure from Plato: when embracing allegoresis, Numenius combined Platonism with traditions sympathetic to the practice that Plato himself vehemently repudiated.

Juvenal's Fourth Satire has not attracted the critical attention to which its interest and literary merits entitle it. It has a further claim to extended discussion inasmuch as it is precisely those features that make it an untypical specimen of Juvenal's work as a whole which throw light on his technical resources and, paradoxically perhaps, on some of the distinctive qualities of his own particular brand of satire.