The ‘poetry’ of my title has at least the virtue of brevity as a description of the sort of literature Plato discusses in Books 2, 3, and 10 of the Republic. But in its Platonic sense ‘poetry’ is too narrow a description. Two characteristics recognized by Plato as invariably belonging to poetry (poiēsis) are (i) that what it composes are fictional stories (muthoi) (Phd. 61 b), and (ii) that it composes them in verse (Grg. 502 c; Smp. 205 c; R. 393 d, 601 d, 607 d; Phdr. 258 d). And the sort of literature discussed in the Republic, while it invariably has characteristic (i), does not invariably have (ii).

Since so many Roman cognomina are derived from physical peculiarities and personal idiosyncrasies, it is not surprising that the unfortunate bearers were often the butt of laughter. As Cicero says (de Or. ii. 236), ‘Locus autem, et regio quasi ridiculi (nam id proxime quaeritur) turpitudine et deformitate quadam continetur: haec enim ridentur vel sola, vel maxime, quae notant et designant turpitudinem aliquam non turpiter.’ Cicero remarks that there is need for restraint and good taste in such jokes, and he adds (247) that it is not enough just to get a laugh, a man must also derive some benefit from the remark. Cicero's qualifying comments are in reference to an occasion when a man called Vargula was embraced by A. Sempronius, a candidate for office, and the latter's brother Marcus, whereupon he shouted to his slave ‘Puer, abige muscas’ (‘Boy, chase away the flies’), Musca being a cognomen of the Sempronii.

Plutarch's account of the condemnation and punishment of Alcibiades by the Athenians (Plut. Alc. 22.5) includes the following statement: … ἔτι κα καταρσθαι προσεϕηφίσαντο πντας ἱερεĩς κα ἱείας, ὧν μóνην φασ Θεανὼ τν Μνωνος Ἀγρυλθεν ντειπεīν πρòς τò ϕφισμα, φσκουσαν εὐχν, οὐ καταρν ἱρειαν γεγονναι.

Most ancient Greek vases in modern collections were found in Etruscan tombs. To state this is not a revelation: however, it is a fact of provenance often overlooked or marginalized in discussion about Greek vases. Some years ago, by way of contributing to a Festschrift assembled in honour of my postgraduate mentor, Robert Cook, I attempted an explanation as to why so many Greek-made pots had been hoarded by the Etruscans: an explanation steered predominantly by the final funerary context of those vessels. Since then, a number of further studies relating to this phenomenon have been made, most notably by Christoph Reusser; and our archaeological understanding of how Greek vases were used by the Etruscans has become markedly more refined. Traditionally, the separation of Etruria into ‘cities’ and ‘cemeteries’ has favoured the generous material evidence of the cemeteries. Investigations of the elusive cities – including the major centres of Tarquinia and Cerveteri – now offer some opportunity to review the ways in which certain artefacts frequently found buried among the ‘community of the dead’ were also in active circulation amid the society of the living. The assemblage of a corpus of Etruscan inscriptions on Greek vases attests to one highly significant local and particular value accrued by these objects. And further to all this (or because of it), there has also been a palpable softening of the tendency, on the part of Classical art historians, to depict Etruria as a place where affluent barbarians took ‘whatever they were offered’ by trans-Mediterranean traders.

When I first began to study Greek art, back in the mid 1950s, a book on Greek sculpture had recently been published in Germany and in England that did much to encourage my interest. It was Reinhard Lullies and Max Hirmer's big picture book, Greek Sculpture, since enlarged and running into three German and two English editions. Its basic idea was not totally novel but was rare for its time and never previously done so well. It presented large, clear photographs of original Greek works (by Hirmer) with a scholarly commentary to each piece (by Lullies); it omitted anything that was known, or considered, not to be original. In doing so, it provided a strong contrast to the sort of book with which I had already come into contact, the sort best characterized perhaps by Ernest Gardner's Six Greek Sculptors of 19252which contains not one single original piece by the six chosen sculptors and in which all the photographs are seen through a glass darkly. Gardner's title and approach, with heavy emphasis on literary evidence and Roman copies, accompanied by a sprinkling of original, unattributed pieces for ballast, was typical of a traditional line of study-that of Kopienkritik, an approach not dead yet by any means and in fact one which must continue to be pursued, though nowadays it is tackled with more caution than earlier. But until one incontrovertible example of a named sculptor's work is found, all attributions must be arguable approximations.

The influence of Seneca's tragedies is now a commonplace: it was Seneca, not Aeschylus, Sophocles, or even Euripides, who provided the classical models for Renaissance and Elizabethan Tragedy. To quote the considered judgement of a distinguished English scholar, the late H. B. Charlton: ‘Seneca's influence on the serious drama of most of Western Europe is almost immeasurable.… In effect, the Latin dramatist founded a tradition which at least until the 19th century passed through Europe in secure and often undisputed triumph.’ The precise extent of his influence and the ways in which it was exercised are matters which are still in dispute, and I cannot hope to say anything new about them in the space at my disposal. What I hope to do, however imperfectly, is to try to look at Seneca through the eyes of those on whom he made his first impact in England and to examine in retrospect the sources of his appeal to dramatists in the second half of the sixteenth century: why was it that he came to be described as ‘our Seneca’ even by one who was able to recognize the superiority of the Greeks, as those who were most influenced by the Roman were not?

Athens had a founder. His identity lies concealed in the twilight of myth. When the historians first sought him, and that was centuries after the city had been established, they constructed a traditional picture which—with the necessary modifications to fit current needs—persisted into late Antiquity. A historical picture, even one of a past as distant as the founding of Athens, is never created out of thin air, however. Remnants of ancient customs, no longer understood, remained part of social and religious practices. When the Greek—in the time that also saw the first written recording of history, roughly in the fifth century B.c.—posed his questions about the how and why of the relics, he encountered the stories belonging to oral and written tradition that mentioned and honoured a founder. These shreds of ideas about an ancient past he used, together with the products of his tireless imagination, to create a picture with such a general appeal that it has remained alive and has even become a piece of history whose development can be followed, even though the journey is a difficult one and does not always hold to one path or lead to the same conclusion. The legend becomes history in two ways. Firstly, the human spirit, which loves to make fables and cannot accept its own ignorance, fills out shadowy images from an ancient and incomprehensible past until they become distinct figures. These elaborations then give rise to a new development, which might be called the history of the legend. To trace and describe the evolution of the legend is an extraordinarily fascinating occupation.

At the end of the first episodion of Sophocles' play, Ajax, having affirmed the immutability of his ἦθος, which leaves him no choice but to live nobly or to die nobly, retires into his tent to end his life. Overwhelmed by shame from his attempt to kill the Greek leaders, which resulted instead in his deluded slaying of sheep and cattle, he sees death as the only way to reassert his heroic stature and to prove to his noble father, Telamon, that his son is not ἄσπλαγχνος (472). Many critics have agreed that at this point the audience and Chorus consider him as good as dead and that consequently his reappearance in line 646 comes as a dramatic surprise. What has proved a source of continuing controversy, however, is the explanation for this reappearance, and thus the question inevitably suggests itself: why, indeed, is Ajax still alive when he emerges from his tent in line 646? This question provides the central focus for this paper, which seeks to provide an explanation based upon an analysis of interrelated patterns of imagery within the play, particularly those involving Ajax's sword.

‘Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.’ Voltaire's epigramfits Greek literature like a glove. In school and university syllabuses, just as in our own private reading, we concentrate on the best authors; and a large number of the merely good authors stay on the library shelves, neglected and unread except by a steadily decreasing number of experts in forgotten fields. How many of us are on terms of easy familiarity with the bittersweet epigrams of Asclepiades, or that remarkably modern opening of Heliodorus' novel, or (for that matter) with the mimianiboi of Herodas?

Herodas was the major Hellenistic author of mimes. His work was singled out by the younger Pliny (Ep. iv. 3. 4) as the standard by which to assess contemporary poetasters in the field. Yet before 1889 he was no more than a name, to whom a few dull fragments could be assigned. In fact before 1889 the whole genre of Hellenistic mime, literary and non-literary alike, was a dark mystery, doubtless consigned to oblivion during the ages of Byzantine antischolasticism. To the immense popularity of mimes in late antiquity countless references in contemporary sources bear a distinctly scandalized witness. Some descriptions survived, a few definitions, many condemnations, but no texts.

The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which Aeschylus may have altered the forms or emphases of the traditional plots which he used in the Oresteia and the Supplices and to decide whether we are justified in interpreting any such adjustments as a commentary on recent or contemporary politics. Much of what follows is not, of course, new; but a fresh analysis of the old evidence will, I hope, show that rather than take sides strongly in political disputes, Aeschylus chose to suggest how men ought to approach problems of public life and solve them in the best interests of all.

Scholars so far have commented only briefly on Tacitus' depiction, at Annals 14.60–4, of the execution (in ad 62) of Nero's young wife Octavia, passing lightly over the pathos and criticism of Nero there as straightforward and self-evident. In fact, there is a subtle and skilful build-up of sympathy for Octavia and an extensive and powerful attack on the emperor and his court (and the servile senate), all the stronger for the pity aroused for her. This combination of emotional impact and damning indictment merits and repays deeper analysis.

Lucan's Bellum Ciuile dates from the Neronian period and is strongly rooted in that historical context, but, as is well known, it offers plenty of food for thought to the student of late Republican religion and intellectual culture. The reading of the Civil War that it puts forward has major implications for our understanding of the ancient interpretations of that period. This is fully in keeping with the ambitions of Lucan himself, who set out to impose his work as a pervasive master-narrative of the late Republican age. The aim of this article is to pursue a narrow but important and often under-explored angle, and to assess the role of divination, especially of the prophetic kind, in the poem.

In the middle of the fourth century BC, Publius Decius Mus, a celebrated general in the Roman army, sacrificed himself against enemy lines in return for the gods' protection of his soldiers and city. Two hundred and seventy years later, the eques Quintus Sertorius was rescued from the battlefield by his Iberian followers, who hoisted him onto their shoulders and passed him safely over a city wall, out of the range of fire. What Decius did was called a devotio by ancient writers; modern scholars cite Sertorius' rescue as an example of devotio Iberica. In both cases, a cognate of the verb devoveo is used. This paper explores the confusion between two related but nevertheless distinct uses of the term, and argues that devotio Iberica, although possibly referring to an actual phenomenon, should be understood primarily as an ancient practice invented by modern historians to further an idealized image of ancient Spain under the Francoist dictatorship.

There is a school of thought which attributes the more refined discourse of New Comedy (compared with that of the Old) at least in part to a change in the composition of Athenian theatre audiences. This way of thinking assumes that payment for attending theatre performances (the so-called theōrikon) was discontinued along with other payments for i public service under the oligarchic regimes Macedonia imposed upon Athens in the late fourth century B.C.; and it further assumes that with the elimination of this subsidy many of the poor could no longer afford to attend the theatre. The first of these assumptions, that the audiences for New Comedy did not receive theōrikon payments, is reasonable enough, but the second assumption, that the poor therefore stopped coming to the theatre, is more problematic.

In Oedipus Tyrannus the other characters regularly call Oedipus ‘tyrannos’. My question is what we should call him. Etymologically the obvious translation is tyrant. But the word tyrant suggests a wickedness of heart, or at any rate a total disregard for the wishes of others, that is far from characteristic of the Oedipus that Sophocles portrays. Moreover Oedipus was elected ‘tyrannos’ and refers to his post as ‘tyrannis’. These are two further obstacles since no-one purposely chooses a tyrant to rule over them and in English tyrantship is not a plausible name for a government office. For these reasons – or so one imagines – translators and commentators avoid the etymological derivative. But they do not pursue the logic of usage to the point of adopting any of the standard modern terms for an elected head of state such as president. Instead the title they confer on Oedipus, virtually without exception, is king.

Book iv is Virgil's masterpiece. It can stand comparison with the other great books in the qualities where they excel. It has the narrative power of Book ii, the imaginative power of vi, the tragic intensity and truth of the finest scenes in x and xii. But it overshadows these by its perfectly contrived synthesis of tragedy and epic. The book is the shortest of the twelve and the most dramatic in form: a tripartite structure is more clearly marked than in the other books and for once seems consciously present in the poet's mind, for each of the three sections has its own clearly marked internal unity and each begins with the entry of the queen and the same key phrase at regina: lines 1–295, the beginning of the affair; lines 296–503, the alienation; lines 504–705, the end of the affair—Aeneas' departure and Dido's suicide. But Virgil's narrative technique also reaches in this book its highest level of perfection and variety—the passage 74–89, for example, in which a close-packed succession of images suggests the compulsive, irresistible impetus of Dido's wild infatuation; or the serene, colourful, carefully organized narrative of the hunting episode (129–72), with its happy, relaxed realism and the terrifying, penetrating, ironic symbolism with which that episode concludes; or the awful simplicity and sublimity of the death scene (630–92).

It is a commonplace to link Homer with tragedy. Plato calls Homer the first tragedian, Aristotle praises the dramatic concentration of his plots, and pseudo-Plutarch claims that in Homer we find ‘all elements of tragedy: great and unexpected deeds, epiphanies of gods, and speeches full of thought and representing all kind of characters’. Likewise, modern critics write studies on Nature and Culture in the Iliad. The Tragedy of Hector, ‘Tragic Form and Feeling in the Iliad’, ‘Homeric Epic and the Tragic Moment’, and Homer and the Dual Mode of the Tragic.

It is difficult to define exactly the difference between the early work of a poet (or of a dramatist in verse) and his later work. In fact any general definition is impossible, for poets vary. Some merely dry up and go on writing from habit; others change their style consciously and deliberately, others unconsciously—but all change. Anyone who has thought about and read poetry will agree that if a poet lives long enough, his work is bound to change. Any Shakespeare scholar can distinguish by style alone, not to mention other evidence, Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona from his Tempest. Similarly, any competent critic will admit that Milton could not have written Lycidas or his Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity after he wrote Paradise Lost. Again Dante could not have written the poems in his Vita Nuova after he finished the Divine Comedy. In both cases some people prefer the earlier poems. A poet does not always improve with years, but his mind changes gradually and his work reflects that.

Poets differ so much that we are usually content to enjoy their works without noticing their order. But it is not always possible to ignore it. A fragmentary papyrus has lately been discovered which appears to be the remains of an extract from the Didascaliae prefixed to a play of Aeschylus. It states that Aeschylus was victorious with a group of plays which contained the Danaides and Amymone, and that Sophocles was second. As it is generally agreed that the Supplices belonged to the same group as the plays mentioned it can be assumed with confidence that this name was to be found on the part of the papyrus now missing.