Cicero's grandfather is credited with the observation that the better a Roman knew Greek the bigger a scoundrel he was. Nevertheless one of his sons, Lucius, belonged to a circle that knew quite a lot of Greek and another, Marcus, certainly gave his own children a Greek education. Marcus, the father of the orator, seems to have shared the prevailing view that one had either a Greek education or none at all. Indeed, in 92, when Cicero was fourteen years old, the newly established Roman schools of rhetoric were closed down by the censors Crassus and Domitius, Crassus' reason, according to Cicero, being that the Roman schools were a travesty of their Greek exemplars: ‘nam apud Graecos, cuicui modi essent, uidebam tamen esse praeter hanc exercitationem linguae doctrinam aliquam et humanitate dignam scientiam, hos uero nouos magistros nihil intellegebam posse docere, nisi ut auderent.’ Amongst these schools was that of L. Plotius Gallus, who seems before the closure to have attracted a fair number of pupils.

I

We are often told nowadays that the whole business of war, especially command and administration, is becoming increasingly difficult and complicated as more and more different weapons, each more highly specialized than the last, are brought into service. But the undoubted truth of this contention must not lead us into the error of supposing that ancient warfare was a simple matter between forces composed of nothing but infantry and cavalry. Many of the battles of antiquity, indeed, are made more interesting by the presence of unusual and intriguing armaments; and though some of these may now seem largely obsolete, it does not do to be too sure—was not the Home Guard armed with pikes in its early infancy?

Let us consider, then, the parade state of Antiochus’ army at the battle of Magnesia. After his defeat at Thermopylae in April 191, it will be remembered, he had fled to Ephesus, and by the end of the following year he was ready for the Scipios with an army of 70,000 men. ‘Most of the peoples of the Empire were represented, from Dahae horse-archers of the Caspian to Arabs mounted on dromedaries. It was strong in cavalry—at least 12,000 horse, light or “cataphract”—in light-armed infantry … archers, slingers and javelin men; it included, besides 54 elephants, that engine of war dear to the Ancient East, the dreaded scythed-chariots.’

Here, surely, is a sufficiently varied assortment of nationalities and armaments to show that manifold alliances and specialized equipments are not peculiar to the twentieth century.

Aman's character is judged not merely by his public services and his political views but also by his private life and individual interests. Similarly the history of a nation is to be read not only in its military exploits, its constitutional experiments, its art and literature, but also in the social habits and predominant interests of its citizens. Just as a garden mirrors the character of its owner, so the gardens of a nation reflect the character and the degree of advancement of the State. It is no coincidence that the popular garden of the Roman Republic was the simple kitchen garden, while under the Empire pretentious landscape gardens were the vogue. The vitalizing energy of the Republic found an outlet in the productive vegetable plot: the elaborate but sterile gardens of the Empire were symbolic of incipient decay.

Until the first century b.c. almost all Roman gardens were cottage gardens. Their plan and culture were governed solely by practical needs. From them the mistress of the house used to replenish her larder and medicine-chest and adorn the family shrine with flowers. Pliny the Elder reminds the luxury-seeking populace of a later date that in the past at Rome a garden was the poor man's estate: it was the only market he had from which to provide himself with food. The prime function of a garden was to make its owner self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency was more easy of attainment in ancient Italy than in more northerly countries, for the diet of the Romans consisted, for the most part, of salads.

Juvenal's sixth Satire begins with a prologue describing the Golden Age which, for the light it sheds both on ancient attitudes to the Saturnian myth and on the Juvenalian concept of satire, is sufficiently important to justify extended analysis, an analysis that may begin with a reference to a discussion by Professor W. S. Anderson, who sums up the meaning of the first twenty lines of the satire: ‘Juvenal represents man's degeneracy through a double withdrawal: that of mankind from direct relation with Nature, that of the goddess Pudicitia from the earth.’ The age of Saturn, therefore, represents a moral ideal from which civilized man has degenerated. However, Anderson sees a certain ambiguity in the satirist's attitude to the Golden Age, particularly to the women of the Golden Age: ‘The attitude toward the aboriginal woman was ambivalent. She was morally upright, physically uncouth.’ There is respect for her ‘stern moral attitudes’ but a realization that her ‘stern dishevelled aspect is not at all alluring’

Nearly ten years have gone by since Dr. Cyril Bailey gave to lovers of Lucretius his edition of the poet in three volumes, winning for himself a crown, insignem cum laude coronam, after a lifelong quest and bestowing upon us an enlarged understanding of that wonderful work of antiquity, the De Rerum Natura, which holds in its ‘massive and magnificent whole’ many a valuable message for the modern world, could it but read them. At the outset of his commentary Dr. Bailey draws attention to a discrepancy that has often been discussed, namely that which lies between the literary masterpiece with which the poem opens, the invocation to Venus, and the Epicurean belief entertained by the poet that the gods neither govern the forces of Nature nor interfere in the affairs of men. On the one hand, Venus is addressed as a creative power with prayers for inspiration and assistance and for peace; on the other hand, we are told that the nature of the gods needs nothing of us, is untouched by anger, and is unmoved by merit; and if the reading of the manuscripts be retained, the second set of lines immediately succeeds and contradicts the first.

The Open University received its charter in July 1969, offered its first courses in January 1971, and produced its first graduates (with some ‘credit exemptions’) by the end of 1972. Those who originally planned it saw that many people who for various reasons missed their opportunity of university education at the usual stage of their lives could profit from it, provided that what was offered was home-based study in spare time. They saw too that radio and television offered an excellent opportunity for helping such study to be direct and personal. Students then are admitted with no entry qualification except the age of 21. We have built a few parameters into our selection procedure; we can control the proportion admitted to any one foundation course or from any one region of the country for example; but basically it is ‘First come, first served’. Typical students are the boy who has been to a poor school, has never been turned on, has left at the age of 15 and gone into industry, and in his twenties has suddenly become excited by what he is doing and at the same time has revealed a keen mind; the girl who with decent A levels has got married at 18, sees her family growing up, is aware that she has time for some study while they are at school, and will be able to take a full-time job in three or four years; the long-term prisoner needing a constructive occupation in prison and qualification for when he comes out; the working-class lad who has entered the police force and, by ability and application, has worked his way up from the beat; the retired industrial worker or bank manager who wants a positive purpose in his retirement; the teacher who has no degree, perhaps because the family could not afford more than a two-year course, and seeks more knowledge in his subject, as well as the increment applicable to a degree; the person well settled in one profession who would like to qualify for a second career before giving up the first; the taxi-driver who is interested in people and ideas, and wants to know what it is all about. We have them all, and many others.

You would do well to make a special thing of Homer. Read it in large lumps and get up Monro's ‘Homeric Grammar’ afterwards. I have been reading the Odyssey at the rate of four books a day since I came here. It is the only secret. It is so much easier to pick up the theories of modern scholars, so far as they are worth picking up, when you have a large first-hand acquaintance with the actual literature. That is the primary fact we have to deal with, and all the rest is ‘trimmings’. I never knew what scholarship meant till one lucky summer when I was inspired to read Plato from cover to cover.

We know very little for certain about the staging of plays in the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens in the fifth century B.C. The evidence of archaeological remains and contemporary vase painting is difficult to interpret with confidence, the reliability of ancient post-classical commentators is questionable, and the texts of the surviving plays, our chief source of evidence, often raise more problems than they solve. Among the plays which have occasioned most controversy in modern scholarship is the Prometheus Vinctus. What was the ‘rock’ to which the hero was bound? In what part of the theatre space was it positioned? How and where did the chorus of Oceanids make their entry? How was the ending of the play staged? Questions such as these continue to perplex students of the play who also have to face the vexed question of its date and indeed authorship.

The source of the tears mentioned in the much quoted final line (449) has been the subject of diverse views. That the shedder of the tears is not specifically designated has been felt to create an ambiguity, and critics have been tempted to conjecture his or her identity according to their personal whims or prejudices. The point is of more than passing interest and is of relevance in the assessment of Aeneas' character and the understanding of Book 4. The tears have been variously assigned: to Aeneas (so Servius, Augustine, C.D. 9.4 fin., and a number of modern critics); to Dido and Anna (Heyne-Wagner, Conington-Nettleship), or Dido (Sidgwick, Page); to Aeneas, Dido, and Anna (R. Lesueur, L'Énéide de V. (Toulouse, 1975), p. 404). R. G. Austin (ed. Aen. IV, Oxford, 1955, p. 135) thinks it wrong to probe: ‘Virgil is purposely ambiguous, and why may he not remain so? The line is ruined by a chill analysis … These tears could not be denied to Aeneas: but … few could withhold them for ever from Dido.’ The position is summed up in Servius auctus: ‘quidam … lacrimas inanes uel Aeneae uel Didonis uel Annae uel omnium accipiunt’, to which we may add ‘〈uel totius generis humani〉’: cf. ‘Virgil has not said whose tears; by not specifying he widens the area of sorrow, generalises this particular conflict into the universal conflict of pity with duty’ (R. D. Williams (ed.), Aen. I–VI (London, 1972), p. 373; cf. too W. F. Jackson Knight, Roman Vergil (London, 1944), p. 205). That Virgil should in truth have intended such puzzling obscurity seems hard to credit. It is being assumed that in a detail of his narrative which closely concerns the leading characters and which cannot but excite the reader's interest this master artist is guilty of a vagueness for which another writer would be censured as negligent, if not inept. It appears to me that the evidence presented by the poet himself is nowadays commonly ignored, and, outmoded as the process may seem, a reasoned consideration of the actual Latin text may not be out of place.

It was just over half a century ago, in 1892, that Gaston Boissier published a discussion of the Stoic ‘martyrs’ under Nero in the second chapter of his well-known work L'Opposition sous les Cèsars. Since then two especially noteworthy studies of the ‘philosophic opposition’ in the first century A.D. have appeared in English, that of M. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (1926), pp. 108 ff., and, more recently, that of D. R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism (1937), pp. 125 ff. The story of men who maintained a critical or, at the least, independent attitude in the face of a totalitarian règime is obviously of great significance for us to-day. Theoretically, of course, the term ‘autocracy’, in its strict sense of ‘unaccountability’ of government, cannot be applied to the imperial system of the early Empire. On paper the ‘tyrants’, Tiberius, Gaius, Nero, and Domitian, no less than the ‘enlightened monarchs’, Augustus, Claudius, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, were delegates senatus populique Romani, chief magistrates and servants of the state. But in practice the ever-expanding range of the imperial provincia, coupled with the unceasing growth of the ‘mystical’ auctoritas bequeathed by the first Princeps to his successors, had produced an effective absolutism comparable, in many respects, to that of the autocrats or ‘dictators’ of modern authoritarian states. How did political thought and action in the Roman Empire respond to this de facto autocracy? How, above all, did they respond to its abuse? For us these are no merely academic questions. The parallelism, such as it is, between the ancient and the modern situations must serve as an excuse for presuming to rehandle a familiar theme.

One of the many stimulating ideas put forward by Gordon Williams in his book Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968) is the suggestion that Propertius planned and wrote his first three books as a single entity and published these simultaneously as a unified collection, the fourth book being a later addition. This is contrary to the usual view that all four books were written separately and published successively at intervals. It is obviously salutary that conventional views should be challenged, especially if they can be shown to rest on unproved assumptions, and two at least of the reviewers of Williams's book regarded his theory with some favour. E. J. Kenney writes of an ‘important discussion of the thesis that the first three books of Propertius were planned as a whole’, and D. Henry begins his discussion of the theory with the words ‘He argues plausibly that…’. The only dissentient voice that I have noted is that of E. Courtney, who in an article on the structure of Propertius' third book refers in passing and without further explanation to the hypothesis of unitary publication as one ‘which is surely to be rejected’.

A Number of statues representing early national heroes, and presumably quite imaginary as portraits, were, according to the ancient sources, erected in Rome before the second century b.c. But our earliest reference to honorific portraits of contemporary, or near-contemporary, public persons relates to the year 158 b.c., when an order was issued, so the elder Pliny informs us, for the removal from the Forum of all statues of magistrates which had not been officially authorized— populi out senatus sententia statutae. What these second-century honorific statues of magistrates were like we do not know for certain, since none of them has survived. It would, however, be a fairly safe conjecture that they were the work, not of Romans or Italians, but of immigrant Hellenistic artists. We have no knowledge of any school of specifically Roman portrait-sculptors of this period; while from Greek lands, and particularly from Delos, comes abundant evidence that Greek portraitists, natives of Athens and of other east-Mediterranean centres, were carving portrait-statues of Roman officials and of other contemporary individuals precisely at this time. Some of these statues carried on the ‘baroque’ tradition of the idealized, heroized, or heaven-inspired Hellenistic ruler-portrait that began with Alexander's likenesses. Others, on the other hand, exemplify a new and highly realistic, one might almost say prosaic, development in Hellenistic iconography.