‘For him the streets of the great city of learning which we wished to build lay all clearly laid out before his mind’. These words describe the first Rathbone Professor, the imposing John Macdonald Mackay – who arrived in Liverpool, after a spell in St Andrews, at the precocious age of twenty-eight. Mackay was always portrayed in the image of the modern-day prophet. This was not only a matter of his posture, seen in a famous Liverpool picture in which he is represented pointing the so-called New Testament group of his fellow university progressives to the Promised Land (Figure 1), but also of his rambling style of speech (his lectures lasted nearly two hours) and in the characteristic pause, as the archaeologist John Garstang observed, after you addressed a question to him: ‘an interval during which his eyes roamed among things unseen’. Lytton Strachey, briefly a pupil, put it more brutally: ‘Professor Mackay is very weird and somewhat casual’. But with all this, as my opening quotation suggests, Mackay was one of the chief architects of the faculty and university; discoursing passionately, for example, on the need for Liverpool to maintain its distance from the ‘repellent American type’ (of which he evidently knew very little). By comparison with the great Mackay, and still more with my immediate predecessors, I feel I must begin by lowering expectations.

The subject of the so-called ‘veristic’ portraits of the late Republic holds a special fascination for the classical art-historian, especially on the vexatious question of the origins of the style; a question which still remains, essentially, open and unsolved. Yet despite the thoroughness with which the topic is debated, one possible influence upon the emerging veristic style, that of the ancestral portrait, continues to receive inadequate consideration.

Livy's celebrated account of the Bacchanalia has long been a magnet for students of Roman politics, social life, religion, and private law. Two recent surveys document this extensive range of scholarship. J-M. Pailler, the wellknown French archaeologist, has published a massive monograph of 850 pages, admirably documented and containing a chapter of sixty pages reviewing the bibliography of the past hundred years. Erich Gruen, in his collected papers entitled Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy, has contributed a long essay on the political aspects, again with a full bibliography. This paper has the more modest aim of reviewing Livy's account primarily from the literary aspect, concentrating in particular on the opening chapters which describe how the alleged coniuratio was detected.

That the De Rerum Natura has a message is not clear from a cursory survey of its subject-matter. Book I (we read in the Penguin table of contents), Matter and Space; Book II, Movements and Shapes of Atoms; Book III, Life and Mind; Book IV, Sensation and Sex; Book V, Cosmology and Sociology; Book VI, Meteorology and Geology. Is this nothing more than a science textbook—and a potted one at that? One may be forgiven for thinking so. Even Bailey accepted that emphasis when he wrote that Lucretius' aim was ‘to set forth the physical theories of Epicurus’ and that other aspects of Epicureanism such as the moral theory ‘crop up from time to time in the poem, but only incidentally and in a partial treatment, which is subordinated to the main purpose and structure’. As a description this is misleading to the point of distortion. The work is indeed structured upon an exposition of physical theory, but its main purpose is to win converts to Epicureanism—and the ‘incidental’ non-technical passages do not ‘crop up’ by some chance intrusion but form a series of deliberate reminders of the overriding evangelical aim. We may guess at the tactical considerations which led Lucretius to adopt this form. His call to the Epicurean way of life would consist of two elements—impassioned appeals (appropriate to the central moral theory) and systematic exposition (needed for the supporting technical arguments): since the former had the greater potential impact but much less bulk, he chose to deploy them as a series of interjections in the latter. Thus what are in structural terms ‘digressions’ lie closest of all to the heart of the work.

Among the plethora of minor players whose names intrude briefly into the historical record of the age of Alexander the Great is Aristonicus of Carystus. A member of Alexander's entourage, he clearly attained some standing in his own right, and at least some of that renown derived, it seems, from his prowess as a ball-player. Thus one of the interlocutors in Athenaeus' Deipnosophistai reports of his honouring at Athens (1.19a) that

Theocritus sings of eighty-seven different trees, shrubs, flowers, grasses, and ferns. Practically all the references are in the Pastoral Idylls: that is to say, that in the small compass of about 1,200 lines he mentions nearly twice as many plants as Homer does in the whole Iliad and Odyssey. Many of these plants are mentioned several times, and some many times, so the number is impressively great, and implies a great interest: an interest not shown by any other Greek poet. The selection, too, is unprecedented. The Comic Poets may write of things to eat (kitchen-garden produce); the Tragic and Lyric poets, of ceremonial adjuncts; garlands for gods, athletes, feasters (nursery-garden produce). Theocritus' plants are none of these: they are the plants of the mountains, foot-hills, meadows, and shores of the place in which he lived:

αίγίπυρος καί κνύЗα καί εύώλης μελίτεια.

He Writes of plants for their own sakes, and it is this that makes his attitude modern and interesting. Fourteen hundred years before him Minoan painters looked at plants with his eyes: except for them he is unique in Greek history.

In his seminal work, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Paul Zanker wrote of a problem with nude honorific statuary in Late Republican Rome and of ‘conflict and contradiction’ in the style of Roman portraits during the same period. The ‘problem’ was a matter of nudity and style; it also had a moral dimension. Under political or social pressure, there was a tendency at Rome to express the effects of cultural change in moral terms: viz., literary works concerned with political or social attitudes of the Romans tended to describe elements like luxuria and adulatio(‘luxury’ and ‘sycophancy’) as ‘Greek and decadent in contrast to good, honest, ‘Roman’ values and traditions, such as virtus (‘courage’), fides (‘good faith’), and pietas (‘devotion’). Taking his cue from such attacks on aspects of the hellenization of Rome, Zanker gave a moral dimension to the ‘conflict and contradiction’ he discerned in the style of Roman honorific statues and portraits of the second and first centuries B.C. This idea that art can express moral values, even moral conflict, is of great interest and fundamental significance. The present paper focuses upon the way Zanker applies it to Late Republican statues and portraits in the light of recent scholarship. In particular, it will be argued, firstly, that the form of the art does not really make sense if there was as much conflict with Greek ideas and styles as generalizations from the literary sources might imply; secondly, that a nude or partially nude portrait statue of a living noble or emperor was not as problematic at Rome as is commonly believed; and thirdly, as a consequence, that Zanker's views about moral conflict in the style of Late Republican statues and portraits, and about the stylistic resolution of this ‘conflict’ under Augustus, should be substantially modified.

Over the last few years much work has been carried out on the export of olive oil from the province of Baetica to both Rome itself and the rest of the Roman Empire. The key for understanding the export traffic to Rome is the material from the Monte Testaccio in Rome, which is almost completely composed of amphorae from Baetica dating from the Imperial period, where a team of Spanish and Italian archaeologists have carried out two campaigns of excavations in 1989 an 1990 under my direction (Plate 1). This article also contains some other conlusions drawn from the work done in recent years by the team of Spanish archaeologists who work on the Monte Testaccio, investigating the topic of the Baetician oil trade.

One of the most striking dramatic features of the climax of Homer's Odyssey is the lengthy postponement of the reunion of Penelope and Odysseus. The sequence of scenes which lead finally to recognition begins at 17.508, when Penelope asks the swineherd Eumaios to summon the disguised Odysseus so that she may question him about her husband. But it is only at 23.205, after many diversions, that she breaks down in tears at the final realization that Odysseus is really home.

‘If, almost a hundred years ago,’ writes the critic Martin Esslin, Walter Pater could sum up the then prevailing trend in his famous epigram, “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music”, the dominant tendency of our own age might be described as an aspiration of all the arts to attain the condition of images' Certainly it is true that the study of imagery has been a fashionable method of literary criticism for some time and, employed with the proper blend of caution and imagination, has proved itself of service in the interpretation of a number of poets, most notably perhaps Shakespeare. It has long been recognized that Aeschylus is a poet who often works through ‘key’ or ‘dominant’ images; indeed, I suspect that classical scholarship may take some modest pride in having been the first in this field of study, even if it has yet to reach the dizzy heights (and sometimes the excesses) achieved by the Shakespearians.

The legend of the dying swan's melancholy song is given its first expression in extant Greek literature by Aeschylus in 458 B.c., and it has obsessed poets, commentators, and natural historians ever since. Poets like Tennyson may sing of the dying swan's ‘music strange and manifold’, unaffected by the scoffing doubts expressed by ancient scientists and modern editors of classical texts. But do dying swans really ‘sing’? The answer has been known now for over a century and a half, and is mentioned briefly in one or two works on ancient zoology such as C. J. Sundevall's Die Thierarten des Aristoteles (Stockholm, 1863), p. 152, and O. Keller's Die antike Tierwelt (Leipzig, 1913; reprinted 1963), ii.215. English commentators on ancient texts and D'Arcy Thompson's standard Glossary of Greek Birds (second edition, London and Oxford, 1936; reprinted 1966), however, tend either to neglect or unscientifically to dismiss the correct explanation. For this reason a restatement of the facts both ancient and modern seems advisable.

For all its swashbuckling image, classical mercenary soldiering was, on the whole, as subject to the discipline of practical economics as less glamorous-sounding pursuits. Current economic and political considerations dictated whether and why a citizen would become a mercenary; what and how he would be paid; what negotiating power he possessed; whether a ruler would use mercenaries or his own citizenry to fight his wars, and the necessity for a recruiting centre or ‘mercenary market’ where prospective employers and employees could meet and strike a bargain.

A striking feature of the speeches in Tacitus' Histories is their responsion to one another. Previous discussions have centred round responsions of theme and argument between speeches given by different speakers. So Galba's advocacy of adoptive versus hereditary monarchy (1.15–16) is balanced by Mucianus' speech urging Vespasian to seek the throne for himself and his son (2.76–77), while Piso's attack on Otho's vicious character (1.30.1) is matched by Otho's criticisms of Piso as a deutero-Galba, harsh and avaricious (1.38.1). In this paper, I shall explore a different kind of responsion, hitherto unnoticed, between four speeches delivered by the same speaker. Tacitus binds Otho's first four speeches (1.21; 37–38; 83–84; 2.47) together through the consistent application of traditional motifs from the general's harangue before battle, although none of them is in fact a cohortatio. The topoi of the battle harangue form a remarkably stable repertoire through ancient historiography and epic and they would have been very familiar to the ancient reader. He would, therefore, have been sensitive to any changes rung on these tropes by the author. An examination of Plutarch's versions of the speeches suggests that Tacitus may well have added these exhortation motifs to express his distinctive point of view. In closing, I shall suggest a possible antecedent for this particular technique.

Past readings of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (458 BC) have spawned numerous theories about the nature and significance of the cloth stage prop central to the ‘Carpet Scene’ (783-974). Kenneth Morrell has pointed out that ‘recent critics at best emphasize the ambiguous nature of the “fabric” ’, which the critics refer to variously as something carpet-like, as rugs or blankets, as garment-like tapestries or loosely-fitting garments, as draperies, and more generally as the household's treasure. But what fabric, if any, would have been versatile enough to function as a tapestry, a robe, and a blanket, and would have inspired outrage when used as a rug?

More symbolically significant than the most luxurious carpet, the fabric strewn on the ground before Agamemnon strongly suggests a bridal cloth, an object replete with symbolism, which would have served as both a nuptial robe and a coverlet for the marriage bed. Scholars who discuss Athenian weddings in the context of the Oresteia have overlooked the nuptial nuances of the ‘carpet’.

Ancient Athens developed democracy to a higher level than any other state before modern times. It was the leading cultural innovator of its age. This state is rightly revered for its political and cultural achievements. What is less well known is its extraordinary record of military success. Athens transformed ancient warfare and became one of the ancient world's superpowers. There is a strong case that democracy was a major reason for this success. The military impact of Athenian democracy was twofold. The competition of elite performers before non-elite adjudicators resulted in a pro-war culture, which encouraged Athenians in increasing numbers to join the armed forces and to vote for war. All this was offset by Athenian democracy's rigorous debating of war, which reduced the risks of Athenian cultural militarism. It also made military reforms easier and developed the initiative of the state's generals, hoplites, and sailors. Political scientists have long viewed Athenian democracy as a source of fresh ideas. At present they cannot satisfactorily explain the war-making of modern democracies. Consequently ancient history can provide political science with new lines of enquiry into how democracy affects international relations today.

In a well-known passage in the Apology, Socrates says that if the court release him on condition that he give up questioning the views of his fellow citizens, he will refuse to obey:

… If you say to me, ‘Socrates, this time we will not follow Anytus but will let you go on condition that you no longer spend your time on this inquiry and stop philosophizing; if you are caught doing this again, you shall die’—if you were to acquit me on this condition, I would reply: ‘Men of Athens, I honour and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you and as long as I breathe and have the capacity I shall never cease philosophizing …’ (29 c 6–d 5.)

The first-century-AD philosopher Onasander (Strategikos 1.13, 15) comments that a general must be a good and effective speaker in order to encourage his men before battle, and ancient historians on occasion have commanders address large audiences of soldiers in an age when there was no artificial amplification of the human voice. In 1993, and reiterated in 1998, Mogens Hansen argued that the extensive pre-battle ‘speech’ found in our sources was, if given at all, only ‘a few apophthegms that could be shouted by the general as he traversed the line, or a speech made to the officers only who passed it on to the soldiers’. He accepts that a general often addressed his troops in camp or in parade formation; his objection solely relates to those speeches ostensibly given immediately before battle to troops already arrayed for combat. For Hansen, ‘a brief exhortation of the troops, unit by unit, while the commander walked along the front is probably all the historical reality [one] may expect to find behind the fully-fledged speeches reported by the historians’, these being a ‘literary composition and not the historian's report of a speech which had actually been made’. In Hanson's view, unless the harangues were given to troops in camp, or to individual units in battle formation, or, perhaps, to small military forces, these speeches could not have been given as reported. With respect to the last possibility, Hansen only rather reluctantly acknowledges that Thrasybulus' speech delivered to approximately 1000 Athenian insurgents in 404 BC, and reported by Xenophon (Hell. 2.4.10–12), ‘is possibly right’.

The way we study Augustus’ Rome has been changing dramatically: I do not mean so much new discoveries of monuments or inscriptions, exciting though they have been, as the new-found disposition of archaeologists, art-historians, epigraphists, and Latinists to talk to each other and to admit cross-fertilization into their work; this spirit of co-operation has engendered a large bibliography, and one only regrets that the sort of multidisciplinary approach that was self-evident to the best Hellenists in Germany 150 years ago has been so painfully slow in reaching Latin studies!

The plot of the Medea concerns infidelity, a woman discarded by her husband for another younger woman and a more ‘suitable’ match. Infidelity by the husband was not an unusual occurrence amid the material of Greek myths. In Sophocles' play The Women of Trachis the heroine Deianeira, and wife of Heracles, must reluctantly take into her household Iole, a beautiful slave-girl whom her husband has taken as his concubine. Although she is made to give voice to her regret and to her jealousy, she has no thought of harming the girl or her husband. That Heracles is finally injured is not the result of an intentional act of revenge on her part but a mistake set in train by the malevolence of someone else.