At a time when the Greek army is on the verge of annihilation, the Iliad tells us, two warriors have detached themselves from the fight. Idomeneus, having accompanied a wounded man back to the ships, and Mērionēs, on his way to fetch himself a new spear, meet at the former's hut. They stand and talk for a while, assuring one another that they are afraid of nothing and no-one, and finally decide to plunge into battle again, though only after discussing at some length whether to go to fight in the centre or at the left of the front line. At first sight their behaviour might not seem particularly strange, but when one realises that the poet has told us more than once that these two are the leaders of the Cretan contingent, some four thousand warriors strong, one may begin to wonder. How could a poet, if he had even the slightest notion of what armies and battles were like, let these men behave as if they were alone on the field, leaving the fight for trivial reasons, re-entering it when and where it suits them, not even bothering to return to their own leaderless countrymen? Such doubts have led scholars to argue that, in fact, the poet did not have the slightest notion of what he was talking about.

Some seek to show that epic society is vague and unreal — ‘Homeric kings are like the king and the prince in Cinderella — they reveal nothing about any social structure in the real world’ — and have suggested that the historian may dismiss it as literary fiction.

According to the traditional interpretation of these celebrated lines, Pindar is saying here that while the wise can understand his poetry by themselves, the mass of his listeners need interpreters if they are to do so; he then goes on to contrast inferior poets, who can sing only ineffectually and only what they have learned, with the poet of natural genius, who surpasses them as the eagle surpasses the crows; and finally he returns to the subject at hand, the praise of the victorious Theron of Acragas. Sandys' Loeb translation may be taken as a representative example:

Full many a swift arrow have I beneath mine arm, within my quiver, many an arrow that is vocal to the wise; but for the crowd they need interpreters. The true poet is he who knoweth much by gift of nature, but they that have only learnt the lore of song, and are turbulent and intemperate of tongue, like a pair of crows, chatter in vain against the god—like bird of Zeus.

Now, bend thy bow toward the mark! tell me, my soul, whom are we essaying to hit, while we now shoot forth our shafts of fame from the quiver of a friendly heart?

Construed in this way, this passage has always been especially popular with scholars and with other readers — not surprisingly, for the former could find in it a justification for their activity as ⋯ρμηνεῖς, while the latter could pride themselves on belonging to the συνετοί.

In the Eighth Olympian, for Alcimedon of Aegina, Pindar recounts a story (31–46) that, according to a notice in the scholia, is not found in earlier Greek literature. Aeacus was summoned from Aegina to Troy by Apollo and Poseidon to help in the construction of the city's fortifications. Smoke, says the poet, would one day rise from the very battlements Aeacus built. The wall newly completed, a portent appeared: three snakes tried to scale the ramparts but two fell to earth while one succeeded in entering the city. Apollo immediately interpreted this sign: Troy would be taken ‘owing to the work of Aeacus’ hand' and would, moreover, be taken ‘by the first and the fourth generations’.

If there is literary invention here, it would seem that Pindar has drawn inspiration from three passages of our Iliad: (i) 7.452–3, Apollo and Poseidon toiled to build a wall for Laomedon; (ii) 6.433–4, there was one spot in the wall of Troy that was especially vulnerable; (iii) 2.308–29, the seer Calchas declares an omen involving a snake to signify the eventual destruction of Ilium.

The general import of the passage is clear enough — descendants of Aeacus play a prominent part in the Trojan war and in the capture of the city. But the details of the portent and of the prophecy have caused much perplexity, for they cannot easily be made to correspond to the history they prefigure. It is the numbers in Pindar's account that are the chief source of confusion.

On the model of the omen interpreted by Calchas (where a snake eating nine birds represents a lapse of nine years before the sack of the city) the three snakes in the Pindaric story might reasonably be expected to represent the lapse of three generations before Aeacus' great-grandson Neoptolemus played his conspicuous part in the final agony of Troy. But this interpretation of the portent forces us to explain away the fact that Troy was also destroyed by Aeacus' son, Telamon, as Pindar repeatedly insists in his Aeginetan odes (Nem. 3.37, 4.25; Isth. 6.26–31): if the snakes are taken to represent generations, one of the unsuccessful snakes in fact represents a successful conqueror. This is a disturbing inconcinnity.

No ancient authority has left us a clear account of how the judges at the Athenian dramatic festivals operated. We can therefore never know for certain what happened. But it may be possible to improve the reconstruction normally given, which does not look as if it could ever have yielded acceptable results.

One thing that is very clear (from Isocrates 17.33–4) is that the choice of judges was taken seriously. Not only did it involve the Council, the Prytanies, and the Treasurers, but any tampering with the panel from which the judges were eventually selected seems to have been punishable with death. Even the physical arrangements were quite complicated. Names approved by the Council were deposited in ten jars, one jar for each tribe but each jar containing several names, sealed by the Prytanies, held in safe-keeping on the Acropolis, and eventually brought down to the theatre, where the archon publicly broke the seals and drew out one name from each jar.

At this stage of the process there emerged ten judges, one from each tribe. Their quality had been guaranteed by the Council's prior vetting of the panel, but their actual names were unpredictable because randomly selected from it. All had been done democratically and with equal representation of tribes, in perfect accord with normal Athenian practice.

But now comes the difficulty. The paroemiographers record a proverb (or rather perhaps a joke since it seems to be a kind of parody of a Homeric verse) about judgement being in the lap of five judges — ⋯ν π⋯ντε κριτ⋯ν γούνασι κεῖται; Lysias tells us of a judge whose vote was not counted; and Lucian, who likes to disguise a very careful antiquarianism behind an apparent casualness of style, says that at festival competitions the many know how to clap and hiss but that judgement is in the hands of seven or five or however many.

A leading character in a play, at any rate in a major speech, is normally doing several things: he is saying what the development of the plot requires, and sometimes also expressing the dramatist's own tragic vision; he is also expressing his own thoughts and emotions, or saying what from his point of view the rhetoric of the situation requires. There are thus at least two questions to ask about the Trugrede: What is its function in the economy of the plot? Why does Sophocles give this speech to Ajax, and what light does it throw on his character as presented by Sophocles? The first question is easy enough to answer. There can be no doubt that this is a deception speech in the sense that Tecmessa and the Chorus are misled about what is going to happen, and at any rate part of Sophocles' purpose was evidently to achieve an effect of relaxation of tension or ‘retardation’. At first all is gloom and despair; then when the suicide of Ajax seems to be imminent, this speech leads Tecmessa and the sailors to think that he means to live on after all, and they express their relief in a joyful hyporchema. Then follows a messenger speech with warnings that dispel their joy but still offer a gleam of hope, until that hope is extinguished when they find the dead body of Ajax. Sophocles has thus contrived an arresting dramatic sequence to fill the interval between the opening scene and the discovery of Ajax' death. The main effect could have been produced by direct, unambiguous falsehood in the speech we are considering, but (still looking at it from the dramaturgical point of view) Sophocles presumably wished the spectators to be aware that the joy and relief were illusory, so that they could at once appreciate the tragic irony of the sailors' rejoicing. There was probably no way of informing the audience directly that the speech was meant to be deceptive, and Sophocles therefore included in it numerous ambiguous expressions which the Chorus and Tecmessa, eager to believe good news, interpret as indicating a change of purpose, whereas for the spectators, who are more detached and probably aware of the traditional version of the story according to which Ajax killed himself, they have ominous overtones and arouse suspicion, in the last lines verging on certainty, that in this play too he still means to take his own life.

Some years ago, Sir Kenneth Dover suggested a new interpretation of καρ⋯ξαι. Prima facie, the chorus ask the sun to proclaim where Heracles is, and this sense is supported by such passages as Il. 3.277 Ή⋯λιóς θ', ὃς π⋯ντ' ⋯ɸορᾷς, Od. 9.109 Ήελ⋯ου, ὅς π⋯ντ' ⋯ɸορᾷ (cf A. PV 91, S. OC 869), Od. 8.270–1 ἄɸαρ δ⋯ οἱ ἄγγελος ἧλθεν | Ή⋯λιος, and especially (‘a passage…which comes very close to Sophocles in spirit’) h. Cer. 69ff., where ‘Demeter visits the Sun and implores him, “you who look down on all earth and sea…tell me truly of my dear child, if you have seen her anywhere, who has gone off with her…”.’ This is the way καρ⋯ξαι in Trach. 97 has always been taken. Dover points out, however, that κηρ⋯ττειν also has a special, technical sense: to make proclamation inquiring about a missing person's whereabouts, as the town-crier used to do a century ago England and elsewhere, and the media do now. The model is not that of h. Cer. 69ff., but rather S. Aj. 845ff.: ‘Sun, when you see my native land, draw near and tell (ἄγγειλον) my aged father…of my fate.’

The examples he cites are enough to demonstrate the ‘interrogative’ use of κηρ⋯ττω, though his first example, Ar. Ach. 748 ⋯γὼν δ⋯ καρυξ⋯ Δικαιóπολιν ὅπᾳ, will not do: if sound, it means not ‘I will find out by κ⋯ρυξ where Dicaeopolis is’ (he is present in the next line), but ‘I will summon Dicaeopolis to where (the sale is)’. The normal ‘interrogative’ use is to enquire by herald (town-crier) the whereabouts of a Crminal (Andoc. 1.112, D. 25.56, Antiphon ii γ 2 with ib. δ 6) or a runaway slave (Lucian,Fug. 27).

In his new text of Euripides (Oxford, 1984) James Diggle shows that he has the courage of his convictions: he deletes the last twenty-five lines of Medea's great monologue. He is to be applauded for following ratio et res ipsa where it leads him and being undaunted by the sight of so much blood. No editor of Euripides before him, as far as I am aware, has ever been courageous enough to put these lines in square brackets, although their deletion had been a subject of discussion for exactly one hundred years at the time Diggle's edition appeared.

But though Diggle is to be praised for his courage in following reason, I believe he is mistaken. The arguments for excision are far from negligible, and defenders of the passage show a regrettable tendency to underestimate their force. But while I shall give these objections as much weight as any of those who urge deletion, I shall argue that there is a much more economical way of dealing with them than large-scale amputation. I shall accordingly pay close attention to the problems for which excision is the proposed solution, with inevitable repetition of earlier scholars' arguments. Since I have myself recommended athetesis of long passages on several occasions, I do not think I will be regarded as insufficiently alive to the possibility of interpolation or overly reluctant to wield the knife. In this instance, however, there are strong stylistic grounds for believing in the genuineness of most of the passage in question.

Cobet, in his second discussion of ⋯γορεύω and its compounds, maintained that these verbs in Attic formed all tenses except present and imperfect from ⋯ρ⋯, εἶπον, εἴρηκα, εἴρηµαɩ, ⋯ρρήθην, save that forms with -αγορευ- were optionally used to distinguish certain alternative meanings. Thus ⋯πηγόρευσα etc. (Dem. 40.44, 55.4) could be used in the sense ‘forbid’, but not in that of ‘weary’ or ‘give up’; προηγορευµένα (Xen. Mem. 1.2.35) could be used in the sense ‘proclaimed’, but not in that of ‘foretold’ ‘or’ ‘said previously’; προσαγορε⋯σαι etc. (Pl. Phd. 104a, Polit. 288c; Xen. Mem. 3.2.1; Anaxilas fr. 21.4; Dem. 39.38, 40.1; Lyk. Leokr. 9, 18; and several other fourth-century instances, to which add one much earlier, [Aesch.] Prom. 834) could be used in the sense ‘call, name’ but not in that of ‘greet’. These distinctions, he believed, did not break down until about the time of Alexander. Hence his rejection of the aorist καταγορεύσῃ offered by the MS. tradition in Peace 107.

But καταγορεύειν too is a verb with two clearly distinct ranges of meaning: ‘tell, declare’ (as here, Clouds 518, Eur. Med. 1106) and ‘denounce, accuse’ (as Hdt. 3.71.5, Pl. Rep. 595b).

According to the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (Ath. Pol. 43.4), the Assembly in Athens met four times every prytany. At each one of these meetings certain topics had to be discussed or voted on. For instance, a vote concerning the conduct of magistrates presently in office was to be taken at the κυρ⋯α ⋯κκλησ⋯α. At another meeting anyone who wished to could request a discussion of any matter, be it private or public. Nothing is said in this passage or anywhere else in the Constitution of the Athenians about the possibility of holding additional meetings of the Assembly in times of emergency, but in a few passages in the Attic orators we find the term ⋯κκλησία σύγκλητος used. The scholia to these passages and some entries in the ancient lexica indicate that this term refers to an extra meeting of the Assembly which could be convened at short notice in order to deal with emergencies.

On the basis of this information, scholars have in the past concluded that the Assembly normally met four times each prytany in the Classical period, but that extra meetings, called ⋯κκλησίαɩ σύγκλητοɩ, could also be held if the need arose. Recently, however, M. H. Hansen, whose work on many aspects of the Assembly has greatly increased our understanding of Athenian democracy, has challenged this communis opinio. Hansen argues that the evidence found in the scholia and lexica is unreliable and should be disregarded. In his view, several passages in the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes and some fines in IG ii 212 indicate that the Assembly met a fixed number of times each prytany, no more, no less.

‘The problem of Spartan land tenure is one of the most vexed in the obscure field of Spartan institutions.’ Walbank's remark is as true today as when it was written nearly thirty years ago. Controversy surrounding this subject has a long tradition going back to the nineteenth century and the last thirty years have witnessed no diminution in the level of disagreement, as is demonstrated by a comparison of the differing approaches in the recent works by Cartledge, Cozzoli, David and Marasco. Although another study runs the risk of merely adding one more hypothesis to the general state of uncertainty, a fundamental reassessment of the question is required, not least because of its significance for the historian's interpretation of the overall character of Spartiate society. Through the introduction of a new perspective it may be possible to advance our understanding of the subject.

In Section I of this essay I shall attempt to review several influential scholarly theories and to examine their feasibility and the reliability of the evidence upon which they are based. Section II will begin to construct a more plausible alternative account which is based upon more trustworthy evidence. Finally, Section III will discuss a comparatively underemphasised aspect of the topic, the property rights of Spartiate women, which suggests a rather different interpretation of the character of land tenure and inheritance from those more usually adopted.

Ever since Proclus wrote his commentary on Plato's Republic, repeated attempts have been made to find a hidden number of cosmic significance in Rep. 8.546. For the Neo-Platonist it was natural to look for esoteric secrets in ancient works; among the men of the New Learning at the end of the Middle Ages there were enough astrologers and necromancers to ensure respect for the proposition; we are now again enamoured of irrationality. But the scholars who attempted such calculations around 1900 must have considered Plato himself a mystery-monger.

In this article I propose: (i) to show why such attempts are mistaken, (ii) to discuss what early writers who mention the passage say about its meaning, (iii) to provide a mathematician's translation that fits the context, and to comment on it; for the currently accepted explanation is unsatisfactory.

‘There is fairly widespread agreement that the geometrical number is 12,960,000 = 3,6002 = 4,800 × 2,700, but on the method by which this number is reached the widest divergence exists’ or, from an earlier, different guess: ‘…one can, so to speak, state a priori that Plato's number is a multiple of 19 ten thousands’, i.e. the text is approached with a ready-made answer in mind. There are three further objections to the conventional view, (a) It takes the text out of its context as if it had strayed from the Timaeus.

Plato's views on tragedy depend in large part on his views about the ethical consequences of emotional arousal. In the Republic, Plato treats the desires we feel in everyday life to weep and feel pity as appetites exactly like those for food or sex, whose satisfactions are ‘replenishments’. Physical desire is not reprehensible in itself, but is simply non-rational, not identical with reason but capable of being brought into agreement with it. Some desires, like that for simple and wholesome food, are in fact ‘necessary’ and approved by reason. Other appetites, like lust and gluttony, are ‘unnecessary’ and anti-rational in that they are actively opposed to reason. According to the Republic, the satisfaction of these ‘unnecessary’ desires inevitably strengthens the elements in the soul that oppose reason. The desire to weep at the theatre is treated in this dialogue as just such an anti-rational desire. Even a temporary indulgence in tragic pity and fear has a permanent deleterious effect on the soul, although it does not lead directly to any action.

This paper argues that a radically different psychological theory, with important aesthetic implications, appears in the discussion of wine-drinking in Books 1 and 2 of Plato's Laws. Though this long passage has been much scorned and neglected, it is of considerable philosophical importance. While in the Republic Plato condemns drunkenness and other anti-rational states, in the Laws he extols the benefits of a hypothetical ‘fear drug’ that could induce a temporary state of anti-rational terror and of wine to produce other anti-rational emotions and desires.

The speech Against Euergos and Mnesiboulos describes a dispute over some naval gear. The dispute occurred early in the year 357/6 b.c. ⋯π' Ἀγαθοκλ⋯ους ἄρχοντος, Dem. 47.44), when the speaker was a trierarch and supervisor of his symmory (τρɩηραρχ⋯ν κα⋯ ⋯πɩμελητ⋯ς ὢν τ⋯ς συμμορ⋯ας, Dem. 47.22), and he refers to ‘the law of Periandros, by which the symmories were organized’ (⋯ νóμος ⋯ το⋯ Περɩ⋯νδρου…καθ' ὃν αἰ συμμορ⋯αɩ συνετ⋯χθησαν, Dem. 47.21). There is no other specific reference to the law of Periandros. If 357/6 was the first year of its operation, it was probably passed in 358/7, but that is not known for certain. The identity of the man is likewise uncertain, though it has plausibly been suggested that he was Periandros son of Polyaratos (Dem. 40.6–7) and that he was the Periandros who proposed an alliance between Athens and Arkadia in 362/1 (IG ii2 112 = Tod 144). However, his identity is of no importance for the present article. Here I am concerned only to try to reconstruct what the law said about the symmories. Despite a great deal of modern discussion this question has still not been satisfactorily solved.

The word συμμορ⋯α means ‘group’ or ‘division’ and does not necessarily have a technical or legal sense. But most of the Attic instances do have the special sense of a group of persons formed for the purpose of making payments of a compulsory tax or levy: either the property tax called εἰσɸορ⋯, which was imposed at irregular intervals, or payments towards the maintenance of ships in the Athenian navy, which were required every year. A fragment of Philokhoros says that Athenians were divided κατ⋯ συμμορ⋯ας for the first time in 378/7, and it is generally agreed that this means that symmories were first formed in 378 for the payment of eisphora. For the navy, however, there is no trace of symmories before the 350s, and everyone agrees that it was the law of Periandros which introduced the use of symmories for maintaining ships, which had previously been the sole responsibility of one trierarch or (more usually in the fourth century) a pair of syntrierarchs for each ship.

My title links together kings, war, and the economy, and the linkage is deliberate. I do not of course wish to suggest that Hellenistic kings did nothing but fight wars, that they were responsible for all the wars in the period, that royal wars were nothing but a form of economic activity, or that the economy of the kings was dependent purely on the fruits of military success, though there would be an element of truth in all these propositions. But I wish to react against the frequent tendency to separate topics that are related, the tendency to treat notions relating to what kings were or should be as something distinct from what they actually did, and the tendency to treat political and military history on the one hand as something separate from economic and social history on the other.

A number of provisos should be made at the outset. The title promises more than the paper can deliver; in particular, more will be said about kings and war than about kings and the economy. The subject is handled at a probably excessive level of generalization and abstraction. I talk about Hellenistic kings in general, but in practice it would obviously be necessary to draw distinctions between different dynasties, different times and places, and individual rulers, and some of those distinctions I shall indicate. Conclusions are provisional and subject to modification and considerable expansion in detail. Finally, two points of terminology. I use the word ‘Hellenistic’ for no better reason than out of the force of acquired habit, but of course the word and the concept are modern inventions that were unknown to the ancient world.

Rudolf Pfeiffer (Callimachus, ii.xxxvi–xxxvii) believed that, as a young man, Callimachus wrote four books of Aetia. To these the poet added in his old age a Reply to his Critics (fr. 1), and a slightly revised version of his recent occasional elegy, the Lock of Berenice (fr. 110, now including a nuptial rite which has survived only in the translation by Catullus, 66.79–88); this revised Coma became the last poem in Aetia book 4, to be followed by an Epilogue (fr. 112) which may mark a transition to the Iambi. Pfeiffer's theory generally held the field until the brilliant article of P. J. Parsons, in ZPE 25 (1977), 1–50. With the help of newly recovered papyrus fragments Parsons showed that a previously unplaced elegy celebrating a Nemean victory (fr. 383 Pf.) was connected to the story of Molorchus (frs. 54–9), who entertained Heracles before that hero killed the Nemean lion and instituted the Nemean Games; thus the poem belonged to Aetia book 3. Furthermore, various pieces of evidence converge (Parsons, pp. 46–8) to make it probable, if not wholly certain, that this substantial poem (some 200 lines long) stood first in its book. So it appears that, at least in the final form of the Aetia, books 3–4 were framed by two poems honouring the wife of Ptolemy III Euergetes, namely Victoria Berenices (Parsons' title) and Coma Berenices.

Soon afterwards a further important advance was made by E. Livrea (ZPE 34 [1979], 37ff.), who perceived, on grounds of subject-matter as well as papyrology, that the poor man who sets a mousetrap in fr. 177 Pf. must be none other than Molorchus; note particularly the probable mention of Cleonae in fr. 177.37 Pf. = Supplementum Hellenisticum 259.37. Thus a new fragment of 38 lines accrued to the poem.

These discoveries have some implications for the composition of the Aetia. Addition of a Coma Berenices (94 lines in Catullus' version) to a pre-existent Aetia book 4 could be countenanced easily enough, but, as Parsons says (p. 50), it would have required a much more radical, and therefore less plausible, revision for Callimachus to have added Victoria Berenices to a pre-existent Aetia book 3. Accordingly Parsons suggested that the original Aetia contained only books 1–2, united by the conversation with the Muses; then in his old age Callimachus compiled two more books, partly at least from poems already composed, and gave them a frame of two poems honouring Queen Berenice. Parsons' view has, I think, been widely accepted; Professor Lloyd-Jones wrote in SIFC 77 (1984), 56 ‘No-one has yet argued against the simple modification of Pfeiffer's theory of the two editions of the Aetia which Mr. Parsons based on this discovery. The first edition comprised two books only.’

The Hellenistic poet Lycophron, who wrote tragedies and assembled the texts of comedy under Ptolemy Philadelphus for the Library at Alexandria, was probably also the author of the long poem Alexandra, which deals mainly with the theme of Troy. Recent studies by Stephanie West have appreciably advanced our understanding of this rather difficult poet. For the passages where Lycophron surprisingly presents phases of Roman history she cogently adduces a later poet, a ‘Deutero-Lycophron, …to be sought among the artists of Dionysus in southern Italy’. A theme in Graeco-Egyptian mythology is the subject of the present paper; and one of my main points is that recent Egyptological research has a clear bearing on one of the problems.

In recent years many historians have rightly emphasised aggressive imperialism as a key element in Roman political life in the Middle and Late Republic. This has led to reconsideration of the significance of the ‘just war’ theory associated with the college of fetiales. ‘On the basis of this fetial law of the Roman people, it can be understood that no war is justified unless it is waged after compensation has been demanded (sc. and refused by the enemy), or the war has been announced in advance and formally proclaimed.’ Earlier this century, scholars were happy to accept that this ‘fetial law’ implied that the Romans never initiated wars of aggression but fought only if they felt they were the aggrieved party. Scullard believed that ‘…in fact Roman religious law (the ius fetiale) did not countenance wars of aggression designed to gain new territory’ ; for Tenney Frank, ‘ the Roman mos maiorum did not recognise the right of aggression or a desire for more territory as just causes for war. That the institution was observed in good faith for centuries there can be no doubt.’

Recent scholars have been more sceptical. Harris sees the activities of the fetiales primarily as a psychological mechanism for assuaging the guilt feelings which even Romans will have been unable to escape when initiating totally unjustified wars of aggression: ‘the significance of the fetial procedure for declaring war was solely psychological’. Other writers have gone further in stressing its mystificatory and propaganda function.

Our scepticism about the efficacy of ‘fetial law’ in restraining the Romans' belligerence should be accompanied by a re-evaluation of our evidence regarding the fetiales and what they actually did. Such a re-evaluation will not affect our picture of the Romans of the Middle and Late Republic as aggressive and militaristic, but we may have to revise our views on how the fetiales fit into that picture. This paper makes no claim to analyse exhaustively every piece of evidence which might throw some light on the fetiales, let alone every interpretation to be found in the secondary literature; but it may be worthwhile to reconsider the main types of operations which the fetiales are said by our ancient sources to have been involved in.

The famous eastern tour of inspection undertaken by Scipio Aemilianus, L. Metellus Calvus and Sp. Mummius is now generally dated 140/39 b.c., where Diodorus seems to put it. The accepted view, however, involves discounting an explicit statement by Cicero. It also presents historical difficulties. In 140 b.c. there was no need for such a high-powered Roman initiative, and scholars can discover only very minor political results. Sherwin-White indeed criticised the envoys severely, especially Scipio; they were culpably blind to the new menace of Parthia, which was steadily dismembering the Seleucid Empire east of the Euphrates. This is fair criticism only on the 140/39 b.c. dating. Did Scipio and his colleagues fail to see what is patent to us today? It is time to reexamine rigorously the underlying assumption.

In Acad. prior. 2.5 Cicero defends a Roman noble's love of Greek learning in the following terms:

ego autem cum Graecas litteras M. Catonem in senectute didicisse acceperim, P. autem Africani historiae loquantur in legatione illa nobili, quam ante censuram obiit, Panaetium unum omnino comitem fuisse, nec litterarum Graecarum nee philosophiae iam ullum auctorem requiro.

The date of the embassy must be 144/3 b.c., if we follow the logic of this passage. Scipio was censor with L. Mummius in 142/1 b.c. and their public quarrel was hardly less notable than the embassy, in which L. Mummius' brother shared. Another Ciceronian passage – written some six years earlier – seems to contradict the dating offered in 45 b.c. In de republica 6.11 the elder Africanus prophesies his grandson's future greatness in the famous dream:

The difficulty of this little poem is shown by the facts that Ausonius had no idea what it was about, and that Westendorp Boerma's commentary takes 22 pages to explicate its five lines. The latter relies on Quintilian 8.3.27ff., who quotes the poem, saying that Vergil wrote it to attack a certain Cimber for his taste in obsolete words. This is no doubt the Annius Cimber whom Augustus ridiculed when reprimanding Mark Antony for a similar foible (Suet. Aug. 86) and who, as an antiquarius is contrasted with the Asiatici oratores. For convenience, I have kept Westendorp Boerma's text, but I take issue with his interpretation on two points.

4 tau Gallicum: since Bücheler tentatively suggested it in RhM 38 (1883), 508, the standard explanation of this has been to point out that a number of Latin inscriptions in Gaul use a Greek θ or else a barred D (Ð), to represent what appears to have been a dental fricative elsewhere indicated in Latin by -sd- or -st-. Thus Frank, AJP 56 (1935), 255, quotes (T)HYÐRITANVS (CIL xii 686) for what is elsewhere spelled Thysdritanus, and says that ‘Ð clearly represents the best that one Celt could do with sd’. On the basis of this supposed Gallic incompetence, Frank went on to see the repeated -st- sounds in the poem as some sort of joke on the orator's inability to pronounce this sound. His view seems to have been generally accepted.

There seems to me a profound error in this viewpoint which shows cultural imperialism at its worst. First, let us note that none of the examples of alleged substitution are in Latin words; they are native names for people or places or things. The Latin names by which we know some of them are only the approximation of foreigners, and not in any sense the ‘correct’ names of those people or places.

The high moral tone of Horace's Reguhls ode (3.5) makes it unsurprising that the poet should employ the traditional imagery of philosophers, both in the speech of Regulus and in the final simile. I should like here to point out some instances which seem to have escaped the notice of commentators.

This passage is intended to illustrate the lost ‘virtus’ of the prisoners in Carthage, who, Regulus claims, will be of no greater use to the Romans if ransomed since they were cowardly enough to surrender in the first place. For the first image of dyeing wool Kiessling–Heinze refer the reader to Lucretius 6.1074–7:

purpureusque colos conchyli iungitur una

corpore cum lanae, dirimi qui non queat usquam,

non si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des,

non mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.

This gives the first hint that the image belongs to the philosophical tradition, though it does not seem to occur in the extant remains of Epicurus. This is confirmed by a passage of Plato, who at Rep. 429d ff. has an elaborate image taken from the dyer's art. The Guardians of the ideal city are to be carefully selected and prepared like wool for the dyeing process of education; then, as good wool keeps its colour after dyeing, so the Guardians will keep right opinions when they are taught them. The image is summarized by Socrates at 430a ff.: