Sempronius Tuditanus, son of the consul of 129 BC and a nobilis of some wealth, achieved notoriety on account of his eccentric behaviour. The ancient authors who mention him attribute this to insanity. Cicero alludes to Tuditanus early in the first century BC (Phil. 3.16; Acad. 2.89) and Valerius Maximus (7.8.1) comments on his will. Valerius' text, which has attracted its share of debate, is of particular interest to scholars working on the lex Voconia (not mentioned by Valerius Maximus) and the handling of wills drawn up by a furiosus. It occurs in a section of Valerius' work discussing instances of wills that were upheld, but which might have been set aside as void. Tuditanus' will provides Valerius' first example:

Over 250 years ago, the Cambridge clergyman Conyers Middleton, one of the first biographers of Cicero in the English language, said of the Laelius De Amicitia, ‘this agreeable book … must needs affect us more warmly when it is found at last to be a history, or a picture drawn from the life, exhibiting the real characters and sentiments of the best and greatest men of Rome.’ Middleton thus accepted at face value Cicero's claims in the preface to his treatise on friendship that he has reproduced, in some form, an actual conversation that took place in 129 BCE between C. Laelius and his sons-in-law C. Fannius and Q. Mucius Scaevola.

Late in 41 or early in 40 BC a force of Parthians embarked upon an unusually vigorous and penetrative irruption into the Roman province of Syria. Prominent among those commanding the Parthians was Q. Labienus who had earlier been sent to the court of the Parthian king by the assassins of Caesar as they made their own preparations for war with the dead dictator's supporters. Marooned by the outcome of the battle of Philippi, Labienus became resident at the court of the Parthian king Orodes, returning to Roman territory in the company of the invaders. The force concentrated first on Syria and surrounding territory but by the spring of 40 BC a thrust was made with Labienus at its head into the provinces of Asia Minor. Initially, prominent citizens of the region were left to make their own responses to Labienus but presently a successful Roman counter-attack was mounted under the leadership of P. Ventidius Bassus. The invaders were swiftly defeated but not before Labienus had deployed the striking self-designation ‘Parthicus’. Bassus himself duly triumphed in November 38 BC and became the only non-imperial holder of ‘Parthicus’ as a cognomen.

I begin with a quote from W.R. Johnson on Propertius 4.11: ‘When we have finally gotten to Cornelia, whose central message is that the game of recusatio has ended, overwhelmed by her chilly sublimities and conquered by the powers of her Roman Truths and Virtues – when the performance ends and the silence begins, we may be shocked to hear Cynthia laughing loudly at the lachrymose deity and the metonymic skid that has now enfolded him.

Basil of Caesarea (AD 329–378), his brother, Gregory of Nyssa (335–394), and their friend, Gregory Nazianzen (328–389), are a group of three great Christian thinkers of the late 4th century AD known as the ‘Cappadocian Fathers’. All were steeped in the culture of traditional Hellenism, and at the same time were great theologians and leaders who steered the Christian church of the eastern Roman empire in the turbulent years of the late 4th century. Theologically they are best known for bringing to a close the Arian controversy that had wracked the Christian church for most of the 4th century. Basil, called ‘the Great’ in the Christian tradition for his leading role in steering the Arian controversy to a conclusion, is also known for his reforms of the unruly ascetic movement in Asia Minor, documented in such works as his Asketikon. As a result of his labours he effectively established Greek cenobitic (common-life) monasticism. But his influence as a preceptor of Christian monasticism was destined to spread far, both east in Syria and in the Latin West. A Latin translation was an important source of the Rule of St Benedict, which set the tone of western monasticism for many centuries to come.

Euripides' Bacchae is a play which has intrigued, disturbed and challenged many spectators, readers, theatre practitioners and interpreters. Its spectacular and gruesome aspects in particular have also given rise over the years to notable anecdotes, such as that recorded by Plutarch (Crassus 33) to the effect mat the Roman general's severed head was carried by the Agave actor in a performance of the play at the Parthian court in 53 BC. At times, moreover, arguably on account of such a graphic portrayal of the elemental and destructive forces unleashed by the Dionysus principle, it has been regarded as ‘too hot to handle’. Thus, for example, as Karelisa Hartigan points out, it appears to have made no appearance on the American commercial stage during the first 60 years of the twentieth century.

The study of Latin and Ancient Greek at tertiary level is crucial for the survival of Classics within the university sector. And it is not too much to say that the serious study of Greco-Roman antiquity in most, if not all, areas is simply impossible without the ancient languages. They are essential not just for the broad cross-section of philological and literary studies in poetry and prose (ranging at least from Homer to the works of the Church Fathers to Byzantine Chroniclers) but also for ancient history and historiography, philosophy, art history and aesthetics, epigraphy, and many branches of archaeology. In many Classics departments in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, enrolments in non-language subjects such as myth, ancient theatre or epic, or history remain healthy and cater to a broad public interest in the ancient Greco-Roman world. This is, of course, to be lauded. But the status of the ancient languages, at least in terms of enrolments, may often seem precarious compared to the more overtly popular courses taught in translation. Given the centrality of the ancient languages to our discipline as a whole, it is worth keeping an eye on how they are faring to ensure their prosperity and longevity.