This article is about J. R. R. Tolkien's adaptation of Pythagorean musical elements in the ‘Song of the Ainur’ of the Silmarillion. It details Tolkien's use of Pythagorean dissonance, along with what that amounts to in terms of musical theory, and explores the epistemological origins of the concept and how it found its way into this work of fiction. On the latter point, Platonism, Neoplatonism, and early Christian theology are considered. This includes the likes of Prudentius, pseudo-Dionysius, Augustine, and Aquinas, among others. The article observes that Tolkien has deliberately chosen a somewhat esoteric element of Pythagorean musical theory, albeit highly relevant to his own historical context, in order to explore concepts of morality along with the traditional, Christian conundrum of predestination vs. free will.

An anecdote, ascribed to Dicaearchus by Athenaeus (13.603.a–b) and found also in Plutarch (Alexander 67.7–8), details Alexander's kissing of the eunuch Bagoas during theatrical contests in Carmania in 325 bce. This article examines the enthusiastic response that this encounter is said to have elicited from Alexander's soldiers. It is suggested that this impromptu kiss was read as a display of homoerotic behaviour that was fundamentally Greek, and even as a gesture of Greek domination over Persians, and that, as such, it was welcomed by the army as a momentary departure from the increasingly Persianized behaviour of the king himself and of his court. Further, consideration is given to the possibility that the choral contest in which Bagoas is reported to have competed prior to the kiss may have been an innovative form of pyrrhic dance, in which for the first time the dancers depicted Dionysus’ conquest of India.

As against the abiding popular image of the ever-dauntless Spartans, serious commentators have long recognized what a central part fear played in Lacedaemonian life: fear of the helots, fear of the laws, fear of defeat and dishonour and disgrace, without hope of respite this side of the grave. Yet the full implications of such a life, forever suspended most precariously ‘between shame and glory’ as Jean-Pierre Vernant put it, have not been drawn out, especially with respect to its supposed beneficiaries, the Spartiates, who were sacrificed to its merciless logic no less than those they were keeping under such brutal subjugation. This essay proposes to close the gap by fitting together the dispersed pieces and presenting a more comprehensive picture of the silent anxieties and hidden miseries of the vaunted masters of Sparta who purchased their dominion at so frightful a price, not only to others, but also to themselves.

The final episode of the Anabasis dismays many readers: Xenophon takes a small group of associates to kidnap the household of the wealthy Persian, Asidates. Thereby he himself becomes wealthy. This paper examines several details of the account of that episode. The mature author gives us the unvarnished facts straightforwardly, through the uncritical perspective of the youthful agent. From these brute facts the reader may infer that the mature writer intends a negative judgement about the final episode. The mature Xenophon thus presents some self-criticism. That capacity for self-criticism may come from the influence of Socrates. There are reasons, however, to make a further judgement that Xenophon's admirable capacity for self-criticism was sadly limited. One cannot escape deep disappointment after reflecting on the final episode of the Anabasis.

The article takes a critical look at the idea that the gathering of men Lucretia confronts a few moments before her suicide is to be understood as an ancient Roman domestic court (consilium domesticum). Arguing from the basis that the paternal power (patria potestas) is a constitutive element of this private-law institution, it examines what supports and what conflicts with the interpretation.

An inscription carved on the interior corner of the north-west anta of the Temple of Artemis at Sardis records the obligations of a certain Mnesimachos in return for a loan of money he received from the temple funds. Unable or unwilling to pay his loan, Mnesimachos declared his decision to convey his estate to Artemis and accept the conditions of the contract. This estate, including villages, dwellings, and peasant-serfs, had been given to him by King Antigonos Monophthalmos around 300 bce. The present work attempts to focus on the sequence of events in Mnesimachos’ life and their relation to the history and architecture of this important temple. The new reading of these events as a result of the last two decades or excavations at Sardis offers us a synthetic understanding of the Hellenistic history of the city and an insight into Mnesimachos’ willingness to forgo his estate in a financial deal that ultimately tricks the goddess.

How do we read Greek literature? In the original language or in translation? With a theoretical lens or without? Bringing in our modern perspectives or trying to track ancient approaches? Identifying with characters or exercising supposed academic detachment? How we read Greek texts affects what we read in those texts. And who we are affects how we read. A number of recent publications prompt us to interrogate our reading practices by drawing on theories ancient and modern and reflecting on who we are and how entangled we are with other entities (from the objects we use to the poetry we embody to the narratives in which we are immersed).

Let us start with a wonderful book that shows us not only Plautine comedy, but also Republican literary culture in a new light: Emilia Barbiero's fascinating exploration of the role played by letters in Plautus’ comedies. In five chapters dedicated to Bacchides, Persa, Pseudolus, Curculio, and, finally, Epidicus and Trinummus, she develops a powerful argument for the intricate metatheatric implications of the writing, reading, forging, or not-opening of letters on the Plautine stage. Countering a scholarly trend that tends to emphasize the role of improvisation, collaboration, and preliterate forms of theatre in Plautus’ comedies, Barbiero shows that the use of letters in Plautus’ comedies – without exception employed for amorous affairs – rather points to a deep concern with writing as the basis for acting and that they can be understood as mirrors of the text within the text and as mise-en-abyme of the origins of Plautine comedy in a script.

I commence this review with six important works on mobility, diasporas, ethnicities, and intercultural relations in antiquity; after a decade of relative dearth of significant contributions, it is truly wonderful that the field is moving again. Jonathan Hall and James Osborne have edited an excellent volume on the interregional networks in the eastern Mediterranean between 900–600 bce. The volume aims to link the novel approaches to Mediterranean history espoused in the major syntheses by Nicholas Purcell – Peregrine Horden and Cyprian Broodbank respectively, with new approaches to the study of cross-cultural interaction and material culture. The editors explicitly and convincingly argue in favour of employing multiple models for explaining the Early Iron Age Mediterranean; the ten chapters exemplify both multiplicity and important common themes. Certain contributions accept the concept of globalization as a useful way of explaining the changes evident across the Mediterranean. While some contributions problematize the concept of style as a means of drawing clear ethnic lines among artists and artistic traditions, other scholars argue for the need to maintain traditional ethnic labels like that of the Phoenicians, which is facing a current deconstructive trend; equally interesting is the stress on the agency of specific groups, like mercenaries, as agents of connectivity. Particularly significant, finally, is the focus on areas that have usually remained at the margins of discussion of Iron Age interconnectivity, like the North Aegean and the Troad, the Black Sea, Anatolia and Egypt.

After six years, this will be my tenth survey review here – and last. Since these reviews are intended to enable some sense of the state of the evolving field, I thought I might in this swansong try to offer not just the usual smorgasbord of Roman entertainment but an attempt at a synthesis of five key directions in research. A whole host of qualifications immediately raise their heads, of course – anglophone dominance, incomplete representation of presses, and my own not inconsiderable limitations of time, ability, and interest. Still, since opportunities for such overviews over time are sparse, the exercise will hopefully be instructive even so hamstrung.

We start this review in the sanctuaries of archaic and classical Greece. The book Between Deity and Dedicator is the PhD thesis of Sanne Hoffmann. Hoffmann's aim is to examine terracotta votive figurines through their entire lifecycle, following their journey from production to dedication to deposition within the sanctuary (fifteen of which are chosen, with a preponderance, never really fully explained, towards those of female deities). Theories of object agency and an emerging interest in object biographies are extremely well-chosen as the frameworks in which to discuss a set of objects that were surely imagined to have some sort of efficacy in prompting a response from the deity to whom they were dedicated. It is so often the case that introductions lay out long explanations of theories that are then never again mentioned in the rest of the book as the author gets stuck in to the ‘content’. Here, though, the theory is evoked effectively and explicitly at key parts throughout the thesis.

This year, Aristotle readers could purchase something old and something new for their libraries. The old thing is Diana Quarantotto's edited volume on Aristotle's Physics I, published in 2018 but now finally available in paperback at an affordable price. People will remember that this book includes excellent commentaries on each chapter of Physics, like those by Andrea Falcon, Timothy Clarke, Laura M. Castelli, Lindsay Judson, David Charles, and Isván Bodnár, to name a few. The volume also contains a preface, an illuminating methodological introduction, and a collaborative translation of Aristotle's text. The main takeaway is a balanced appraisal of the importance of Physics I and its introductory role within Aristotle's physical project.

We have two volumes in Bloomsbury's Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing series edited by Laura Jansen, namely, Derek Walcott and the Creation of a Classical Caribbean by Justine McConnell, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Utopianism and the Classics by Hamish Williams. Both texts have three main chapters to which is devoted one aspect of the author's reception of the classical world. In the former, McConnell identifies three recurring approaches or processes in Walcott's creation of a ‘classical Caribbean’, often drawing on postcolonial theory. These are: non-linear or non-colonial temporalities (explored under the heading ‘Time’), ‘Syncretism’, and ‘Re-creation’. At the same time, McConnell not only analyses the St. Lucian author's relationship to classical culture and education, but situates his work within that of other Caribbean writers. McConnell paints a cohesive picture of Walcott's (self-)positioning in these entanglements of times, places, and traditions, and makes a number of useful observations about classical reception more broadly.

In our recent faculty meetings here in Virginia, issues regarding ChatGPT and its uses were often broached, for reasons both good and bad, and this November, as I am writing these lines, turbulences in the AI sector are making the news. In papyrology and epigraphy, we have been relying on advanced digital technologies for a while now, and there's no doubt that recent advances in generative AI will soon bear fruit for all text and image-based disciplines in the humanities. Hence, I will open this general review with four exciting books on ancient science and technology.