Ancient writers, including philosophers such as Aristotle, often depict friendship as a source of pleasure; by contrast, in his Laelius de amicitia, Cicero describes such relationships as sweet and delightful, but never connects them with uoluptas, which for him is a largely negative term reserved for Epicurean doctrine. This paper argues that there is more to this pointed use of language than Cicero’s well-known dislike of Epicureanism. Considering first the Latin philosophical vocabulary of pleasure and then the vexed question of what exactly qualifies as pleasure according to the Epicurean system, the paper makes the case that Cicero believed (probably correctly) that the pleasures of friendship as conceived of by himself and many ordinary language-users would not in fact qualify as instances of Epicurean uoluptas. If, as Epicurus appears to have held, all pleasures are either bodily or mental, and all mental pleasures are derived from bodily ones, then many activities experienced as pleasurable in and of themselves—including many traditional elements of friendship—are not in fact Epicurean pleasures.

This paper argues that the unknown editor of Ad M. Caesarem et inuicem arranged the letters in their non-chronological order so as to create a work that is essentially historical fiction, providing the reader with a romanticized version of the early life of Marcus Aurelius, a Marcopaedia of sorts or even a quasi-prequel to the Meditations. The paper demonstrates that the anomalous Book 5—full of shorter, less elaborate letters—can be read not only as an appendix composed of leftover letters but also as a part of the broader narrative. Book 5 creates a sense of closure to the epistolary fiction created by the editor. In particular, this article focusses on the recurrent motif of Fronto’s health; the frequent references to Fronto’s illness work in a metaliterary fashion to signal the impending conclusion of the work, creating a sense of resolution for the health/sickness letters appearing in Books 1–4. The sickness/health topic also connects to certain philosophical topoi regarding death, illness and consolation—a connection that is appropriate in light of the young Marcus’ burgeoning interest in philosophy.

This article offers a critical evaluation of Bernard Williams’s influential account of ancient Greek historiography and the place of ancient Greek thought in the early history of ideas in his last book Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton, 2002). It argues that such an evaluation is warranted now not only because Williams’s stance continues to influence how Herodotus and Thucydides are viewed by scholars outside of classical studies; more importantly, it also opens up the field of classical studies itself to a much needed engagement with those ideas from Williams’s influential study that can be productively applied to the study of Herodotus and Thucydides.

The first part consists of a critical appraisal of Williams’s views in light of current classical scholarship on early Greek historiography. The second part makes the case for why Herodotus rather than Thucydides would have served as the better example for Williams to explore the historical conditions and intellectual milieu that led to the emergence of truth and truthfulness as a problem in the Western historiographic tradition. Drawing on recent classical scholarship, the article shows that it was Herodotus, rather than Thucydides, who first conceived of the truth as a problem; that it was him rather than Thucydides who first grappled with sincerity and accuracy as the values that Williams identifies as fundamental to the truth-claims embedded in the historiographic tradition.

The article thus suggests that the history of truthfulness as a relational concept that binds together author and audience in a mutual contract of trust should start with him rather than Thucydides. It shows how Williams’s account of truth as a social value that binds author and audience together in a mutual contract of trust can be productively applied to the study of Herodotus’ Histories. A conclusion focuses on the role that has typically been attributed to the ancient world in genealogical accounts of the history of ideas.

This note discusses two places in Statius’ Thebaid (6.22 and 6.224), in which the transmitted text may be improved, and proposes new emendations.

This article argues that a joke about the demagogue Hyperbolus in Aristophanes’ Peace (685–7) can be illuminated by a reconsideration of the meaning of the little-attested word περιζωσάμενος in the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians (Athênaiôn Politeia 28.3), where it describes how Cleon dressed in an unconventional manner when appearing before the assembly. In recent translation of and commentary on the Aristotelian text there appears to have been no investigation of the meaning of περιζωσάμενος in Greek comedy: readers are informed that Cleon either hitched up his (unspecified) clothing or somehow fastened his cloak to allow him to make gestures with both hands. However, the philological and material-cultural evidence presented here points to something more specific and more dramatic. Elsewhere in classical and later Greek the word περιζώννυσθαι means belting or knotting something around the waist and is most frequently found in contexts of manual labour. Here, it is argued that the import of Athênaiôn Politeia 28.3 is that Cleon spoke to the assembly dressed for work in his family’s tannery—a powerful symbol of his allegiance to the manual-labouring demos and his antagonism towards the aristocratic elite. It is to his unconventional self-fashioning that Aristophanes alludes in Peace when he jokes that after Cleon’s death the naked demos has wrapped itself (περιεζώσατο) in Hyperbolus, the new leader of the people.

This article explores Lucian’s treatise, How to Write History, in the context of ancient rhetorical and literary theory. While situated within the domain of historiography, the treatise prioritizes issues related to literary composition, such as the linguistic register and content selection deemed fitting for the historical genre. Through comparisons with critics and theoreticians like Aristotle and Demetrius, this study re-evaluates Lucian’s instructions for preface writing and other stylistic guidelines throughout the work. The conclusions highlight Lucian’s innovative approach to historical composition, influenced by rhetorical and literary theory yet reshaped to fit his vision of history and its purpose. Additionally, the examination reveals Lucian’s strategic use of rhetorical and literary theory in critiquing not only writing style but also issues intrinsic to history.

This article reconstructs the system of storage, organization and presentation of written evidence in Athenian courts of the Classical period, with wider implications for the discussion about oral and written culture in Classical Greece and legal professionalism in Athenian democracy. It explores court speakers’ references to an assumed order of documents, their storage in containers called echinoi, and verbal presentation by the court secretary. It is the first systematic analysis of all remarks on storing, organizing and reading documents in the corpus of Athenian oratory, supplemented by other literary and epigraphic sources. Based on the surviving evidence, this article argues for the existence of a developed legal culture that made attempts to facilitate the handling of documents in courtrooms through practical organizational measures, including the speakers’ interactions with court aids, notably the grammateis and hypogrammateis.

This note offers the solution to a puzzle in the manuscript tradition of Polybius that has baffled eminent modern authorities.

This note argues that the second line of the oracle in Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche (Met. 4.33.1) alludes to Ovid’s Am. 1.1.2. Like its Ovidian model, Apuleius’ line marks a shift in genre, and offers a further hint of the role Cupid will play in the rest of the story.

This article reassesses the contribution of the late Renaissance scholar and teacher Petrus Victorius (Pier Vettori) to the reconstruction of the text of Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics, which has come down to us in what is often a highly corrupt form. It proposes an interpretation of certain abbreviations in the marginalia in one of Victorius's copies of the Aldine Eudemian Ethics which reveals them as recommending readings rather than recording them; it proposes that many more of those readings constitute his own conjectures than previously thought. The article goes on to suggest why Victorius never produced an edition of the Eudemian Ethics as he did of other Aristotelian works, despite returning repeatedly, over much of his life, to the task of improving this particular text. Victorius is revealed nonetheless as a highly creative—but also highly disciplined—textual critic, at least the equal of his nineteenth- and twentieth-century successors.

Following Janko's suggestion that two trimeters cited at Strabo, Geography 8.6.20 form a couplet from an unknown, possibly Aristophanic comedy, this note explores the resonance and meaning of the third citation contained in the same chapter of the geographer's work. It proposes that this third citation, which relates to a Corinthian hetaira's work at the loom and is possibly from either the same or a different comedy, contains a joke hinting at the Odyssey and alternative traditions regarding Penelope's chastity. This Odyssean echo thematically connects this citation to the comic trimeters, which also contain clear allusions to the Odyssey.