The extant Notitia Dignitatum describes itself as a list of the highest civilian and military officials of the Roman state and their administrations, or rather as two such lists, one for the parts of the empire in the East and one for the parts in the West. Each begins with a list of officials (the so-called index), followed by separate entries for these officials (the so-called chapters). These modern labels are dangerously familiarising devices which set up anachronistic preconceptions about the nature of the text and its parts. I shall refer to the two lists as the initial list and the sectional lists. The latter all have a similar structure, being divided into three parts: (i) an illustration representing the jurisdiction of the official in a primarily visual form; (ii) a list of the functions and/or other officials within his jurisdiction; (iii) a list of his bureaucratic staff. The text first surfaces in fifteenth century copies of a probably Carolingian manuscript in the Codex Spirensis.

In modern scholarship a distinctly ‘Homeric’ presentation of the ancient Macedonian kings and their court still endures, in spite of recent notes on the use of ‘artifice’ in key ancient accounts. Although the adventures and achievements of Alexander the Great are certainly imbued with epic colour, to extend those literary tropes and topoi to the rule of earlier kings (and to wider Macedonian society) is often to misunderstand and misrepresent the ancient evidence.

This paper offers a fresh review of the presentation of the early-Macedonian monarchy in the ancient sources, and considers the depiction of the Argead dynasty in both hostile and more-sympathetic accounts. It highlights the importance of another mythological model for these ancient kings: one that was supremely heroic, but not Homeric. The Argead appropriation of Heracles, Pindar’s ‘hero god’ (ἥρως θεός: Nem. 3.22), was a key part of the self-representation of successive kings. Undoubtedly the crucial paradigm for Macedonian rulers, Heracles provided them with an identity and authority that appealed to diverse audiences, and it is time to consider the subtlety of the Argead presentation of their dynasty as Heraclid.

A dominant and fascinating figure at the very beginning of the Republic is Porsenna, king of Clusium. He has been a focus of attention since the Renaissance and for the following seven centuries. Fashions in interpretation have come and gone. This essay surveys those interpretations, and attempts to sum up the complexities of contemporary scholarship.

As the tumultuous Triumviral decades of the Republic ended and the Augustan era began, the shadow of Rome's majesty continued to envelop the shores of Judaea some 2000km to the east. King Herod had survived the struggle for dominance between Octavian (Augustus after 27 B.C.) and his rivals, Mark Antony and his ally and wife Cleopatra VII, in part by not being at Actium in 31 B.C. where the final battle in Rome's long series of civil wars was fought. Although his fealty had been to Antony, he had managed to be east of his kingdom's borders conducting a military operation against Malichus I of Nabataea, who had been accused of disloyalty by Cleopatra and Herod (Joseph. AJ 15.110).

Roman mapping can seem a mystifying process. What could any reader garner from an itinerary or a periplus – a list of successive towns and geographical features reeled off in order? The itinerary has been compared to directions given to a stranger: in both written and graphic form, it simplifies, and gives a route with a definite aim, states what is near or comes after along the route, but does not attempt to give any extraneous information about the landscape which surrounds the single route. There is no overview, no aspirations to comprehensiveness or universality.

It is widely accepted that in the later books Livy to some extent discarded the highly archaizing and poeticizing style of the first decade, in which the events belonged to the remote past. But by no means all of the relevant evidence has been presented, and discussions of the question have also usually suffered from inadequacies of method. Now that Packard's Concordance has appeared, it is possible to give a more comprehensive treatment of the lexical evidence, though the difficulty of finding syntactic modifications in such a long work remains the same.

The standard body of primary evidence would seem to make it clear that Cleisthenes was responsible for the law on ostracism at Athens. The only contrary element is Harpocration’s use of Androtion (FGrH 324) F 6, when he talks of Hipparchos’ ostracism in 488/7, . However, verbal similarities and other considerations make it likely that Androtion was the source for Athenaion Politeia (henceforth Ath.Pol.) 22 and Philochoros (FGrH 328) F 30, both of which maintain a Cleisthenic origin for the law, so that this will have been Androtion’s view also. It is easy enough to see how Harpocration, in a passage where, let us remember, he is concerned with Hipparchos, not ostracism, could have been loose or confused in his usage. Unfortunately, the rediscovery of a late Byzantine account of ostracism has led to the supposition that there is a difference between Ath.Pol. and Androtion, but that in a way both were right.

tum qui sequitur gregem circumspectus ac uigilans—id quod omnibus et omnium quadripedum custodibus praecipitur—magna dementia moderetur idemque propior quia silent et in agendis recipiendisque ouibus adclamatione ac baculo minetur nee umquam telum emittat in eas neque ab his longius recedat nec aut recubet aut considat. nam nisi procedit, stare debet, quoniam quidem custodis officium sublimem celsissimamque oculorum ueluti speculam desiderat, ut neque tardiores grauidas, dum cunctantur, neque agiles et fetas, dum procurrunt, separari a ceteris sinat, ne fur aut bestia halucinantem pastorem decipiat.

The First Tetrarchy was inaugurated in March 293 (all dates are A.D.) with the nomination of two Caesars to assist the existing two Augusti. In the west, Constantius I was named Caesar and immediately given the task of wresting Britain from the usurpers Carausius and Allectus. In the east, Galerius received imperial authority, although apparently entrusted with less specific labours. Scholars had once assumed that Galerius took up station defending the Danube frontier. Then, in 297, he was called forth from there to meet the threat of Narses, the Persian king, who had invaded Mesopotamia whilst Diocletian was busy elsewhere.

Louis XIV may have made the image of the ‘sun-king’ his own, but the equation of monarch and sun has a long pedigree that stretches back into antiquity. For the Roman emperors, an association with Sol became commonplace, and both Caligula and Nero were explicitly saluted as νέος Ἥλιος. One of the earliest rulers to have adopted sun-related iconography within the western tradition is Demetrius Poliorcetes. His self-identification with Helius is not, to be sure, the most pronounced of his divine relationships. This was a king whose elevation to divine status in the Greek world of the late fourth and early third centuries was accompanied by a great number of religious and semi-religious associations: honoured by Athens as a Saviour, Demetrius himself seems to have cultivated above all an identification with Dionysus, whose combination of ferocity with a delight in wine and revels seems to have appealed to the character of the young king. Nonetheless, it is clear that imagery of the sun and of the heavenly bodies was employed of Demetrius in the representations of his status and power. The most explicit instance belongs to an ithyphallic hymn performed in Athens in 291/90 BC, in which Poliorcetes was hailed as the sun.

This article re-examines the ‘commemorative medallions’ of Antoninus Pius, a series of medallions showing the early history of Rome. It is suggested that these pieces should be seen not in a Saecular Games context but as a continuation of Hadrianic precedent, probably connected with the construction of the Temple of Venus and Rome. These medallions represent a wider imperial emphasis on the distant past under both Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, an interest that we observe in other coin types, public building works and perhaps also works of literature. A detailed examination of these Pius medallions reveals that their iconography was drawn from earlier types, and that they in turn inspired later imagery. This phenomenon reveals a certain intertextuality in numismatic language, and suggests that coin imagery did not merely grace Rome’s currency, but was recorded and was accessible to later generations. These medallions, truly ‘monuments in miniature’, reveal a new understanding of Pius’ reign and his (self-)presentation as Hadrian’s successor.

One of the hallmarks of Latin love poetry is its seemingly oppositional stance toward traditional Roman values. As I and others have recently argued, however, critical approaches that merely focus on a search for oppositional ideology in Roman poetry are not only reductionist but also fail to do justice to the complex literary strategies at work in those texts. As Matthew Santirocco suggests, Augustan literature does not simply reflect a pre-existing ideology but rather participates interactively in its production. It seems to me that mis applies equally well to Catullus. By problematizing the poet's relationship to male public culture, Catullus sets the stage not only for the elegists’ ambivalent stance toward political life, but also for their ambiguous gender identifications.

The crucial point about this passage was well brought out by R. Hackforth: the immortality here envisaged ‘does not spring directly from the apprehension of , but from the begetting of true virtue (sc. in another’s soul).’ And Hackforth drew the conclusion that ‘consequently the philosopher can no more than the ordinary man become immortal (note ) save by vicarious self-perpetuation.’ The importance of this contention is that it offers us a Plato without a belief in personal immortality such as is prominent in other dialogues in which a similar version of the theory of Forms appears and that, because of this difference, the ‘ascent’ passage and the explanation of the creativity eros cannot be used directly in conjunction with dialogues in which a conflicting view of immortality appears, as part of a Platonic theory of eros.

The Lament for Adonis or Epitaphios Adonidos has since the mid-sixteenth century commonly been known as ‘Bion 1’. In editions of Greek Bucolic it comes along with four long and four short poems allegedly by Moschus, a number of short poems or fragments by Bion of Smyrna, and a long fragment (32 lines) also since 1568 often attributed to him. This subcollection is sometimes conveniently called ‘Minor Bucolic’: ‘minor’ in relation to the much bulkier surviving work of Theocritus and ‘bucolic’ apparently only by association with him and through the clear reputation of Moschus and Bion in ancient times as bucolic writers. Editions of Minor Bucolic, i.e. Moschus and Bion published other than as an appendix to Theocritus (though sometimes combined with Callimachus, Musaeus, or ‘the Nine Poetesses’), appeared in 1565 (Meetkercke, Bruges), 1568 (Orsini, Rome), 1655 (Whitford, London), 1686 (Longepierre, Paris), and then copiously in the eighteenth century; I count at least eight in the years 1746-1795.

For the history of the Roman administration in the early Imperial period we would seem to be well placed. There is an abundance of data on officials at all levels, their functions, careers, families, status and power – and from sources of every kind, literary, epigraphic, juridical, papyrological and archaeological. We know of hundreds, even thousands of such officials. The time would therefore seem ripe for not only a comprehensive descriptive account of the Imperial administration but also for a structural analysis of the system itself, the relationship to one another of the main institutional elements that constituted it: the emperor, the senatorial and equestrian hierarchy, the Imperial freedman and slave officials, and the interaction of all these with administration at municipal level. But a prime requirement for such an account and analysis is the assurance that we can organize the data and place the officials in the right chronological order. A reliable chronology is essential if we are to trace institutional change in the medium and short term. In this regard the Imperial freedman and slave officials are of major importance. In training and experience they make up the professional ‘civil service’ of the early empire – as contrasted with the relatively ‘amateur’ administrative role played by senatorial legati and equestrian procuratores, whose more spasmodic careers were more susceptible to influences of patronage. But it is precisely in the careers of the Imperial freedmen and slaves that chronological problems are most acute and caution most necessary, partly because of the numbers involved and partly in the interpretation of nomenclature.

Valerius Maximus’ collection of exempla has received attention from modern scholars as a window into the morality of the early imperial period at Rome: for example, the recent work of Rebecca Langlands has drawn out the ethical complexities of the text. Little has been said, however, about the possible formal philosophical context of Valerius’ work since the suggestion of Franz Römer in 1990 that the Facta et Dicta Memorabilia was deliberately structured to represent the Stoic cardinal virtues. This paper argues that there is a place for further study of the language and ideology of Stoicism in the Facta et Dicta Memorabilia. To illustrate this point, chapter 9.13: De Cupiditate Vitae and its accompanying series of three exempla under the title Quam Exquisita Custodia Vsi Sint Quibus Suspecti Domestici Fuerunt are examined in detail. It is argued that Valerius’ selection and framing of his exempla are in close sympathy with Stoic ideas of rational death, the passions, and the importance of self-control.

So much has been written about Menander's Dis Exapaton and its correspondence to Plautus' Bacchides that little more than a quarter of a century after the publication of its longest and most important fragmentary remains, the so-called ‘Dis Exapaton papyrus’, it seems almost foolhardy to assert there is anything new to be said about Plautus' workmanship or the relationship between the Roman play and its model. But there is. Most studies have focused on direct comparison of Menander's and Plautus' texts through detailed examination of the deletions and insertions, mutations and mutilations that Plautus committed or achieved, depending on one's perspective. We limit our profits, however, when we limit our vision and there is more known about Menander's Dis Exapaton than just what corresponds directly to Bacchides 494-561. By addressing closely the wider context of Plautus' drama, especially the various methods he is known to have used in reconstituting Greek plays for the Roman stage, and applying that to what we know about his and Menander's drama in general, we stand to gain further insight into Plautus' innovations as well as an important reminder of the traps and pitfalls inherent in dealing with fragmentary remains. Dis Exapaton is, after all, not the only incomplete work here; Bacchides is not preserved intact, either.

May I begin by thanking you sincerely for inviting me to give this Todd Memorial Lecture? I am sensible of the honour, not only in memory of the pioneer Australian Latinist whose name it bears, but in view of the roll-call of Classical scholars who have spoken before me. I am particularly conscious of my own debt to two predecessors here, the unforgettable Sir Ronald Syme and my former teacher Gordon Williams, who from their different viewpoints have had a considerable influence on present day approaches to Augustan—and some would say un-Augustan—poetry.

I shall be talking today about two kinds of fasti or calendar, the public, inscribed, fasti of Augustan Rome, and the poetic Fasti of Ovid, the last great poet of the age of Augustus. But I should first introduce both calendar and calendar poem, before moving on to discuss the interpretative battle which has recently developed over Ovid's complex but fascinating work.

The sources which refer to Silvanus and his abortive usurpation are few and varied. They include a secular historian with a military background (Ammianus Marcellinus), a Roman emperor (Julian) and a lesser group composed of secular and ecclesiastical historians, orators and priests. Epigraphical evidence is slight. These sources are not of equal merit or value nor are they in absolute agreement. Indeed, the two major sources, Ammianus and Julian, differ substantially.

In Love by the Numbers Helena Dettmer suggests that poem 17, which begins o Colonia, quae cupis ponte ludere longo, belongs to a disparate group of poems within the Catullan corpus, which contains poems with personified inanimate objects. Yet two of that larger group, poem 17 and poem 67 (addressed to a house door or ianua), are more closely drawn together by their settings, which the author hints are northern and specific while leaving them undefined and general. Furthermore, the two represent personified wooden objects, a bridge (poem 17) and a door (poem 67), while the broader group of poems includes personified estates and poetry. Finally, the metre of poem 17 is unique within the Catullan corpus. It sets the poem apart from the others and assists in defining its character.