A version of this commentary and bibliography was originally presented at the ‘Greek Drama II’ conference in Christchurch in February 1992. A subtitle could have been ‘What's been done since Sydney’ (site of ‘Greek Drama I’ in 1982), since my topic was to present a survey of the work of the past decade in Old Comedy. In a short period I cannot deal with all plays and topics, but will limit myself to six areas of discussion: (a) general studies, (b) Aristophanes’ early career, (c) Aristophanes and politics, (d) ritual as sub-text, (e) women in comedy, and (f) Eupolis and Kratinos.

In this article it is argued that Philip developed a considerable navy in the course of his reign, and that Alexander took that Macedonian navy as well as the Greek navy when he first entered Asia in 334 B.C. I shall discuss the literary testimonia in two sections, one for Philip and the other for Alexander.

1. Aeschines 2.72.

Setting out from Macedonia, Philip was contending with us no longer for Amphipolis but already for Lemnos, Imbros and Scyros, our possessions. And our citizens abandoned the Chersonese, which was by general agreement an Athenian property.

Two closely-linked problems—one textual, the other interpretive—have long bedevilled readers of Horace Carm. 4.2.45-52. The first involves the text of line 49, which was conjecturally emended in the OCT of Wickham and Garrod, and has actually been obelised by Shackleton Bailey in his Teubner. The second problem concerns the addressee of o Sol pulcher, o laudande in lines 46-7.

I would like in this essay, first, to discuss the spectrum of emendations proposed for line 49; second, to sketch out a structural analysis of the entire ode, into which lines 45-52 will fit sensibly; and third, to offer a new rhetorical analysis that will make sense of the poem overall and (particularly) of the text I have adopted for the lemma. This analysis is fundamentally linked to the interpretation of Sol in line 46, as we shall see.

From Republican times Romans, unlike any other people known to them, had three names, praenomen, nomen (gentilicium) and cognomen. In the first and second centuries A.D. Roman writers assumed that the possession of tria nomina distinguished the civis Romanus from the peregrinus.

Roman practice in the late Republican period was not always in accordance with the above. Cognomina were not adopted in official inscriptions by the Roman state as a constituent of the nomenclature of a senator or an eques until the end of the second century B.C. even though the use of cognomina by patrician families dates from the second half of the fourth century B.C. Despite this official recognition some families such as those of Marius and the Antonii never used cognomina. There were also many individuals who used an additional cognomen (or agnomen) which resulted from a military honour, adoption or the need to mark separate identity from other branches of a family. The practice of employing tria nomina, therefore, was never universal among the upper classes during the late Republic. The aim of this paper is to present a statistical analysis of the nomenclature patterns by which all individuals who can confidently be considered of senatorial or equestrian status are known to us. In the case of women, the study is restricted to those from the senatorial class.

There are several ancient and Byzantine accounts of the assassination of the emperor Gallienus (253-68), who was murdered while besieging a rebellious general, Aureolus, at Milan in early September 268. But few of these accounts agree fully on those who were responsible for the killing, and some are openly contradictory. Modern scholars, in turn, have not been in accord on the members of the conspiracy. A close examination of these sources demonstrates that only three men are reliably attested to have been involved: Heraclianus, Gallienus’ praetorian prefect; Claudius II Gothicus, emperor in 268-70; and Aurelian, emperor in 270-75. In addition, the investigation provides further insights into the development of the historical traditions pertaining to this period of Roman history.

Over the centuries, the fabulous adventures of Alexander the Great have become as prominent in art and literature as his historical achievements. Medieval artists in particular are frequent sources of depictions of the hero in such adventures as the search for the water of life, the flight into the air in a basket borne by eagles, the descent into the sea in a diving bell, the interview with the talking trees of India and the visit to the dwellings of the gods. Familiar as these episodes are—or were—it is easy for us to forget how completely new a thing they represent in the tradition of Greek prose writing. With the decipherments of cuneiform some one hundred years ago, a number of scholars concluded that they could not have been developed entirely within the Greek tradition, and posited direct influence from one or more Babylonian or other near eastern sources or traditions to explain the occurrence in Greek literature of these curious tales. Despite the antiquity of these arguments, they have been accepted without examination by many more recent writers on the Alexander Romance.