Bruno Snell has made familiar a certain thesis about the Homeric poems, to the effect that these poems depict a primitive form of mindedness. The area of mindedness concerned is agency, and the content of the thesis is that Homeric agents are not agents in the fullest sense: they do not make choices in clear self-awareness of what they are doing; choices are made for them rather than by them; in some cases the instigators of action are gods, in other cases they are forces acting internally on the agent and over which he has no control. Homeric heroes act in the way Descartes thought an animal acts: agitur, non agit. Such agents ‘handeln nicht eigentlich (d.h. mil vollem Bewuβtsein eigenen Handelns), sondern sie reagieren’. The model of the agent which we nowadays have is roughly of a self which determines, rather than is determined to, action; the self arrives at this determination by considering available reasons for action in the light of its overall purposes, and it moves to action in full self-consciousness of what it is doing, and why. This model of action, Snell claims, is not met in Greek literature before the tragedians. I think anyone ought to concede that there is some difference between the way Homer portrays decision-making and the way it is portrayed in tragedy (with further differences among the tragedians themselves); but has Snell located the difference in the right place? I shall argue in this paper that he has not.

At Iliad 1.355–6, Achilles, calling upon his mother, reports the injury to his honour done him by Agamemnon:

ἦ γάρ μ᾽ Ἀτρείδης εὐρὺ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων

ἠτίμησεν ⋯λὼν γ⋯ρ γέρας, αὐτ⋯ς ⋯πούρας.

The formulaic line 356 is repeated by Thetis to Zeus at 507 and by Thersites to the assembled Achaeans at 2.240; the problematical phrase αὐτ⋯ς ⋯πούρας is repeated in a variant form with finite verb by Agamemnon at 19.89, αὐτ⋯ς ⋯πηύρων.

The following texts and comments are a supplement to ‘Democritus on Politics and the Care of the Soul’, CQ 39 (1989), 307–31 (henceforth ‘Democritus on Politics’). The Democritean fragments there were quoted only in translation; detailed commentary on them would have taken up too much space and clogged the argument. They make their appearance here in the same order as they did there, preceded by a thumb-nail résumé of that argument and of their place in it. Text, spelling and numbering is that of the standard edition: H. Diels, W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin, 1951–2). Reference will also be made to collections by P. Natorp, Die Ethika des Demokritos (Marburg, 1893), S. Y. Luria, Democritea (Leningrad, 1970) and G. Ibscher, Demócrito y sus sentencias sobre ética y education (Lima, 1983–4), as well as to translations by V. E. Alfieri, Gli Atomisti (Bari, 1936), K. Freeman, Ancilla to the Presocratics (Oxford, 1948) and J. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (Harmondsworth, 1987).

About the extent of the trouble and the suitability of the remedies that have been advanced, there have been some differences of opinion; everyone, however, has recognized that there is something amiss in the lines 984–6. At the very least few would deny these difficulties:

(1) ξυνεμβ⋯λοιс is suspect.

(2) ψαμμ⋯αс must be regarded as seriously corrupt.

(3) χρ⋯νοс … παρ⋯βηсεν must be emended as a whole so that either the indispensable constituents of two complete clauses appear or ⋯πε⋯ disappears.

(4) ψαμμ⋯αс ⋯κ⋯τα παρ⋯ and εὔχομαι δ᾽ ⋯ξ ⋯μ⋯с (998) must be brought into metrical correspondence.

The problem of the genuineness of Antigone's lines Ant. 904–20 has never been satisfactorily resolved. The passage has been vehemently impugned for more than a century and a half; yet the majority of editors print it without brackets, and probably the majority of scholars accept it. This stalemate is aggravated by the manner in which the argument has traditionally been conducted.

The friendly expatriate ladies of the chorus in Helen enter having heard loud lamentation issuing from the palace, while engaged, like the Φ⋯λα of the chorus in Hippolytus 125ff., in spreading laundered crimson textiles to dry in the sun. The central theme of ‘hearing cries’, with the verb ἒκλυον and nouns of utterance (185–6), is reminiscent also of Medea 131ff., where the opening words of the Parodos ἒκλυον Φων⋯ν, ἒκλυον δ⋯ βο⋯ν… allude to Medea's loud utterances ἒсωθεν in 96ff. (ἰώ…) and 111ff. (αἰαî…): here, as there, the Parodos exploits the familiar motif of βοηδρομ⋯α.

I cite manuscripts from my own collations. Information about most of these manuscripts, and explanation of the symbols by which I designate them, may be found in A. Turyn, The Byzantine Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Euripides (Urbana, 1953), K. Matthiessen, Studien zur Textüberlieferung der Euripideischen Hekabe (Heidelberg, 1974), and D. J. Mastronarde and J. M. Bremer, The Textual Tradition of Euripides' Phoinissai (Berkeley, 1982). I shall discuss the affiliations and the relative value of these manuscripts on a later occasion. For the present no knowledge of these matters is needed. I refer to modern editions by the names of their editors: Wecklein = N. Wecklein (Leipzig, 1890), Wecklein (1906) = N. Wecklein (Leipzig and Berlin, 1906), Di Benedetto = V. Di Benedetto (Florence, 1965), Biehl = W. Biehl (Leipzig, Teubner, 1975), Willink = C. W. Willink (Oxford, 1986, 1989 [with Addendis Addenda]), West = M. L. West (Warminster, Aris and Phillips, 1987). Studies refers to my Studies on the Text of Euripides (Oxford, 1981).

In the authoritative new collection of the Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (TrGF), a five-trimeter passage appears as No. 624 in the second volume which contains the ‘Fragmenta adespota’. Whereas Nauck placed the lines among the ‘Fragmenta dubia et spuria’ of Euripides (Eur. fr. 1131), Kannicht and Snell separate them totally from the Euripidean fragments and associate them with various pseudepigraphical pieces of tragic poetry which are commonly thought to have originated in the ‘workshop of a Jewish forger’. The purpose of my article is to challenge this decision and to show that TrGF 2.624 may well be genuine poetry by Euripides if we restore the lines to their probable original form. An attempt to reconstruct the original context of the fragment will also be added.

In the opening lines of Aristophanes' Acharnians, Dicaeopolis counts first among his greatest joys ‘the five talents Cleon coughed up’, and he professes his love of the Knights for this service ‘worthy of Hellas’. The ancient scholiast gave what he thought an obvious explanation from Theopompus (F 94): he tells us that Cleon was accused of taking bribes to lighten the tribute of the islanders, and he was then fined ‘because of the outrage (ὑβρ⋯ζειν) against the Knights’. Evidently Theopompus connected the charges against Cleon with some earlier proceedings instigated by Cleon against the Cavalry. There is, as often, some difficulty in determining what Theopompus said and what the scholiast inferred, and, aside from that editorial problem, the scholiast's all-too-simple solution faces at least three major objections regarding the legal and political implications of such a trial. On the strength of such objections it was long ago supposed that Dicaeopolis rejoices not at a recent political defeat for the demagogue, but in recalling a theatrical expose in Babylonians of the previous year. This theory of a stage trial, however, encounters obstacles of its own in any reconstruction of the lost play. In recent work there have been many comments but no altogether satisfactory solution on this problem. It is the view of many that Cleon indeed suffered some political defeat in the year preceding Ach.; but, by this approach, ingenious solutions are required to make sense of the scholia. The assumption of a stage-trial, involving the Knights and Cleon in Babylonians, is still found persuasive by others, but if we are to discount the fragment of Theopompus, which has supporting testimony elsewhere in the scholiastic tradition, we would like to have something more than mere inference that Cleon was tried and convicted in Babylonians. The purpose of this paper is to find a more cogent explanation for these lines in Ach. and the equally puzzling scenario in Theopompus. It will be helpful to begin with the broad outlines of the problem (section I), and then proceed to re-examine the prevailing views, the stage-trial theory (II) and historical theories based upon the scholia (III).

On the face of it, Plato's treatment of aisthesis is decidedly ambiguous. Sometimes he treats aisthesis as a faculty which, though distinct from all rational capacities, is nonetheless capable of forming judgments such as ‘This stick is bent’ or ‘The same thing is hard and soft’. In the Theaetetus, however, he appears to separate aisthesis from judgment, isolating the former from all prepositional, identificatory and recognitional capacities. The dilemma is easily expressed: Is perception a judgmental or cognitive capacity, or is it a non-judgmental, non-cognitive capacity? If the former, how does perception differ from belief? If the latter, is perception a faculty of the rational or irrational soul? Not surprisingly, the topic has received much scrutiny over the years. And equally unsurprisingly, the debate has turned as much on what it means for a capacity to be judgmental, cognitive, non-judgmental or non-cognitive, as on whether Plato says that it is of either kind.

Over the last fifty years the world of the palaeographer has been revolutionized by the widespread use of photography. Today a scholar can study a microfilm of almost any codex in the western world in the comfort of his home and compare it with any number of other codices within a matter of minutes. It is no longer necessary to travel long distances, set aside large blocks of time, and spend substantial sums of money in the collation of manuscripts. This fact should encourage modern palaeographers to review the work of their predecessors who were denied these blessings to see if the work of the past lives up to today's standards.

In March 59 Caesar and Pompey presided over the adoption of P. Clodius Pulcher into a plebeian family, thereby rendering the former patrician eligible for the tribunate. The immediate purpose of the dynasts' action was to silence the contumacious criticism of Cicero, whose Pro Antonio had gravely offended Caesar. And the gesture was effective: for a time at least, Cicero withdrew to his country estates. For Cicero – like everyone else in Rome – anticipated that, once tribune, Clodius would move to exact revenge for the dishonour done him during and after the Bona Dea trial. For the remainder of the year Cicero made preparations to fend off his enemy, and principal among his resources was the personal guarantee of his friend Pompey the Great. Pompey, who regarded Clodius as his creature, took it to be a point of honour that he should shield Cicero from harm's way. But the Vettius affair changed everything. Regardless of who masterminded the scandal and despite all protestations to the contrary, the Vettius affair left Pompey estranged from Cicero, a reality that Cicero could not fail to recognize. After the Vettius affair Cicero could not prudently rely solely on the dynasts' promises – if ever he did. Yet the means by which Cicero endeavoured to secure his own safety – independent of his relationship with Pompey or Caesar – have not been adequately appreciated by modern scholars. They incline, quite naturally in view of the events of 58 which followed Cicero's exile, to see the contest over Cicero's fate primarily as a struggle between the dynasts, especially Pompey, and Clodius. Such an attitude, however, tends to cause one to overlook an often cited but infrequently discussed stratagem of Cicero: according to Cassius Dio, Cicero induced L. Ninnius Quadratus, a tribune of 58, to stand up against the legislation which Clodius promulgated upon his entering the tribunate. This arrangement indicates that Cicero was trying with considerable energy to look after his own interests. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to explain the means by which Cicero hoped to thwart Clodius as well as the machinations by which the erstwhile patrician outwitted his opponent.

Here in the proem to his fifth book Lucretius is praising the philosophical achievements or discoveries (‘reperta’) of Epicurus through favourable comparison with other discoveries of traditional heroic or divine figures; first, in this passage, with the products of bread and wine associated with the gods Ceres and Liber (Bacchus), and later with the deeds of the god-hero Hercules. This technique clearly derives from the σ⋯γκρισις of formal rhetoric, one of the basic exercises (προγυμν⋯σματα, exercitationes primae) through which composition was taught in ancient schools, and Lucretius begins with ‘confer’, an imperative which has something of a formulaic force in rhetorical comparisons. But it is not the purpose of this note to point out the rhetorical qualities of this passage; Lucretius' treatment of Ceres and Liber has other important literary and philosophical associations, links which have not been noted or explored by scholars.

The beginning of the seventy-sixth poem of Catullus appears to cause some modern readers considerable dismay. One may instance the reactions of R. O. A. M. Lyne: ‘Our first reaction to the beginning of this poem may be one of incredulity’ (The Latin Love Poets [Oxford, 1980], p. 31); ‘The effect of such language is to imply an outrageous and implausible self-righteousness’ (ibid. 32); of K. Quinn: ‘a self-righteousness that makes us feel a little uncomfortable’ (The Catullan Revolution [Melbourne, 1959], p. 77); or of G. Williams: ‘this is sheer melodrama, a deft and surprising reversal of “count your blessings”’(Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry [Oxford, 1968], p. 410); and, further down, on ‘si vitam puriter egi’: ‘This could be simply priggish or outrageous or both, but he does not mean it as a general statement’ (ibid.)

In a recent article I observed that Livy sees a dialectic at work in Roman history over the course of the reigns of the first four kings. The first king, Romulus, is associated with physical (i.e. military) strength and is devoted to war. His successor Numa is devoted to peace and to the advance of religion, law and the civilizing virtues. The Romulean thesis, having been answered by the Numan antithesis, reasserts itself in the reign of the third king, Tullus Hostilius. This time, devotion to war is even more intense: Tullus is ferocior (1.22.2) than Romulus. Excessive devotion to war, however, entailed the neglect of other things: towards the end of his reign, during a plague to which he himself eventually fell victim, Tullus turned to religion, hoping that the gods would end the pestilence if he could balance his Romulean devotion to war with a Numan concern for sacra. But his efforts were too late and inept. It was not until the reign of the fourth king, Ancus Marcius, that a synthesis was achieved. Ancus had a medium ingenium that fused the Romulean and Numan tendencies. The adoption of the ius fetiale by the Livian Ancus symbolizes this synthesis: the ius fetiale was a martial (i.e. Romulean) ritual, but it also acknowledged the Numan claims of religion and right.

In his vigorous analysis of Dido's soliloquy J. Henry confronts the problem of line 543: ‘How comes it that, having just decided that she will not go with the Trojans, that they would not even receive her if she went, she so immediately inquires shall she go with them, alone or accompanied?’ He suggests that the words introduce ‘a new category of objections’; hitherto the issue has been between herself and the Trojans, but now she reflects that the Trojans are not the only people she has to deal with. To go alone is but to run away from her own people, and she cannot in the circumstances of their recent arrival at Carthage ask them to sail with her. ‘Even more impossible to leave Carthage than to go with Aeneas.’

The interplay of Greek and Roman motifs in the Marcellus eulogy at the end of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid presents a complicated study in literary history. The association of roses with the dead is more Roman than Greek, but perhaps not so much so as one might imagine. Roses are not entirely absent from the Greek milieu, and in fact Vergil apparently drew on Greek rose motifs for the eulogy. Archaeology reveals that roses were an important symbol on tomb stelai, along with the epigraphical references to roses. In general the rose in Greek inscriptions was reserved for girls, but at least one is for a boy, and another for a youth of twenty-two. Moreover, Vergil may well have been alluding to Bion's (?) Lament for Adonis, where the rose motif has striking importance.

The magnificence of Augustan Rome is the indispensable setting for Ovid the urbane love poet, rusticitas is the one unforgivable sin. Yet in Ovid's perpetuum carmen cities are for the most part invisible, at best incidental backdrops; the countryside, present in many vividly drawn landscapes, constantly thrusts itself on our attention, a place where mysterious powers menace the individual's identity. This neglect of the city makes a striking, and deliberate, contrast with the Aeneid, a ktistic epic whose meaning is governed by constant reference forward to the ‘altae moenia Romae’. Ovid, whose main epic time-scale does include the foundation of Rome, devotes five words to the making of those walls. The one major exception to this indifference to the central theme of Virgilian epic is the Theban episode in Metamorphoses 3.1–4.603. The story of Cadmus and his family forms a self-contained unit within the flux of Ovid's epic of transformation. It tells of a ktisis that goes wrong: Cadmus obeys Apollo's injunction to found a city (3.13 ‘moenia fac condas’), but in the end the exile who had founded a new home is driven into a second exile: ‘exit | conditor urbe sua’ (4.565f.).

The historian of ancient medicine has in recent years enjoyed one advantage over his more literary colleagues, the regular accession of substantial new texts by major authors. These have included not only fragments preserved on papyri and the membra disiecta gathered from later encyclopaedias and medical writings, but also complete treatises, some consisting of several books. There is, however, one drawback. Very few of these new texts are preserved in their original language, or even in a mediaeval Latin translation; most are to be found in versions done into Syriac, Arabic, or Hebrew, and hence they remain inaccessible to the average classicist without the intermediary of a further translation into a Western language. Besides, when such modern translations exist, they are not always easy to locate, even in the best-regulated libraries, and the supposed aridity of their contents acts as a further barrier to the dissemination of their information to students of ancient history and ancient philosophy. This paper is intended to bring to wider notice the most recent of such arrivals, and, by concentrating on what it has to say about Antonine society, to draw the attention of ancient historians to material that they might well overlook.

The following excerpt from Proclus' Commentary on the Timaeus appears as Fr. 37 in the edition of the fragments of Numenius by Des Places.1 It is the aim of this study (1) to ascertain the original place of the fragment in his work, and (2) to show that it belongs to a second-century school of allegorical commentary on the ancient theologians, and particularly on Pherecydes of Syros, of which Numenius will have been one of the brightest luminaries.