Since the 1970s progressively more translators, in several European languages, have abandoned the traditional translation of ὁ βουλϵύσας at Physics 194b30 as ‘the adviser’ for a different one: ‘the deliberator’. The latter translation has never been defended, and is, as this article will argue, indefensible—the active of βουλϵύω is never used in classical prose in this sense. Furthermore, this translation obscures what may be a philosophically significant feature of the passage: the fact that all of the other examples of efficient causes Aristotle gives here, in what is his canonical account of the four causes, are cases where what causes something to move is distinct from the thing it causes to move (the father causes the child’s gestation, the builder causes the lumber’s turning into a house). An Aristotelian deliberator, on the other hand, while arguably an efficient cause, is the cause of their very own action. At least one ancient commentator, Simplicius, thought that Aristotle had good reasons to restrict his examples to causes distinct from what they set in motion. Both the traditional translation and the variant of it for which I shall argue, ‘the one who made the proposal’, fit this model.

The poetic investiture scene in Quintus’ Posthomerica (12.308–13) is the only passage in which this epic’s narrator speaks about himself in the first person. These lines have often been commented upon from an intertextual and metaliterary perspective, but the specificity of the geographical markers mentioned by Quintus has not been adequately explained. This article proposes that Quintus places his Homer specifically at the site of the old city of Smyrna, which is not the same as that of the Roman (and modern) city. Other elements of the investiture scene allude precisely to the legend which, in the Imperial age, ascribed to Alexander the Great the relocation of the city from its old site, nearer the Hermus river, to the new, near the Meles. Local legends and traditions help to explain several details of the investiture, from its placement in the precinct of a temple to the presentation of Quintus’ young Homer as a shepherd. The article also explores the ideological implications of the poem’s return to the distant, pre-Ionian past of Smyrna and its appeal to the city’s ancient history and legends, from the suggestion that Quintus may be de-Romanizing his poem to the relevance of Homer in a rapidly Christianizing third-century Smyrna.

This article offers a fresh examination of the different kinds of labour and labourers in the pseudo-Virgilian Moretum, and argues that the poem lends expression to the difficulty of distinguishing between exploitation and collaboration in any form of production, but particularly in literary production. At its core, this article considers the ways in which the Moretum repeatedly denies readerly attempts to pin down the exact status of, and relationship between, the poem’s two principal characters, Simulus and Scybale. This lack of clarity is important for the poem’s interpretation: if, as many have argued, the Moretum is about poetic labour, then the ambiguous socio-economic status of its central characters should lead critics to ask what the poem is trying to say about the nature of literary production. This article shows that, throughout the Moretum, exploitative labour is presented as collaborative, and vice versa; and this, in turn, allows the poem to raise the question of whether there can ever be collaboration without exploitation in the Roman literary world. By thus reading the Moretum as an exploration of willed and coerced co-production in literature, new light can be shed on the poem’s authorship.

This article examines the reception of Sappho in Julius Pollux’s Onomasticon. The article shows that Pollux primarily quotes Sappho as an authoritative source on clothing and textiles. This presentation of Sappho is unusual, given that other ancient sources largely locate her poetry within an erotic, and sometimes sympotic, framework; and it is particularly notable for the way in which it emphasizes Sappho’s status as a specifically female poet with special insight into, and expertise in, the feminine domestic world. The article argues that this domestication of Sappho’s verses is not (primarily) an act of sexist belittlement, but rather demonstrates how Pollux reimagines Sappho in his own image. In the material world of the Onomasticon, Sappho becomes in turn an emblem of (feminine) materiality, whose apparent preoccupation with the fabric of everyday life productively mirrors the encyclopaedia’s own. As a whole, the article argues that Pollux’s creative engagement with Sappho’s poetry is both an important constituent part of, and a foil to, her wider reception in both antiquity and modernity.

This article examines the philosophical significance of nature (ϕύσις) in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The word is used in the protasis of the conditional clause at 515bc where Socrates proposes to inquire into ‘what the manner of the release and healing from these bonds and this folly would be if in the course of nature (ϕύσϵι) something of this sort should happen to them’. This instance of ‘nature’ has been a matter of philological and philosophical debate, with attention paid principally to the narrow passage of the allegory for reconstructing Plato’s meaning. This article argues from the standpoint of the argument of the dialogue as a whole, showing that a particular reading of ϕύσις coheres with the conception of human nature in the Republic’s moral psychology. The discussion begins with consideration of the difficulties presented by the manuscript tradition, which sees variation in the recording of the clause in question. Then the attempts by scholars to resolve the problem—or else to express their inability to resolve it—are addressed and shown to be unsatisfactory. Finally, an interpretation that connects the mention of ϕύσις with Plato’s conception of the philosophic nature, described in Book 6 of the dialogue, is offered.

This article argues that a new stylometry of Hermann’s Bridge identifies unexpected metrical trends in authors, eras and speakers. Using computational and statistical means, it provides the first comprehensive survey of breaks and quasi-breaks of Hermann’s Bridge and analyses them according to corpus, formulaic constructions and the narratology of character speech. This approach both complements previous studies of the Bridge and enables future research into its potential literary effects.

This article deals with Hecataeus of Miletus fr. 310 Jacoby, featuring a curious list of islands located along the Nile, and bearing Greek names such as Ephesus, Chios, Lesbos, Kypros and Samos. Scholars generally assume the list, composed in the late sixth or early fifth century, represents joint Greek emporia established on Egyptian soil, thereby serving as a reliable testimony to the emergence of collective Greek identities during the late Archaic period. The composition of the list, along with the contemporary historical, cultural and archaeological contexts of its place names, is examined with particular emphasis on the collective identities of the islanders. On this basis, it is contended that the list lacks any evidence pertaining to Greek commercial footholds or collective identities in Egypt. Rather, fr. 310 serves as a practical navigational mnemonic, delineating culturally familiar geographical landmarks to assist Greek sailors in traversing a complex foreign river passage. The fragment now emerges as a valuable historical document, illuminating Greek navigational knowledge and practices during the late Archaic period.

This article attempts the first systematic look at the use of similes in the poetry of the imperial Greek poet Triphiodorus. It proposes that Triphiodorus, having access to a vast repository of epic poetry (and similes), draws on existing formulas, mechanisms and vocabulary, which he slightly modifies to make his mark. It concludes that similes i) are used to humorous effect, ii) occasionally defy Homeric rules and categorization, iii) offer a stage for emulation, competition or rivalry with predecessors, and iv) reflect key tenets of the poem’s programme.

This note examines five passages of Cicero, De haruspicum responsis in light of the commented edition of A. Corbeill. New conjectures are offered on §§29 and 50; the transmitted text of §46 is defended; and a different interpretation of the text is offered at §§37 and 61.

In praising Sallust, Tacitus chose the epithet florentissimus in delightful allusion to the former’s apparently innovative (and influential) use of the adverb carptim in his presentation of his novel approach to writing res gestae populi Romani: the adverb and the superlative adjective share an easily discernible etymological connection.

This study examines the Ionic frieze of the Parthenon, focussing on the concept of ‘Divinespace’ and ‘Mortalspace’ within its artistic composition. I examine how divinities and mortal figures are depicted in specifically designated spaces and how they intersect during the Panathenaic procession. Notably, two gods, Aphrodite and Hermes, are observed crossing into ‘Mortalspace’, identified by the two groups of athlothetai—officials responsible for the festival’s organization. The casual nature of their presence and the lack of awareness shown towards divine intrusions add depth to the understanding of ancient Greek religious art and rituals. By analysing votive reliefs from the Athenian Akropolis and by comparing them to the frieze, this research sheds light on the intricacies of the depiction and symbolism in this remarkable ancient artwork.

This article argues that there are two different types of ‘past potential’ relevant to the Classical Greek tense and mood system. First, the past-tense indicative with ἄν can signal that a designated past event was once possible but not realized (retrospective root potential: ἐποίει ἄν ‘could have done’). Second, the optative with ἄν can express uncertainty about whether a designated past event actually occurred (retrospective epistemic potential: ποιοȋ ἄν ‘may have done’). While such usages are recognized in the traditional grammars, they have been dismissed in modern discussions. The article presents a detailed theoretical argument, backed up by both close readings of individual passages and broader discussions of corpus data, in favour of establishing these past potential usages as an integral part of Classical Greek grammar.

This article examines the two families of denominative verbs from the semantic field of atimia: atimaô/atimoô and atimazô. By analysing their use in the Attic orators and other major prose texts from the Classical period (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle), the article shows that these verbs were consistently employed in differentiated, well-defined ways: atimaô/atimoô for ‘effecting an actual loss of status’, and most normally for ‘imposing the legal penalty of atimia’ (especially in the orators), and atimazô for extra-legal examples of ‘dishonour’. This distinction is in part reflected also in the ratios of verbal aspect for the two families, with atimaô/atimoô being used mostly in aorist and perfective forms and atimazô mostly in imperfective forms.

Euripides is one of Clement of Alexandria’s most frequently cited sources, and his enthusiastic borrowings have received fresh attention in recent years. This interest has proceeded under the assumption that Clement’s theatrical engagement was primarily limited to the reading of dramatic texts instead of through performance. This article argues that a careful examination of Clement’s Euripidean material in fact reflects the broader performance landscape of the ancient city in which this Christian author lived and wrote. Taken against the backdrop of contemporary Alexandrian performance, this reveals a fresh complexity to Clement’s use of Euripides, and uncovers an author actively participating in and shaped by the cultural activities of this Graeco-Roman city.

This article deals with a well-known crux in Juvenal (6.195). Previous conjectures are discussed before a new emendation is proposed.

This article responds to Laura A. Marshall’s argument that Socrates does not compare himself to a gadfly in Plato’s Apology but rather to a spur on the side of a horse directed by Apollo. In revisiting the evidence for the canonical reading, this article argues that ‘gadfly’ or some other irritant insect is the only plausible translation for μύωψ in the Apology. Scrutinizing the source of the contemporary notion of the Western philosopher is pressingly important—not only for its own sake, but because the ‘spur reading’ has made its way into public circles and even the Cambridge Greek Lexicon.

This article demonstrates that Ovid placed an incomplete reverse acrostic at Rem. am. 681–5 reading desin-. I will argue that it is intentional, noting that it fits the context in which it appears. Additionally, I will discuss how Ovid is drawing the reader’s attention to his engagement with the poetry of Catullus by referencing another possible acrostic in Catullus 36, as well as by playing with themes (and acrostics) from Catullus 8.

This article examines a report in Dio of a vow made by Augustus in response to a prophecy. It establishes the setting as a festival for the Magna Mater rather than ludi magni, as has recently been suggested. Based on calendar entries and a passage from Ovid, the article then associates the content of the vow with altars of Ceres and Ops established in 7 c.e.

A conjecture in Birds 786–8.