The chapter ‘Concepts in Greek Mathematics’ by Reviel Netz problematises a set of assumptions commonly encountered in the literature on Greek mathematics, which typically derive from a supposedly objective, a-historical conception of mathematical theory and practice. In sharp opposition to that tradition, Netz raises the possibility that the purpose of engaging with mathematical concepts may have been different in antiquity than what it has been taken to be. He asks central questions afresh, for instance: why do mathematical texts begin with definitions, and what is the purpose of mathematical definitions and of axioms. In connection to these issues, he highlights new aspects of the relationship between Greek mathematics and Greek philosophy, between engaging with mathematical concepts and philosophical thinking. He also advances the thesis that the relations between mathematics and philosophy changed through the various eras of antiquity, as did mathematical concepts and the role of mathematical definitions. We should seriously entertain the idea that even mathematical concepts need to be viewed within a given historical and cultural context.

When Mercury in Book 4 of Virgil’s Aeneid appears to Aeneas and tells him to leave Dido he is not simply a representation of Aeneas’ inner thought processes. He stands for a world-historical vision that is communicated via Mercury from Jupiter. The chapter analyses the divine intermediaries in Homer and Apollonius as well as Virgil.

The portrayal of Hercules in Virgil’s Aeneid is heavily indebted to his portrayal in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes. As a demi-god, he is a complex and ambivalent figure in both poems, not exactly a man and not exactly a god. The depiction of Aeneas is indebted to the Apollonian Heracles in his immense force and his loneliness.

Chapter 6 examines aspects of the reception of catalogue in early Hellenistic poetry, focusing on Callimachus and Hermesianax. These poets, I argue, exploit catalogue as a non-mimetic form, using it to defy traditional ways of counting, and traditional orderings and boundaries of space and time. In their hands, the catalogue poem becomes a locus of disorder and fantasy.

Chapter 4 explores corpse abuse in both the Hellenistic and Flavian Argonautica poems, though the emphasis falls on Valerius’ epic. The treatment of the dead comes to the fore particularly in the intestine violence in Valerius’ depiction of the Lemnian massacre in VF 2 and in the Colchian war between the brothers Perses and Aeetes in book 6. In each case the conflict is tinged with the stain of Lucanesque civil war, culminating in a degeneration of violence with abuses aimed at the living and the dead. Valerius’ most extensive engagement with the theme comes during the Argonauts’ confrontation with king Amycus, whose rustic cave is a horror-show of corporal savagery and sadism. The major scene of corpse abuse in Apollonius’ Argonautica occurs when Jason murders Medea’s brother Absyrtus and ritually truncates his corpse. Though this particular mythic scene does not appear in Valerius’ epic, the influence of Apollonius’ poem sends clear shockwaves through the Flavian epic. While Valerius’ poem shows evidence of Apollonian and Lucanian influence in the handling of post mortem violence, it pushes back upon these more visceral expositions by reviving Virgilian distancing effects.