Old warriors of the New Guinea highlands used to regale the anthropologist Margaret Mead with tales of battles they once fought. Their stories ran

something like this: ‘We met on the mountainside near Wihun. A man of our side, named Maigi, threw a spear at a man of their side, named Wea. He missed. Then a man of their side threw a spear and hit my cross-cousin from Ahalaseimihi. Then I was angry and threw a spear at Wena, a big man of their side, and missed…’, and so on.

In a recent edition of this journal, G. M. Sifakis looked at possible Homeric echoes in modern Greek folksong. This paper may be regarded as a coda to that article. Like a satyr play coming after the major dramas it is not entirely serious, but it is not entirely flippant either. My aim is to offer some comparisons between the Homeric tradition and that of the blues singers of the (originally, southern) United States.

We know very little for certain about the staging of plays in the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens in the fifth century B.C. The evidence of archaeological remains and contemporary vase painting is difficult to interpret with confidence, the reliability of ancient post-classical commentators is questionable, and the texts of the surviving plays, our chief source of evidence, often raise more problems than they solve. Among the plays which have occasioned most controversy in modern scholarship is the Prometheus Vinctus. What was the ‘rock’ to which the hero was bound? In what part of the theatre space was it positioned? How and where did the chorus of Oceanids make their entry? How was the ending of the play staged? Questions such as these continue to perplex students of the play who also have to face the vexed question of its date and indeed authorship.

In 424 B. C. or thereabouts, an oligarchically-minded critic of the Athenian democracy observed:

And if account is to be taken of more minor matters, it is as a result of their mastery of the sea that the Athenians have mixed with various peoples in different areas and discovered a range of festive practices. In consequence, what is sweet in Sicily, Italy, Cyprus, Egypt, Lydia, Pontus, the Peloponnese or elsewhere has all been brought together in one place because of [sc.the Athenians'] mastery of the sea. (The Old Oligarch, 2.7)

Though critical of the democracy in principle, the Old Oligarch is strikingly positive here in one sense. This is no denunciation of the baleful and corrupting influence of luxuries imported from overseas. Rather, it is an explicit statement of an advantage of sea-power to the Athenians. A minor advantage, on this assessment, but evidently considered worthy of attention. Moreover, here as throughout his work, the Old Oligarch has in mind not a narrow elite, but the Athenian demos at large, the masses. On his analysis, the demos, through its sea-power, rules Athens and its empire effectively and in its own interest, which includes the acquisition and enjoyment of the best produce of the Mediterranean and Black Sea worlds. Under the democracy, it is claimed, the masses enjoy what may be termed luxury-goods.

In the Gorgias (463aff.) Plato makes Socrates say to Polus that rhetoric is not a skilled art (technê) at all, but one of a number of occupations collectively described as ‘flattery’ (kolakeia) and said to be based on experience. The other examples given are sophistry, cosmetics, and cookery. These practices have no understanding of what they do, or as Plato puts it they can give no account of it (465 a).

Aeneas is leading the shattered remnants of the Trojans to their new home in Italy. He calls at Actium, the scene of the battle which in 31 B.C. made his descendant Augustus master of the Mediterranean world. How does Virgil seize this opportunity to praise his patron Augustus?

Recently there has been considerable debate about the nature of popular politics in the Roman Republic. This debate has demonstrated that the Roman citizen was actively involved in voting, and made conscious decisions about which candidate he should vote for at elections, and whether to vote for or against a bill at the meetings of the comitia. The results of elections and voting assemblies would seem to have been dependent upon the attendance and voting behaviour of Roman citizens. These two factors would vary according to the views and opinions of the individual citizen. This paper addresses the issue of how these views and opinions were formulated, with particular reference to the participation of Roman citizens in popular politics.