This study examines overlooked or underexplored fragments from Rufus of Ephesus’ On Melancholy, as cited in Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ al-Rāzī’s seminal medical work, The Comprehensive Book (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī fī al-Ṭibb). Through an analysis of Arabic texts and Latin translations, we present two previously unexamined fragments and one of doubtful authenticity which reference Rufus’ understanding of melancholy. Preserved across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, these fragments illuminate the transmission of ancient Graeco-Roman medical knowledge into the Islamic Golden Age and Renaissance Europe. Arabic texts are compared with corresponding Latin editions to verify their authenticity and trace their historical transmission.

This article examines attitudes to the law in Menander. It argues that the law is given a specifically Athenian context and that it can give us an insight into the concerns and values of the playwright and his society. By analysing the ways in which characters perceive issues of legality, the article stresses the importance of humanity and personal character in the plays’ dramatization of the interface between private lives and public institutions in early Hellenistic Athens. The article highlights how the ambivalence and the multivocality which are inherent in Menander’s dramatic technique allow for varying responses and for the presentation of radical views.

This article discusses the question whether the use of ὄργανον as a title to designate Aristotle’s logical treatises as a unitary bibliographical entity can be traced back to the ancient commentators or emerged as late as in the Renaissance. A review of the ancient and medieval evidence locates the earliest certain traces of this use in the eleventh or twelfth century.

This note presents a new supplement for Euripides, Protesilaus fr. 646a Kannicht.

This article discusses the characterization of a shell as labyrinthine in Theodoridas, Anth. Pal. 6.224 (= 3524–9 Gow–Page, HE). It contextualizes the description in relation to a myth about Daedalus on Sicily, Theodoridas’ probable homeland. It then reappraises the implications of the phrase for the aesthetics of the epigram.

Since the setting for Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 4 has been misinterpreted by commentators and historians, a review of the evidence for the toponym Dryopis is warranted. The narrative logic of the account demands that it be set in Ambracia, but most have interpreted Dryopis as the area near Mt Oeta. A close review of the first lines show that Antoninus’ account is indeed set in Ambracia, which was also called Dryopis.

This article examines an overlooked aspect of Xenophon’s philosophy: the crucial role of lower body training in his conception of physical fitness as an essential component of education for both humans and animals. Three key questions guide this investigation. Why does Xenophon appear to prioritize physical over intellectual education? Why does he emphasize lower body training for humans, hounds and horses? What unifying concepts connect Xenophon’s ideas about physical fitness and education? The article argues that the parallels between the physical education of Spartan children, Socrates’ shoelessness and the training of hounds and horses suggest shared physical characteristics across certain species, leading to similar methods for developing bodily vigour. Moreover, it contends that ideal education (paideia) must not only begin with but also maintain continuous emphasis on strengthening the body’s support structure—feet and legs—hence the focus on exercises like walking and running. The analysis reveals recurring foundational concepts: toil (πόνος), endurance (καρτερία)—two core principles of Socratic ethics—good health (ὑγίεια), exercise (ἄσκησις/μελέτη), gymnastics (γύμνασις) and good physical disposition (τοῦ σώματος εὐεξία). This pattern, present in both Socratic and non-Socratic works, offers new insights into Xenophon’s coherent vision of the relationship between physical fitness and education.

Dreams were an important but epistemically ambiguous feature of ancient medicine and a key site of religious experience. Galen of Pergamum, whose father’s dreams were decisive in his becoming a physician, incorporates dreams into diagnostic inquiry, therapeutic innovation and theological speculation. Scholars have long treated Galen’s positive descriptions of his and others’ dreams as indications of religious commitments at odds with his avowed rationalist epistemology. This article re-examines Galenic texts on dream diagnosis, references to dream-based therapies and descriptions of his father’s dreams. Having traced Galen’s sources and descriptions of dreams, it shows that the oneiric is perfectly comprehensible within his rationalist, physiological framework. The article shifts questions of dreams’ significance from their origins to descriptions of their quality and the context of their mention. The article concludes by showing that, consonant with his own epistemological and rhetorical commitments, dreams offer the Pergamene physician confirmatory techniques, means of surprise and innovation and a rhetorical strategy for validating his knowledge, skill and standing.