The passage 10.185–8 in the Aeneid raises two difficult issues, which have not been satisfactorily resolved so far. The first issue is textual and concerns the word Cinyras/Cunarus in 185. The second vexed issue concerns the meaning of crimen amor vestrum in 188. The present paper summarizes the main discussions on this passage and tries to offer a new interpretation to it.

Two books came out in this review period that set out to investigate monuments that were once considered amongst the wonders of the ancient world but of which no trace remains today: the Pharos of Alexandria is reconstructed by Andrew Michael Chugg and the Colossus at Rhodes explored by Nathan Badoud.1 These monuments were initiated within a few years of each other and both were completed around 283 bc. The Colossus was short lived, destroyed by earthquake in the 220s bc; the lighthouse lasted much longer, perhaps surviving several earthquakes in an increasingly depleted state, the initial, most damaging one occurring in the late eighth century ce. Their complete absence from the physical landscape since then has always fuelled imaginative and academic speculation as to their form. Both authors spend considerable time on the legacy of these speculations and the way that subsequent fantasies have shaped our imagination, particular in terms of the Colossus of Rhodes straddling the harbour, a foot on each promontory. Maerten van Heemskerck’s 1570 illustrations of the Octo mundi miracula was key to the creation of this fantasy, one that Badoud traces not only in European tradition but also to early nineteenth-century Japan and of course to the Statue of Liberty with her rayed head. Heemskerck’s image of the Pharos was equally influential. It shows the Pharos as a spiral tower springing from a wide cylindrical base leading up to a colonnaded rotunda from which spews smoke, omitting the sculpture that is so prominent on ancient coins.

It is perhaps a sign of the times we live in that there is an increased academic interest in weirdness, hybridity, and monstrosity. Just recently a colleague of mine from the English Department here at the University of Virginia mentioned in a casual conversation that he’s been drafting a syllabus for his new course entitled ‘Weird’. Noticing my surprise, he patiently introduced me to the world of Weirdcore literature (‘Think Lovecraft on steroids minus racism and xenophobia’), and aesthetics (‘Norm violating hybridity is the key, representations of human-mushroom bodies, rainbows with eyes, fish with human feet, surrealism meets low resolution anime and 80s video games graphics, basically’). The reason why Weirdcore is popular among Zoomers (the generation born between 1997 and 2012) became clearer to me after a while. What more suitable recourse does this brilliant (judging by my UVa students) generation of digital natives have, having been raised in a politically, environmentally. and economically volatile world, but to embrace the incongruity and celebrate the absurd?

This paper investigates Herodotus’ allusions to democratic tenets dear to fifth-century Athens in Books 7 and 8 and how democracy is there suggested as an actionable possibility for all peoples. The paper also explores what Herodotus might have thought about democracy and how reflecting on it was a means for him to examine his own writing (section II). A discussion of Herodotus’ broad meditations on democracy in 7.10, 7.101–3, and 8.140–3 considers their historiographic and practical implications, showing that the Athenian democratic tenets Herodotus may have had as references formed a nucleus from which he elaborated a complex view of democracy, i.e., as a peaceful counterpart to imperialism (section III). Section IV examines some trade-offs and implications one may derive from the intertwining of allusions to democracy and the writing of history. The paper’s chief conclusions are summarized in section V: that the use of allusions allows Herodotus to discuss constituent parts of a democracy, not only those specific to the Athenian democracy, but also those appropriate to all possible forms of democracy.

Inscribed Greek verse epitaphs were produced in relatively high numbers in the city of Rome under the Principate. Although many were made for slaves and freedmen, their use was not confined to them. The individuals who opted to use them made a deliberate choice to emphasize their Greek cultural identity. They may have had several motives, but often the deceased or their (grand)parents had migrated from the eastern parts of the Roman empire to Rome, voluntarily or involuntarily. By presenting themselves as Greek in their language and use of mythological exempla, they claimed the paideia (‘education’) and culture associated with the Greek literary past. Yet despite the heavy emphasis on Greekness, the epigrams also display an awareness of the Roman context in which they were set up. Greek epigrams formed excellent vehicles to navigate the cultural ambiguities of ‘being Greek’ in Rome, and this explains why Rome became a major production centre of Greek funerary epigram.

This article offers a reassessment of Varro’s treatment of servile flight in his De Re Rustica. It analyses and contextualizes the pervasiveness of juridical echoes of slave runaways in Book 3, in a section on snails and bees. It thus suggests that the topic of slave flight is not neglected by Varro, as previously assumed. Varro presents the tangible prospect of slaves escaping from the estate in animal disguise. By revealing the apparent obscurity with which servile flight is handled by Varro, the article also shows the centrality of this concern in the minds of Roman slave owners – detectable even in a text on the ideal management of agricultural estates, where the topic does not belong.

As the first article in its March 1889 issue, The Classical Review published a short piece jointly authored by Henry Sidgwick and John Grote: a dialogue between Socrates and friends and John’s brother, George Grote. This brief but complex and playful dialogue is a microcosm of a broader discussion between a group of friends, colleagues, and relatives in the third quarter of the nineteenth century about individual happiness, justice and the good of the community. This article introduces the dialogue and places it in the context of two important wider debates in order to show how this brief dialogue illuminates the intellectual milieu of the time and the personalities involved. The first is a debate about how to read and engage with Plato’s philosophical dialogues. The second is a debate about utilitarianism, the nature of happiness, and the correct end of human actions.