Several epigrams of Callimachus showcase a larger content in a smaller format: one of these is Callim. Epigr. 2 Pf. = 34 G–P.

In Iambus 6 Callimachus describes Phidias’ statue of Zeus to a friend of his about to leave for Olympia. However, as can be inferred from the Diegesis and the fragmentary text of the iambus, the poet does not elaborate on the statue’s iconography, nor does he mention the impression which it made on the viewers within the temple setting. Instead, he focusses solely on its measurements and technical details. This article sheds new light on this much-debated poem by exploring its playful and humorous tones within the broader context of Callimachus’ poetical and aesthetic principles. It argues that Callimachus deliberately avoided providing a literary ekphrasis of Phidias’ Zeus akin to other known examples of Hellenistic ekphrasis and to other ekphraseis of divine statues which Callimachus offered in the Iambi and the Aetia. By doing this, he avoided crafting a too loudly resounding poem, thereby adhering to his own poetical and aesthetic credo.

This article examines Diomedes’ speeches in the Iliad and provides a new reading of the Homeric formula ὀψὲ δὲ δὴ μɛτέɛιπɛ. Scholars have used this formula to support the claim that Diomedes is an inexperienced speaker. However, a closer reading of this formula reveals that Diomedes makes delayed responses in observance of the etiquette of Homeric deliberative speech which dictates that younger and lower-ranking chieftains wait their turn to speak. The article argues that the speech type must also match the speaker’s status. Junior statesmen can only respond to proposals, while elder statesmen can call assemblies, set the agenda and give unilateral commands to the host.

Aelian and Porphyry claim that only the horns of a specific species of Scythian ass can contain the corrosive water of the Styx. They also state that Alexander the Great received one of these horns from a certain Sopater as a gift, on which he had an epigram engraved before dedicating it at Delphi. This article explores the connection between this story and the reports of Alexander’s alleged assassination by the Antipatrids. In these reports, the poison used is often said to be the water of the Styx, held in an equine hoof. The tale reported by Aelian and Porphyry can be interpreted as part of the propaganda war during the time of the Diadochi, specifically as a piece of counter-propaganda responding to the accusation of treason against Antipater and his family and aiming to exonerate them.

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 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.

In the philosophical works of the Athenian elite, wage-labour was scorned for being incompatible with personal freedom and the practice of virtue. This line of thinking, however, economic historians recently exposed as idiosyncratic, since wage-labour in Athens has been shown to be extensive and potentially a source of high prestige. Considering the importance of specialization (tekhnê) in labour, this article focusses on the social status of a category that is usually overlooked—namely, those wage-labourers who would be deemed unspecialized. Through a close examination of popular literature, it is argued that the attitudes of elite and non-elite Athenians partially converged, since the latter looked with disdain not upon wage-labour in general but upon unspecialized wage-labour in particular.

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 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.

This article offers principles to be followed when editing οὔκουν and οὐκοῦν. The distinction between these words is supported by the ancient grammarians, but manuscript readings oscillate to such a degree that modern editors often do not trust them. The most common principles thus far available are those established by Kühner–Gerth and Denniston. Some are so subjective, however, that editors do not always agree on the accentuation of a non-negligible number of instances. This article takes into account the pragmatic contexts in which the particle is used in Attic drama to effect a distinction by applying a conversation analytic methodology to their interpretation. All instances appearing in the extant plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes have been analysed.

This article revisits a long-abandoned position that, contrary to the developmentalist view, Aristotle’s lost dialogue, the Eudemus, argued for the immortality of intellect, not for the Platonic view of the immortality of the soul as a whole. It does so by providing evidence for the presence of Aristotle’s lost writings in the Church Fathers, a period often overlooked in the study of the reception of Aristotle’s lost writings. After discussing the debates in the secondary literature on Aristotle’s view of immortality in the Eudemus, it shows that Tertullian’s De anima 12 should be considered a fragment of the central argument for the immortality of intellect in Aristotle’s Eudemus. The conclusion is based not only on the fact that Tertullian’s summary of Aristotle’s view cannot be derived from any of Aristotle’s extant writings, but also on similar reports regarding the separability of intellect from soul found in Origen and Clement of Alexandria. The article thereby demonstrates the influence of Aristotle’s lost writings in the Patristic period and their importance as reporters of Aristotle’s lost works.

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 the Greek perception of doves underwent a significant evolution from Homeric times, when they were not yet considered sacred birds. The comparison of Homeric goddesses to doves does not necessarily imply that these birds held a sacred status. Only from the fifth century b.c.e. onwards do Greek authors explicitly associate doves with three deities: Aphrodite, Apollo and Zeus. The article offers a critical analysis and interpretation of the systematic frameworks addressed only briefly in previous scholarship and argues that there was a shift in perspective from Homeric times down to the Roman era.

Rejecting the widespread view of the Aristoteles Decree as the founding charter of the Second Athenian League allows us to reconsider the traditionally accepted date of the League’s foundation and to readjust the standard perception of how it was organized. As a public-relations statement and a tool of Athens’ imperialist policies, the Aristoteles Decree both intimidated the Greeks into joining the League and demolished the military alliances of League members (by enforcing individual participation) and non-members (by advancing the autonomy clause).

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.

Despite the absence in the Aristotelian corpus of an established technical vocabulary as part of an explicit doctrine of cases, the use there of πτῶσις suggests that Aristotle was aware of the declension of nouns. This much is suggested by his discussion of the distinction between names (ὀνόματα) and cases of names (πτώσεις ὀνομάτων) at On Interpretation 16a32–b1, where the nominative is not a case but a name from which cases (that is, the ‘oblique’ cases) fall. However, at Prior Analytics 48b35–49a5, Aristotle lists the nominative form of a noun as an example of a word taken according to its case. This inconsistency raises a question about whether Aristotle has an internally consistent view of names and the nominative across the corpus. In particular, it is unclear whether the nominative form of a noun ultimately counts as a case for Aristotle. This article examines occurrences of πτῶσις in other Aristotelian texts, such as the Poetics, the Categories and the Topics, to argue that Aristotle uses this term in both a broad and a narrow sense. In its broad sense, any morphological change of any word, including a noun in the nominative, counts as a πτῶσις. In its narrow sense, only the oblique cases count as πτώσεις and not the nominative. The distinction comes down to a difference in the sphere of explanation. This reading renders Aristotle’s view of grammatical case consistent and makes sense of the claims about cases attributed to him by the later ancient commentators.

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.