In any history of Greek mythological writing, the longer Homeric Hymns deserve a place of honour. They are the almost unique vehicle of a distinctive and important form of narrative about the divine world. As a prooimion to a discussion of the Hymn to Demeter, it may be worth sketching some general characteristics of the genre, to bring out its special interest for the historian of religion, and indeed for anyone who cares for the imaginative world of the Greeks.

The world of Aristophanes’ comedies is mainly one of fantasy, where free men carry private peaces in wineskins or fly to Zeus on a dungbeetle, women introduce sex-strikes or take control of the state, and a slave rides down to Hades on a donkey. A fantastic idea is the wellspring of his plots, and its successful realization leads to equally fantastic after-effects. Yet embedded in his extant plays from the Acharnians at least to the Ecclesiazusae is a series of passages where the focus appears to be on the real world of contemporary politics, history, belief, and the arts, while advice on authentic issues is offered to the mass audiences in the theatre of Dionysus. Is that advice seriously intended, or is it as fantastic as Aristophanes’ comic plots?

The flute players who in 404 B.C. celebrated the demolition of the Athenian walls with a hymn of joy for the liberation of Greece were thought to be hailing the dawn of a new era. It was an era in which Athens herself could participate, for even in defeat she had been spared the worst fate: her citizen population had not been butchered or enslaved; her land was not divided among alien colonists. Nevertheless the future which she faced was expected to be hard, in accordance with her humbled status. Her treasure was spent, her empire at an end; her losses in manpower had been terrible; the farming land which had traditionally been the economic basis of her existence, had been deliberately and extensively damaged. Thucydides in retrospect described the war as the most destructive in history: and Athens had ended as the loser. No wonder that historians have regarded the Peloponnesian War as a turning point of European history; and many have terminated their studies at this point, as if to divert their eyes from the tragic sight of Athens' decline into a new era of poverty and humiliation.

A good supply of water was rightly regarded as one of the essential commodities for the maintenance of urban life in the ancient world. One of the major problems with which city authorities had to deal was the maintenance of adequate supplies of water to satisfy the domestic, public, recreational, and industrial demands of the inhabitants. The Romans were particularly renowned for their hydraulic technology in general and the construction of aqueducts in particular, often bringing water from great distances. The geographer Strabo praised the engineering skills of the Romans, maintaining that veritable rivers of water flowed by means of aqueducts through the city of Rome. Close on a century later the first curator of Rome's water supply and one-time military governor of Britain, Sextus Julius Frontinus stated the same, if a little more pointedly, when he compared the achievements of the Romans in the field of water supply with the ‘idle pyramids of the Egyptians or the glorious but useless monuments of the Greeks’.

It is a common view in Vergilian scholarship that when Allecto (as Calybe) comes to rouse Turnus into battle against the Trojans (Aen. 7.4O6ff.) he is essentially predisposed to Allecto's violent point of view. His abrupt rejection of ‘Calybe's’ appeal is often taken to be the first sign of an innate and hostile arrogance on his part. Sometimes it is added that he is, by nature, a more irrational person than Amata. I provide here one such view: ‘But whereas Amata had to be made mad to make her act irresponsibly in flagrant disregard of her duty as wife and queen, Turnus is an easier case: the irrational element is already there; all Allecto needs to do is touch it off (Heroic Impulse) by representing to Turnus that his honour has been affected’. The subject of Turnus' dealings with Allecto is well-trodden ground, but I offer here two small but not unimportant points which have not drawn very much attention. The first concerns Allecto's task in Latium, the second Aeneas at Troy.

The number of religious motifs found in the Philemon-Baucis tale (Met. 8.611–724) is strikingly large. Brooks Otis is right to see the story primarily as a theodicy, designed to vindicate the power and influence of the gods. He draws attention to the contrast and balance of the Philemon-Baucis and Erysichthon episodes at the centre of the Metamorphoses: the Philemon-Baucis is a story of piety and its reward, the Erysichthon is a story of impiety and its punishment. At the midpoint of the poem Ovid tells two moralistic tales. The charm of the Philemon-Baucis can be attributed in large measure to the way in which Ovid tells the story: “he is not closely involved with the characters of Philemon and Baucis and allows humour and touches of cynicism to colour his narrative about them. The tone is sympathetic [ and the edifying character of the tale makes it stand out among the I generally tragic, erotic, and vengeful stories which fill the Metamorphoses.

Cadiz's main claim to fame in antiquity was its situation at thes end of the known world and its temple to Hercules which was visited by many famous personalities of antiquity; however, perhaps surprisingly, given Seneca and Pliny's insistence on the sobriety of the Spanish character, Cadiz had another well known attraction, its dancing girls, leading to Martial dubbing the town ‘Laughing Cadiz’, ‘Iocosae Gades’.