To ask a question about ‘patronage’ is to view the issue from a top-down, broadly-conceived theoretical perspective. To understand Athenian political thought, we need to take an emic approach, to consider the perspective of the Athenian citizenry, which was concerned with present realities rather than complex, abstract models. The Athenian system's protection of individual citizens incidentally put broad restrictions on elite patronage, but, despite these limitations, relationships of patronage persisted throughout the Classical period albeit in non-threatening forms. Measures that ensured financial independence for the poor came only ad hoc and gradually. This article pursues three theses: (1) Athenians cared more about securing the freedoms of individual citizens than abolishing patronage, (2) patronage (as we would call it) existed in Athens but only in forms not threatening to civic freedoms and (3) in Athenian thinking political freedom was prior to financial independence. This article also explores the possibility of patronage systems existing in Greek poleis outside Athens, arguing that patronage-limiting practices were typical of democratic regimes but unusual for oligarchies.

In this article a new interpretation of the problematic form (Alcman PMGF 28 (85 Calame)) is proposed on the basis of a both a fresh examination of the history and prehistory of the ϕι-case and an overview of the syntax of coordinated pairs in various Indo-European languages.

The article offers a novel interpretation of the procedure followed in the case of Demosthenes’ speech Against Leptines, clarifying the workings of the institutions that secured the coherence of the laws of Athens. The procedure of this case of γραϕὴ νόμον μὴ ἐπιτήδειον θεῖναι seems idiosyncratic: the case came to court over a year after the enactment of the law of Leptines, so Leptines was no longer liable to punishment and the action was only against the law itself; it also involved the proposal of a replacement law. Scholars have argued either that the θεσμοθέται devised a special procedure for these circumstances or that Demosthenes deceived the judges into believing they could enact the replacement law. I argue that there existed two regular uses of the γραϕὴ νόμον μὴ ἐπιτήδειον θεῖναι: (1) to repeal laws that had been enacted irregularly and punish the proposer; (2) as part of nomothesia, to repeal existing laws that contradicted the new bill. This second use is the one that we find in Against Leptines: Demosthenes attempts to repeal Leptines’ law as part of the procedure to enact the replacement law. If the accusation is successful, he pledges to have the new bill enacted by the νομοθέται.

Sappho and her songs became popular throughout the Greek world very soon after her death, as reflected on Attic vases, in comedies and in the many references to her songs by authors of all times. One important source for her songs, especially before the discovery of the papyri at Oxyrhynchus and elsewhere, is Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae. This article presents a close analysis of three fragments of Sappho that were transmitted within this work, in order to establish the form of the fragments as they were incorporated by Athenaeus. Divergence from Sappho's original need not be the result of scribal error, but may represent a variation born in performance or active reception of the poems by Athenaeus or his source. Furthermore, the fragments demonstrate that it is insufficient to describe Athenaeus’ engagement with the Lesbian dialect as atticizing. By extension, the idiosyncracies of his quotations of Sappho's songs should be reflected in editions of the Deipnosophistae.

This article examines Xenophon's rewriting of Herodotus’ Croesus logos (Hdt. 1.6–91) in the Cyropaedia (Cyr. 7.2), focusing on the very different role of the divine in the two narratives. Through a comparison with Xenophon's Memorabilia and several Platonic dialogues, I argue that Xenophon's retelling attempts to bring Herodotus’ Croesus logos in line with his own ‘Socratic’ theology and his pedagogical goals, and in doing so performatively rejects Herodotus’ vision of the role of the gods in historical causation. The Cyropaedia is, I argue, the first extant text in the Greek historiographical tradition which attempts to present divine justice and philanthropy as the central forces in the historical process, and the first in a long series of critical engagements with Herodotus’ theology.

This article addresses the asymmetry between the two main aspectual paradigms in the Classical Greek verbal system: the imperfective and the aorist (perfective). Whereas the imperfective has separate indicative forms for present and past time reference, i.e. the ‘primary’ and the ‘secondary’ indicative, the aorist only has a secondary (‘past’) indicative. I argue that this asymmetry is not only morphological but also semantic. That is, while the secondary imperfective indicative (the ‘imperfect’) is confined to past time reference, the secondary aorist indicative is used not only to refer to the past but also to the present. It then enters into aspectual competition with the primary imperfective indicative (the ‘present’). Based on R.W. Langacker's (2011) Cognitive Grammar account of aspect, I distinguish five types of context in which a present tense form with perfective aspect is a desideratum, and argue that here the secondary aorist indicative is used to fulfil this function. Moreover, I present a diachronic account of the origin of this remarkable asymmetry, arguing that the aorist indicative was never a past tense to begin with.

The late fifth-century or sixth-century AD writer Fulgentius appears to quote Stesimbrotus of Thasos for a grisly detail of the death of Polycrates, describing how his corpse was carried away on a stretcher. Fulgentius is not a source to command confidence, and Jacoby dismisses this fragment as ‘unecht’ without further discussion. There is a case for being more cautious. It is not impossible that Stesimbrotus described Polycrates’ death, and, if so, Herodotus may be setting himself against that narrative when he says that Polycrates was killed ‘in a way which does not bear mentioning’. There may be a broader sense too in which both Herodotus and Thucydides are ‘defining their narratives against’ the work of Stesimbrotus among others.

This paper explores instances in Herodotus’ Histories where the historian or his characters engage with very large numbers by counting vast collections of people or things, establishing the dimensions of huge objects and measuring long stretches of time. In these episodes, Herodotus explores how quantifying the material traces of the past can help reconstruct antiquity. This methodological point is most evident in his calculations in book 2, and this paper focuses in particular on his persistent reckoning in three interrelated Egyptian accounts: those of the nature of the Nile valley, of the construction of the pyramids and of the genealogy of the Theban priests. I argue that Herodotus’ quantifying efforts, far from being only a rhetorical strategy to increase the narrator's credibility and authority, are an important, indeed crucial, part of his historical method.

This article offers a close reading of Pindar's lacunose fr. 140b S.-M. and explores the evidence it includes for Pindar's contributions to contemporary debates and polemics in late sixth- and early fifth-century musical culture concerning, among other things, harmonics, tonal ranges, instrumentation and the boundaries between different genres. By reading the contents of the fragment against the backdrop of other works from the period that similarly engage in these issues and the later revisionary accounts of the questions first raised by the author-musicians of the early classical age, I show how the diction, imagery and structure of the work are designed to position Pindar as one among the current choral innovators. In the discussion's final part, I address the question of the genre to which the piece belongs and propose some fresh ways of addressing this still outstanding matter. At several points, the article also considers some relevant visual evidence.

Herodotus’ narrative of the testing of various Greek oracles by King Croesus of Lydia (1.46–54) has long been viewed with justifiable scepticism. A newly published verse dedication from the sanctuary of Apollo Ismenios at Thebes (Papazarkadas 2014: 233–48) sheds welcome light on Herodotus’ sources for this part of his Croesus-narrative. Herodotus’ account of Croesus’ testing of the oracle of Amphiaraus at Thebes appears to have been an imaginative extrapolation from the text of this inscription. But there is good reason to believe that Herodotus significantly misinterpreted the historical context and significance of the epigraphic text he had before him; in particular, the real author of the dedication is unlikely to have been King Croesus of Lydia, and may instead have been an Athenian aristocrat of the Alcmaeonid family. The new inscription from Thebes sheds light both on Herodotus’ use of documentary evidence and on the creative misreading of early epigraphic texts by Theban sanctuary personnel in the mid fifth century BC.

The dates of Croesus’ reign, traditionally 560–546, derive mainly from the Nabonidus Chronicle, for Cyrus’ conquest of Lydia, and Herodotus 1.86.1, that Croesus ruled Lydia for 14 years. Part I of this essay questions the reliability of 1.86.1's ‘14’. Herodotus often uses formulaic or traditional numbers, including seven, for dating and elsewhere. Seven, twice seven, 14 and 70 recur frequently in the Croesus logos. Croesus’ reign may be a formulaic twice seven: seven prosperous years before Solon's visit, followed by seven disastrous years. It therefore may be unhistorical. Part II adduces other passages in Herodotus, and other evidence, that Croesus ruled Lydia already in the 580s. Nothing dates Alyattes after 585. Part III considers possible consequences of redating Croesus for the dates of early electrum and bimetallic coinages, the latter beginning perhaps in the 570s, as does Croesus’ Artemision at Ephesos. Part IV doubts what happened to Croesus when Sardis fell. Herodotus adapted one version for his own purposes. He probably invented Croesus’ role as wise warner to Cyrus and Cambyses.

A consensus has formed over the last 30 years that Diagoras was not really an atheist and that the famous Apopurgizontes Logoi were falsely attributed to him at a later stage. This note argues that the evidence is consistent with the view that Diagoras was indeed an atheist and did indeed compose the Apopurgizontes. Further hints in other sources allow us to reconstruct, albeit speculatively, aspects of Diagoras’ thought and self-presentation.