Among the many parodic elements in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes is the day-old baby's fart-omen. As is well-known, sneezing was considered prophetic in the ancient world, and the humour of the scene comes from the immediately preceding fart and the fact that Hermes’ bodily emissions are deliberate (σɉυ… øρασσάμευoζ ‘contriving’). Apollo has, in fact, gone in search of his baby brother on the basis of a standard bird-omen (note 2131 ‖ oìωυɂυ and 215 ‖༐σσυμέυωζ, echoed exactly in the later passage) and confronted with Hermes’ signs, he recognizes that the crepitation is just as much an omen as the sneeze, witness the plural τoúτoιζ oìωυoîσι a few lines later (303). We may compare a passage in Aristophanes’ Knights (638—42) where the Sausage-seller reports that he took courage before speaking to the Council from a good omen: a man farted to the right, ༐κ δπξιâζ ᾤπέπαρδε (639). Aristophanes’ formulation suggests to me that the composer of the hymn may be intentionally setting up a play on words (or even the possibility for a slip of the tongue or mishearing): the only difference between the verbal form ༐πέπταδε ‘sneezed’ (aorist to ༐πι-πτάρυuμαι, -πταíρω and its near-homophone ༐πέπαρδε ‘farted’ (aorist to ༐πι-πρδoμαι) is the (cross-linguistically trivial) reversal of the liquid and the dental stop.

At Aristophanes, Equites 230–2, one of the slaves who speak the prologue informs the audience that, when the Paphlagonian (i.e. Kleon) appears onstage, his mask will not resemble him, for the σκεϒoπoιoí (‘stage-property manufacturers’ vel sim.) were afraid to make one that depicted him accurately. In an important article, K. J. Dover argued that it must in fact have been very difficult to create easily recognizable portrait-masks, and suggested that the joke in Eq. 230–2 may be that the Paphlagonian's mask is horribly ugly but allegedly still nowhere near ugly enough. In response, D. Welsh, following an anonymous ancient commentator on Lucian, argued that Cratinus fr. 228 K-A shows that the historical Kleon had strikingly unattractive eyebrows. Had anyone wished to caricature the demagogue's physical appearance, therefore, he coule easily have done so, and portrait-masks may not have been so uncommon after all. Welsh's argument is at first glance quite appealing, and has been endorsed without further comment or argument by Sommerstein and Storey. I suggest, however, that the ancient commentator was confused, and that Cratinus’ remark is much more easily explained by reference to what is known about the use of facial expression as a communicative strategy in classical and early Hellenistic Athens, particularly as it appears in the comic poets. Kleon's eyebrows were probably no more ugly than those of anyone else, although he may have used them in an offensive way, and as Dover saw long ago, Eq. 230–2 cannot be taken as evidence for the use of portrait-masks on the late 5th-century comic stage.

The purpose of this short note is to explain a joke in Aristophanes, Wasps. If the explanation is accepted, our knowledge of Athenian political and military history in the later 420s is enhanced.

A new look at Thucydides’ account of the debate at Sparta motivating the Spartan declaration of war (1.67–88) may provide a footnote to valuable past discussion. Chief concerns about the debate have always been (1) the uniqueness of the four-speech set-up; (2) the oddity of an Athenian embassy in attendance at a Peloponnesian League meeting; and (3) the unlikelihood that any detailed report of speeches made to the Peloponnesian League or Spartan assembly came to Athens. Thucydides' judgement concerning the cause of the Peloponnesian War is far more likely to have been based on his knowledge of past and present relations between Athens and Sparta and members of the Peloponnesian League (Ξυμπ⋯σα γνώμη) than on any information about an actual debate (τ⋯ ⋯ληθ⋯ς λɛχθ⋯ντα). But for τ⋯ δ⋯oντα he needed a confrontation which would not only dramatize both opposition I and characters of Sparta and Athens but also put them in historical context, that is, in their Persian War roles as recorded by Herodotus. Only in this way is it possible to explain peculiarities of this confrontation which appear to duplicate characteristics of the Herodotean debate involving Athens and Sparta before the battle of Plataea. Thuc. 1.67–88 is like Hdt. 8.140–4 in comprising four speeches of which the first (A) 1 is answered by the third (Cl) and the second (B) is answered by the fourth (C2). In each case Cl and C2 are spoken by representatives of a single people: with the Athenians in Herodotus’ debate answering two different peoples, and with two different Spartans in Thucydides answering two different peoples.

It appears to have gone unnoticed that the simile used by Vergil at Aeneid 5.458–60 was appropriated by him from Apollonius Rhodius.

The ordinary Latin words for ‘lonian’ are lonicus and lonius. Ovid does not use the former at all, and except for one problematical instance applies the latter only to the Ionian Sea (cf. OLD s. v.). Copyists, editors, and lexicographers, however, credit him, and him only, with Ioniacus, supposedly attested in two passages of almost identical wording:

The following works are referred to by author's surname only: H. W. Garrod, P. Papini Stati Thebais et Achilleis (Oxford, 1906); D. E. Hill, P. Papini Stati Thebaidos Libri XII [Mnemosyne Supplement 79 (Leiden, 1983)]; A. Klotz, P. Papini Stati Thebais (Leipzig, 1908; revised edn by T. C. Klinnert, 1973); R. Lesueur, Stace Thébaïde (Paris, 1990, 1991, 1994; 3 vols); J. H. Mozley, Statius (Loeb edn, London, 1928; 2 vols); J. J. Smolenaars, Statius, Thebaid VII [Mnemosyne Supplement 134 (Leiden, 1994)]; P. Venini, P. Papini Stati Thebaidos Liber XI (Firenze, 1970).

Tiberius' speech at the outset of the trial of Cn. Calpurnius Piso, as Tacitus reports it at Annals 3.12, sheds light on two discrepancies between relatio and response in the recently published senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre (hereafter SCPP).

At Dialogus 13.4, Tacitus makes Maternus decry the good fortune of the orators Vibius Crispus and Eprius Marcellus: ‘Nam Crispus iste et Marcellus, ad quorum exempla me uocas, quid habent in hac sua fortuna concupiscendum? Quod timent, an quod timentur? Quod, cum cotidie aliquid rogentur, ii quibus praestant indignantur? Quod alligati cum adulatione nec imperantibus umquam satis serui uidentur nec nobis satis liberi? Quae haec summa eorum potentia est? Tantum posse liberti solent’

The theme of the second declamation of Calpurnius Flaccus is ‘Matrona Aethiopem peperit. Arguitur adulterii’. In one of the excerpts (ed. L. Håkanson [Stuttgart, 1978], pp. 2, 6–10), the accuser is arguing that for a white woman with a white husband to produce a black child is certain proof of adultery, for individual races have fixed physical characteristics to distinguish them. I give the text as argued for by W. S. Watt (Eranos 94 [1996], 123).

The phrase combining the terms κάλλ0ς and ἀπoρρoή to my knowledge does not occur anywhere else in the Greek Corpus in the context of contemplating a beautiful beloved. Achilles Tatius (second century a.d.) therefore must be making an allusion to Plato. This can hardly come as a surprise considering that Phaedr. 251, which describes the influence of the appearance of beauty on the soul of the lover, is one of the most famous and widely known Platonic passages. However, the context within which these two allusions to Plato are introduced deserves attention. Adding a certain learned touch to the description of erotic episodes in his novel, Achilles Tatius presents a ‘scientific’ explanation of the mechanism of visual perception. The consistency of both accounts suggests that he draws on some scholarly theory of vision which was part of his general educational background. But, unlike the above mentioned allusions, this theory is hardly Platonic.

The retired Byzantine bureaucrat, Zosimus, wrote his New History in the early sixth century. This work is not only one of the primary sources for the history of the Later Roman Empire in the fourth and early fifth centuries a.d., but it is also the primary witness to the now fragmentary Histories of Eunapius of Sardis (a.d. 347–c. 414) which it faithfully epitomizes. In the last part of the New History which depends upon Eunapius, two lacunae have been detected which are of interest with respect to the original texts of both authors.