Claudius's stay of sixteen days in Britain preceded one of the most famous triumphal celebrations in the history of the early Roman Empire. The emperor's own personal involvement in the conquest of Britain in A.d. 43 was negligible, but that he took the trouble to visit the new province and to receive the submission of eleven kings of Britannia is much to his credit. Claudius is known to have brought with him a great retinue of Roman senators, the Praetorian Guard, and perhaps also a detachment of Legio VIII, to overawe the defeated Britons. Four legions had been enough to crush them, yet here was the emperor with further reinforcements, including his crack Praetorians.

The ancients had no more difficulty than the modern commentator in distinguishing the attitude of the Stoics and the Peripatetics to men's emotions. On the one hand the Peripatetics believed that the emotions were given to man as a necessary part of his being, and though intended to be subordinate to man's reason, they were nevertheless capable of giving him help. The work of reason therefore can be compared to that of the vine-dresser, whose task it is to lop off the wild growth, but to cultivate and dispose the serviceable remainder. On the other hand the Stoics maintained that the passions were ‘συστολὴ ἄλογος’, an irrational mental contraction, and that the wise man would not be subject to any of them.

It sometimes happens that the plausibility of an interpretation of a passage in the Classics depends on our estimate of what is likely in human terms in any age. It may be worth while in such cases to adduce modern parallels. Here is an example.

Munro suggested long ago that, from its passionate tone, Catullus li (‘Ille mi par esse deo …’) should be taken as one of his first poems to Clodia, and that this (besides metrical equivalence) would account for his choosing the name of Lesbia as a pseudonym, the poem being a free translation of one addressed by Sappho to a Lesbian girl. Macnaghten and Ramsay develop this idea significantly in their introduction to the poem: ‘Probably the earliest poem to Lesbia, written perhaps in 62 B.c. It is a translation of Sappho's song to a Lesbian girl, chosen by Catullus, not because lover's language is in all ages the same, but as the safest way of revealing to Clodia the secret of his love. If she cared for him, she could hardly mistake his meaning; if not, it was only a translation after all.’