This article explores the part played by Mount Ida in the Iliad. It begins with some consideration of Ida in the early ‘history’ of Troy – the stories of Dardanus and the early line of Trojan kings. The city of Troy (Ilios) has its origins on Mount Ida, and the mountain remains very dear to the Trojans in many different ways. The rivers at Troy have their source on the mountain, and the Trojans acquire their water and wood from there. Moreover, the mountain is a central part of Trojan religious life, including the peak at Gargarus, where Zeus resides for a significant part of the poem. This article considers the two journeys of Zeus to Mount Ida from Olympus in the Iliad, and the ways that these are dealt with in the text. It raises questions about the rationale for and the effect of his visits there. It is argued that the poet uses Zeus’s absence from Olympus to ‘open up’ the cosmos, and permit new kinds of divine conduct and intervention. The article concludes with some consideration of the fact that the text offers no reference to the return of Zeus from Ida to Olympus prior to the council of the gods and Theomachy in Book 20.

The Eleian manteis who practised at the altar of Zeus in Olympia appear to have belonged to two separate gene, the Iamids and the Klytiads. This paper first considers the identity and number of the Eleian mantic gene and then questions the long-held assumption that the Iamid genos was the first to become established at Olympia. It is argued that the foundation myths that appear in Pindar and Pausanias are probably the result of the embellishment of pre-existing tradition in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. While neither archaeology nor further textual evidence entitles us to assume that mantic activity at Olympia predated the late Archaic period, an early Classical inscription, certain of the sculptures on the temple of Zeus and a later series of inscriptions from Olympia do make it possible to infer that two mantic houses, of which the Iamids were one and the Klytiads likely the other, were practising at Olympia from that time or earlier. Some reflection upon the limitations of myth as historical evidence is offered before the conclusion is reached that we cannot be certain that the Iamids constituted the senior house.

The normal interpretation of the oath μή μνησικακεĩν in Greek legal terminology is ‘to forget past wrongs’. Conventionally, the Athenian amnesty of 403 BC, in which the phrase is best documented, has been understood as an undertaking by both sides to draw a line under the past and prevent revisitation of cases which predated the restoration of democracy in that year. This article defends that view against the revisionist interpretation of E. Carawan in JHS 122 (2002) and CQ 62 (2012), which claims (a) that there was no general amnesty when democracy was restored to Athens, and (b) that the scrutiny of laws which followed was limited to ones affecting the amnesty’s beneficiaries. The oath forbade prosecution of all crimes committed in the time of the Thirty or before, and was therefore more than a mere technicality which sealed specific terms of agreement between the warring factions who came to terms. The scrutiny of laws encompassed all the laws of Athens and not a subset pertaining to a limited set of concerns. The revised laws were re-inscribed in the environs of the Stoa Basileios for future consultation.

This article compares the use of certain literary, structural and historical features by Polybius, Livy and Silius Italicus in their representations of the battle of Zama in 202 BC between the Romans and Carthaginians. It is argued that through their application of these features they present the battle as an iconic event and position it as a grand finale to the Second Punic War. The comparisons highlight some of the literary constructs in Polybius’ Histories and illustrate how some later authors adapt and possibly respond to Polybius’ presentation.

Similarities in presentation to emphasise the importance of the battle do not necessarily mean that the authors convey the same message over the long term effects of its outcome. For example, where Polybius’ special treatment of the battle of Zama, Hannibal and Scipio reflects his belief in the pivotal role the Roman victory played in changing the balance of power across the ancient Mediterranean world (15.9.2, 10.2), Silius Italicus’ special treatment may also be read as presenting the outcome of the battle in terms of causing a shift in power balance, in this case within the city of Rome, and leading to the development of the principate and the one-man rule of imperial Rome (17.653-4, 3.261-4).

This article analyses the ‘politics of humanity’ in Cicero’s philosophical and rhetorical works, the practice of projecting and shifting the moral and political boundary that separates the ‘human’ from the ‘inhuman’, the ‘inept at being human’, and the ‘undeserving of being human’. This practice has many affinities with the relatively modern phenomenon of ‘dehumanisation’. In the first part, the emphasis is on Cicero’s humanism, in particular his ideas on human nature as they appear in De Officiis. Here I also show the impact of this practice on Roman ideas of self-fashioning, ‘sincerity’ and social performance. In the second part, I observe the way in which Cicero’s political and legal theory fits within this ideological project. I further argue that Cicero’s humanism provided a conceptual background to the rhetorical dehumanisation of his political enemies, that is, to the claims in his invective that these men could no longer be considered as proper human beings. My final suggestion is that the goal of this practice, at least some of the time, was to make a case for excluding these individuals from the state’s legal system and thus depriving them of its protections.

The only extant choliambic line by Cinna, comparing some action to a Psyllus doing something to an asp, is preserved by Aulus Gellius to illustrate that the adjective somniculosus can have the causative sense ‘sleep-inducing’ as well as the active one of ‘sleepy’. If Gellius is correct, then the simile’s missing verb is likely to have one of the Psylli, famed for their ability to lull snakes to sleep, doing just that to a ‘sleep-inducing asp’. The situation which would be compared to this must be that of someone receiving a taste of their own medicine. This would also account for the Psyllus’ imprecise epithet Poenus, which would pun on poena. If Gellius is wrong, and somniculosus means ‘sleepy’ as in almost all other instances in Latin, the combination of snake and sleep imagery, which can be paralleled separately in other texts, with the abusive choliambic metre might suggest that what is being compared to the asp is the flaccid penis of an impotent man.

This article re-examines the ‘commemorative medallions’ of Antoninus Pius, a series of medallions showing the early history of Rome. It is suggested that these pieces should be seen not in a Saecular Games context but as a continuation of Hadrianic precedent, probably connected with the construction of the Temple of Venus and Rome. These medallions represent a wider imperial emphasis on the distant past under both Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, an interest that we observe in other coin types, public building works and perhaps also works of literature. A detailed examination of these Pius medallions reveals that their iconography was drawn from earlier types, and that they in turn inspired later imagery. This phenomenon reveals a certain intertextuality in numismatic language, and suggests that coin imagery did not merely grace Rome’s currency, but was recorded and was accessible to later generations. These medallions, truly ‘monuments in miniature’, reveal a new understanding of Pius’ reign and his (self-)presentation as Hadrian’s successor.

In the first quarter of the fifth century the provinces of Gaul experienced their most dramatic shakeup since Julius Caesar, with the Rhine crossing of Vandals, Suebi and Alans, the retaliation from Roman forces in Britain under the usurper Constantine III, and the establishment of the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse under Wallia in 418. Exsuperius was bishop in Toulouse throughout much of this time. Most of what we know about him comes from the challenges that confronted him. Not only did he face the crisis of hostile forces besieging his city, but he faced internal ones as well, with famine resulting from the siege and, at an earlier time, dissent being expressed to the asceticism and Christian discipline he promoted. While famine and theological dissent were regular features of what bishops had to deal with, responding to a siege was not something most bishops in previous generations had experienced. This article investigates how Exsuperius responded to these crises of varying magnitudes and argues that, although he is reported by Jerome as being solely responsible for averting the external threat, he was probably part of a team of negotiators, and that, with regard to the internal threat, he allied himself with Innocent I, the Roman bishop. The literary encounter between Toulouse and Rome in Innocent’s Epistula 6 reinforced Innocent’s position as the leading Western bishop, as well as offered support to Exsuperius in dealing with the crisis he faced.