My aim is to establish whether there is a concept of ‘miracle’ or ‘the miraculous’ implicit in the Homeric poems (and therefore perceived and understood by Homer's audience). Such a question is fraught with difficulties, as it necessarily involves broader (and still widely debated) issues such as Homeric man's view of the gods and the essential nature of the early Greek oral epic tradition. But, if an answer can be found, it should in the process help us to gain more insight into those wider issues—the theological basis of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the world-view of Homer's audience.

So much has been written about Menander's Dis Exapaton and its correspondence to Plautus' Bacchides that little more than a quarter of a century after the publication of its longest and most important fragmentary remains, the so-called ‘Dis Exapaton papyrus’, it seems almost foolhardy to assert there is anything new to be said about Plautus' workmanship or the relationship between the Roman play and its model. But there is. Most studies have focused on direct comparison of Menander's and Plautus' texts through detailed examination of the deletions and insertions, mutations and mutilations that Plautus committed or achieved, depending on one's perspective. We limit our profits, however, when we limit our vision and there is more known about Menander's Dis Exapaton than just what corresponds directly to Bacchides 494-561. By addressing closely the wider context of Plautus' drama, especially the various methods he is known to have used in reconstituting Greek plays for the Roman stage, and applying that to what we know about his and Menander's drama in general, we stand to gain further insight into Plautus' innovations as well as an important reminder of the traps and pitfalls inherent in dealing with fragmentary remains. Dis Exapaton is, after all, not the only incomplete work here; Bacchides is not preserved intact, either.

Everyone knows that Caesar crossed the Rubicon because his political enemies at Rome had manoeuvred him into a position where he would soon be forced to leave his province, give up his imperium, and return to Rome as a private citizen, there to be put on trial, found guilty and have his political career ended. Yet over thirty years ago, Shackleton Bailey, in less than two pages of his introduction to Cicero's Letters to Atticus, destroyed the basis for this belief, and in the three decades since, no one has been able to rebuild it. Everyone also knows that Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon, was grossly outnumbered and conquered Italy only through his own rapidity and his enemies' sluggishness and incompetence; yet this belief was irreparably shattered by H.-M. Ottmer in 1979, in a book which professional scholars have practically ignored. The justification for this article is that it may bring to others' attention the real state of researches on the circumstances of Caesar's invasion of Italy, and perhaps even inhibit further restatements of exploded beliefs.

May I begin by thanking you sincerely for inviting me to give this Todd Memorial Lecture? I am sensible of the honour, not only in memory of the pioneer Australian Latinist whose name it bears, but in view of the roll-call of Classical scholars who have spoken before me. I am particularly conscious of my own debt to two predecessors here, the unforgettable Sir Ronald Syme and my former teacher Gordon Williams, who from their different viewpoints have had a considerable influence on present day approaches to Augustan—and some would say un-Augustan—poetry.

I shall be talking today about two kinds of fasti or calendar, the public, inscribed, fasti of Augustan Rome, and the poetic Fasti of Ovid, the last great poet of the age of Augustus. But I should first introduce both calendar and calendar poem, before moving on to discuss the interpretative battle which has recently developed over Ovid's complex but fascinating work.

The historical and quasi-romantic traditions represented by the Metz Epitome and its companion piece on the death and will of Alexander (Liber de morte) are late, problematic and derivative texts on the reign of Alexander the Great, which students often overlook and scholars often discredit on grounds of date and reliability. It seems appropriate to offer an introductory appraisal of these texts with a view to asserting their importance; however, some preliminary comments on the function of epitomes in the later Roman Empire may help establish a historiographical context.

Most classical journals report on research on literary, historical and linguistic questions, and rarely allocate space to discussions of pedagogy at tertiary level. This article, however, falls into the latter category. It takes the form of a report on the teaching of Latin and Greek (both classical and post-classical) in universities in Australia and New Zealand; and it makes a number of suggestions regarding the future of the classical languages in this region.

Any general examination by an outsider of the situation of Classics in Australian and New Zealand universities would readily conclude that most departments are managing well, or at least holding their own, compared to other disciplines. Student enrolments are high overall, since most departments, like those in Britain and North America, have expanded their teaching range to embrace ancient history, classical literature in translation and, in some cases, archaeology. This has been the situation for the best part of the last two decades. Often these subjects were introduced in order to ‘subsidise’ and protect the continuance of Greek and Latin with their smaller numbers; but they have been extremely popular with students in every university in Australasia in which they are taught. And so these teaching areas have come to have a life and a rightful presence of their own.