ABSTRACT: Following the practice of Greek and Roman poets, Martial employs polemic as a means of expressing his literary views, particularly with respect to his chosen genre and his place within that genre. In order to elevate the status of epigram within the generic hierarchy, he attacks the higher forms of poetry as stale and irrelevant to real life, dismissing their apologists in highly personal and aggressive terms. He often engages in an argumentative to-and-fro with a supposed critic of his poetry or of his opinions, summarily dismissing his opponent in a typically epigrammatic put-down that brands him as vacuous, deluded or merely inept.

In this article I discuss the (un)augmented third person singular forms from the root KTAKTEIN, namely epsilon kappa tau alpha nu(epsilon)(nu) - kappa tau alpha nu(epsilon), epsilon kappa tau epsilon iota nu(epsilon)(nu) - kappa tau epsilon iota nu(epsilon)(nu) and epsilon kappa tau alpha, 's/he killed' (3rd person singular) in early Greek epic. I first explain why I have chosen this corpus. In a second step I discuss the previous scholarship on the augment in detail with facts and figures. Then, I proceed to the corpus and determine whether the transmitted forms are secured by the metre (which is the case in most of the instances). Finally, I analyse the instances of the corpus based on the distinctions narrative-speech and foreground-background (which cannot be seen in isolation): the augmented forms are used to refer to actions in the recent past and to emphasise the completion of the action, whereas unaugmented forms refer to elements already known and to events in a remote and/or mythical past or in a timeless context. It goes without saying that these are only tendencies and that there are exceptions as well. A discussion on the origin of the augment (as a deictic particle, temporal adverb or pronominal stem) and a comparison with the use of (un)augmented forms in Vedic Sanskrit, Avestan and Old-Persian cannot be undertaken here.

Reviewed by: Varro, De Lingua Latina: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary ed. by W.D.C. De Melo Dániel Kiss De Melo, W.D.C. (ed.) 2019. Varro, De Lingua Latina: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xvi + 1322. ISBN 978-0-19-965973-9. £262.50/US$340.00.* A new edition with commentary of the six surviving books of Varro's De lingua Latina is not likely to be awaited by large crowds of impatient readers, yet this intriguing text deserves attention. It discusses matters of etymology (Books 5–7) and morphology (Books 8–10), quotes from a range of earlier texts including many that no longer survive, and is an invaluable source on the customs, religion, and topography of late Republican Rome. Its style, chunky and functional, stands in a strange counterpoint to the elegant prose of Varro's contemporaries Cicero and Caesar. The most recent critical edition has been that of G. Goetz and F. Schoell in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (1910), which was followed by a bilingual edition by R. G. Kent in the Loeb Classical Library (2 vols., 1938). Since then, only new editions of individual books have appeared. Wolfgang De Melo has done Classical scholarship a great service by publishing a new critical edition of this rare text with a facing translation, introduction, and commentary. What makes his work especially valuable is the focus on linguistics: in the introduction and the commentary he not only explains Varro's ideas about the Latin language and its origins, but also evaluates them in the light of our current knowledge of the subject. The introduction (pp. 1–253) starts with a short Section 1 on 'Varro's Life and Works' (pp. 1–5), which includes a discussion of the date of the De lingua Latina. Section 2, 'The transmission of the De lingua Latina' (pp. 5–25), also takes in past editions and matters of spelling. Section 3, 'An overview of Greek and Roman grammatical studies' (pp. 25–35), gives a brief account of linguistic scholarship in the Classical world, from the beginnings to late antiquity. The long Section 4, 'Etymology' (pp. 35–126), sets out Varro's approach to the subject and the structure of Books 5–7 as well as our current knowledge of Indo-European etymology. Section 5, 'Morphology' (pp. 126–236), once again expounds Varro's treatment of this subject in Books 8–10 as well as the views of modern linguists on this subject. The introduction closes with an insightful Section 6 on 'Varro's language and style' (pp. 236–53). The Latin text of the six surviving books of De lingua Latina is accompanied by a translation on the right-hand pages (pp. 255–633). There follows an edition with facing translation of the fragments of the nineteen lost books of the De lingua Latina (pp. 635–50). The second volume, which has continuous page numbering, contains the commentary (pp. 651–1271), followed by a bibliography (pp. 1273–97) and a valuable set of indices (pp. 1299–322). Mention has already been made of the strong focus on linguistics, on which De Melo is an authority. For example, Sections 4.3–4.4 of the introduction provide a lucid and detailed outline of our current knowledge of [End Page 330] Indo-European etymology, from the basic principles to the most recent research on key issues. The commentary examines in detail the individual claims made by Varro in each paragraph, and compares it to modern views where appropriate. De Melo makes an eloquent plea that we should take a favourable view of the achievements of the Roman scholar: 'remarkably often, Varro's pre-scientific methods led to results that are still valid today' (p. 68). From the point of view of textual criticism, which is the home turf of this reviewer, this edition is a mixed success. The problems are apparent in the short Section 2 of the introduction on the transmission of the text, which relies mainly on the work of Goetz and Schoell and of earlier scholars; it only makes partial use of an important paper from 2000 by Giorgio Piras.3 De...

The word e-qe-ta is one of the most well-known Linear B words. It is transcribed as / h ekw etas/ (in alphabetic Greek ἑπέτας ‘follower’). It has been regarded as a title of important and powerful persons of ‘the royal court’ charged with military, religious and other functions. However, there are still unanswered questions about the morphology and the semantics of the word, permitting new interpretations. Here, the hypothesis is put forward that e-qe-ta can be transcribed as /h ēgw étas/ (in alphabetic Greek *ἡβέτας ‘ephebe’) and the one and only identity that must be attributed to him is that of a young soldier in the Mycenaean army, comparable in roles to the ephebe of Classical Greece.

Interaction between Greeks and non-Greek peoples is a central theme of contemporary Greek historiography. Most such studies, however, involve the peoples of the successor states of Alexander’s empire. Less well known were the encounters between Greeks and the independent peoples living beyond the frontiers of the Greek world. A noteworthy example of such an encounter is that between Ptolemaic Egypt and the kingdom of Kush in Nubia. Early interpretations of this encounter relied on the concept of Hellenization, arguing that objects of Mediterranean origin found in Nubia and examples of Greek influence observed in Kushite art were evidence of Hellenization. My purpose in this paper is to offer a new interpretation of the encounter of Kush with Ptolemaic Egypt, one that emphasizes the function of Greek culture in Kush and does not rely on the concept of Hellenization but highlights instead the agency of the Kushites in determining the extent and character of that influence.

Once in a Pink Moon (Sappho 96.8 LP) David Hullinger νῦν δὲ Λύδαισιν ἐμπρέπεται γυναί-κεσσιν ὤς ποτ' ἀελίωδύντος ἀ βροδοδάκτυλος †μήνα πάντα περ‹ρ›έχοις' ἄστρα· φάος δ' ἐπί-σχει θάλασσαν ἐπ' ἀλμύραν 10ἴσως καὶ πολυανθέμοις ἀρούραις· ἀ δ' ‹ἐ›έρσα κάλα κέχυται τεθά-λαισι δὲ βρόδα κἄπαλ' ἄν-θρυσκα καὶ μελίλωτος ἀνθεμώδης· (96.6–14 LP) But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women just like, after sunset, the rose-fingered moon surpasses all the stars, and its light spreads equally over salt sea and flowery fields, and the beautiful dew is poured forth and roses bloom and tender chervil and flowery sweet-clover.1 In the eighth line of 96 LP, the adjective βροδοδάκτυλος or 'rose-fingered', as in Homer's ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς or 'rose-fingered Dawn' (Od. 2.1), is used by Sappho to describe the moon (μήνα). This juxtaposition's seeming incongruity has elicited much consternation. However, in this note I will defend βροδοδάκτυλος as indispensable to 96 LP by proposing three arguments for the function of this adjective within the fragment: (1) the language of the moon simile in lines 7–9 mimics the transition from afternoon to night and the adjective βροδοδάκτυλος plays an important role in this process, (2) the adjective 'rose-fingered' creates an equivalency between Sappho's 'moon' and the traditional personification of the dawn, and (3) the use of rose symbolism emphasizes the youth and beauty of the girl being compared. Ultimately, these three arguments for βροδοδάκτυλος will illuminate the integral role that this seemingly unusual adjective plays in 96 LP. [End Page 213] The scholarly interest in 96.8 LP has prompted several challenges to the suitability of βροδοδάκτυλος.2 Page has indicated that the eighth line may be corrupt3 and Beattie has suggested 'something like βροδοδακτύληα' in place of βροδοδάκτυλος.4 Campbell has also characterized the epithet as abstruse, writing that 'βροδο- can be explained if we assume that the roses were white.'5 More recently, Hindley has proposed that 96.8 LP should read δύντος ἀργυροδάκτυλος σελάννα, thereby referring to a 'silver-fingered moon'.6 In making a case for ἀργυροδάκτυλος, Hindley states that, rather than βροδοδάκτυλος, Sappho would likely have used 'a word which reflects the poet's known description of the moon, and is more appropriate to the context in sense than is the traditional reading.'7 However, and contra Hindley, my first argument for the suitability of βροδοδάκτυλος is that this adjective plays an important mimetic role in the simile of 96.7–9 LP, whose word choice evokes the progression of afternoon, sunset, and evening before completing the image of the moon surpassing the stars (which must take place during the night). Specifically, the end of the seventh line (ποτ' ἀελίω), by referring to the sun, suggests in the mind of the audience a time when the sun is shining. This evocation is emphasized by the line break at 96.7–8 LP, which compels a brief pause before the beginning of the eighth line. Then, the first word of the eighth line is the aorist participle δύντος, meaning 'sunk' or 'had sunk', which evokes the setting of the sun. Next, in the latter half of the eighth line, the phrase ἀ βροδοδάκτυλος σελάννα imitates the period of twilight. The adjective βροδοδάκτυλος or 'rose-fingered' is applicable to twilight just as it is applicable to dawn, and this adjective is suitable for a moon which appears in the roseate glow of the late evening when the last rays of the sun are still fading away. Finally, in the ninth line, the moon is πάντα περρέχοις' ἄστρα, or 'surpassing all stars'. In this phrase, the word 'stars' is withheld until the middle of the line, and its appearance represents the completion of the transition to night-time, when the stars would be visible. Accordingly, the simile of 96.7–9 LP evokes the transition from day to night through its diction and [End Page 214] syntax, and the adjective βροδοδάκτυλος plays an indispensable role in this evocation. Another way of demonstrating the presence (and importance) of this evocation is to ask why the sun sets in 96.7–8 LP. Specifically, the simile states that the 'Lydian women' are surpassed by the unnamed girl in the same way that the stars are surpassed by the moon, but the descent of the sun (ποτ' ἀελίω / δύντος) is explicitly mentioned before the superior behavior of the moon is described. Yet, one might reason, if the vehicle of comparison requires both the moon and the stars to be visible in the sky, then clearly the simile is occurring...

Homer's Odyssey Three Ways:Recent Translations by Verity, Wilson, and Green Richard Whitaker Verity, A. (tr.) and Allan, W. (intro. and notes) 2016. Homer: The Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xxx + 354. ISBN 978-0-19-966910-3. £16.99; Wilson, E. (tr.) 2018. Homer: The Odyssey. New York: Norton. Pp. x + 582. ISBN 978-0-393-08905-9. US $39.95; Green, P. (tr.) 2018. Homer: The Odyssey, A New Translation. Oakland: University of California Press. Pp. xiv + 522. ISBN 978-0-520-29363-2. US $29.95. In the twenty-first century it has become fashionable to apply the term 'translation' to any sort of work recognizably based on an original.1 Thus one could call 'translations of the Odyssey' not only renderings by, say, E.V. Rieu and Richmond Lattimore, but also James Joyce's Ulysses, Derek Walcott's The Odyssey, A Stage Play, Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad, and perhaps even Romare Bearden's wonderful Odyssean collages.2 I have no quarrel with that. However, if the word 'translation' is to be used in this very broad sense, then we need to distinguish between translations; and such a distinction must be based on the purpose for which a translation is made. In the case of the three books under review – two of them published by university presses, the third by a major provider of college textbooks – their leading purpose is clearly to present Homer's Odyssey to first-time readers of the epic, and especially to university students as texts for study. Let us call versions of this kind 'academic' translations – meaning by 'academic' only the purpose I have just outlined, and nothing in any sense pejorative – and the other kind 'creative' translations. [End Page 241] Now, of course, any translator will bring their own personality, outlook, store of language, and set of values to their work. But there is still an obvious difference between an 'academic' translation and a 'creative' one, the difference being that creative artists have complete freedom with regard to the text of the Odyssey. They may bring any agenda they please to their version. They are perfectly free to transform the ancient epic into a novel or drama, or to make their text all about issues utterly foreign – or only tangential – to Homer's main concerns. And although prior knowledge of the Odyssey may enhance readers' enjoyment of such versions, those versions are to be judged as autonomous works of art.3 Not so an academic translation of Homer, which must be judged both by its fluency as a work in English and by its relationship to the Greek original.4 For such a version, scholarly precision and accuracy are essential, though not on their own sufficient. The translation has to create an English diction adequate to Homer,5 it must be readable, it must hold its target audience's attention. Of the three Odyssey translations under review, Emily Wilson's is certainly the most unusual, and will therefore receive the most attention here. Her version appeared amid a barrage of positive publicity. The great and the good endorsed the work. In my judgement, however, Wilson has not produced an academic translation – i.e. one suitable to be recommended to first-time readers, or to undergraduate students of epic – though it may interest readers who already know the Odyssey, or those concerned with translation as a process. [End Page 242] The two great novelties of Wilson's Odyssey are the way she represents a group of characters that we might term 'underdogs' – notably the Cyclops, and the suitors and their allies – in a sympathetic light,6 while representing Odysseus as, on balance, reprehensible. The big problem, however, with Wilson's heterodox approach to the characters of the Odyssey is that she can sustain it only by distorting and misrepresenting what the Greek text says. For Wilson, the Odyssey 'to some extent7 glorifies its protagonist', but far more importantly Odysseus is, for her, not heroic,8 but 'this liar, pirate, colonizer, deceiver, and thief' within whose sphere 'other people – those he owns, those he leads – suffer and die, and who directly kills so many people' (p. 66).9 And...

This study examines how Vergil uses appearances of ghosts in Aeneid 2 to articulate his hero's latent psychological struggle with guilt. I argue that Aeneas' vision of Hector's ghost (2.270–97) and his interaction with the ghost of Creusa (2.771–94) occur as direct responses to his initial experience of this emotion for his failure to save Troy and his entire family. Hector's ghost represents Aeneas' subconscious recognition of his inability to identify the warning signs that Troy would fall. Vergil correlates the Hector episode with Aeneas' exchange with Creusa's ghost later in the book to show that she is also a manifestation of Aeneas' culpability for his role in her disappearance and death. By investigating Vergil's portrayal of Aeneas' intense struggle with guilt, another facet of the emotional landscape of the Aeneid can be discerned.

The wall in Aristophanes's Birds and the Walls of Troy:An Overlooked Parallel* Elena Chepel In his article 'Comedy and the Trojan War', Matthew Wright cites a passage from the parabasis in Aristophanes' Birds where the chorus, in a meta-theatrical address, invite the judges to see themselves in the role of Paris making his judgement about the three goddesses.1 τοῖς κριταῖς εἰπεῖν τι βουλόμεσθα τῆς νίκης πέρι,ὅσ' ἀγάθ', ἢν κρίνωσιν ἡμᾶς, πᾶσιν αὐτοῖς δώσομεν,ὥστε κρείττω δῶρα πολλῷ τῶν Ἀλεξάνδρου λαβεῖν I want now to speak to the judges about the prize; if they award their favour to us, we will give every one of them gifts far better than those Alexander received (Av. 1102–04).2 The comic parabasis (and Wright notes this as well)3 reflects the main plot of the play. In the cited passage, the comparison of the judges to Alexander emphasises the character of the chorus in the play – they are birds, new gods for humans. In this article, I shall argue that these lines in the parabasis, together with other allusions that follow them, put Birds in the perspective of the Trojan myth and, specifically, of Euripides' 'Trojan trilogy'. These mythological and dramatic contexts make the revolt against the gods, which constitutes the main plotline in Birds, more justified. The important symbol of the conflict between men and gods in Birds is the wall of the bird-city. It comes into focus right after the parabasis. Peisetairos [End Page 228] proclaims that his sacrifice to the new bird-gods was propitious (Av. 1118), and a messenger arrives bringing him the news that the wall has been built (ἐξῳκοδόμηταί σοι τὸ τεῖχος, Av. 1124). The further dialogue between Peisetairos and the messenger, which lasts for about fifty lines, is concerned with the striking characteristics of the wall and the details of its construction by the birds. This wall is of no small importance and the moment of its announcement is crucial for the play. It affirms the status of the new city blessed by the new gods and its ruler: Peisetairos is addressed as ἄρχων for the first time (Av. 1123). Furthermore, the plot of Birds is based on the idea of building a city in the air to block the route between heaven and earth, disrupt sacrifices by not letting the smoke come through, and hence to overthrow the Olympian gods (Av. 188–93). With the wall, the blockade can start. Eventually, it will bring the final victory over the gods to the inhabitants of the city as well as the final prize, Basileia, to the main hero. The wall in this scene hence becomes the symbol of the city's grandiosity, Peisetairos' success in his endeavour, and the ruin of the gods; because of the wall, Zeus perishes (ἀπόλωλεν ὁ Ζεύς, Av. 1514). The description of the wall in Birds has been interpreted as a comic reference to the Babylonian walls described by Herodotus 1.178–79. This parallel has travelled tralatitiously from commentary to commentary on the play since at least the 18th century and has made it into contemporary studies.4 Bergler was probably the first scholar to compare this passage with Herodotus' Histories. He cited the specific description of the width (that it is possible for two chariots to pass by each other), and a lexical parallel in the measurements of the wall (ἑκατοντορόγυιον, royal cubit, Av. 1131).5 These parallels, however, are rather typical for portraying the size of a military wall and cannot decisively point to a borrowing from Herodotus.6 [End Page 229] There is, however, one evident allusion in this passage which has been overlooked by the students of the play. With the word δούριος (sc. ἵππος) in the Messenger's description of the wall, the passage reminds the audience of the Trojan myth: Κάλλιστον ἔργον καὶ μεγαλοπρεπέστατον·ὥστ' ἂν ἐπάνω μὲν Προξενίδης ὁ Κομπασεὺςκαὶ Θεογένης ἐναντίω δύ' ἅρματε,ἵππων ὑπόντων μέγεθος ὅσον ὁ δούριος,ὑπὸ τοῦ πλάτους ἂν παρελασαίτην. It's a most beautiful, a most magnificent work so that Proxenides, the Braggartian, and Theogenes could pass by each other in two chariots upon its width, even if they were drawn by steeds as big as the Trojan horse. (Av. 1125–29) This rare word, meaning the Trojan wooden horse, is first attested in Euripides' Trojan women (13–14),7 followed by Plato (Tht. 184d) and later authors, almost exclusively in the context of the Trojan myth. The story of the wooden horse built by Epeius played a noticeable part in...

The four opening couplets of each of Propertius' books (as we have them today) display an interesting progression. In each case the presumed audience addressed by the book grows in size or importance. This pattern, as is the case with any pattern discernible within a poetic corpus, has the potential to reveal telling details about the poet, his programmatic statements and, in the case of Propertius, perhaps even the text. This article argues that the posturing of the poet-speaker in the opening verses of each book is important for understanding the poetry, since it is through this posturing that a more authoritative voice is created for the later books with their greater concern with political themes. It is with this in mind that the third and, especially, the fourth books should be understood as attempts by the poet to participate in the construction of a Roman identity for a radically new social and political environment.