In an earlier article in this journal the decision of the Open University to offer two half-credit courses on classical civilization was noted.1 The first of these, ‘The Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity’, has been available since 1974. The matching halfcredit was to be on Greece. We readily decided to concentrate on Athens and on the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. This is not a history course: it is an attempt to look at the total culture of a period, and the period virtually selected itself. Aeschylus has not found a place in the drama course: we felt that the Oresteia must come in here. For philosophy Plato was essential, and, it was felt after discussion, Aristotle too, even if he seeped beyond our probable historical bounds. For it was plainly going to be impossible to treat the Persian Wars at one end or Alexander at the other, and do any justice to the events and movements which lay between.

As a goddess Eris or Strife plays no role at all in Greek religion and an extremely restricted role in Greek literature. In èpic she briefly appears in the preliminaries to the Judgement of Paris, but is normally confined to emblematic appearances in mass battle scenes. As a concept Hesiod gives her some importance by distinguishing between a good and an evil Eris. Generally, though, whether as a goddess or a concept, eris remains inconspicuous until Euripides gives the word a thematic importance in a number of his works. This is most obvious in Andromache and most impressive in a nearly unbroken series of plays starting with Helenand ending with the posthumous Iphigeneia in Aulis.

A generally recognized achievement of Horace is his working into Latin lyric poetry the moral teachings of Greek philosophy. But it is still worth while to ask how deeply he absorbed, and how significantly he shaped them. This question demands not a sweeping answer based on a mere set of references, but patient examination of individual odes; for as a poet, Horace naturally couches his thought in poems, which are, as it happens, highly elaborate works of art. This paper takes two pieces for such consideration and suggests that the coherence of their argument and the particulars of their diction may be better appreciated if they are read in relation to Epicurean ethics. My method is tentative and cumulative: there is no reason to presuppose the justice of such a reading, and it is justified only if it illumines the whole poem in detail (as it surely does 3.29). The purpose of this paper, then, is not to attach a scholastic label to Odes 1.20 and 2.3, but to bring out their meaning and coherence.

In a previous article I argued that the most successful approach to the concept of hybris was through the definition of Aristotle, who placed the core of the concept in behaviour that was intended gratuitously to inflict dishonour and shame upon others; such an account, I argued, would be able adequately to explain the meaning and moral force of the term in authors from Homer to Aristotle, and was more precise than the account offered by D. M. MacDowell, who had defined hybris as self-indulgent misuse of energy or power. In a number of areas of Greek literature, however, different interpretations of hybris have been and still are widely held; I wish here to suggest briefly how my account will stand in these areas as well.

It is a commonplace that Roman religion was less concerned with the spiritual well-being than with the political success of the nobiles. The gods were the symbols and guarantors of varying, aspects of Roman power; keeping them content was of paramount importance, and it was the nobiles who were in general credited with the ability to ensure the continuation of this state of affairs.

For well over 150 years commentators on Herodotus have raised the possibility of a connection between the Sigynnai and gipsies, sometimes on their own account, sometimes by reference to others. The latest is B. Virgilio, who cites Ph.-E. Legrand, who argues that the Sigynnai lived in what is now Hungary, and that their name is therefore linked with cigany, the Hungarian word for ‘gipsy’ (in German, Zigeuner). H. Verdin states that they are ‘sometimes' identified with gipsies, but warns that K. von Fritz regards the matter as very uncertain. F. H. Weissbach refers almost wearily to the prevalence of the theory;s R. W. Macan6 ascribes it to J. W. Blakesley; E. Abbot refers to it fleetingly; P. Bataillard propounded it in a series of studies between 1844 and 1885.

Never were more prophetic words penned than these of Friedrich Klingner. Many and various have been the interpretations put forth since then, and some of them have been very strange indeed. The reader who has duly confronted Coleman, Otis, Segal, Bradley, Wender, Wilkinson, Wankenne, Coleiro, Hardie, Joudoux, Wormell, Otis again, Parry, Putnam, Cova, Chomarat, and Stehle, feels dismay; perhaps despair. For some, the point of the Aristaeus and Orpheus episodes is political propaganda (so Coleiro: Gallus could have survived had he humbled himself like Aristaeus, the moral being the duty of subordination to the Princeps; so, rather differently, Joudoux: the poem is propaganda for the supremacy of Octavian, in terms of the threefold Indo-European structure ofDumezil). For others, it is moral (so, for instance, Wender: Orpheus turned away from the hard and morally ambiguous farmer's life, as lived by Aristaeus; Aristaeus gets bugonia as his reward, while Orpheus is dismembered and scattered in order to fertilize the earth); or religious (so Chomarat: the experience of Aristaeus is presented under the schema of initiation into a mystery religion); or political and moral (so Wormell and Otis: Aristaeus ‘stands for the sinful self-destruction, atonement and revival of the Roman people’; life emerges from death, ‘in political terms, the Augustan restoration from the anarchy of civil war’; ‘Aristaeus, it is to be presumed [sic], was induced to heed the lesson’).

The first two verses of Chapter 2 of Luke's Gospel are amongst the best known of the whole Bible, and historically amongst the most controversial. Luke refers to a census decreed by Augustus, of which we appear to have no other record, and implies that P. Sulpicius Quirinius was governor of Syria at some time around 6–5 B.C, the possibility of which has been much debated. This is all very odd, particularly since Luke is usually so careful with political background, if not with exact chronology, and is clearly trying in his account of the Nativity to place the event in its historical context, as well as to explain why Jesus was born in Bethlehem and not at the family home in Nazareth. One must assume that the details about the Nativity which Luke gives did at least make some sort of historical sense to his earliest readers, and yet the versions which we read so frequently can hardly be said to do so. But what exactly does Luke say? If we are to doubt the accuracy of his statements we should first be certain that we understand precisely what it is that he is saying.