A few years ago, in Greece & Rome of 1978, I recommended an approach to Pindar whereby he should be seen first in his more straightforward and simple compositions, on the grounds that an initial experience of the conventions of the epinician genre in odes for relatively unimportant people would both have immediate value for the understanding of those poems and also enable the student to use that familiarity at a later stage as a background for the understanding of the exotic and untypical compositions which celebrate the victories of the politically important, especially the Sicilian tyrants to whom the first three Olympians and the first three Pythians are dedicated.

The Cassandra scene in Aeschylus' Agamemnon occupies over 250 lines, yet scholars and critics, preoccupied with such large issues as the changing conception of justice in the Oresteia and the male/female and Chthonic/Olympian conflicts, have tended to give it relatively little attention. In a sense this is understandable: the scene in no way Advances the action of the drama, and critics who have learned from Aristotle that the ‘plot’ is the ‘soul’ of a tragedy might well feel that it is unnecessary to bother about a scene which could be omitted with no effect on the movement of the story. Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe that Aeschylus would have inserted so long and unexpected a scene in his play, just at the point when the audience would expect Agamemnon to be murdered, if it did not have an important dramatic purpose. Furthermore, in actual performance, Cassandra frequently rivets our attention more than any other character; on stage her scene can be the most gripping and affecting part of the play. In this essay I shall try to account for the powerful effect that the Cassandra scene has on the audience; then I shall discuss its place and function in the Agamemnon and the trilogy as a whole.

In 510 B.C. two of the most prosperous cities of the Western Greeks went to war. Croton was an Achaean foundation and the proverbially wealthy Sybaris was originally founded jointly from Achaea and Troezen; the immediate cause of the war seems to have been a local quarrel and is rather unclear, but there was a history of rivalry. The army of Croton was commanded by the hefty and redoubtable Milo who was appointed general after an astonishing record of success in the international wrestling ring (over thirty major crowns and five times a victor at all four great Games on ‘the circuit'). He now showed that he could be just as ruthless in a real battle and the results for Sybaris were disastrous; the city was destroyed, the inhabitants dispersed, and the site obliterated by the diversion of a local river, the Crathis. On two subsequent occasions the erstwhile citizens attempted with remarkable tenacity to refound Sybaris in the same area (by the second attempt, this must have been undertaken by the children and even the grandchildren of the original citizens), but Croton, still nervous of rivalry, successfully eliminated both attempts at settlement.

Of all Greek heroes, Theseus, few would deny, has the greatest claim to enshrine all the best qualities of the Athenian citizen, not least in his championship of the demos, celebrated by poets and painters alike of the classical period. It might seem at first sight contradictory to find in the same period in Athenian history an equally flourishing tradition concerning Theseus the heroic-age king. This ‘contradiction', however, as it might be perceived in abstract terms by a modern constitutional historian, would not have been felt so acutely, if at all, by a fifth-century Greek, for whom the ideas of monarchic rule and the heroic age were fundamentally connected. Our response to this type of problem owes more to the analytical method of such later works as Aristotle's Politics, with its thorough categorization of constitutions, and there is always the danger that we may impose on the Greek mythological imagination of the fifth century an unwarranted rigidity that fails to reflect the greater plasticity of the classical Greek mind. A review of the Theseus legend in fifth-century Athens reveals the extent to which such flexibility of attitude existed and throws some light on the classical attitude to one-man rule.

Starkie wrote of this scene (Ach.393–489) that it was ‘perhaps the most successful piece of Aristophanic burlesque in existence'. Recently Dearden has written that the rag-borrowing scene exists only for the sake of the Euripidean parody. ‘Euripides is introduced into the play (it becomes apparent) to provide Dicaeopolis with rags in which he can plead his case before the Acharnians – though before he actually speaks to them he finds it necessary to apologize for these very rags (498). The whole scene is an obvious and elaborate parody of the spirit of Euripides’ plays and in particular of his realism in dressing his heroes in rags and it can hardly be claimed that providing the rags is the main object: they are, rather, the means of satirizing elements of his tragedies.’ I agree that Aristophanes is making fun of Euripides here, of his parentage and personality, his tragic style and dramatic technique, his presentation of a hero who is crippled or blinded and dressed in rags. But there is more to be said for, and about, the scene than that it equips Dicaeopolis and mocks Euripides.

Thus Khaireas, on being deprived of the girl he loves by a legal obstacle. Menander is renowned as an author, perhaps even the inventor, of romantic comedy; and love triumphing over obstacles is a common feature of his plays. Usually the obstacle is a personal one, such as a father who refuses to permit a marriage (as in Dyskolos), and in Aspis too the difficulties are made by an unpleasant old man, Smikrines. But he has the law on his side, as Khaireas says. This speech, and the play as a whole, presents a sharper conflict between love and the law than we find elsewhere, and I believe that Menander's purpose here is a more serious one than has generally been realized.

Ancient writers ascribed Rome's political difficulties during the last century of theRepublic to failures of character, specifically to ambitio, avaritia, luxuria, and libido. Sallust gives the clearest and best known account in the introductions to his monographs on Catiline and Jugurtha. The danger of decline had already been noticed by Polybius, and he indicated one point for the beginning of the process: the destruction of Carthage in 146 B.C. (6.57; 38.21 f.). No longer confronted by the external threat, Romans could relax and give themselves up instead to greed, luxury, and personal ambition. Livy seems to have accepted the same turning point: the first fifty books were devoted to the expansion of Rome down to the destruction of Carthage; those that followed paid more attention to Rome's internal problems. At the same time, Livy was not unaware of the importance of Cn. Manlius Vulso's campaigns in the east and his return in 187 B.C. laden with the spoils which marked the beginning of foreign luxury, including such unmentionable instruments of corruption as pedestal tables and sideboards (39.6, 7).

When Aeneas wakes up and finds Troy overrun (Aen 2.298 ff.), he simply wants to die bravely, taking as many Greeks as possible with him. We are clearly meant by Virgil to consider this reaction inadequate to the realities Aeneas must face. There is enough in the structure of the poem and in Virgil's choice of words to leave us in no doubt about that. As K. F. Quinn says, ‘Aeneas’ surrender to impulse is as futile as Priam's pathetic, foolish gesture'. Aeneas says in retrospect that he did not have enough reason as he rushed into arms. As soon as he stops to think, he immediately becomes inclined to turn away from his mindless deathward career (559). Venus (589 ff.) confirms him in this new course, or returns him to it, by showing him the futility of any attempt at defence or revenge.

Readers of Martial may be struck by the frequency with which one-eyed people make their appearance in the epigrams. Sometimes the deformity is satirized in conjunction with a moral failing, as for instance in the case of the one-eyed drunkard (6.78) who prefers his wine to his eyesight (and so, by continuing to imbibe against medical advice, loses the vision of his remaining eye). On other occasions, the physical defect itself gives rise to a witticism which forms the focal point of the poem. A striking example is the neat couplet 3.8: ‘“Thaida Quintusamat.” “Quam Thaida?” “Thaida luscam.” /Unum oculum Thais non habet, ille duos’, where the erotic commonplace of the lover who is ‘blind’ to his beloved's faults is given a novel twist by the suggestion that Quintus must be literally blind to love the repulsive Thais.

Little attention has been paid to the implications of the form of the ancient book for literary, as opposed to textual, criticism until very recently. The Arethusa volume entitled ‘Augustan Poetry Books’ (13.1.(1980)) has begun to plug that gap and has provided the impetus for the present article. The ancient book as known to the Classical authors was very different from the vellum codex which superseded it under Christian influence in the Early Empire and in turn formed the model for the modern printed book. We wish to draw attention to one aspect of the papyrus roll which has important implications for the ancient writer and reader.