This article argues that the Phaedo is written as a new sort of story of how a hero faces death. The opening of the Phaedo makes clear that two features that Plato closely associates with tragedy, pity and lamentation, are inappropriate responses to Socrates’ impending death, and that tuchē (chance) did not affect his happiness. This is the first step in the dialogue’s sustained engagement with tragedy. For Plato, tragedy falls under the category of stories about heroes and gods. Plato wrote the Phaedo so that we would see Socrates as a philosophical hero, a replacement for traditional heroes such as Theseus or Heracles. In fact, I argue that the Phaedo meets every requirement in Republic Books 2–3 for how to tell stories about heroes and gods and so belongs to the same broad category as tragedy. Within this framework, it tells the story of how a true hero saved his companions through philosophy.

The traditional understanding of Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics 8.3 requires emending the text at least two places, the more important of which changes the manuscripts’ characterization of the Spartans as “wild men” (ἄγριοι) to “good men” (ἀγαθοί). Neither emendation has any manuscript support and if they are rejected, we avoid some apparent philosophical problems. This article examines a new proposal to reject both emendations and argues that, despite the attractions of rejecting them, this chapter’s rhetorical and logical structure shows that they should be accepted. It also suggests a way to defuse the problems to which the emendations apparently give rise.

This paper argues that the notorious patrona virgo of Catullus 1 is a corruption of a codeswitch into archaic Greek, and that the evasive punchline of fluctus (H)ionios of 84 can also be found in the specialized knowledge of non-Attic Greek which the poet and his circle demonstrated.

The influence of Livy on Curtius Rufus is long established, but this relationship has mostly escaped recent critical reevaluation of intertextuality. This article explores two allusions to Livy’s Book 21 in Curtius’ Book 7. I argue that these intertexts contribute to the characterization of Alexander in terms of his clementia and fortuna by alluding to Hannibal’s somewhat different trajectories with respect to those virtues. Regarding Curtius’ engagement with Livy’s conception of fortuna in the Third Decade, I suggest that Curtius is responding to ancient notions about the transference of fortune between empires, still current in his own day.

The death of the Roman Emperor Julian provided Christians with the opportunity not only for the return of a line of Christian emperors, but also for the use of the emperor’s supposed last words as proof of the supremacy of Christ over all else. This article studies the different verba ultima attributed to Julian by Eutychianus of Cappadocia, Philostorgius, and Theodoret and argues that Theodoret willfully edited the emperor’s last words as part of his apologetic and polemical agenda, to develop the emperor further into a character that aptly transmitted the fatalism of paganism and the triumph of Christianity.

This note proposes an emendation to Callimachus Hymn to Artemis 28. The transmitted and universally accepted text poses three issues: (1) μέχρις ἵνα is pleonastic, (2) the optative ψαύσειε does not suit the sequence of tenses, and (3) the context seems to demand that Artemis does not touch her father’s beard. I suggest repunctuation of the preceding lines and reading μέχρι τέλος παύσειε.

A previously unnoticed Virgilian construction consists of (1) the adjective melior and (2) a grammatically independent clause, introduced by sed, that supplies qualifying circumstances. At Aeneid 10.735, where this melior … sed construction is cut off midstream, a loss of some lines is shown to be likely. Further evidence for this consists in the fact that the passage as it stands suffers from a gap in the battle-narrative. A future editor should print asterisks between lines 735 and 736.

I argue that a first-time reader of Propertius 4.4 has every reason to suspect that the hemiepes cum patuit lecto (42) sets the stage for a lascivious conclusion. Within the works of Propertius, every other instance of lect- with a compatible second-declension masculine termination indicates the noun “bed” rather than the perfect passive participle “gathered.” The reading of “bed” is further corroborated by a close-up on Scylla’s groin (inguina, 40) in the previous pentameter and Ariadne’s (alleged) sexual availability elsewhere in Propertius (1.3.1–2, 2.14.7–8).

Ovid Metamorphoses 14.81–83 and 15.464–66 display a repeated wordplay on ira, which corresponds to the anger of human beings and gods being depicted in those lines. This wordplay may relate to the broader background of epic μῆνις.

In this note, I offer a supplementary reading of lines 133–34 of Statius’ Achilleid, concerned with Thetis’ nightmarish visions that see her dipping Achilles for a second time into the river Styx. I argue that she visualizes herself as carrying the dead body of her son, and submerging him herself into the river’s awful waters. Moreover, while prevailing interpretations have primarily concentrated on the veiled joke lurking behind these lines (namely, that the goddess did not make her son fully impenetrable), I suggest seeing a more direct allusion to Achilles’ mortal destiny.

A sentence in Book 7 of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives states that, according to the Stoics, the four elements are “unqualified substance, i.e., matter.” Scholars have noted that this appears to conflict with the Stoics’ distinction between principles and elements. Different solutions have been proposed, from dismissing the sentence entirely to emending the text. This note proposes a new interpretation according to which the standard reading of the text can be retained.