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Aristotle describes reason and desire as working so closely in tandem that one can hardly be separated from the other (De An. 433a9-12; 433b21-30). One might even speak of them, under ideal circumstances, as one and the same. Our task here is to show that, unlike for Aristotle—for whom desire is distinct enough from reason that it can sometimes move in the opposite direction—the unity or reason and desire is not just an ideal state of affairs for Seneca. It is as nature preordained that reason and desire should be inseparably joined.

This paper enquires about Aristotle's treatment of body sense; by 'body sense' is meant cognition of the state of our bodies, such items as itches, chills, hunger, cramps etc. At first it seems that Aristotle takes very little account them, and even fails to realize that – just as he has provided an account of perception of external objects – he owes us an account of this province of consciousness as well.

In the Hippias Minor, Socrates raises the question whether liars have the power to do something or nothing (365d). In general, cases such as telling a lie raise the question whether agents have the power to do actions that are wrong, incorrect, or otherwise such that a good person would not want to do.

Thanks to the studies of Ahl, Davis, and Pomeroy and McGuire, it is widely acknowledged that Silius Italicus invites readers of his Punica to reflect on Rome’s history of civil strife. Scholars have since identified many references to civil war and allusions to texts dealing with the topic (especially Lucan’s Bellum Civile) and have shown that civil war is indeed a wide-spread preoccupation in the Punica (e.g., Dominik, Fucecchi, Marks 2008, 2010, Tipping).

It has long been understood that the Argonauts’ battles against Cyzicus and Perses in Books 3 and 6 of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, respectively, are narrative doublets (Schenk). The poet reduplicates the conflicts in structure and tone, providing Jason and his crew with two eerily similar opportunities to display their martial recuperation (Hershkowitz; Stover) against enemies eerily similar to themselves.

For the Romans in particular, the Argonauts’ voyage was the prisca fraus (Verg. Ecl. 4.31) that led to the end of the Golden Age (Davis, Fabre-Serris). Multiple poets confronted the Argonauts’ association with and responsibility for this crime against the natural order of things, drawing explicit connections between mankind’s violation of the sea and later human crimes of internecine strife and civil war.

Literary treatments of civil war inevitably reflect on the concepts of self and other, perhaps nowhere more explicitly than in Statius’ epic about fraternas acies (Theb. 1.1). In this paper, I argue that the negotiation of these concepts comes especially to the fore in episodes of embassy, when the actors are expected to mediate opposing points of view to the advancement of their side’s interests.

Among the finds uncovered at Pergamon in the 1890s by the German archaeological team of Conze and Humann is a unique set of objects: three slices taken from two Neolithic stone hand axes, which bear nearly identical inscriptions composed of numinous characters and words of power. The magical nature of these inscriptions, dated on the basis of letter-forms to the 2^nd/3^rd c. CE, suggests that these axes were reinterpreted in the Roman Imperial period as amulets.

The study of ancient magical gems has in recent years been greatly augmented by efforts to publish some of the largest collections since Bonner (1950) and Delatte and Derchain (1964). The publication of the British Museum collection (Michel 2001), various Italian holdings (Mastrocinque 2003, 2007) and now the re-editing and publication of an expanded Paris collection (Mastrocinque 2013 forthcoming) are but the latest examples. Such abundance of data has also brought with it the challenge of applying traditional research techniques to such a large body of data.

Inscribed amulets from Syria-Palestine have been examined from many different angles, but they lack a comprehensive study. Two hundred and five published amulets from Syria-Palestine have been dated to the Roman and late antique periods, including both those with clear archaeological context and those with only reported provenance. Most common among these amulets are inscribed gemstones (128), followed by amuletic jewelry (45), and metal lamellae (32).