In May 2013 a new Assisted Dying Bill was tabled in the House of Lords and is currently scheduled for a second reading in May 2014. The Bill was informed by the report of the Commission on Assisted Dying which itself was informed by evidence presented by invited experts.

Sed quid ego Graecorum: nescio quo modo me magis nostra delectant. Omnes hoc historici, Fabii Gellii sed proxume Coelius: cum bello Latino ludi votivi maxumi primum fierent, civitas ad arma repente est excitata … Quintus goes on to tell the story of the countryman's dream, with its divine warning about the ominous praesul, which is also related by Livy, Dionysius, Valerius Maximus, and Macrobius.

Provoked by Tom Geue’s recent book Author Unknown (2019), this article argues that a close reading of Calpurnius Siculus’ fourth Eclogue provides significant information about how and where the poet expected his poem to be received by its audience. Read against Vitruvius’ description of painted porticos and Diomedes’ account of the ‘common kind’ of poetry, in which ‘the poet himself speaks and speaking characters are also introduced’, the text was evidently designed to be presented as a performance, probably in the (...) imperial property on the Palatine. (shrink)

Asconius 63 , commenting on the pro Cornelio: Fuerunt enim plures Quinti Metelli, ex quibus duo consulares, Pius et Creticus, de quibus apparet eum non dicere, duo autem adulescentes, Nepos et Celer, ex quibus nunc Nepotem significat. Eius enim patrem Q.Metellum Nepotem, Baliarici filium, Macedonici nepotem qui consul fuit cum T. Didio, Curio is de quo loquitur accusavit … Cicero and his scholiast refer to ‘duo Metelli, Celer et Nepos’ but like Asconius do not specify their relationship. Celer himself, followed (...) by Cicero in correspondence with him, calls Nepos his frater, but since both bore the praenomen Q., this cannot be the whole story. Celer's career shows that he was the elder, yet Nepos senior, according to Asconius, entrusted his feud with Curio not to him but to Nepos iunior. (shrink)

The study of Greco-Roman civilisation is as exciting and innovative today as it has ever been. This intriguing collection of essays by contemporary classicists reveals new discoveries, new interpretations and new ways of exploring the experiences of the ancient world. Through one and a half millennia of literature, politics, philosophy, law, religion and art, the classical world formed the origin of western culture and thought. This book emphasises the many ways in which it continues to engage with contemporary life.

Sisenna Historiarum lib. iii: Lucium Memmium, socerum Gai Scriboni, tribunum plebis, quern Marci Livi consiliarium fuisse callebant et tune Gurionis oratorem … . Erat Hortensius in bello primo anno miles, altero tribunus militum, Sulpicius legatus; aberat etiam M. Antonius; exercebatur una lege iudicium Varia, ceteris propter bellum intermissis; cui frequens aderam, quamquam pro se ipsi dicebant oratores non illi quidem principes, L. Memmius et Q. Pompeius, sed oratores tamen, teste diserto utique [Jahn: MSS. uterque] Philippo, cuius in testimonio contentio et (...) vim accusatoris habebat et copiam. Reliqui qui turn principes numerabantur in magistratibus erant cotidieque fere a nobis in contionibus audiebantur …. (shrink)

The study of the republican Roman Senate was revolutionized by Professor Broughton's Magistrates, and to a lesser extent more recently by Professor Lily Ross Taylor's Voting Districts of the Roman Republic. Naturally, neither of these two great works rounded up all the available evidence without exception, and a considerable amount of mopping-up has been carried out. More remains to be done, however, and this article aims at providing some further information on republican senators, their tribes, and their origins, as an (...) addendum to M.R.R. and its Supplement, and the prosopogra- phical chapter of Professor Taylor's book. (shrink)

It is the almost unanimous opinion of modern scholars' that this man is M. Licinius Crassus. Manutius's explanation, that ex Nanneianis is a reference to Crassus' profiteering in the proscriptions and in particular to the property of one Nanneius, to be identified with the Nannius named as a proscription victim in Comm. Pet. 9, is accepted without hesitation.

I Should like to draw attention to two little-known inscriptions of republican senators; both men deserve notice in that each of them may illustrate the early stages of the recruitment of provincial senators, from Transpadane and Narbonese Gaul respectively.

Nothing is known of the poet Grattius except that he was a contemporary of Ovid. However, certain peculiarities in the text of hisCynegeticasuggest that he wrote for public performance, that the poem was presented atludi scaeniciwhere dancers and singers were performing too, that the Palatine temple of Apollo was probably where the event took place, and that the most likely occasion for it was one of the ‘quinquennial’ games celebrating the defeat of Cleopatra.

Some say that only 30 were seized, and that the Curiae were named after them, but Valerius Antias [fr. 3P] says there were 527, Juba [FGrH275F23] that there were 683. They were virgins, which was Romulus' main justification: no married women were taken – except one, Hersilia, by mistake - since it was not in wanton violence or injustice that they resorted to rape, but with the intention of bringing the two peoples together and uniting them with the strongest ties. (...) As for Hersilia, some say she was married to Hostilius, a very distinguished Roman, others that she was married to Romulus himself and even bore him children: one daughter, Prima, so called from the order of birth, and a single son, whom Romulus named Aollios after the crowd of citizens under his rule, though he was subsequently called Abillios [i.e. Avillius]. Many authors, however, contradict this account, which is given by Zenodotus of Troezen [FGrH 821F2]. (shrink)