This book contains twenty-six articles, including three hitherto unpublished, on a wide range of topics in Latin literature by R. G. M. Nisbet. Some handle literary themes with a historical bearing: Gallus' elegiacs on Caesar and 'Lycoris', rediscovered in 1978; the relation of Virgil's fourth Eclogue to Isaiah; Horace as an eye-witness of the battle of Actium; the causes of Ovid's exile and his poetic response. Other papers discuss Virgil's bucolic style; symbolism in Seneca's tragedies; how poems by Horace and Statius are coloured by the characteristics of their addresses. Articles on prose consider the reader's contribution to the understanding of Cicero's speeches and the use of rhythm to determine the punctuation of Latin sentences. Many textual conjectures are proposed on familiar Latin authors, notably Catullus, Horace, and Juvenal; other papers discuss Housman's Juvenal and 'how textual conjectures are made'. The book ends with a criticism of the current tendency to exaggerate the ambiguities of Roman poetry.

• Notes on Horace Epistles I


• Review and Discussion of K. Muller (ed.), Petronii Arbitrii Satyricon and W. V. Clausen (ed.) A. Persi Flacci et S. Iuni Iuvenalis Saturae; Felicitas at Surrentum (Statius Silvae 11.2)


• Virgil's Fourth Eclogue: Easterners and Westerners


• Notes on the Text of Catullus


• Elegiacs by Gallus from Qasr Ibrim


• Aeneas Imperator: Roman Generalship in an Epic Context


• Sidere Clarior (Horace, Carm. 3.1.42)


• `Great and Lesser Bear' (Ovid, Tristia 4.3)


• Horace's Epodes and History


• Sacrilege in Egypt (Lucan IX. 150-161)


• Review of D. R. Shackleton Bailey (ed.) Q. Horatii Flacci Opera


• The Oak and the Axe: Symbolism in Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1618 ff.


• Pyrrha among Roses: Real Life and Poetic Imagination in Augustan Rome


• Notes on the Text and Interpretation of Juvenal


• Footnotes on Horace


• On Housman's Juvenal


• The Dating of Seneca's Tragedies, with special reference to Thyestes


• Cola and Clausulae in Cicero's Speeches


• The Style of Virgil's Eclogues


• How Textual Conjectures are Made


• The Orator and the Reader: Manipulation and Response in Cicero's Fifth Verrine


• Adolescens Puer (Virgil, Eclogues 4. 28-30)


• Four Conjectures on Catullus LXIV


• The Survivors: Old Style Literary Men in the Triumviral Period


• Tying Down Proteus; the Limitations of Ambiguity and Cross-reference in Horace's Odes