David Braund

Anth. Pal. 9. 235: Juba II, Cleopatra Selene and the Course of the Nile

Who is the author of this poem and what is its historical context? Gow and Page are convinced that the author is Crinagoras. Manuscript authority, in the person of the so-called ‘corrector’, supports the attribution. Yet, at first sight at least, the attribution of this poem to Crinagoras raises something of a problem. It does so because the poem evidently relates to what seems to be a contemporary marriage linking the royal families of Egypt and Libya respectively: if the author is indeed Crinagoras, what marriage can this be? Only one such marriage is available: as Gow and Page accurately observe, ‘It is generally agreed that this epigram refers to the marriage of Cleopatra Selene and Juba II’.

Four Notes On The Herods

In JRS (1968), Shelagh Jameson discussed the relative chronology of the campaigns of Aelius Gallus and C. Petronius: her discussion has rightly met with broad acceptance. She argued that Petronius began his first Ethiopian campaign in or by autumn 25 B.c. , while Gallus began his Arabian campaign in or by August 26 B.C. and ended it in October or November 25 B.c.

Three Hellenistic Personages: Amynander, Prusias II, Daphidas

Amynander of Athamania first appears in our sources in 209 B.C. and last appears in 189 B.C. In whato follows I shall discuss two episodes from within this period.