卷 85, 编号 2 (2025)

The article considers a plot in Diodorus’ Book One, which tells about an unfair king named Amasis who reigned in Egypt nearly at the start of the historical New Kingdom and about an ‘Ethiopian’ (Nubian) ruler Aktisanes who defeated Amasis and replaced him as a beneficent king of Egypt. Probably, this Amasis corresponds to the historical Ahmose I, who ousted the Hyksos from Egypt; as for Aktisanes, his figure seems to be created with the help of Herodotus’ and Diodorus’ passages about another Nubian conqueror of Egypt, Sabacon (the historical Shabaka; Hdt. II. 137, 139; Diod. I. 65). The name-form Aktisanes was probably borrowed from the Nubian king Gatisen, who ruled at the time when Hecataeus of Abdera was writing his treatise on Egypt, which was later used by Diodorus’ for his Book One. The reason for this plot to replace the real reminiscences of Hyksos domination and expulsion was probably the evidence about Nubian attacks during the late Second Intermediate Period and negative attitude to Ahmose I in the Memphite tradition, triggered by his transfer of the capital of Egypt to Thebes. The latter motif was strong enough to manifest itself in the medieval Arab tradition.

This article deals with four prestigious objects – stone hammer-axes from the so-called Trojan ‘Treasure L’. The hypothesis that the surface of these objects was gilded, first suggested in The Gold of Troy exhibition catalogue (1996), is proved here through the methods of natural science. Based on these results, we propose reconstructions of the possible original appearance of the hammer-axes. In addition, we present some further observations on their archaeological context. All of this is intended to reveal possible connections between the hammer-axes and other objects from the ‘Treasure L’, and provide a clue of the place of the former in the material culture of Maritime Troy (Troy I–III).

The trial of the generals who won the sea battle of Arginusae in 406 BC was one of the most scandalous episodes of the history of Classical Athens. The event has been more than once treated in scholarly literature, but a number of its aspects still need clearing up. The first part of the article begins with a historiographical excursus; in particular, D. Gish’s recent large study, which is entirely devoted to the process, is critiqued in most detail and its serious shortcomings are pointed out. There follows an analysis of the prosopographical data concerning members of the board of generals in 407–406 BC. It is emphasized, inter alia, that the military leaders subjected to the trial were elected to replace Alcibiades who had been removed from the position of strategos autokrator in large part under the influence of emotions.

Public boundary stones (termini publici) are a special type of epigraphic sources that allow us to get an idea on boundaries demarcation between cities (civitates). Termini publici from the age of the Prinicipate were found on the territory of the Iberian Peninsula and are known also as termini augustales and termini pratorum. They help us to clarify the details of the organization and administration of communal territories in three Spanish provinces – Hispania Tarraconensis, Lusitania and Baetica. Termini publici also show the degree of involvement of imperial and provincial authorities in the work on land demarcation, from the Augustan era until the reign of Hadrian.

The paper deals with two passages from the Satisfactio by the fifth-century poet Dracontius, where the poet uses images of various animals, in particular that of a lion, as metaphors. The interpretation of the whole poem and its political subtext depends on how one understands the meaning of these comparisons: the predator serves as a model of mercy for the Vandal king Gunthamund, the poem’s main addressee. The origins of Dracontius’ metaphor are found in Ovid, whose Tristia can be considered the genre prototype for Satisfactio. However, it can be suggested that Dracontius was much more influenced ideologically and substantively by Ovid’s other work, the Metamorphoses, with its Pythagorean rhetoric, including criticism of any ‘carnivorous’ behavior.