have profited immensely from her acute responses. I have been very fortunate to
have such friends assist me in this way. Finally, a debt of gratitude is due to another
friend, Nicholas Horsfall, who has also commented on drafts, and who showed an
interest in this project from the start, when it was still inchoate; over the last five
years he has responded instantly to my queries and trial balloons, selflessly pro-
viding help and lines to follow up from his deep store of learning. None of the peo-
ple mentioned here can be responsible for the use I have made of their generosity,
but I know how much they have improved the book.Acknowledgment is due to Carcanet Press for kind permission to quote from
Les Murray’s poem “The C19 – 20,” from “The Sydney Highrise Variations,” in
Collected Poems(Carcanet Press: Manchester, 1991).
Abbreviations of periodicals follow the system ofL’année philologique;citations
of works and collections follow the system ofThe Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd
edition.
I have taken over from Burkert (1995) the valuable convention of enclosing in
quotation marks modern dates when they are used to correspond to an ancient
author’s system, as opposed to when they are used to give a date within our frame
of reference. Thus I speak of Cicero referring to the events of “59 b.c.e.” (the con-
sulship of Caesar and Bibulus), whereas Robert Kaster refers to the events of 59
b.c.e.xiv. preface
UC_Feeney (N).qxd 3/13/2007 3:23 PM Page xiv