After a survey of the ways in which the figure of hyperbaton has been dealt with from Antiquity to present times, it can be noticed that the commentators that have approached the subject have based their considerations on three criteria, namely rhetorical, morphological-syntactic and stylistic. Whereas the first two allow, to a certain extent, a closed classification of the distinct figure types, it is obvious that the third can only have descriptive value when applied to the stylistic effects achieved by each single occurrence, only allowing an open classification. By adopting this criterion and taking into account some considerations made by Renaissance poeticians on the dispositio, we can conjecture about the existence of a specialised type of hyperbaton, following the onomatopoeia-alliteration pattern, that is allowing the material representation of content through form. A few examples taken from the Culex of the Appendix Vergiliana and from Lucan’s Pharsalia prove that this type of hyperbaton really exists in Latin literature.

When writing his Novo Epitome da Grammatica Grega de Porto-Real, composto na lingoa Portugueza, para uso das novas escolas de Portugal (Paris/Lisbon 1760), João Jacinto de Magalhães (1722-1790) has recreated more than one hundred of the mnemonics included in Lancelot’s Greek grammars (Abrégé and Méthode).In this article, the author intends to show that these versified rules by Magalhães, in accordance with the new teaching method introduced by Pombal’s Reform, have constituted an important aid in the learning of Greek in Portugal for more than a century, either through the author’s own grammar that had two editions (1760, 1814) or by means of other compendiums that have adopted them - at times with slight adaptations - or even recreated them.

After an overview of selected aspects of the relationship of patronage and clientele since the origins of Rome up to the republican period, this article focuses on the daily experience of clients in imperial Rome, as presented by Juvenal’s critical eye. It is with deep and unashamed irony that the author satirises several aspects concerning the obligations and privileges implied by the status of client: on the one hand, the extenuating wandering through the streets of Rome in order to pay the morning salutatio and the fierce competition for the tip at the patron’s door involving poorer clients, wealthy freedmen and even magistrates; on the other, the benefits conquered which comprised both the tip and a scarce and poor quality occasional meal at the patron’s house. These are some of the aspects which, according to Juvenal, bring about attitudes of despair, indignation and rebellion from those who, from a social standpoint, are dependent on another.

João de Barros who had an excellent knowledge of Classical Antiquity uses the prologues in Décadas da Ásia to put forward several concepts and positions that seemed adequate to his time and historical conceptions, but never refrains from including an array of references to both Latin and Greek literature that clearly show that not only is he familiar with these works but he also often adopts concepts that had been used by classical authors.

Among the several Portuguese authors that, in the second half of the 18th century, have translated and commented on Horace’s Art of Poetry, the author of this article has chosen the pedagogue Pedro José da Fonseca. Apart from illustrating the importance of Horace in the poetic theory of seventeenth-century Portugal, this study aims to prove that the Arte Poetica de Q. Horacio Flacco (...) Traduzida em portuguez e illustrada com escolhidas notas dos antigos e modernos interpretes e com hum commentario critico sobre os preceitos poeticos, liçoes varias, e intelligencia dos lugares difficultosos was the first work to reveal to the Portuguese public Horace’s poetic principles and, at the same time, to epitomise the neo-classical doctrine in Portugal. Through the analysis of excerpts taken from Fonseca’s text several literary topoi will be discussed: the conception of poetry as an imitation of nature, the dialectic skill/art, the imitation of Greek and Latin models, the relentless search for literary and aesthetic perfection, the observance of decorum and the social dimension of literature.

Interesting conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of Herrera’s commentary on Garcilaso, the Anotaciones. The first one is that, rather than a commentary, the Seville humanist has in fact composed a treatise on poetics focusing on elegiac poetry, maybe because he was concomitantly working on his much announced Art of Poetry. Similarly, we can assess Herrera’s deep and wide knowledge not only of classical authors and metre, about which he provides insightful remarks, but also of Italian and Spanish authors. He was also largely influenced by Julius Caesar Scaliger treatise on Latin poetics from which he draws ideas and classical references always displaying extraordinary ability to synthesise the numerous sources he resorts to. The supposed epistolary relationship between Herrera and Camões supported by references contained in the elegy he addresses to Camões is also of great interest.

With the play Domiciano, José Martins Garcia surveys some of Suetonius’s memories on the Flavian dynasty and the events surrounding its emperors. However, he prefers, as the title itself shows, to focus on Domitian’s personality, emphasising the emperor’s despotic characteristics that have been handed down by historical and biographical tradition. This option is closely linked with the author’s main objective: analysing the past to provide a critical insight into the contemporary world, thereby turning the play into a social document. Thus, contemporary symbols are prevalent in the work, though strategically masked by means of words and settings that depict the ancient world in order to reveal that the attitudes, vices and faults of the past tend to reappear in modern times.