This dissertation examines the relationship of the Latin poet Catullus to the preceding Latin poetic tradition, particularly to the pre-eminent figure of that tradition, pater Ennius. Classical scholarship has long thought the nature of this relationship settled: in a surge of r…
The purpose of my dissertation is to offer an alternative view on the impact of the army on the Italian economy with particular focus on the second century, the period between the end of the Second Punic War and the age of the Gracchi, a period of crucial importance for the Roma…
The nature of the Republican constitution has been much contested by scholars studying the history of the Roman Republic. In considering the problems of the late Republic, the nature of the constitution is an important question, for if we do not understand what the constitution …
The 1960's witnessed a great deal of activity in the excavation of classical period sites in the Levant, as well as some of the best work ever done in the area of ceramic chronology in these periods, with the publication of Paul W. Lapp's Palestinian Ceramic Chronology (1960). W…
Terracotta figurines with articulated or movable body parts represent a class of objects common to most parts of the Greek and Roman world during all periods. Such figurines existed in Greece from at least the 10 th century BC, became popular in Cyprus from the 8th century BC on…
Performing a sacrifice was one of the most sensorially full actions undertaken in the Greco-Roman world. The production and control of the correct movements, scents and sounds were prerequisites for summoning, communicating with and propitiating deities. Sacrifice was also ubiqu…
The chances that a Greek-speaking scholar had to gain power, wealth, and connections in Rome were dictated by how he identified himself with respect to the classical period of Greece. Those scholars who venerated the classical past of Greece and displayed their mastery of its li…
This dissertation examines the place of liminal animals in the thought of ancient Rome. Rather than attempt a systematic overview of this subject, I have written what amounts to three independent studies, each devoted to some particular liminal creature. Chapters One and Two are…
Much remains to be done in clarifying the nuances of Jewish identity in the Greco-Roman period. This dissertation advances the understanding of ancient constructions of Jewish identity through a study of the ways in which Jewish identity was expressed in pilgrimage traditions in…
In the last thirty years, there have been several important studies of public buildings, and particularly fora and their associated annexes, of Roman Britain and the Western Empire. Yet neither the older surveys and monographs nor the recent publications focus on the fora of Afr…
Although taxation in Jewish Palestine in the early Roman period (63 BCE to 70 CE) has been an important factor in the search for the "historical context" both of Jesus' ministry and of early Christianity, there is no comprehensive study of the subject. The present study seeks to…
While there have been a large number of studies of ancient armies and fleets, there has been little scholarship on joint operations between land and naval forces in the ancient world, otherwise known as amphibious operations. This dissertation examines the initial development of…
In this essay, I provide a synoptic look at the literary practices of eight different Greco-Roman groups active under the Late Republic and the Empire up to roughly the third century. The dissertation comprises five chapters, each of which centers on the literary habits of a gro…
A persistent difficulty for religion is striking a balance between religious law and the often conflicting demands of human government. In antiquity cult leadership was subservient to kingship, or the monarch was proclaimed divine. For Israel, however, God was king and the rule …
This dissertation studies the more than 1300 Greek and Latin inscriptions referring to divine communications received by individual worshipers in their dreams or waking visions, or else through unspecified divinatory media. Precisely 1300 of these—623 Greek, 677 Latin—are inscri…
This dissertation focuses on the role of fear propaganda in achieving consensus around senatorial war policy in Rome in the years 200–146 B.C. The study helps to explain why the citizen peasantry accepted the heavy burden of military service in the period of transmarine expansio…
Following the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BC Egypt experienced a gradual transition from an Egyptian to a Hellenistic administration. Egyptian law was recognised by the Ptolemies, but not by the Romans who adopted Hellenistic practice wholesale. This had major implica…
This dissertation examines inscriptions from the Roman and Late Antique Near East that ask the gods for salvation (hyper sôtêrias or pro salute) from the pre-Roman to the Christian period (100 BC–AD 800). The first part of the dissertation distinguishes between two types of insc…
The purpose of the study is broadly to reconsider the representation of the Gauls. Such work was pioneered by Bienkowski near the beginning of the century in his two important texts, Gallier (1908) and Celtes (1928). But Bienkowski and many who follow began with the supposition …