Thesiss

This dissertation analyzes growth and graduality in Vergil’s Bucolics . In the Bucolics , Vergil unifies various forms of growth, defined in this study as increase over time. There is the growth of organic life forms—that is, the move towards biological maturity that occurs over…

Histories of medicine in the ancient Greco-Roman world have traditionally been centered on elite men, despite elite men representing only a small portion of medical practitioners in the ancient world. While recent studies have begin to correct this picture, ideas of folk and eli…

After Rome conquered Egypt, Egypt invaded Rome. Or so it would seem, judging from the explosion of Egyptian-inspired art in Rome beginning in the mid-first century BC—including a host of Egyptian motifs incorporated into Roman wall painting. These motifs are based on pharaonic a…

This dissertation argues that late medieval English literature depicts Rome and Italy with the same cultural anxieties found in works that imagine the Muslim world. Although partially Orientalizing Rome and Italy, however, the alliterative Morte Arthure, John Lydgate's Fall of P…

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 purpose of this dissertation is to shed new light on the frescoed friezes painted under the papacy of Paul III (1534-1549) in three rooms of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline hill in Rome--the Sala del Trono, the Sala delle Oche, and the Sala delle Aquile. Subje…

The thesis sets out to examine conceptions of time and space, individual and social identity, and their relation to ideological structures and constructive practices, both as employed at Rome, and in their effect on modern attitudes to ancient Roman society. Chapter One: explore…

This thesis looks at the nature and evolution of communal responses to socio-economic problems in imperial Italy and Gaul. Ancient analysis of this topic tended to view any popular expression of discontent as the result of the moral failings of the plebs, or, somewhat more gener…

This thesis explores ancient ideas regarding the constructive properties of intoxicating drinks, as presented in Greco-Roman sources from the first to third centuries AD. In doing so, it responds to Mary Douglas' Constructive Drinking (1987), which emphasised that, contrary to a…

Roman gender was often defined and regulated visually – that is, if and under what conditions a woman or man appeared in public, through personal appearance, or through representations in art or literature. In this discourse on gender, the gaze (especially the public’s) was thus…

Ancient Rome had a longstanding history of conflict with Eastern queens beginning, before its very foundation, with Dido and most famously exemplified by Cleopatra. Literature suggests powerful women from the East were particularly feared and loathed. Yet the Palmyrene ruler Zen…

This dissertation is a detailed study of the first book of the Bibliotheke of Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian from the mid-first century BCE. Traditionally, scholars have studied Diodorus with the purpose of identifying and reconstructing the now-lost histories that he used …

Prior to the addition of Egypt to the imperial state of Rome, the presence and influence of Roman culture in Egypt was not as strong as it was in other regions surrounding the Mediterranean. Under Augustus’ rule, Egypt was added to Rome’s growing empire and the grain which grew …

The political uses of Italian opera during the turbulent decade that culminated in the revolutions of 1848-49 is a familiar topic, but one that in recent years has come under more rigorous and critical scrutiny. This dissertation enters the scholarly conversation by examining th…

This dissertation provides an in-depth analysis of the evidence for the cults of Syrian-Phoenician gods in Rome, and contributes to an understanding of their significance as "alternative" religions within the urban culture of the city during the imperial period. The introduction…

The purpose of this study was to locate the source from which the Western Christian Church borrowed the practice of ringing bells at Christian shrines that is evident at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome in the mid-eighth century C.E. Four major religious shrines, the fifth-century B…

The thesis aims to observe the function of Paul's dual citizenship in the narratives of Acts. Luke reports Paul's status as a Tarsian and a Roman citizen. However this conflicts with the account of Paul's origins mentioned in his own letters. After surveying Paul's origins in hi…

This dissertation provides a wide-ranging analysis of the socio-economic life of the non-elite urban population of Rome and their interactions with the institutions and administration of the city from 275 until 455 CE. The traditional view holds that during this period the life …

Up until now Marsian cultural identity has been approached from an old-fashioned theoretical angle of autoromanizazzione (“self-Romanization” or “emulation”). This perspective was one response to the unsatisfactory explanation of the previous paradigm (“Romanization”) to assess …

The Cilician Pirates dominated the Mediterranean during the late second and early first centuries B.C. Their homeland, Cilicia, was a rugged and tough mountainous region, and as such they expanded into the unguarded and unpoliced eastern Mediterranean waters, plaguing shipping l…