In this essay, I researched the Athenian attitudes towards same sex relationships between men during the classical period, a subject that was made popular in the 1970’s by James Dover. After a short introduction on how homosexuality was perceived and a thorough walkthrough of Aeschines speech Against Timarchus, I reached a better understanding of two main questions, the first being what the role of pederasty was, how boys were protected by the law and if the law was only meant to protect boys or also adult men. The second question being whether Timarchus was guilty of prostitution or the jury judged him wrongfully. Through using the method close reading of the speech, in which Aeschines accuses Timarchus of theft and prostitution, which the jury voted Timarchus to be guilty of, I try to answer those two questions. In the process, I also discuss Aeschines relationship with Demosthenes, the person who spoke in Timarchus favour. The conclusion I come to for the first question is that there were certain laws in place for pederasty, some of which must have protected the boys, but as other authors before me have pointed out also must have been in place to protect adults from being tempted to, what they considered, sin. For the second question, I conclude that Aeschines is lacking evidence of Timarchus' crimes of prostitution. Before Timarchus was put on trial he was about to prosecute Aeschines, which is a motive for Aeschines to get him banned from public speaking, a matter easily achieved by getting Timarchus judged guilty of crimes, I believe, were made up.

Since Ardashir’s victory over the Parthians in A.D 224 to his successors’ eventual defeat at the hands of the Arabs in 651 the Roman and Sasanian Empires had been bitter and deadly rivals. Throughout Late Antiquity the Roman-Sasanian relationship was dominated by competition; a constant battle for imperial prestige, military supremacy, cultural influence and economic advantage. In the course of their relationship Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital, was sacked by Roman forces, the Roman emperor Valerian was captured and taken prisoner, Julian the Apostate was killed by Sassanian forces in his infamous campaign of 363, and the great Roman city of Antioch had been captured and razed. Yet in this seemingly never-ending imperial struggle the fifth century stands out as a period of unprecedented peace between the imperial rivals. It is the aim of this thesis to analyse what made the fifth century a unique period of peace. This thesis seeks to expand on current scholarship on the fifth-century Roman-Sasanian relationship, which has focused on the investigation of specific and individual events, by taking a more holistic approach. In this regard, all aspects of the relationship, military conflicts, frontier zones, barbarian threats, religious issues, economic considerations and the development of diplomatic contacts, will be analysed in order to identify what pushed the two empires towards a peace and, more importantly, how this peace was maintained in the face of old hostilities and traditional antagonism. Viewing the Roman-Sasanian relationship as merely one part of the wider late antique world, not as something unique and separate, will also be a key component of this investigation. Central to the aim and approach of this thesis is the use of political realism, a theory for understanding international relations, to reveal the motivations and pressures that both empires faced in this period that pushed them towards peace. In this regard, it will be argued that the Roman and Sasanian overriding desire and goal of ensuring their own safety and security in an anarchic world in the face of the new and dangerous threats posed by the ascendant Huns, Hephthalites and Vandals was the underlying motivation behind the fifth-century peace. It was the threat posed by these groups that forced a shift in Roman-Sasanian relations towards the accommodation that both needed to survive the turbulent fifth century. As such, it was these new threats that stimulated the development of imperial diplomacy in the fifth century that allowed the two empires to mediate their traditional casus belli and maintain peace throughout this period. This diplomatic development allowed them to reach new and innovative diplomatic solutions to their problems in the frontier zones of Arabia and Armenia.

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The meaning of democracy was contested theoretical and political terrain in classical Athens. In this dissertation I examine three contending theoretical views of democracy found in the works of three Greek thinkers--Thucydides, Aeschylus and Plato--present at the height of Athenian democracy. I show that each view draws upon competing conceptions of nature, language, truth, and power in order to claim the contested terrain. I argue that the heroic view of democracy, portrayed in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, saw politics as the means by which states achieve immortal glory through feats of war which simultaneously destroy them. In this view political power was delivered by the unified voice--the single identity--of the Athenian assembly produced by the power of persuasion. I interpret the tragic view, represented by Aeschylus' Oresteia, to criticize the heroic tradition of politics as dangerously unbalanced. The Oresteia offers an alternative view of democracy in which multiple voices divided against themselves produce not weakness but balance as a shield against the loss of limits implied in the heroic view. I argue that the ambiguity of language, and the ambiguous identity it produces, is affirmed by tragedy to be a source of political strength and not a sign of political disintegration. The Platonic view articulated in the Republic opposes both the heroic view of politics and its tragic revision. I contend that the Republic, while appearing to oppose democracy, actually seeks to place it on a more secure foundation grounded in the logical concept of identity and rational thought applied to the soul. I argue that the Platonic attempt to found political order on the twin concepts of logical and psychological identity maintained by rational thought and language actually recapitulates on a grand scale the same dangers it identifies in its heroic opponents. And I suggest in conclusion that our Platonic legacy may effectively blind us to the dangerously heroic trajectory of the modern political state.

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<p>Rome’s Eastern trade flourished for over two centuries, from reign of Augustus to that of Caracalla, bringing highly valuable goods from India and East Africa to consumers in Rome, and this thesis examines the traders who operated in Egypt and transported goods between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Chapter 1 examines the identities of the traders, in terms of ethnicity, wealth, and social standing, and also examines the evidence for the involvement of the imperial family in the Eastern trade, while Chapter 2 analyzes the many different customs dues, transit tolls, and other taxes imposed upon Eastern traders operating in Egypt. Chapter 3 presents an analysis of customs abuses, including the forms of abuses which occurred, legislative attempts to curb abuses, and the frequency of abuses. Chapter 4 investigates the potential for profits in the Eastern trade, taking into consideration the various expenses, such as transport fees and customs dues, incurred in the course of transporting the goods across Egypt, as well as the evidence for the value of Eastern goods at Rome.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Scholarship dealing with the phenomenon of Christianisation in the Roman Empire has overwhelmingly been Christian-centred, often ignoring the importance of the declining pagan communities in the fourth century A.D. During this period of cultural and religious transformation in the Empire, the construction of religious identity by the Church resulted in the need for pagan communities to adapt themselves to a Judeo-Christian understanding of religion, in order to establish their place in an increasingly Christianizing society. Consequently, the isolation of pagans from, and their vilification within, the growing Christian world were factors that had aided the development of a pagan socio-religious identity which had not existed in previous centuries. Therefore, this paper will examine the question of what elements constituted the pagan identity in late antiquity, and, perhaps more importantly, how this identity had come to be formed.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)