This thesis examines the speeches in Herodotus' Histories, especially in books 5-9, with reference to overriding narrative themes like the self-other polarity (Greeks vs. barbarians/Persians), the themes of freedom and free speech, the relation of speech to power and authority, and the fragility of the Greek coalition. The thesis has a double aim. First, it seeks to present Herodotean rhetoric as an idiosyncratic system, which not only borrows and reworks traditional and contemporary components in a new form, so that they underpin broader narrative themes, but which also influences Thucydidean rhetoric and later rhetorical developments. Second, it investigates the extent to which Herodotean rhetoric can be used to re-evaluate Herodotus' narrative technique and to challenge the model of dialogism ascribed to the Histories. Chapter 1 sheds light on the problematic representation of both Greek and Persian debate in the Histories. It demonstrates the dangerous and slippery nature of rhetoric in circumstances where Greeks lack pan-Hellenic aspirations, with individualistic tendencies leading the way. The following two chapters turn to more specific speech genres, alliance speeches and pre-battle speeches. Through examination of examples of scheming rhetoric, dubious motives and power struggles, chapter 2 demonstrates the difficulty of achieving unity among the Greeks, while chapter 3 unveils the relative character of a type of exhortation which is partly stripped of lofty intentions, reflecting the delicate balance of the relationships between the Greeks. Both chapters 2 and 3 problematize the self-other distinction. Chapter 4 considers examples used in speeches and shows how they represent the circumlocutory nature of rhetoric in both Persia and Greece, as well as the slender Greek alliance. Chapter 5 looks at the implications of allotting speech to individuals and ethnic groups for the self-other distinction, the Greek coalition, and the relation of speech to power and authority.

This dissertation is a selective commentary on Antigonos’ Collection of Extraordinary Stories together with a translation, which, to my knowledge, is the first one into English. Antigonos’ collection is studied mainly from a Quellenforschung perspective; its chapters are compared with identical or similar reports as transmitted in parallel sources, with the aim of identifying the routes by which paradoxographical material circulated in Greek literature and science. The study attests a close association of Antigonos’ text with peripatetic sources beyond the compiler’s acknowledgements (above all with Theophrastos’ works on living creatures which appear to have been widely used, although not cited), as well as its compiler’s acquaintance with Hellenistic poetry and the works of several lost Greek historians (Ktesias, Theopompos, Timaios, Amelesagoras, Myrsilos of Methymna, Lykos of Rhegium). Another contribution of this study is the examination of Kallimachos’ prose work on paradoxa, as transmitted by Antigonos, in the context of the Hellenistic paradoxographical tradition. The emphasis of my analysis is on Antigonos’ collection as a piece of derivative literature and on the merits of the paradoxographical tradition as illustrated by this text. A close examination of the text not only reveals the author’s compositional methods and erudition, but also offers a valuable insight into some aspects of the Greek interest in the marvellous.

The purpose of this thesis is to publish and so make available for scholars and others interested in Roman and Byzantine Egypt 32 documentary papyri, dated from 107 AD to the early 7th century, which are part of the Oxyrhynchus collection belonging to the Egypt Exploration Society. The papyri cover a range of subjects. The summonses (03 to 09) and declarations of uninundated or artificially irrigated land (010 to 014) are documents of which many examples have already been published; they confirm, clarify and expand information gleaned from other documents. Contracts between private individuals for irrigation works (01) and leasing a workshop and mill (02) are more unusual, as is the agreement under which town councillors share out their liturgical duties (017). A letter concerning the corn dole (015) and a complete list of Oxyrhynchite praepositi pagorum (016) also relate to Oxyrhynchite administration. Three circus programmes (018 to 020) double the number of such documents known and include a number of words not previously attested in papyri. The last twelve papyri relate to aspects of administration and life on the large estates of Byzantine Egypt, mainly those of the well-attested Apion family; they include contracts of employment of a door-keeper and a rent-collector (021 and 022) and documents relating to the collection of rents (023 and 024) and payment for wine (025). 026 to 031 concern monasteries, two of which, Abba Petros and Abba Castor, are previously unattested; the latter is also listed as a payer in 032. All contribute to the picture of social and economic conditions in Roman and Byzantine Egypt built up by previous scholarship. The conventions used are those required for publication in the P. Oxy. series, although the commentaries which follow are much more detailed than is usual in such volumes.

This thesis focuses on the reception of ancient Greece and Rome in the literature of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, essayist and playwright Albert Camus. It will argue that Camus’ relationship to the ancient world is a confluence of the traditions of European literature and philosophy and the cultural discourses of colonial French Algeria. It also argues that Camus’ interest in the ancient world is representative of broader patterns of reception as a form of identity creation and further explores the specific role this played in colonial societies. Camus wrote essays that engaged strongly with concepts of Greek myths, like Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942) and L’Homme révolté (1951), in other essays such as l’Été (1953), he wrote more generally about the idea of Greek values as a solution to the problems of modernity. He also wrote a play, Caligula (1942), based on the life of the Roman Emperor as well as early essays about visits to Roman ruins, published in Noces (1938). Greco-Roman antiquity was a continuous presence in his literature and imagination, from his University Diploma to works he was drafting at the time of his death in 1960. This aspect of his work has however received little critical attention. This thesis argues that to understand the importance of the ancient world in Camus’ literature one has to view it as a product of his relationships to his most importance influences and the literary culture in which he wrote. It will discuss Camus as part of a continuum of ideas about the ancient world that is subtly shaped and altered by its use in French Algeria, and how his relationship to Greece and Rome highlights critical aspects in the development of his thought. A study of Camus allows one to explore a number of questions about the lasting fascination with ancient culture in the consciousness of modernity.

In this thesis, we revisit a longstanding problem, the relationship between Homer and the fragmentarily preserved post-Homeric narrative poems of the so-called Epic Cycle. The approach adopted has affinities with the school of criticism known as Neoanalysis, which, originating in continental Europe as an alternative to the Parry- Lord oral-formulaic theory, sought to explain irregularities found in the Homeric text by assuming re-contextualisation of motifs taken from pre-Homeric epics which were often identified with either written versions or the oral predecessors of the Cyclic epics. Rather than Quellenforschung, however, our emphasis is on Homer‟s interactive engagement with the mythopoetic traditions which were eventually crystallised in the Epic Cycle. And where scholars have so far tended to focus on the inadequacies of the Cyclic epics in the form in which we have them or to consider the complexity that the poems exhibit in presenting Achilles and Odysseus to be later development, our interest is less in the epics themselves, either as aesthetic or as cultural phenomena, than in the poetic strategy through which the Homeric poet, in seeking to position himself within a competitive context of an oral performance culture, engages with this traditional complexity creatively, both synergistically and agonistically. CHAPTER ONE sets the scene by exploring what one may call circumstantial or situational rivalry between epic poets and, on the basis of a review of the evidence, both ancient and comparative, proposes that the circumstances of an early singer- poet were such that they encouraged the emergence of a high degree of competitive interaction among known individuals with a strong interest in personal fame. CHAPTERS TWO and THREE, shifting their focus from context to texture, explore how complex and manifold mythopoetic traditions about Achilles and Odysseus find their way into the narrative fabric of the Iliad and the Odyssey, respectively, through a sophisticated and self-reflexive type of poetic interaction that includes both compliance and contestation with the wider epic tradition. The competitive dimension of early epic storytelling has in the recent past been either overemphasised or seriously underestimated. This thesis argues that early epic competition, though much less pronounced than often assumed, is reflected in the artistically ambitious refining and distillation process that the Iliad and the Odyssey develop in adjusting divergent mythological and poetic traditions to their own idiosyncratic presentation of Achilles and Odysseus. A close intra-generic reading of the Homeric text and the fragments of the Epic Cycle in the light of suggestive evidence we have for the phenomenon of epic competitiveness can ultimately contribute to a critical understanding of the dynamics of the early Greek epic performance and of Homer‟s position within it.

The present thesis is concerned with the hermeneutic significance of a recurrent, yet understudied, plot element in fifth-century drama: the staged encounter between the living and the dead. The investigation is organised in three chapters based on the three motifs whereby this encounter is achieved – necromancy, katabasis, and spontaneous ghost-apparition. Each chapter starts with an introductory discussion about the archaic and classical representations of the motif under examination in eschatology, culture, literature, and art, and then proceeds to a thorough study of its dramatic occurrences in tragic and comic plays, both extant and fragmentary. Chapter one focuses on necromancy, namely the practice of summoning the dead temporarily in order to consult them, and examines four of its dramatic treatments: the evocation of the dead Darius in Aeschylus’ Persae, the dramatisation of the Homeric Nekuia in Aeschylus’ fragmentary Psychagogoi (frr. 273-278), the necromantic prayer preserved in Euripides’ fr. 912, and the narrated scene of Peisander’s necromantic experience in Aristophanes’ Birds (1553-1564). Chapter two investigates instances of katabatic journeys, namely infernal descents performed by the living. Katabasis is examined through the dramatisation of Peirithus’ mythical descent in Euripides’ fragmentary Peirithus, as well as its offstage use in Euripides’ Heracles. However, comedy occupies the largest part of this chapter, as the motif is conspicuously treated in Aristophanes’ Frogs, while it also appears in a number of fragmentary plays – Aristophanes’ Gerytades, Eupolis’ Demoi, and Pherecrates’ Metalleis and Crapataloi. Chapter three shifts the emphasis onto the motif of the spontaneous ghost-apparition, which is undertaken by unburied (ataphoi) and violently killed (biaiothanatoi) individuals, as well as cultic heroes. These restless dead, who intrude uninvited upon the territory of the living to communicate claims and desires, are exemplified by Clytaemestra in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, Polydorus and Achilles in Euripides’ Hecuba, and the chorus of heroes in Aristophanes’ fragmentary Heroes. The aim of this investigation is not to offer a commentary on the plays examined; nor does it aspire to reconstruct contemporary eschatological ideas by extracting what seems to be a historic core from the dramatic material. Rather, by employing Greek eschatology as a stepping-stone to literary exploration, it attempts a new reading premised on the fact that the dramatised encounters between the living and the dead are far from decorative and incidental. They are organically integrated into the plays, thematised, and endowed with a significant dramatic role, participating actively in the construction of form, structure, and meaning.

This doctoral dissertation investigates poetic representations of Augustus as divine during the formative stages of the Roman imperial cult. The dissertation takes the form of a philological study of poetry, but the intersection between literature and material culture (such as coinage, art, and architecture) runs through the project. Methodologically, this thesis falls within the framework of new historicism – finding meaning for poetic images in their relation to the world outside the text; and the thesis seeks to make connections between poetic texts and political and religious history. This dissertation, in short, challenges the prevalent view of White (1993: 169- 70) and Gradel (2002: 110) that poetry does not meaningfully engage with the development of the divine status of Augustus. I argue that the works of Vergil, Horace, and Propertius provide important insights into the way Octavian/Augustus fashioned divine images for himself, and that poetry elicits near-contemporary discussions of the prospect of Augustus’ deification. This dissertation does not purport to be a study of the textual sources for the cult of Augustus, but rather an attempt to reassert the full integration of poetry into political debate and cultural activity. In this reading, poetry itself becomes a cultural technology for, or a challenge to, deification. Chapters 1 and 2 focus on Octavian’s various divine personae during the civil war period through the lens of Vergil’s Eclogues and Georgics. Chapters 3 and 4 concentrate on Horace’s Odes 1-3 and Propertius 1-3, and argue that the poets in the early years of the Principate continued to conceptualise Augustus’ power in divine terms, even though the practice of depicting Augustus as divine came to a halt in official art. Chapters 5 and 6 study the dynamic between Aeneas, Apollo and Augustus in Vergil’s Aeneid and Horace’s Carmen Saeculare. Finally, Chapters 7 looks at book 4 of Propertius, examining in particular the elegist’s response to the connection between Apollo and Augustus in contemporary literature and elsewhere, as well as the poet’s anticipation of the formal deification of Augustus.

This dissertation explores the relationship between the poetry of Vergil and the texts and doctrines of the Epicurean poet and philosopher Philodemus in the light of papyrological evidence confirming Vergil’s association with Philodemus and his Epicurean school on the Bay of Naples. I show that Vergil engages extensively with a wide range of Philodeman intertexts in the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, and suggest ways in which an appreciation of these interactions may inform our interpretations of Vergil’s poetry. I argue that Philodemus’ views on ethics and poetics, his epigrams, and his Epicurean exegesis of Homer are all reflected in Vergil’s works, multiplying its interpretative possibilities. Although Vergil appears to engage in a close dialogue with Philodemus throughout his poetic career, I find that he is by no means a doctrinaire student, but an intelligent and at times combative reader of his teacher’s texts and doctrines. My first chapter discusses Philodemus’ life in Italy, his surviving works, and his influence within Roman society, before reviewing the evidence for Vergil’s Epicurean education under Philodemus. In the next chapter I argue that Vergil’s conception of poetry in the Eclogues and the Georgics was shaped to a large extent by the Epicurean theory of poetry elaborated in Philodemus’ treatises On Poems and On Music. My third chapter analyses Vergil’s representation of anger throughout the Aeneid in the light of Philodemus’ treatise On Anger. I suggest that Philodemus’ theory of anger provided an important model for Vergil’s characterisation of a range of major figures, including Aeneas, Turnus, Dido, Amata, Juno, Mezentius, and Nisus and Euryalus. In the fourth and final chapter I examine Vergil’s interaction with a number of possible Philodeman intertexts in the Carthage episode in Aeneid 1 and 4, through which he appears to invite an Epicurean reading of the values and motivations of the Carthaginians and the Trojans.

This thesis is to my knowledge the first full-length examination of Evagrian apatheia. Chapter One contextualises Evagrian apatheia by outlining Evagrius' cosmology and anthropology. Attention is drawn to the centrality within them of the distinction be-tween unstable and stable movement and to Evagrius' characterisation of apatheia and empatheia in these terms. Apatheia, as the stable movement of the soul, is noted to be the foundation for the transformative contemplation by means of which the fallen nous re-ascends to union with God. The anthropology section describes Evagrius' understanding of the nous, soul, body and heart. Chapter Two examines the psychology and phenomenology of empatheia. Section One focuses upon the logismoi, discussing what Evagrius means by the term logismos, noting the inherence of pathos to the logismoi, explaining his concept of the 'matter' of the logismoi and discussing his eightfold classification of 'most generic logismoi'. Section Two focuses upon pathos, discussing the meaning of the term within Greek philosophy, how Origen understands it and how Evagrius himself understands it. It then discusses the cognitive 'building blocks' of the logismoi, the empathē noēmata and the arousal of pathos. Section Three describes the phenomenology of empatheia. Chapter Three establishes that the subject of apatheia is the tripartite soul in its entirety, then adduces evidence for apatheia's being the stable movement of the soul. It then dis-cusses Evagrius' spiritual characterisations of apatheia – first as death and resurrection and then as love and knowledge, the latter including practical moral knowledge as well as knowledge of transcendent realities. The holistic, embodied nature of spiritual knowledge as understood by Evagrius is emphasised, as is the inseparability of knowledge from love. His understanding of apatheia is shown to be profoundly Christian, and in particular Pauline. Following a discussion of how apatheia is attained, the chapter concludes with a summary description of apatheia as understood by Evagrius.

The dissertation enquires into some of the forms that the reception of ancient Greek tragedy took in England between 1660 and 1760. It looks at those critics and translators who engaged most with ancient Greek tragedy and whose engagement was accompanied by an interest in ancient theory and native English literature. Chapter 1, after examining works by George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmershe, Thomas Goffe, Thomas May and Christopher Wase, considers William Joyner’s original tragedy The Roman Empress (1670) in order to see what use Joyner made of Sophocles’ Oedipus and Euripides’ Hippolytus and Medea. Chapter 2 turns to the writings of, especially, John Dryden, Thomas Rymer, John Dennis and Charles Gildon, who were the most prolific and interesting commentators on dramatic theory in England at this time, and assesses their different perspectives on the questions of tragedy and the modern stage. Chapter 3 addresses separately comments on ancient Greek tragedy contained in Jeremy Collier’s attack on contemporary English theatre in A Short View of the Immorality, and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) and in replies to him. Chapter 4 concentrates on Lewis Theobald’s translations of Sophocles’ Electra (1714) and Oedipus (1715) and how his views of ancient Greek tragedy influenced, and were influenced by, his interest in Shakespeare, an edition of whose plays he published in 1733. Chapter 5 examines Thomas Francklin’s The Tragedies of Sophocles and A Dissertation on Antient Tragedy (both 1759) and how they reflect his interest in the contemporary stage and contemporary ideas about the value of simplicity in literature and art. I argue that the writers I examine reflect through their engagement with Greek tragedy ideas about the relationships between ancient and early modern English tragedy, particularly that of Shakespeare, and between the present and the past.