By way of Introduction a survey is made of the various versiona of the Alexander Romance. The Romance, falsely attributed to Callisthenes, has its origins in the 3rd century B.C. Tue surviving versions, however, can only be traced back to an original of about 300 A.D. This original version (α) is represented by only one complete manuscript in Greek (?) und by a number of translations: Latin, Armenian Syriac and Ethiopic. Later Greek versions, generally known by the letters β, γ, ε and λ, constitute wholesale revisions of the text of the Romance. Two versifications of the Romance exist in Greek both of which seem to depend on both the α and the β traditions, though they are independent of one another. These are the Bysantine Alexancier poem and the Modern Greek poem in rhyme (the <u>Rimaca</u>) which is the subject of this study.

Hesiod’s Works and Days was performed in its entirety, but was also relentlessly excerpted, quoted and reapplied. This thesis places the Works and Days within these two modes of reading and argues that the text itself, through Hesiod’s complex mechanism of rendering elements self-contained and detachable whilst tethering them to their context for the purposes of the poem, sustains both treatments. However, Hesiod gives remarkably little advice on how to negotiate such modes of reading. The seeds of reception are there in the poem’s structure and formulation, but a fully worked out schema of usage is not. This thesis argues that this strategy is linked to the high value Hesiod places on self-sufficiency, which is consistently foregrounded in the Works and Days as the Iron-Age ideal. Hesiod’s emphasis on self-sufficiency creates a productive tension with the didactic thrust of the poem: teaching always involves a relationship of exchange and, at least up to a point, reliance and trust. This thesis argues that the poem’s structure and modes of reading reflect the interplay between self-sufficiency and the very point of didactic literature. Hesiod negotiates the potential contradiction between trust and independence by advocating not blind adherence to his teachings but thinking for oneself and working for one’s lesson. The issues are presented in an extensive essay, and then followed through the poem in a line-by-line analysis. This thesis complements the available commentaries on the Works and Days (West 1978, Ercolani 2010) by offering a sustained analysis of key aspects of the poem and by using the commentary format self-reflexively to track different ancient reading practices.

No description available.

This thesis is an investigation of Simonides' construction and problematisation of issues to do with the role of the poet in the world in which he lived, as manifested in parts of his own poems and in his subsequent ancient reception. Chapter 1: A new interpretation of the "Platea elegy" of Simonides. Simonides is shown fashioning a role for himself as a successor of Homer, especially the Homer of the Iliad. Simonides presents a reading of the Iliad which informs and validates his own pan-Hellenic rhetoric, thus creating an important document of the history of Hellenic identity and the "invention of the barbarian." Chapter 2: Simonides' encomiastic and epinician poems are largely lost however, through a new reading of Pindar's Isthmian 2 we can perceive traces of Simonides' engagement with the poetics of praise and changes brought about in the role of the poet through its reception in this problematic poem of his younger contemporary. Chapter 3: Simonides' reputation in antiquity is reflected in an anecdotal tradition rivalled in its interest perhaps only by that of Sappho. Close readings of varied texts, from canonical authors to sub-literary papyri, lexicographical and scholiastic sources, support an argument that reads this tradition as founded upon reception of Simonides' own work: in particular, his negotiation of developments in the role of the poet in the late archaic/ early classical period regarding the impact of changes in economic exchange and patronage. Chapter 4: Theocritus 16 uses the figure of Simonides as an important part of its exploration of the poetics of patronage in the early third century world. However, new papyrus fragments allow a more sophisticated and nuanced reading of his allusions to Simonides. Combined with a closely historical reading of Theocritus' engagement with the ideology of Hieron II's Sicily, these contribute to a reading of the poem which sheds light both on Theocritus' own presentation of the role of the poet in his time, and on Simonides' treatment of similar problems two centuries previously.

This thesis asks whether there is a role for weather in archaeological narratives. It reviews how other disciplines have developed a sense of climate that is embedded in the human experience of landscape. Then, through the case study of late eighteenth-century Mosser – a small township on the edge of the Cumbrian fells – the thesis examines how and whether experiential perspectives can be incorporated into studies of past climate-society interactions by focussing on weather. This is achieved through the production and comparison of three narratives of change: environmental, landscape and experiential. Existing palaeoclimate studies are examined and critically evaluated in the context of Mosser. An environmental model is constructed for Mosser using Martin Parry's method for identifying climate-caused abandonment on the Lammermuir Hills. A range of secondary sources are used to place eighteenth-century Mosser in historical context. Results from hedge, boundary and upland walkover surveys are analysed, and a combination of primary map and documentary sources are used to examine the Mosser landscape. An experiential narrative is developed from the diaries of Isaac Fletcher and Elihu Robinson, spanning 1756-1805. Qualitative statements on weather are translated into numerical records and compared with instrumental series. The diary entries are analysed to give insights on attitudes to weather in the early modern period. When the narratives are compared, sparsity of data and poor chronological resolution prevent close correlation of trends and events; causality cannot be established. Narratives only become united when interpretation moves away from cause and effect to describe how people's relationships with climate were transformed as part of a wider transition into modernity. The thesis concludes by reflecting on the wider implications of the case study, and it relates the experiences of the eighteenth-century diarists with current approaches to climate within archaeology. Overall, the thesis demonstrates that weather is a material condition of landscape – something as much open to archaeological investigation as any other aspect of the past.

This is the first extensive comparative study that systematically illustrates how Galen tailors his rhetorical strategies according to the genre of literature he is using. This study is part of a growing body of literature which attempts to address the over-arching question posed by Prof. van der Eijk in Toward a Rhetoric of Ancient Scientific Discourse-'How was scientific knowledge expressed and communicated in the ancient world?'. The particular aim of this study is to provide insight into the interrelationship between scientific knowledge, genre and rhetoric in the Galenic Corpus. To illustrate this, six Galenic texts were selected as exemplars of different types of scientific communication: protreptic, prolegomena, medical commentary, isagogic text, thesis and scientific treatise. Each exemplar is systematically analysed in respect to its understood objective, participants (author/audience), structure, language, level of explanation and the kinds of proofs used. This analysis is informed both by modern linguistic theory as well as by ancient definitions and practices of the aforementioned types of discourse. The format of this study lends itself to drawing comparisons between the aforementioned texts. This study illustrates how Galen is a skilled communicator who adjusts his authorial posture, arguments and stylistic register to a broad range of communicative situations and audiences.

Although, in the last twenty-five years, scholarship on women in Antiquity has explored gender issues from all conceivable angles, there has been no single study devoted to the phenomenon of the female group in the ancient world. The preoccupation with the female group, however, requires some explanation. This thesis offers an original contribution to the study of gender in ancient Greece in two important ways. First, the focus is on women in groups, rather than on women as individuals in Classical Athens. Second, I use theoretical models drawn from social psychology, social anthropology and sociolinguistics to underpin the study. These disciplines help us both to explain the preoccupation with the female group in the literature of the Classical period, and also to demonstrate the possible existence of a shared women's world constituting interaction between females in groups in the daily life of classical Athens. In the thesis, I propose a way in which the frequency of activity and interaction of women on a daily basis in classical Athens (Part 2) is responsible for the abundance of negative references and stereotypical depictions of the female group in the literature of the period (Part 1). For if we follow social identify theory, and conceptualize the categories of free-born women and citizen men in Classical Athens as two separate social groups, rather than simply aggregates of individuals, the dynamics between them offer us some fascinating inter-group insights. On the other hand, the women's world was visible enough for the men of Athens to have been aware of its existence, but, on the other, they were excluded from it. According to social identity theory, people rely on dominant schemata or stereotypes to describe groups other than their own, especially when they lack detailed information about them. The myriad references to negative female groups throughout the literature of the Classical period are the result of such a lack of knowledge and anxiety on the part of the male-dominated society.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.