Lucius Cornelius Sulla wrote an autobiographical account of his controversial career which, although it was left incomplete on his death in 78 BC, nonetheless had an incalculably significant influence on writers during the subsequent centuries. The Autobiography has not survived intact, but the twenty-three remaining fragments reveal a great deal about the original structure and contents of the work. Through the medium of commentaries on each of the fragments, this thesis considers the function and role of this lost text in Sulla’s self-representation strategy. Sulla was a man who was intensely interested in and concerned with managing the ways in which he was perceived both by his contemporaries and by posterity; although the evidence for this strategy is diverse and problematic, it is nevertheless possible to reconstruct the most important ways in which Sulla engaged with different groups. Through coinage, inscriptions, monuments, and nomenclature, Sulla exerted great effort in establishing a public image of himself as a man favoured by the gods, justified in his actions, and whose actions had brought great prosperity to Rome; this was so intricate and thorough that it can be termed ‘propaganda’. It was in the Autobiography, however, that Sulla was able to develop these themes. By presenting a comprehensive reconsideration of his life and career, Sulla was able to create a complex character portrait of himself, and engaged in self-justification, confronting many of the negative interpretations of his actions that had already begun to develop. Through analysis of the fragments of the Autobiography, therefore, this thesis asks important questions concerning the nature of self-representation and propaganda in the late Republic and the role of religious discourse within political negotiation in this period, and offers new insights into the intellectual world of Rome in the early first century BC.

This thesis is concerned with freedom of speech in early imperial Rome. The creation of the principate meant that the emperor held absolute power based on military force, but there is no comprehensive survey of how this affected freedom of speech. This study therefore examines relevant primary sources, approaching the question through three areas - controls imposed by the emperor through law and force mqjeure, self-censorship and peer pressure among the elite, and popular political protest. Most of the evidence presented is literary, reflecting the interests and concerns of the elite authors and their intended audience, though where relevant reference is made to inscriptions, graffiti and dipinti. The thesis considers the hierarchical, status-conscious nature of Roman society, arguing that concern for social standing affects all communication. Although there are incidents of control imposed by the emperor or his representatives, peer-to-peer pressure has a greater impact upon freedom of speech. Communication is affected by the status of the speaker, the audience and the occasion. The distinctions between "public" and "private" speech differed significantly from modern conceptions. This means that protocols arose for dealing with potentially offensive subjects - insult, criticism and obscenity - so that offence was minimised and social relations could continue harmoniously. This argument is developed by an exploration of political communication between senate and emperor, especially the importance of the differing relationships between the emperor and individual senators. The study concludes by exploring informal and popular protest at Rome, through gossip, demonstrations at ludi and munera, and through graffiti and pamphleteering. Even here, concerns for status and personal relationships with the emperor explain the forms protests take. This study aims to extend existing work and re-examine assumptions commonly made about freedom of speech, or its lack, in early imperial Rome.

This thesis deals with the interpretation of the first-century AD Roman emperor Nero as the Antichrist in Christian works of late antiquity and the nineteenth century. Many scholars in recent decades have argued that Nero occupied a pivotal place in apocalyptic literature, based on literary evidence from the early Christian centuries. They took their cue from writers in late antiquity, who claimed that the likes of St Paul and St John purposely shaped their Antichrist figures around Nero because of the perceived similarities between the behaviour of the emperor and the characteristics of the Antichrist. I suggest, however, that the Nero-Antichrist paradigm was actually constructed in late antiquity, when the emperor was already established as the mad tyrant we are familiar with from classical historiography and Nero could, therefore, be fully conceptualised as an Antichrist figure. Writers could exploit both biblical accounts of the Antichrist and historiographical depictions of Nero to shape their image. The paradigm was useful to late-antique Christians because it offered a way of explaining the eschatological figure to wide audiences who were already familiar with the most infamous of Roman emperors. This apocalyptic portrayal of Nero was renewed in the nineteenth century in the works of philosophers and theologians like Ernest Renan and F.W. Farrar because it was once again helpful for informing debates and addressing the era’s religious concerns. This stage in Nero’s reception history proved to be intrinsic to how the emperor is thought about today – Renan and Farrar have had considerable influence on modern biographies written about Nero since the early-twentieth century. By taking a distinctive approach to the paradigm, this thesis contributes to both theology and history scholarship by challenging the assumptions made in biblical studies about Nero and his reign, while adding to ancient history an examination of a paradigm which fundamentally influenced Nero’s reception in history.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis is a discussion of problems arising from the "Histories" and the "Life of Augustus Caesar" by Nicolaus. A discussion of the date and structure of the "Histories" is followed by an examination of the sources Nicolaus used and the way he used them. Analysis of the Ctesias-based sections, with the help of Pap. Oxyrh. 2330, throws considerable light on Nicolaus' method of composition. He appears to have used only one source at a time. His selection concentrated on sensational and romantic stories. These were culled from both novelistic and sober historians. Nicolaus' adaptation consisted of linguistic remodelling and omission of elements inessential to the main story. The retention of some dialect forms of his sources, garbled condensations, and internal inconsistencies show that the "Histories" was not composed with great care. The biography of Augustus is treated next. It is argued that it was written about 25 BC in Rome and was the means by which Nicolaus gained the favour of Augustus and attention of Herod. Its ethos is Roman. Once again Nicolaus appears to have used one source at a time. The commonly-held view that most of it is based on the "Commentarii" of Augustus is confirmed, but it is suggested that a different source, probably the history of Asinius Pollio, underlies the digression on the conspiracy against Caesar. Nicolaus does little to alter the tone or arrangement of his source material, although he sometimes garbles details through careless condensation or misunderstanding. He has preserved a reasonably faithful account of Augustan propaganda which seems to belong to the period just before Actium: Augustus has toned down the crude call for vengeance of 44 BC, but has not yet adopted the posture of republican constitutionalism found in the "Res Gestae". Neither of the works shows evidence of the ability Nicolaus is known to have displayed in diplomacy and, perhaps, philosophy.

No description available.

The state of preservation of the buildings in Pompeii offers the archaeologist a rare opportunity to study the standing remains to investigate the history of the ancient city and the inhabitants who built it. Without a ‘standard’ archaeological methodology for recording standing structures, the temptation in Pompeii has been to rely on the chronological typologies of wall construction techniques and styles of plaster decoration created in the 19th century, to attribute a datable sequence to buildings. The importance of testing these established classification systems in order to reliably record diachronic change within the standing remains is paramount. The main objective of this thesis was to devise a comprehensive scientific methodology for recording walls based on the principles of stratigraphic relationships as used in archaeological excavation. By documenting the relative chronological building sequence, this system of recording could be used to test the sequence of traditional methods. The second objective was to evaluate the success of the recording methodology. This thesis will present a narrative of the analysis of the survey of standing structures in the form of case studies of five contiguous houses in the southern half of the insula in order to determine what we can observe and learn from building phases and chronological changes within these houses. It will be argued that the scientific system devised for recording the standing structures was successful in its application in Pompeii. Using a strictly scientific method to document the diachronic changes as recorded by instances of construction, alterations, repairs and modifications to these houses it was revealed that they were inextricably linked at the level of the neighbourhood.

The thesis focuses on assessing the impact of Rome on the funerary landscapes of Gallia Cisalpina (Transpadana), in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomena of cultural influences and cultural change. Roman patterns of burial location – specifically their relationship to the boundaries of rural division (limitatio) and roads – are explored and contrasted with pre-Roman burial patterns. The aim is to track phenomena of continuity or change in funerary locations, which are here interpreted as forming an integral part of the broader sphere of mortuary behaviour and funerary customs. Such phenomena are considered significant in terms of the cultural impact of Rome on the native communities of Gallia Transpadana. The research puts forward that burial location strategies are informative about self-perception and identity claims of individuals in the transition from the La Tène to the Roman period and are crucial to understand the chronology of cultural change. The area investigated, the lower basin of the Chiese River (Brescia), is archaeologically wellknown and was of great importance in pre-Roman (La Tène) and Roman times. Nonetheless, the spatial interrelations of the “places of the living” (settlements, roads and centuriation) and the “places of the dead” have not been investigated, nor indeed have they been a subject of research in Classical studies in general. This thesis aims to fill this gap. Roman cemeteries have been studied almost exclusively in isolation, overlooking their broader context and their spatial relationships with other anthropic elements of the landscape. Therefore, this thesis suggests that funerary landscapes and the study of mortuary patterns in the countryside in particular are an innovative lens through which to look at cultural phenomena. Preliminary to the investigation of funerary patterns in the two chosen study areas have been the creation of an updated catalogue of archaeological evidence and the reconstruction of centuriation. The methodology employed, encompassing archival and bibliographical research, cartographic and photographic sources, geomorphological and hydrological study and GIS applications, allowed me to thoroughly understand funerary and nonfunerary elements in the first study area. Therefore, the thesis makes an important contribution to the archaeological knowledge of these areas of Transpadana. A “surgical” study has been carried out on the second case study (Remedello) as the absence of a centuriation hypothesis in the area prevented the investigation of funerary patterns. Such a gap was the occasion to test a combined methodology that added to the one employed for the first case study the remote sensing and the archaeomorphological analysis, with the aim of proposing a centuriation hypothesis from where to assess the funerary patterns of the area. Therefore, the contribution of the thesis is also methodological since an innovative, multifaceted approach is proposed, which weds the historictopographical approach with the practices of the landscape archaeology.

The aim of this study is to propose a new interpretation of Jordanes’ famous work, De Origine Actibusque Getarum, commonly known as Getica. The traditional view concerning the De Origine postulates that Jordanes was trying to devise a mythical, glorious history for the Goths, based on Greek and Latin texts, as well as what could have been ‘real elements of Gothic tradition.’ A number of scholars have also investigated the dependence of the De Origine on the lost Historia Gothorum, written by Cassiodorus – a high-ranking officer of the Ostrogothic court. Because Jordanes affirms, in the preface of the De Origine, that he was asked to abridge the Cassiodorian opus, many are led to believe that our author was able to transmit the Historia Gothorum to some extent. This thesis will counter those two views by proposing a narrative interpretation of the De Origine: my analysis is focused on the rhetorical strategies and textual choices of Jordanes. I argue that Jordanes’ usage of the ethnonym Geta, usually viewed as a classicising synonym of Goth, is, in fact, a way to link a number of different people that inhabited the Balkans throughout history: Dacians, Getae, Scythians, Goths, Gepids, and Huns. The reasoning behind this ethnogeographic constructions is, precisely, the goal of the De Origine: to devise a historical narrative of the vicissitudes of the Balkans. I chose to single out the narrative conceptualisation of this regions by calling it Magna Dacia – which is the Kulturraum that interests Jordanes and it is where most of the story takes place. My conclusions have incisive implications: we can see the De Origine as an independent text, one that does not owe its ideas to Cassiodorus; we can see a new Jordanes emerge, one with a high degree of agency in the composition of the work.