This thesis takes the form of a commentary with accompanying material on Sidonius Apollinaris' Carmina 1 and 2, the preface poem and panegyric dedicated to the emperor Anthemius and delivered in 468 AD. The Preface outlines the material available on Sidonius and the approach which critics have made, and sets out the methodology of this commentary. In the Introduction, § 1 examines the historical context, the situation in the western empire which led to the necessity of appointing an eastern nominee as emperor in the west, and the circumstances which led to Sidonius' delivery of the panegyric at Anthemius' inauguration as consul. § 2 is an analysis of the function and form of panegyric in late antiquity, and the particular use to which Sidonius put the genre. examines Sidonius' use of imitatio, and the usefulness of lists of loci similes as a critical tool. The main body of the work is a line-by-line commentary on the two poems, highlighting Sidonius' manipulation of material for political purposes, while he yet operated within a traditional framework. A close examination is made of lexical usage, pinpointing many creative variations on earlier precedents. Sidonius has often been compared unfavourably with Claudian, but close comparison of apparently similar passages reveals that the aims and approaches of the two authors are different, and that Sidonius is a greater exponent of visual effect and word-play than Claudian. The thesis closes with an index of all Latin words discussed in the commentary.

This thesis explores the archaeological study of settlement within a small island setting. The application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology provides a comprehensive methodological framework which enables this research to move from a consideration of the artefactual residues of domestic activity, to their composition as 'sites', and their place within the broader dynamics of settlement systems. The Maltese Islands, and the island of Gozo in particular, provide an excellent opportunity to put this framework into practice: the megalithic monuments of the islands' prehistoric era have captured the imaginations of scholars for centuries, leaving the wider prehistoric landscape poorly understood and disconnected from the impressive archaeology of the major sites. The present research seeks to change this biased view of prehistory and reconnect with the domestic aspects of Maltese prehistory by exploring the nature of prehistoric settlement activity on Gozo. The availability of a convenient survey database provides an opportunity to establish an understanding of prehistoric settlement activity on Gozo using modem GIS technology. A series of exploratory, GIS-driven spatial analyses also enable the wider social and physical context of prehistoric settlement activity to be explored. The results have revealed a cycle of settlement activity which was played out over the Neolithic and Temple Period and replayed during the Bronze Age. This cycle was driven by fluctuations in the population levels on the island, the increasing elaboration and domination of ritual, and the intimate relationship between the islanders and their small, fragile and restricted island home. Not only has this research established the most complete record of prehistoric settlement activity yet known for the Maltese Islands, it also provides new insight into human-environment interactions within a Mediterranean island setting and offers a methodological framework which can be applied to the investigation of past populations within any region and across any time period.

The primary aim of this thesis is to address the question of whether the individual or the state was considered more important in Ancient Roman society, In the introduction I present two arguments that claim that the State came first. The first line of argument suggests that Roman custom and mores created a climate in which the individual counted for ahnost nothing and was shackled to the state by ideal of duty. This proposition, which was developed between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has never been properly addressed by modem writers, yet its premises still have an effect on modem analyses of Roman society. The second argument is more current and looks purely at Graeco-Roman philosophy to suggest that notions of duty were of paramount importance and that society was considered more important than the individual.

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The evidence presented in this thesis is used to test the hypothesis that a reliable and affordable supply of light fuel and lighting equipment was a major constituent in Roman urban living. Archaeological evidence and ancient literary sources are utilised in order to explore the social and economic activities which consumed artificial light, and evaluate how these nocturnal acts influenced and modified human interactions with each other, and with the physical environment. The consumption of artificial light from c. 300 BCE to 79 CE is investigated, and its influence on the socio‐cultural aspects of human activity and the role it played in the daily lives of the inhabitants of ancient Pompeii are evaluated. The burial of Pompeii in 79 CE by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius resulted in a unique assemblage of lighting equipment, abandoned in many structures as the inhabitants fled. Through the analysis of the Pompeii 79 CE material, I have modelled light fuel consumption for the entire city, and the results demonstrate that large quantities of olive oil were consumed in the provision of artificial light. A clear chronological increase in the development and growth for the use of artificial light at Pompeii is demonstrated. In this thesis I demonstrate that the night was not a time of inactivity at Pompeii, but thrived with human action, facilitated by artificial light. Well‐lit households offered an environment of warmth, security, comfort, and pleasure, and the consumption of artificial light may have been seen as a visual expression of wealth and status. The commercial landscape of the city thrived after the sun had set, and increasing the hours for trade and exchange, through artificial light, resulted in a nocturnal economy which contributed to the wealth and prosperity of this ancient city.

A re-examination of the Tribunate of the Plebs in the Roman Republic (494-23 BC). This thesis is a re-examination of the office of the tribunate of the plebs during the Roman Republic (494-23 B.C.). This project is in two major parts. The major part of the thesis involves an examination of the holders of the tribunate. Far from being an aristocratic preserve, I believe that the office was held by different categories of men; ranging from the senatorial aristocracy down to the common urban plebeian. This range of abilities, backgrounds and intentions deeply affects the role of the tribunate and the running of it, on a year by year basis. The second part of my research is an examination of the nature and role that evolution played on the tribunate, throughout the Republic, in terms of its powers and position. Only by examining both areas; the evolving nature of the office and the running of it in practice, can we fully understand the most unique political offices that the ancient world possessed.

This thesis is about the Middle Bronze Age (MBA: 1750-1450 BC) caves of central Italy, and the faunal and plant remains found inside them using the combined approach of contextual archaeology and social bioarchaeology. I draw new inferences from these ecofactual remains, which are crucial to improving our understanding of human lifeways in the Apennine region of the Italian peninsula. This work is much needed both in the field of cave archaeology (especially in relation to the Italian area) and in that of bioarchaeology. Here, traditional methodological issues, such as a tendency to ignore the ritual aspects of cave deposits, have produced substantial biases in the interpretations of the subsistence strategies. In addition, such traditional approaches based on Higgs’ (1975) palaeoeconomy have prevented bioarchaeological disciplines such as zooarchaeology and palaeoethnobotany from being productively used in several fields of application, notably in social archaeology. By analysingthe data published over the last 35 years, as well as four archival collections and the new data from the newly excavated deposits at Mora Cavorso, Pastena and Collepardo caves, I have been able to: 1) recognise cave datasets as biased sources for the direct reconstruction of palaeoeconomy; 2) identify significant evidence pointing to the coexistence of agriculture and sheep farming even at the same sites, and to infer new information about seasonality and transhumance in the study area; 3) isolate recurrent trends in animal and plant selection in the sampled caves. This evidence points to specific ritual choices that must have been integrated into the religious framework of the communities that used these caves. This highlights both the variability of human practices undertaken at these sites, and the similarities between them, shedding more light on the nature and – in some cases – the possible significance of such rituals. In sum, I demonstrate how complex the use of caves in MBA central Italy was, and that a strict categorisation of such uses (as domestic, ritual, burial) is misleading.

This thesis addresses the process of identity construction in Lombard Italy through an examination of the expression of gender, an aspect often neglected in Lombard archaeology, which has tended to focus on issues surrounding migration and ethnicity. The main evidence considered are the grave good assemblages (1639 objects recorded from 347 furnished graves) found in sixteen Lombard-period cemeteries distributed across northern Italy and Tuscany. Methodologies for studying gender in Early Medieval cemeteries elsewhere in Europe have been adopted and adapted, including multivariate statistics, and the analysis has been also supported by information obtained from the written and iconographic sources. Through an integrated perspective that allows us to observe both the general trends and (as importantly) their variations, I show that beyond the well-known association between masculinity/weapons and femininity/jewellery gender discourse was a complex phenomenon, deeply intertwined with other facets of identity, and with local concerns and traditions.

Historical sources from Late Antiquity are not primarily concerned with what might be called 'social history'. More often they are interested in matters of faith, war and politics, or the biographies of great men and women. Archaeology has allowed us great insight into the material culture of ordinary people during the period, but we still rely on history to inform us about the agency of the lower classes. Unfortunately the preoccupations of extant written sources make it difficult to understand how common people in Late Antiquity perceived their lives, and how they tried to influence their position in society. It is hoped that an investigation of lower-class violence will provide a way for us to gain some insight into these issues. Violence, as an extreme and relatively rare form of social interaction, cannot necessarily tell us about everyday concerns, but the implicit danger of violence means that it provides a good indicator of what issues and grievances were taken very seriously by common people in Late Antiquity. Moreover violence, especially as performed by lower-class people whose social role was non-violent, was one of the ways in which ordinary people in Late Antiquity caught the eye of contemporary writers. Consequently, though the evidence for lower-class violence in Late Antiquity is patchy and pejorative, it does actually exist, and occasionally in some detail. Therefore, violence will form the thematic thread of this investigation into the lives of lower-class people in Late Antiquity. It cannot hope to be an exhaustive analysis of their lives in general, but will hopefully provide some insight into their wants and needs, their experience of change and their relationships with authority.