Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-194).

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The Exodus story of the Israelites' slavery in Egypt and subsequent redemption was central to Jewish accounts of their national origins and was an important component of Jewish self-identification in antiquity. Although Greek and Latin sources appear ignorant of the Exodus story, ancient ethnographies of the Jews in non-Jewish sources claim that the Jews were originally Egyptian. This thesis examines how Josephus presents the Exodus story of the Jews' servile national origins in Egypt to a Roman audience who had biases against slaves, freedmen, and Egyptians, and little knowledge of Jewish origins apart from reports that they were Egyptian by origin. Josephus's first work Jewish War, a politico-military history, includes tangential remarks about Jewish origins, but implies in the proem that the Jews were originally Egyptian. Jewish Antiquities, which rewrites the biblical account of Jewish origins, explicitly denies that the Jews were originally Egyptian and deliberately omits mention of the Jews' servitude in Egypt at important points in the narrative where it would have been expected. In Against Apion, an apologia, Josephus subtly uses keywords and the rhetorical technique of insinuatio to prove that the Jews were not originally Egyptian without stating openly that this is a goal of the work. Several factors explain these results. Aristotle's theory of natural slavery, which posits that slaves are innately defective, was part of the ideological assumptions of first century CE Roman elites. Romans were also ambivalent about their own partly-servile origins in Romulus's asylum. Influenced by Augustan propaganda about Actium, first-century Roman sources deride Egyptians with a range of negative stereotypes. Josephus denies that the Jews were Egyptian and omits their servile origins at important points in the narrative where the Bible mentions it in order to portray the Jews as favorably as possible.

This thesis challenges one of the fundamental assumptions about Rome's political upheaval in the third century CE. This period is conventionally defined by the growing political influence of the army at the expense of the Senate, after the Severan emperors made it clear that their hold on power rested on military support. The soldiers would grow bolder in asserting their position, eventually coming to overthrow emperors at will. I present a broad reassessment of the evidence for a historical model which derives from the narratives of two contemporary witnesses, Cassius Dio and Herodian. Dio is the subject of my first discussion. I address two problems. Firstly, Dio's contemporary history survives only through Byzantine epitomes and excerpts. Its irreparable alteration means that Dio's later books cannot be treated in their own terms, but have to be contextualised against the wider thematic framework of his thousand-year account. Secondly, I turn to Dio himself. Within that framework, Dio presents himself as the ideal senatorial historian. In doing so, he is able to define a uniform senatorial experience, which excludes everything else as deriving from military corruption. An analysis of Herodian follows, also in two parts. The first analyses Herodian's construction of Roman society into three constituent parts, Senate, army and people. I show how these simplistically homogenous social units allow Herodian to explore imperial character, even as they cause inconsistencies in his political narrative. I then address Herodian's account of Maximinus Thrax. This narrative has been presented as the historical culmination of the army taking over politically. I argue instead that it represents the climax of Herodian's rhetorical scheme. Overall, the model of political conflict is built on two contemporary accounts which have specific reasons to simplify matters in their presentation of political activity. In order to understand the nature of political change in this period, I argue that it is necessary to move beyond them.

The three works of Procopius of Caesarea, the History of the Wars, the Buildings and the Secret History, form a corpus which can be profitably studied as a whole. My thesis is a typology of the visual in Procopius’ corpus, which is embedded in a study of narrative technique. It concerns itself with the representation of material reality and the complex relationship between materiality and the text. It utilises the digressive and the descriptive as an indirect entry point to expose Procopius’ literary finesse and his use of poikilia. In the first half of this thesis, the main object of my study is the representation of the material world in Procopius. The first chapter is devoted to the first book of the Buildings as it depicts the city of Constantinople. The second chapter moves to the representation of space and the third chapter to that of objects of all sizes and kinds. From these three different angles, I demonstrate how the visual is deeply charged with both ideological and meta-textual intentions. The second half of the thesis goes beyond materiality to examine what I discuss as the imaginaire of Procopius. The fourth chapter examines the way violence is depicted in a material and spectacular manner as well as its meta-textual implications, and the fifth and final chapter addresses the omnipresence of the supernatural in the corpus as well as Procopius’ self-representation as narrator and character. While preoccupied to some extent with ideological and political concerns, this thesis is first and foremost centred on the text itself and how its relationship to the description of material culture throws light on a crucial author on the cusp between the classical and the medieval imaginaire, one of the most significant authors in Byzantine literary culture.

Diferentemente das recorrentes assertivas sobre o comprometimento político dos intelectuais gregos no Império, a nosso ver, a partir do século II d.C., a chamada Segunda Sofística é um indicativo do movimento cultural grego iniciado no século I d.C. Embora seus integrantes apresentem intenções distintas em seus escritos, os intelectuais gregos do Império participam de estilos e temáticas narrativas semelhantes. No caso de Plutarco, e essa é a nossa tese central, demonstramos que nosso autor não compôs sua obra para exaltar ou glorificar o Império romano ou ainda a cultura grega. Sendo assim, seus escritos representam a expressão da singularidade e da utilidade da tradição cultural grega para o fortalecimento político do Império. O objetivo principal de Plutarco está, pois, em construir uma identidade grega no Império, pautada na história de seu povo e em sua tradição cultural, para exibir ao mundo romano a contribuição dos gregos para a formação do Império. / Differently from the usual assertions about the Greek intellectuals\' political compromise with the Empire, in our perspective, as from the second century A.D., the so called Second Sophistic is an indicative of the Greek cultural movement started in the first century A.D. Although its members present distinct intentions of their writings, the Greek intellectuals of the Empire develop similar styles and themes through their narratives. Considering Plutarch\'s case, and this is the core of our thesis, we demonstrate that our author did not write his work to exalt nor to glorify the Roman Empire nor the Greek culture. His writings represent the expression of the singularity and the usefulness of the Greek cultural tradition for the political strength of the Empire. Plutarch\'s main objective is to build a Greek identity in the Empire, based on the history of the people and their cultural tradition to exhibit the Greeks\' contribution to the formation of the Roman Empire.

Diferentemente das recorrentes assertivas sobre o comprometimento político dos intelectuais gregos no Império, a nosso ver, a partir do século II d.C., a chamada Segunda Sofística é um indicativo do movimento cultural grego iniciado no século I d.C. Embora seus integrantes apresentem intenções distintas em seus escritos, os intelectuais gregos do Império participam de estilos e temáticas narrativas semelhantes. No caso de Plutarco, e essa é a nossa tese central, demonstramos que nosso autor não compôs sua obra para exaltar ou glorificar o Império romano ou ainda a cultura grega. Sendo assim, seus escritos representam a expressão da singularidade e da utilidade da tradição cultural grega para o fortalecimento político do Império. O objetivo principal de Plutarco está, pois, em construir uma identidade grega no Império, pautada na história de seu povo e em sua tradição cultural, para exibir ao mundo romano a contribuição dos gregos para a formação do Império. / Differently from the usual assertions about the Greek intellectuals\' political compromise with the Empire, in our perspective, as from the second century A.D., the so called Second Sophistic is an indicative of the Greek cultural movement started in the first century A.D. Although its members present distinct intentions of their writings, the Greek intellectuals of the Empire develop similar styles and themes through their narratives. Considering Plutarch\'s case, and this is the core of our thesis, we demonstrate that our author did not write his work to exalt nor to glorify the Roman Empire nor the Greek culture. His writings represent the expression of the singularity and the usefulness of the Greek cultural tradition for the political strength of the Empire. Plutarch\'s main objective is to build a Greek identity in the Empire, based on the history of the people and their cultural tradition to exhibit the Greeks\' contribution to the formation of the Roman Empire.

La diplomatie romaine de l’époque médio-républicaine (396-264 avant J.-C.), c’est-à-dire au moment de la conquête de l’Italie, est connue essentiellement à travers les sources littéraires. Pour autant, il n’existe pas dans ces textes, un terme servant à désigner l’activité diplomatique. Afin de cerner un phénomène auquel ne correspond aucun terme antique, il faut donc revenir au regard des historiens modernes, des Byzantins et des historiens antiques. On constate ainsi que l’identité romaine est au cœur des enjeux diplomatiques, dans la manière dont elle fut reconstruite. L’histoire diplomatique de la période ne démontre pas autre chose : les Romains de cette époque eurent parfaitement conscience de la manière dont ils devaient se représenter aux yeux de leurs interlocuteurs, à savoir comme des Grecs, avant d’affirmer une identité plus particulièrement romaine. Enfin, l’histoire de la diplomatie ou, pour le dire autrement, de ses pratiques montre que les Romains cherchèrent à forger une identité aux yeux des autres autant que d’eux-mêmes. À une époque de changements et d’évolutions des institutions romaines, en adéquation avec les nouvelles frontières de l’imperium, les modes de gestion de la prise de décision entre l’extérieur et l’intérieur, entre le centre et la périphérie de l’hégémonie romaine, le protocole même de réception à Rome ainsi que la constitution d’un espace diplomatique, la figure de l’ambassadeur enfin, du fetialis au legatus, constituent autant d’éléments qui participèrent de l’affirmation d’une identité civique romaine. / The Roman diplomacy during the medio-republican period (396-264 B.C.), that is to say while Romans were conquering Italy, is mostly known through litterary sources. Nevertheless, there is no word, in this documentation, to name diplomatic activity. In order to define a phenomenon without specific ancient terminology, we have to successively look at the way modern historians, Byzantine scholars and ancient historians understand it. We thus discover that roman identity is a central issue in diplomacy and in the way it was written. The diplomatic history of the period points out the same conclusions : Romans, in that time, were perfectly conscious of the importance of the way they do represent themselves to strangers. They first wanted to be considered as Greeks, before they begun to make up a more specific Roman identity. Lastly, the history of diplomacy or, more exactly, of diplomatic practices, shows that Romans desired to make up an identity for the others as for themselves. At a time of changes and evolutions in the Roman institutions, partially due to the new boundaries of the imperium, the way the Romans provide to decision-making, between inside and outside, between the center and the periphery of Roman hegemony, the formalities linked to reception at Rome as the constitution of a diplomatic space in Rome, finally the figure of the ambassador, from the fetialis to the legatus, contribute in different ways to the assertion of a Roman civic identity.

This thesis considers the geographical and chronological forms of ‘mirroring’ that offer a way of reading 'Annals' 1-6. It looks at how Tacitus’ depictions of non-Romans reflect back on Rome, and at the echoes of Rome’s past and future that can be discerned within his description of Tiberius’ principate. After an introduction that discusses key thematic and methodological questions, Chapter 1 shows that Tiberius’ accession and the Pannonian and German mutinies described in 'Annals' 1 echo Tacitus’ account in 'Histories' 1 of events of AD 69. Moreover, when the Romans attempt to conquer Germany, the Germans’ resistance to this and to other efforts to rule them shows up Roman responses to civil war and autocracy. Chapter 2 begins by examining potential similarities between Roman and both Parthian and Armenian history, and then focuses on Germanicus’ voyage in the east, recounted in 'Annals' 2. His actions associate him with many late republican and early imperial Roman figures, which suggests that there are continuities between those two eras. Chapter 3 extends this theme by discussing the echoes of Sallust and Caesar in the central books of the Tiberian hexad. Intertexts with Sallust’s 'Bellum Catilinae' especially hint that earlier civil conflicts are about to be replayed in some form, as the appearance of Sejanus, the ‘new Catiline’, confirms. Chapter 4 further considers Tacitus’ inferences about the overlap between republican and imperial history, and then examines anti-Roman revolts in 'Annals' 2, 3 and 4. Foreign rebels’ relative success in attempting to reclaim their freedom correlates with their distance from Rome, and this has clear implications for the status of Roman 'libertas' under Tiberius. Finally, the outbreak of ‘civil war within the principate’, and indeed within the imperial house, is analysed. Chapter 5 traces the continuation of this ‘civil war’, and proposes that the last book of the Tiberian hexad again looks directly to 69, as well as to the excesses of other Julio-Claudians. It also considers Tacitus’ account of Roman intervention in Parthia: this episode confirms imperial Rome’s propensity for autocracy and civil war. There follows a short conclusion in which some speculation is offered about how some of the themes discussed in this thesis with reference to the Tiberian hexad may have been represented in the lost central books of the 'Annals'.