The administration of initiation rites by an ecstatic specialist, now known to western scholarship by the general designation of ‘shaman’, has proven to be one of humanity’s oldest, most widespread, and continuous magico-religious traditions. At the heart of their initiatory rituals lay an ordeal – a metaphysical journey - almost ubiquitously brought on by the effects of a life-changing hallucinogenic drug experience. To guide their initiates, these shaman worked with a repertoire of locally acquired instruments, costumes, dances, and ecstasy-inducing substances. Among past Mediterranean cultures, Semitic and Indo-European, these sorts of initiation rites were vital to society’s spiritual well-being. It was, however, the mystery schools of antiquity – organizations founded upon conserving the secrets of plant-lore, astrology, theurgy and mystical philosophy – which satisfied the role of the shaman in Greco-Roman society. The rites they delivered to the common individual were a form of ritualized ecstasy and they provided an orderly context for religiously-oriented intoxication. In the eastern Mediterranean, these ecstatic cults were most often held in honour of a great mother goddess and her perennially dying-and-rising consort. The goddess’ religious dramas enacted in cultic ritual stressed the importance of fasting, drumming, trance-inducing music, self-mutilation, and a non-alcoholic ritual intoxication. Far and wide the dying consort worshiped by these cults was a god of vegetation, ecstasy, revelation, and salvation; by ingesting his body initiates underwent a profound mystical experience. From what limited information has survived from antiquity, it appears that the rites practiced in the eastern mystery cults were in essence traditional shamanic ordeals remodeled to suit the psychological needs of Mediterranean civilization’s marginalized people. This paper argues that the myths of this vegetable god, so-called ‘the Divine Bridegroom,’ particularly in manifestation of the Phrygian Attis and the Greek Dionysus, is deeply rooted in the life-cycle, cultivation, treatment, consumption of a tree-born hallucinogenic mushroom, Amanita muscaria. The use of this mushroom is alive and well today among Finno-Ugric shaman and this paper explores their practices as one branch of Eurasian shamanism running parallel to, albeit in a different time, the rites of the Phrygian goddess. Using extant literary and linguistic evidence, I compare the initiatory cults long-assimilated into post-agricultural Mediterranean civilization with the hallucinogen-wielding shaman of the Russian steppe, emphasizing them both as facets of a prehistoric and pan-human magico-religious archetype.

Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. AD 330-390) was one of the most learned men of his time and is one of the most important theologians of the early Christian Church. His orations, letters and poetry were widely studied and greatly copied in the Middle Ages. However, there is a lack of modern scholarship on Gregory's poetry, which is why there is such need for this thesis, a study of carm. II 1. 22, with introduction and commentary. The introduction focuses primarily on aspects of carm. II. 1. 22 while outlining the events of Gregory's life and situating the poem within them. The commentary is largely linguistic with autobiographical and historical features discussed and brief mention of theological matters.

This study looks at the role of women in the economic environment of Roman Egypt in the light of the papyri. By examining marriage and inheritance documents from the first three centuries, the study shows that marital and inheritance laws and customs in Roman Egypt were made to protect women’s interests when it came to ownership and possession of property, which is one of the main reasons why women played such a prominent role in Egypt’s economic environment.

In 1968, Rein Taagepera created growth curves of four empires by measuring the surface area of each and plotting his data on a graph of area versus time. He used his growth curves to analyse the development of empires quantitatively, as he considered surface area to be the best measurable indicator of an empire’s strength. His growth curve of the Roman Empire, in particular, has been referenced numerous times by scholars researching the decline and fall of complex civilizations to support their individual analyses of the collapse of Rome. While this thesis surveys only the territories of the Western Roman Empire, many of the parameters used by Taagepera have been either borrowed or adapted in order to define, measure, and graph the surface area of the Western Empire as precisely as possible. This thesis also adds further precision and validity to Bryan Ward-Perkins’ theory that surface area can be used to analyse and quantify the collapse of a complex society accurately. In order to demonstrate the extent to which differing circumstances and outcomes of provincial history impacted the total surface area of the Western Roman Empire, it was essential to include not only an overview of Rome’s extensive history, but also to establish the chronology, as it related to the Roman Empire, of each individual province, territory, and client kingdom within the Western Empire. Detailed chronologies of Noricum and Britannia have been included to serve as case studies as they comprise a broad range of distinct characteristics and so represent typical western provinces. My research of the history and geography of the Roman Empire has generated a comprehensive inventory that includes all the pertinent onomastic and chronological data needed to measure the surface area of each of Rome’s western provinces and client kingdoms. When plotted on a graph of area versus time, my data not only produced an accurate representation of the actual surface area of the Western Roman Empire, but also one that facilitates temporal analyses of territorial fluctuations at any given point in the Empire’s history until the fall of the Western Empire in CE 476.

This study looks at the role of women in the economic environment of Roman Egypt in the light of the papyri. By examining marriage and inheritance documents from the first three centuries, the study shows that marital and inheritance laws and customs in Roman Egypt were made to protect women’s interests when it came to ownership and possession of property, which is one of the main reasons why women played such a prominent role in Egypt’s economic environment.

In 1968, Rein Taagepera created growth curves of four empires by measuring the surface area of each and plotting his data on a graph of area versus time. He used his growth curves to analyse the development of empires quantitatively, as he considered surface area to be the best measurable indicator of an empire’s strength. His growth curve of the Roman Empire, in particular, has been referenced numerous times by scholars researching the decline and fall of complex civilizations to support their individual analyses of the collapse of Rome. While this thesis surveys only the territories of the Western Roman Empire, many of the parameters used by Taagepera have been either borrowed or adapted in order to define, measure, and graph the surface area of the Western Empire as precisely as possible. This thesis also adds further precision and validity to Bryan Ward-Perkins’ theory that surface area can be used to analyse and quantify the collapse of a complex society accurately. In order to demonstrate the extent to which differing circumstances and outcomes of provincial history impacted the total surface area of the Western Roman Empire, it was essential to include not only an overview of Rome’s extensive history, but also to establish the chronology, as it related to the Roman Empire, of each individual province, territory, and client kingdom within the Western Empire. Detailed chronologies of Noricum and Britannia have been included to serve as case studies as they comprise a broad range of distinct characteristics and so represent typical western provinces. My research of the history and geography of the Roman Empire has generated a comprehensive inventory that includes all the pertinent onomastic and chronological data needed to measure the surface area of each of Rome’s western provinces and client kingdoms. When plotted on a graph of area versus time, my data not only produced an accurate representation of the actual surface area of the Western Roman Empire, but also one that facilitates temporal analyses of territorial fluctuations at any given point in the Empire’s history until the fall of the Western Empire in CE 476.