Ce mémoire traite des Saturnales de Macrobe, haut fonctionnaire du 5ième siècle après J.C. et encyclopédiste latin. Malgré l’opinion reçue, selon laquelle les Saturnales dépendraient presque exclusivement d’un nombre très restreint de sources, souvent copiées mot à mot, on a reconnu depuis longtemps que Macrobe remanie de son propre chef l’une de ces sources, les Propos de Table de Plutarque, dans son septième livre. Ce mémoire démontre que ce modèle, tout comme les sources mineures, latines et grecques, avec lesquelles Macrobe le complète, lui était assez familier pour servir à l’articulation d’une vision propre; les Saturnales ne peuvent donc être cités comme preuve de la décadence de leur époque. Ce mémoire fournit une traduction et un commentaire des chapitres 7.1-3 des Saturnales, avec une explication de leurs rapports avec les Propos de Table 1.1 et 2.1 de Plutarque ainsi que des éléments propre à Macrobe, afin de reconstruire sa méthode de composition et de déterminer ses attentes par rapport à son lecteur de l’empire tardif. Le commentaire est précédé d’une introduction de l’auteur, de l’œuvre, et du septième livre. / This thesis deals with the Saturnalia of Macrobius, the 5th century senior civil servant and Latin encyclopedist. Despite the scholarly consensus that the Saturnalia is virtually exclusively dependent on a small number of sources, usually copied verbatim, it has long been recognized that Macrobius independently alters at least one of these sources, the Quaestiones Convivales of Plutarch, in his seventh Book. This thesis demonstrates that Macrobius was familiar enough with the text of Plutarch, as with the texts of several other minor Latin and Greek sources with which he supplements him, in order to use him to articulate original concepts important to the Saturnalia as a whole; the work cannot, therefore be cited as evidence for the cultural decadence of the later Roman Empire. This thesis provides a translation and commentary of chapters 7.1-3 of the Saturnalia, explaining their relation to Quaest. conv. 1.1 and 2.1 of Plutarch and the original readings and structure of Macrobius, in order to determine his method of composition and his expectations of his Late Antique reader. The commentary is preceded by an introduction of the author, the work, and the seventh Book.

À la lecture d’ouvrages philosophiques anciens, nous sommes souvent surpris par la virulence des critiques adressées à l’écriture, dans la mesure où ces critiques nous parviennent au moyen de textes écrits. N’est-il pas paradoxal de tout à la fois rejeter et utiliser une même technologie ? Ou est-ce que les pratiques de l’oralité et de l’écriture des philosophes grecs, telles que ceux-ci les décrivent dans leurs ouvrages, peuvent être cohérentes avec leurs critiques ? Notre thèse visait, d’une part, à répondre à ce questionnement en confrontant les pratiques des philosophes anciens aux critiques qu’ils adressent à l’écriture, par le biais d’une étude systématique des discours sur la lecture et l’écriture dans des textes anciens d’auteurs et d’époques variés, et notamment des textes qui n’ont pas l’écriture pour objet. D’autre part, comme les travaux déjà publiés sur ce thème tentaient le plus souvent de trouver le point de rupture entre la tradition orale et la tradition écrite (cf. Havelock 1963, Lentz 1989), nous avons voulu inscrire notre objet d’étude dans une plus longue durée, ce qui nous a permis de constater qu’une rupture radicale entre les philosophes de tradition orale et ceux appartenant à la tradition écrite n’avait pas eu lieu, et que l’on observait plutôt une continuité des critiques et des pratiques de l’oralité et de l’écriture depuis l’époque classique jusqu’à l’Antiquité tardive. Malgré le développement de nouveaux supports matériels pour l’écriture, l’émergence d’une religion du livre, et la mise à l’écrit des poèmes homériques, la tradition philosophique grecque témoigne d’un usage circonspect de l’écriture et du refus de rejeter définitivement l’oralité. / When we read ancient philosophical works, often we are surprised to find that the Greek philosophers strongly criticize literacy, as we are still confronted with a written text. Is it not paradoxical to reject a technology while still using it? Or is the philosophers’ practice of literacy, as described in their works, consistent with their criticism? Is the philosophers’ practice of literacy, as described in their works, consistent with their criticism of it? This thesis aims to answer these questions, firstly, by comparing the ancient philosophers’ criticism of literacy to their practice of it, through the study of what various authors from various periods say about reading and writing. On the other hand, since earlier works on this topic have proposed that the classical period witnessed a sudden and, to a certain extent, definitive turn to literacy, and have tried to locate this turn in time, I have examined the situation in a broader perspective, over a longer period of time. The results show that, if we consider how philosophers criticize literacy and how they describe themselves in their own discourses, literacy patterns tended to remain similar until late Antiquity; and that, in spite of Aristotle's new use of literacy, the criticism we find in Plato lingers on. As a result, what we usually call the transition from an oral tradition to a written tradition could be better viewed as a cultural continuity. In spite of the commitment to writing recording of the Homeric poems, of the emerging of a book-centered religion, and notwithstanding an evident use of literacy, the ancient philosophical tradition testifies to a refusal, both theoretical and practical, of throwing away orality.

This dissertation investigates how two fifth-century bishops of Rome, Leo I (440-461) and Gelasius (492-496) understood and opposed heresy. More specifically, by stressing the contested character of heresy and the at times optative nature of the bishop of Rome’s opposition to it, this dissertation hopes to provide a new perspective on how Leo and Gelasius imagined and justified the authority of the Apostolic See in an uncertain world. To accomplish this task, this dissertation considers Leo and Gelasius’ opposition to various different heresies and details the methods by which they were opposed. This will be done through an examination of the records of synods, Roman law, other contemporary narrative sources, but especially through the letters and tractates of Leo and Gelasius themselves, carefully read and considered in their fifth-century context. Furthermore, it is argued that the history of the development of the ideas of heresy and orthodoxy were profoundly connected with Rome’s emerging importance as a locus of authentic Christian teachings; the history of the bishops of Rome cannot be told without examining the history of heresy and orthodoxy and vice versa. Because orthodoxy and heresy were not tangible historical phenomena but rather were malleable categories that emerged as part of a wider discourse of Christian identity construction, the bishops of Rome were not in every case the unqualified enemies of heresy. Instead, their definition of heterodox belief and their opposition to religious deviance were complex, often qualified and always historically contingent. This study seeks to investigate the way in which Leo and Gelasius mobilized the language of heresiology in order to convince Christians in the Latin west and the Greek east, as well as the imperial authorities, that Rome’s interpretations were legitimate and binding.

Christians, Gnostics, and Platonists attempts to characterize the ethos of late antiquity (100–500 CE) as one that despised matter and the body. It operates within the assumption that there are four criteria which establish this characterization, namely an emphasis on the evil of life, a distrust of the sociopolitical world, asceticism, and an interest in the supernatural. These four criteria are evident in the Platonists, Christians, and Gnostics of the period. As Chapter Two reveals the dissertation understands the concept of ethos in the context of R. C. Trench's discussion of aion: "all the thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, impulses, and aspirations present in the world at any given time." In Chapter Three Plato and the Middle Platonists are viewed as bequeathing to late antiquity its world–denying philosophy which the Gnostics preached more incessantly than the Platonists and the Christians practiced more conscientiously than the Gnostics. The Neoplatonists were the Platonists of late antiquity. In the writings of such figures as Plotinus and Porphyry the hatred of matter and the body is boldly expressed, and it is only slightly less apparent in later philosophers like Iamblichus and Proclus. In Plotinus we discern a profound distrust of the sociopolitical world and in Proclus a thoroughgoing asceticism paired with an interest in the supernatural. In Chapter Four it is shown that Gnosticism was more unyielding than either Platonism or Christianity in its insistence that matter and the body were evil, and it followed the late antique distrust of the social world both in its elitism and in its view of martyrdom as an act of casting pearls before swine. Gnosticism tended to accept the asceticism of late antiquity though some of its adherents practiced an extreme licentiousness that was the counterpart of asceticism in that it approached the body as worthless. The late antique emphasis on the supernatural is evidenced by such Gnostic figures as Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and Valentinus. Chapter Five demonstrates that the hatred of matter and the body is also expressed by the Christians albeit with less consistency to their worldview. It can be glimpsed in the ante– Nicene, post–Nicene, and desert fathers as well as in the Arians. It is most notable in the attempts of Justin Martyr, Origen, and Arius to place the Son at a lower ontological level than the Father in order to protect God from the evil entity of matter. The late antique distrust of the sociopolitical world is manifested in the Christian view of martyrdom as a way of scorning a corrupt world, a view unlike that of the Gnostics. No one possessed this distrust more strongly than the Donatists with whom the later Augustine had some kinship. Many of the Christians tended to practice asceticism and the miraculous, the form in which the supernatural took in their case. The desert fathers can be said to be the most sincere representatives of late antiquity with their intense practice of both of these expressions of the ethos. / Thesis (M.A. (Church and Dogma history))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Christians, Gnostics, and Platonists attempts to characterize the ethos of late antiquity (100–500 CE) as one that despised matter and the body. It operates within the assumption that there are four criteria which establish this characterization, namely an emphasis on the evil of life, a distrust of the sociopolitical world, asceticism, and an interest in the supernatural. These four criteria are evident in the Platonists, Christians, and Gnostics of the period. As Chapter Two reveals the dissertation understands the concept of ethos in the context of R. C. Trench's discussion of aion: "all the thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, impulses, and aspirations present in the world at any given time." In Chapter Three Plato and the Middle Platonists are viewed as bequeathing to late antiquity its world–denying philosophy which the Gnostics preached more incessantly than the Platonists and the Christians practiced more conscientiously than the Gnostics. The Neoplatonists were the Platonists of late antiquity. In the writings of such figures as Plotinus and Porphyry the hatred of matter and the body is boldly expressed, and it is only slightly less apparent in later philosophers like Iamblichus and Proclus. In Plotinus we discern a profound distrust of the sociopolitical world and in Proclus a thoroughgoing asceticism paired with an interest in the supernatural. In Chapter Four it is shown that Gnosticism was more unyielding than either Platonism or Christianity in its insistence that matter and the body were evil, and it followed the late antique distrust of the social world both in its elitism and in its view of martyrdom as an act of casting pearls before swine. Gnosticism tended to accept the asceticism of late antiquity though some of its adherents practiced an extreme licentiousness that was the counterpart of asceticism in that it approached the body as worthless. The late antique emphasis on the supernatural is evidenced by such Gnostic figures as Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and Valentinus. Chapter Five demonstrates that the hatred of matter and the body is also expressed by the Christians albeit with less consistency to their worldview. It can be glimpsed in the ante– Nicene, post–Nicene, and desert fathers as well as in the Arians. It is most notable in the attempts of Justin Martyr, Origen, and Arius to place the Son at a lower ontological level than the Father in order to protect God from the evil entity of matter. The late antique distrust of the sociopolitical world is manifested in the Christian view of martyrdom as a way of scorning a corrupt world, a view unlike that of the Gnostics. No one possessed this distrust more strongly than the Donatists with whom the later Augustine had some kinship. Many of the Christians tended to practice asceticism and the miraculous, the form in which the supernatural took in their case. The desert fathers can be said to be the most sincere representatives of late antiquity with their intense practice of both of these expressions of the ethos. / Thesis (M.A. (Church and Dogma history))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Le néoréalisme – et notamment le cinéma de Roberto Rossellini – a montré à quel point l’Italie sortait ruinée de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. À la théâtralité fasciste et à la rhétorique grandiloquente de la romanità succède une attention nouvelle portée à l’humilis et, corollaires de cet « amour pour la réalité » (expression de Pasolini, à propos de Rossellini et de Fellini), de nouvelles pratiques cinématographiques. Cette recherche a pour ambition de mettre en regard deux cinéastes généralement considérés comme antithétiques, avec pour fil directeur « l’invention de l’antique », afin de mettre en évidence l’existence d’un horizon commun, qui trouve son origine dans deux réalités historiques : d’un côté le rejet de l’Antiquité fasciste, de l’autre la résistance à la fuite en avant contemporaine. L’« antique », entendu conceptuellement comme matrice de résistance (donc non limité aux bornes historiques assignées à l’Antiquité), est ici pris dans un jeu dialectique et dynamique avec l’idée de modernité, puisqu’il s’agit de déterminer comment une modernité esthétique a pu s’inventer et s’expérimenter contre, ou tout contre, une autre modernité – sociale, économique, politique. Fellini plonge dans l’univers chaotique et placentaire de la création en studio. Pasolini, à l’inverse, se déplace toujours plus loin du centre, à la rencontre de nouveaux corps, et de nouvelles terres à arpenter. Dans les deux cas pourtant, il s’agit d’en passer, de manière poétique, par deux disciplines que l’après-guerre n’accepte pas plus que le fascisme – la psychanalyse et l’ethno-anthropologie – pour mettre au jour des survivances, pour porter à la lumière ce que la modernité refoule, et « fictionner » à partir de ces fragments. L’invention sera donc d’abord entendue au sens archéologique du terme (impliquant repérages, découverte, mise au jour). Elle sera aussi entendue au sens poétique de l’« œuvrement » à partir des fragments, mettant en évidence des affinités électives entre l’Antiquité et le cinéma. / Neorealism in general, and Roberto Rossellini’s works in particular, portray post-WW2 Italy as a country in ruins, both literally and metaphorically. Fascist theatricality and the pompous rhetoric of the romanità are abandoned, and a new focus is given to humilis – “loving reality” in the words of Pasolini commenting on Rosselini’s and Fellini’s works – and the new film practices that stem from it. In this dissertation, I compare two film makers who are usually put in systematic opposition to each other, and show how their works actually have common characteristics when analysed from the perspective of what I call “the invention of Antiquity”. From two distinct points in history, they not only reject the fascist interpretation of Antiquity, but also resist modern Italy’s race to progress. Here the concept of “Antiquity” is defined as a form of resistance, which as such transcends its traditional historical boundaries. It is involved in a dynamic dialogue with the idea of modernity, so as to show how a form of aesthetic modernity gets invented and put into practice as a reaction against a different form of social, economic and political modernity. Fellini delves into the chaotic and womb-like world of film studios, while Pasolini moves further and further away from the centre, in search of new bodies to discover and new lands to walk. Yet they must both find a poetic way of dealing with disciplines that post-WW2 Italy rejects as much as fascism – psychoanalysis and ethno-anthropology. For both of them, the aim is to uncover relics of the past, to shed light on those elements repressed by modernity, and create fictions” out of these fragments. The term invention is thus first intended in its archaeological meaning (i.e. locating, discovering, uncovering). It is then used in a more poetic sense, as an act of “crafting” out of fragments, which highlights specific connexions between the world of antiquity and the world of films.

Le point de départ de ce travail est une réflexion sur le concept de l’événement dans la philosophie contemporaine. Nos recherches sur l’usage de ce concept révèlent la polysémie du terme et, pour la philosophie politique française notamment, deux défauts : une incapacité d’établir des critères opératoires pour la pratique de l’histoire; une tendance à réduire l’action politique à sa conjoncture historique. Hannah Arendt et Michel Foucault, plus particulièrement dans son « tournant éthique », se confrontent à ce dernier problème du rapport entre l’action politique et le temps historique : chez eux, le terme « événement » ouvre sur la participation politique du philosophe/théoricien qui se penche sur des événements particuliers et qui articule leur sens dans sa propre actualité. Mais pour penser cette relation entre action politique contemporaine et histoire, nos deux auteurs ne sont pas contentés de retravailler un concept de l’événement ν ils se sont tournés vers des concepts, des pratiques et des événements « prémodernes », élaborées notamment en Grèce et à Rome. De là, une question fondamentalement historique : étant donné la réinsertion de l’action dans l’histoire opérée par le topos contemporain de l’événement, étant donné la critique de l’histoire et du sujet modernes, quels sont les rapports principaux entre l’histoire et l’action dans la prémodernité ? Après avoir parcouru les topoï historiques des temps prémodernes, nous reviendrons vers Arendt et Foucault pour interroger leurs propres représentations de l’Antiquité et de ses « formes de vie » : le souci de soi et le philosophe, la polis, l’autorité et l’acteur. Ces descriptions mèneront à une analyse du tempshistorique que ces représentations présupposent, mais aussi celle de leur fonction performative, voire transformatrice. Ces analyses confirmeront notre hypothèse, à savoir que des concepts historiques prémodernes sont, à certains égards, reconduits sous la plume d’Arendt et de Foucault. / The starting point of our reflections here concerns the concept of the event in contemporary philosophy. After an evaluation of the many meanings reattached to the term, we isolate two related concerns within contemporary political philosophy’s use of it : the inability to produce effective criteria for determining specific “events”; a tendency to reduce political action to its emergence within a larger and all-pervading historical framework. Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault (in his “ethical turn”) avoid these pitfalls, defining the term while at the same time reflecting upon the conditions of political participation, particularly the role of the philosopher/theorist attempting to understand specific events and determine their meaning. But in thinking about this relationship, the two authors do not focus their attention on the concept of the eventν they look to “pre-modern” concepts, practices and events, particularly in Greece and Rome.At this point we ask an essentially historical question: given the “event’s” reduction of political action within history, given the critique of the modern subject and of modern history what are some of the relationships between history and political action in Ancient and Medieval historical practices? After identifying a number of historical themes during these periods, we return to Foucault and Arendt to enquire about their own representations of ancient thought and “forms of life”: the care of self and the philosopher, the polis, Roman authority and the idea of the actor… These descriptions will lead to ananalysis of the historical time that these representations presuppose, on the one hand, and of theirperformative and transformative functions, on the other. These enquiries will confirm our hypothesis,to wit, some pre-modern historical concepts are in fact renewed in the writings of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault.

A pesquisa intitulada A antiguidade clássica na representação do feminino: pranteadoras do Cemitério Evangélico de Porto Alegre (1890-1930) analisa a influência da cultura greco-romana na representação das figuras femininas desta necrópole e apresenta um inventariado das pranteadoras. O estudo aborda também as duas marmorarias mais atuantes na capital gaúcha: a Casa Aloys e a Marmoraria Lonardi, que realizaram a colocação de algumas destas esculturas. O inventário contempla não somente a tipologia das pranteadoras, mas os materiais utilizados na arte funerária do Evangélico. A análise das pranteadoras foi amparada na presença social e moral da mulher republicana, retratada nas páginas das revistas Globo e Kodak, importantes publicações do período sobre o qual versa este estudo. / This research comprises an analysis of the greek and roman culture influences on the representation of the female figures in the necropolis indicated by its title: The classical antiquity in the female representation: mourners of the Evangélico Cemetery of Porto Alegre (1890-1930), as well as an inventory of the mourners in that cemetery. The study also approaches the two more active marble yards in the city of Porto Alegre: the Casa Aloys and the Lonardi Marble Yard, which has done the placement of some of these funerary sculptures. The inventory does not comprehend only the mourners’ typology, but also an identification of the materials employed at the funerary arts of the Evangélico Cemetery. The mourners’ analysis took in consideration the social and moral presence of the republican woman as portrayed in the Globo and Kodak magazines´ pages, which were important publications in the period that this study discusses.

The dissertation work examines the roots and development of the medieval learned weather forecasting in the context of ancient and medieval sources and its reception in the central European space, respectively in medieval Bohemia. The work can thus enrich our knowledge of history of natural sciences in the Middle Ages, medieval erudition and written culture in general. At present weather forecasting is a subject of meteorology, based on the analysis of air pressure, temperature and air density and the physiological conditions of the Earth's surface. A detailed analysis of these factors was practically infeasible in the past. Therefore weather forecasting was achieved by means of other methods and premises. We would also hardly find texts concerning weather forecasting between manuscript treatises on the origin and nature of meteorological phenomena: these surprisingly contain a minimum of weather forecast references. At that time weather forecasting was not a part of meteorology; it was the subject of other treatises appearing in the manuscripts frequently entitled De pluviis. These were primarily based on other tradition, respectively on other traditions that were different from that of Aristotle. The aim of the dissertation is to discover and to bring together the various traditions which formed...

La fabrication de sarcophages constitue, entre la fin du 5e s. et jusqu’au 9e s., une activité artisanale et économique importante, témoin de réseaux économiques et d’aires culturelles locaux et régionaux. L’inventaire et l’étude des sarcophages en contexte funéraire a permis d’établir une typologie détaillée fondée sur des critères morphologiques, décoratifs et technologiques. Sur les quelques 2500 sarcophages étudiés, un faible nombre est bien daté. Une typo-chronologie relative a pu être établie, qui s’appuie sur des exemplaires bien calés chronologiquement et sur l’évolution supposée des formes et modèles ornementaux. De l’étude des lieux de production, dont quatre centres carriers ont été repérés et étudiés, il ressort un savoir-faire important et une organisation très raisonnée de la production. La confrontation des données issues de l’étude des sarcophages et des carrières a permis de restituer des aires de diffusion d’importance micro-locale (Civaux ou Chauvigny par exemple), locale (Panzoult, la vallée de la Manse ou les productions en grès roussards), régionale (la vallée de l’Anglin), voire supra-régionale (productions bourbonnaises et nivernaises, dont les carrières sont situées en dehors de la zone d’étude) / The sarcophagi production is, between the end of the fifth century to the ninth century, an artisanal and economic activity of major importance, witness of economic networks and local and regional cultural area. The inventory and study of sarcophagi in funerary context allowed us to establish a detailed typology founded on morphological, decorative and technological criteria. On some 2500 sarcophagi studied, only a few are well dated. A relative typo-chronology has been established, based on best datations and on the evolution of shapes and decorative models. From the study of production sites, including four quarrying center were studied, we can observe an important expertise and a very rational organization of production. The confrontation of study data from sarcophagi and quarries has allowed us to restitute several diffusion areas: micro-local (Civaux or Chauvigny), local (Panzoult, valley of the Manse or red sandstone of Loir valley) or regional (Bourbonnais or Nivernais productions, outside our study area)