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Diss. / "Dissertatio archaeologico-philologica, quam consensu et auctoritate amplissimi philosophorum ordinis in alma literarum acadedmia Monasteriensi." Includes bibliographical references.

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This dissertation applies the principles of fiscal dissertation to the study of the Roman Republic. I argue that the creation of a profitable empire allowed the ruling elite to end their reliance on domestic taxation to fund state activity, and that Rome's untaxed citizens were effectively disenfranchised as a result. They therefore lacked the bargaining power to prevent aristocrats from enriching themselves at the expense of the state. The result was a set of leading individuals whose resources could overwhelm those of communal, public institutions. This wealth allowed them to control the distribution of economic resources within Roman society, reinforcing hierarchies and forcing less fortunate citizens to tie themselves to patronage networks instead of state institutions. This state, unable to command the respect of its constituents, was eventually picked off in the competition between great individuals.

This dissertation analyzes Socratic ethics in three Platonic dialogues: the Protagoras, the Gorgias, and the Republic. The purpose is twofold: 1) to question the standard view that what is the defining characteristic of Socratic ethics in the Protagoras and the Gorgias is its intellectualism and that the Republic represents a correction to, or deviation from, such intellectualism, and 2) to offer an alternative account of Socratic ethics in these dialogues. The alternative account this dissertation proposes is that what makes Socrates a compelling ethical figure is his unique understanding of what constitutes an agent's self-interest. Moreover, the contention will be that the uniqueness of Socrates' ethical views comes into focus when we consider them vis-à-vis the views and concerns of his interlocutors, particularly the sophists.

Despite the long-recognized connection between poverty and charity, and the scholarly attention paid to the culture of charity, there have been very few studies that have yielded the kind of quantitative results that would enable scholars of antiquity to assess the sources and impact of church wealth gained from non-elites. I ask three questions: (1) Who was asked to give? (2) Who could afford to give? (3) Who did, in fact, give? Three bodies of evidence offer answers: (1) The the patristic corpus suggests targets of solicitation as well as a rhetorical strategy for encouraging donation, (2) household economic models give a sense of how potential donors could generate disposable in- come through ascetic practice, and (3) a selection of small donations, specifically Christian small silvers, can be valued in a way that permits conjecture regarding the social profile of donors in late antiquity. Pursuing charity in this way offers the opportunity to get past ecclesiastical self- representation and gaps in evidence by looking at the underlying structures of the phenomenon. This in turn promises a clearer idea of the relationship between charity and philanthropy, placing church institutions back in their social context.

Multiple natural philosophers in antiquity proposed that nature possessed considerable technical skill. Yet, the specific conceptual implications of this assertion were quite different in fourth century BCE Athens--with its pots, bronze tools and cisterns--than in second century CE Rome--where large-scale aqueducts, elaborate water machines and extensive glassworks were commonplace. This dissertation assesses the impact that these different technological environments had on philosophical and scientific theories. In short, it argues that contemporary technologies shaped ancient philosophers' physical assumptions by providing cognitive tools with which to understand natural phenomena. As a result, as technologies evolved--even in relatively modest ways--so too did conceptual models of the natural world. To explore these assertions, this dissertation focuses on two main fields of explanation, the vascular system and vision, and includes investigations of such technologies as pipes, pumps, mirrors, wax tablets, diagrams and experimental apparatuses. It demonstrates the ways in which scientific theorists use the specific material technologies around them as heuristics to conceptualize physical processes.

In Athens in the early 5th century BCE, a new genre of funerary vase, the white-ground lêkythos, appeared and quickly grew to be the most popular grave gift for nearly a century. These particular vases, along with their relatively delicate style of painting, ushered in a new funerary scene par excellence, which highlighted the sorrow of the living and the merits of the deceased by focusing on personal moments of grief in the presence of a grave. Earlier Attic funerary imagery tended to focus on crowded prothesis scenes where mourners announced their grief and honored the dead through exaggerated, violent and frenzied gestures. The scenes on white-ground lêkythoi accomplished the same ends through new means, namely by focusing on individual mourners and the emotional ways that mourners privately nourished the deceased and their memory. Such scenes combine ritual activity (i.e. dedicating gifts, decorating the grave, pouring libations) with emotional expressions of sadness, which make them more vivid and relatable. The nuances in the characteristics of the mourners indicate a new interest in adding an individual touch to the expression, which might “speak” to a particular moment or variety of sadness that might relate to a potential consumer. To facilitate a meaningful discussion of the range of ways that white-ground painters articulated grief and lament in their vases, the dissertation is divided into six chapters, each of which concentrates on a particular type of mourner: women, men, elderly men, infants, vocal visitors and the deceased. Discussing the visual iconography across these different groups demonstrates that the shared and individual, public and private, intentional and candid aspects of grief and mourning can be shown simultaneously and that it was of interest to the Athenians to look at images that incorporated all of these aspects.

This study describes the religious content of the Ciceronian corpus and reappraises Cicero’s religious stance. Chapter 1 develops a working definition of religion in terms of interested supernatural agents, briefly situating it within the historiography of religion. Support for this definition from scholars in a range of academic disciplines is demonstrated. It is then engaged in Chapter 2 as a tool with which to locate and classify religious material in the Ciceronian corpus, approaching the texts genre by genre and indicating certain difficulties encountered when seeking to divide the religious from the non-religious. Religion in Cicero now defined, Chapter 3 considers the limitations in scope and methodology of previous research on the topic, arguing that these limitations call for a new approach but also suggest how it should proceed. The corpus must be considered as a whole, with twin objectives: to describe and account for conflicting religious viewpoints within and between individual works, and to establish whether a coherent authorial religious position exists. Cicero generally presents religion as beneficial to society, but never expressly sets out to elucidate the reasoning behind this recurrent proposition or collects in one place those beliefs and practices that are repeatedly advocated. Chapter 4 combines disparate Ciceronian material to show how social utility is thought to accrue and how it is predicated upon a surprisingly large and specific body of religious doctrine. This doctrine amounts to a dominant religious ideology; its operation in practice and its substantial resemblance to Roman orthodoxy are illustrated in Chapter 5, a case study on Cicero’s use of religious rhetoric in connection with the Catilinarian conspiracy. Chapter 6 details the similarities and many conflicts between the dominant religious ideology and the religious viewpoints of the Stoics, Epicureans and Philonian Academics as each school is portrayed by Cicero. Finally, Chapter 7 argues that a coherent authorial attitude to religion is present, which maps closely onto the dominant religious ideology and is characterized by a consistent and spirited endorsement of traditional Roman religion in full awareness of competing rational arguments from Greek philosophy. Some possible explanations for this attitude conclude the study. / The Classics

<p> A particular range of sounds express the presence and power of the god Dionysos. &Bgr;&rhov;&oacute;&mu;&iota;o&sigmav;, an epithet almost exclusively applied to Dionysos, especially connotes powerful sounds from the natural world, frenetic sounds, and sounds construed as foreign. The kind of noise conveyed by the name &Bgr;&rhov;&oacute;&mu;&iota;o&sigmav; is created in the ecstatic worship of Dionysos, generating an aurally-defined mobile and temporary Dionysiac space that blurs boundaries and infringes upon other types of spaces. Dionysiac sound conveys the vitality associated with Dionysos and provides a mechanism for his epiphany.</p><p> Accounting for Dionysos&rsquo; relationship with sound allows for new readings of <i>Bacchae</i> and <i>Frogs.</i> The aural aspects of Bacchae provide a counterpoint to its rich visual imagery. Pentheus threatens to silence Dionysos and remains oblivious to the importance of sound in Dionysiac worship. When he dresses as a maenad, he assumes only the visual aspects of the cult. Pentheus&rsquo; screams are incorporated into the Dionysiac soundscape before he dies, silenced forever. Aristophanes&rsquo; <i> Frogs</i> subverts the usual relationship between Dionysos and sound in a way that emphasizes the comical stereotype of the god as weak and incompetent. In particular, both choruses present Dionysiac sound to an oblivious Dionysos. He is irritated by the frogs and enthralled by the initiates.</p>