My Ph.D. dissertation examines the history and archaeology of the monastic institutions of Thrace between the tenth and the late fourteenth centuries. Primarily concerned with the fundamental aspects of monastic life and its modes of interaction with lay society, I sought to investigate the life-cycle, topography and spatial composition of monastic communities in the western hinterland of the imperial capital of Byzantium, the city of Constantinople. My second objective was the investigation of the cultural, economic, and social aspects of the relationship between Thrace and Constantinople as evidenced in the surviving material culture, which consists mainly of architecture and decorative programmes. I followed an interdisciplinary methodology that brings together the systematic analysis of a large corpus of texts associated with monastic institutions -namely wills, monastic foundation documents, monastic archives, letters and imperial laws- with the results of three seasons of archaeological fieldwork. I conducted extensive surveys and recorded remains of monastic complexes including churches and refectories on Mount Ganos (Turkey), on the southern Rhodope Mountains (Greece) and in the cities of Sozopolis and Mesembria (Bulgaria), and explored the cultural ties with Constantinople and other meaningful centers of the Byzantine world.

The aims of this thesis were to investigate the impact of media on Rape Myth Acceptance (RMA), and to explore the attitudes of Greek-Cypriots toward victims of rape. The systematic review of the existing literature explored whether seven types of media affect individuals’ RMA. The findings show that RMA of male participants exposed to experimental stimuli was significantly higher than male participants exposed to neutral media. This trend did not hold for females. Chapter Three presents a critique of the RMA scale used in the empirical study: the Acceptance of Modern Myths about Sexual Aggression scale (AMMSA; Gerger et al., 2007). The chapter presents methodological issues of existing RMA measures, discusses the rationale for the development of the AMMSA and presents its main strengths and limitations. Chapter Four aimed at examining the RMA of Greek-Cypriots and their attributions of blame in situations depicting sexual violence. The results indicate that males endorse more RMA and tend to attribute more blame to the victim and less to the perpetrator. Older participants and participants not acquainted with victims of sexual assault scored higher on the RMA scale. The final chapter summarises the findings and discusses implications for practice and recommendations for future research.

This work represents the most comprehensive investigation of silk in the middle Byzantine period to date. The current interpretation of silk as an imperial prerogative confined to elite use is poorly integrated with the body of evidence and lacks explanatory value. The difficult terminology and scattered mentions in written sources limits application of conventional research methods. Although a number of silk fragments survive in institutional collections, the lack of find and contextual information represents a formidable obstacle. This dissertation redefines silk in Byzantium by demonstrating its social importance, contribution to technology development, and integration in the regional economy. Findings are based on intensive analysis of production and consumption data from parallel investigation of texts and textile fragments according to a common framework. To aid data collection and analysis, information technology tools involving relational database methods and digital imaging were devised for this purpose. The evidence suggests that the historical process involving silk was shaped by a continuing cycle of elite differentiation and imitative reproduction, which contributed to the transmission of the material and production in the region. From a broader perspective, this work demonstrates the relevance of textile studies to the interpretation of economic and social history.

This thesis explores the interaction between business and the system of taxation in Greece, from the mid-1950s to the late-1980s. The key finding is that the system of taxation was one of the components of the Greek economic environment that was posing difficulties to business and was perceived by entrepreneurs as an obstacle to their activities. The issues explored are a series of administrative weaknesses of the system, such as the insufficient organisation and bureaucratic rigidities of the tax services, the complexity and constant alterations of the tax laws, but also the problematic relations with the tax officers, who were often accused to be lacking in training, arbitrary in their decisions and sometimes also corrupt. This study contributes to the current debates about the Greek economy and the causes of the crisis affecting the country. In this respect, it also throws light on the big issue of tax evasion burdening the country’s fiscal system. However, the research also belongs to the wider literature examining entrepreneurship from a business history perspective, to that focusing on the relation between entrepreneurship and institutions, to the debates regarding the ways entrepreneurship is affected by the socio-political and economic environment but also to institutional analyses about taxation. The thesis comprises of an introductory chapter, five main chapters and a conclusion. The introductory chapter presents the topic and its importance and analyses the theoretical basis on which the study is sustained. It also refers to the primary sources and the secondary material used in the thesis. The first one of the main chapters offers key information about the system of taxation, the political system and the system of public administration in Greece. The next four chapters examine disadvantages of the tax system such as the complexity of legislation and the insufficient organisation of the tax services, presenting also entrepreneurs’ perceptions about the effects of such disadvantages. The analysis also presents the voices of other parts of society, such as politicians, tax professionals and ordinary citizens, with regards to such disadvantages and the broader dysfunctionality of the tax system. The conclusion chapter suggests a series of possible reforms that could be implemented in order to improve the functioning of the tax system today. It also analyses the ways in which this thesis contributes to Greek historiography, to institutional analyses about taxation, but also to the literature concerning the interaction between institutions and entrepreneurship and more precisely, the interaction between entrepreneurship and taxation.

The thesis investigates the role of the Greek junta in the Cyprus Crisis of 1974 and analyses the invisible and complex components, including the foreign factors, which determined its outcome. Initially it examines the backstage of the intra-Greek collision between Brigadier-General Ioannides in Athens and Archbishop Makarios in Nicosia, as well as the subversive planning, including the possibility of US implication, and the military operations of the Greek coup that dethroned the Cypriot president on 15 July. It analyses the critical preinvasion days (15-19 July), which offered a clear operational forewarning over Turkish strategic intentions, and the Athenian strategic miscalculations, for the timely mobilization of the Greek-Cypriot forces, against the imminent invasion on 20 July. Then it focuses on the analysis of the offensive and defensive operations during the two phases of the Turkish invasion, and examines the difficulties encountered by the Turkish forces as well as the causes that pre-determined the Greek-Cypriot defensive failure. The thesis concludes with the implicating responsibility of foreign powers, which silently acquiesced to the deterioration of a crisis that ended with the military partition of the island Republic: the surprising Soviet silence, the fluctuating behaviour of Whitehall, and the ambiguous role of Washington which, under the dominance of Kissinger, played a critical role in encouraging, rather than deterring, Turkish strategic objectives.

This thesis wishes to draw attention to the economic, social and political implications of the rise and establishment of the institutional Church in Early Christian Greece, particularly by exploring the pilgrimage, philanthropic and industrial function of the churches’ annexes. The diverse functions of churches annexes, besides reflecting a social dimension, they also reflect economic and political realities that require the development of an interdisciplinary approach, based on civil and ecclesiastical legislation, archaeology, epigraphy, history and theology, in order to explore the extent and the effects of the institutional Church’s activity in Greece. Interpreting Christian archaeology in key excavated sites of Greece by interweaving literary and material evidence both of ecclesiastical and secular origin, will help not only to ascertain how churches stood in relation to adjoining buildings combining religious and economic purposes, but also to restore to the most possible extent the Early Christian Greek urban and rural topographies.

Interpretations of osteological remains from mainland Greece during the 1960-1980s led to the suggestion that the most virulent form of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, was prevalent between the Mesolithic and Late Bronze Age (c. 8700 cal. BC-1100 cal. BC). Although disregarded over the past decade, the theory has regained support in recent years from osteological, epidemiological, environmental and DNA studies. However, the presence of this strain of malaria in prehistoric Greece remains controversial. This thesis evaluates 1) the palaeoclimatic conditions of the Aegean between the Mesolithic and Late Bronze Age and 2) the palaeoenvironmental conditions of three archaeological settlements, with the aim of ascertaining whether the climatic and environmental conditions were as conducive for P. falciparum and the mosquito vectors as the osteological evidence suggested. Equal consideration is given to the so-called ‘lesser strains’ of malaria, P. vivax and P. malariae, the significance of which is considered to have been underestimated in previous studies.

This thesis draws on Freud to understand the innate human need to create boundaries and argues that ambivalence is an inescapable dilemma in their creation. It argues that a re-reading of Freud’s major thesis in Totem and Taboo via an engagement with the Dionysos myth and cult scholarship allows for a new understanding of dominant forms of hegemonic psychic and social formations that attempt to keep in place a false opposition of polis and phusis, self and Other, resulting in the perpetuation of oppressive structures and processes. The primary methodological claim of the thesis is that prior psychoanalytic engagements with cultus scholarship have suffered from being either insufficiently thorough or diffused in attempts to be comparative. A more holistic and detailed approach allows us to ground a psychoanalytic interpretation in the realities of said culture, allowing us to critique Freud’s misreading of Dionysos regarding the Primal Father and the psychic transmission of the Primal Crime. This thesis posits that Dionysos needs to acknowledged as a projection of the Primal Father fantasy linked to a basic ambivalence about the necessity of boundaries in psychosocial life. Using research from the classics and psychoanalysis alongside Queer and post-colonial theory, as well as extensive fieldwork and primary source analysis, this thesis provides a grounded materialist critique of psychoanalysis’ complicity in reproducing a false dichotomy between polis and phusis, a dichotomy that furthers the projection onto marginalised groups whose othering is linked to a fear and desire of a return to phusis and denial of its constant presence in the psyche and polis. This re-reading of Dionysos challenges the defensive structures, which are organised around ideas of subjectification that posit that phusis must be severed from polis/ego and projected onto Dionysos and all groups that threaten the precariousness of these boundaries.