Paulicians represent one of the most dynamic religious and military phenomena in the eastern Mediterranean during the ninth century. Despite being unknown to Greek sources at the beginning of this century, Paulicians were persecuted by the East Roman Empire in the 810s and again in the 840s. After this later persecution, they aligned themselves with the Emirate of Malaṭiya and raided the empire's eastern provinces until their eclipse as a regional power in the 870s. Yet modern scholarship concerning Paulicians has conventionally focused on their religiosity, which has traditionally been identified as a variant of adoptionism descended from primordial forms of Armenian Christianity, and/or as a Manichaean or Marcionite dualism which would influence later heresies in Bulgaria and the Languedoc. In contrast to approaches such as these, which locate Paulicians within broader religious metanarratives, this thesis seeks to analyse Paulician religiosity on its own terms by grounding it within its social, religious and politico-military contexts. In doing so, it will reappraise Paulician activity after a comparative dearth of scholarly interest lasting several decades. Firstly, it will reinterpret the relationship of the Greek heresiological sources which describe the heresy, in the process arguing that several of these sources (notably Peter of Sicily's History of the Paulicians and Pseudo-Photios' Contra Manichaeos) are forgeries which date to the reign of Constantine VII (945-59), many decades after the Paulicians' downfall in the 870s. It will explain the significance of this fact for the study of Paulicians, as well as positing methods by which these forgeries could have been undertaken, and their testimony corroborated. In doing so, I will pay particular attention to the symbolic language (particularly numerical and onomastic) with which Roman heresiologists read religious texts. Secondly, the thesis will offer a new explanation for Paulicians as a historical phenomenon indigenous to Asia Minor, without tangible links to earlier Armenian heretics, or dualists, such as Manichaeans or Marcionites. It will argue that Paulicians in this area had an apostolic religiosity founded upon reverence for the apostle Paul, by employing two Paulician sources which are now preserved in the History of the Paulicians, namely the Didaskalie and the Letters of Sergios. I will contextualise these sources in the aftermath of the Roman persecutions of the 810s, in the process examining the Paulicians' idiosyncratic understanding of the Holy Spirit and the sin-based narratives which they developed after these persecutions. These findings on Paulician religion will then be placed in an even wider context by positing reasons for the Paulicians' expansion which locate them within the cultural and socio-economic fabric of the borderlands between the East Roman Empire, the 'Abbāsid Caliphate and Armenia. It will refute the traditional interpretation that a de-facto alliance with the iconoclast movement was instrumental to Paulician expansion, instead arguing that their success was intimately linked to East Roman persecutions against them and the manner in which they made sense of these events. Beyond this, the thesis will undermine the conception of a distinct Paulician identity and religiosity throughout the period in question, arguing that they should best be understood as a fractious and heterogeneous network, rather than a single confessional entity.

The censorship was one of the Roman Republic's most significant magistracies. The range and importance of their duties – the census, the lectio senatus and recognitio equitum, letting public contracts and initiating public works, and the ceremony of the lustrum – meant that the office had a profound impact on Roman society. There is much modern scholarship on the censorship. But some of the arguments and conclusions put forward by earlier scholars, while valuable, need to be updated and certain misconceptions corrected. In particular, what is required is a greater focus on placing the censorship in its political and social context, into the political culture of the Roman Republic, in order to properly analyse the office, its wider function(s), and its influence on Roman society. At the same time, a careful consideration of what precisely the censors' duties involved and how each pair of censors carried these out is necessary. The present work hopes to address both aspects of this important magistracy. To that end, this thesis is divided into seven chapters. Five of which deal with the censors' individual responsibilities. Chapter 1 is a diachronic survey of the censorship across the whole period of its existence. It aims to highlight the development of the office over time and to ground the subsequent discussion of the magistracy in its proper chronological context. Chapter 2 highlights the infrastructure – assistants, schedule, records, headquarters etc – through which the censors were able to carry out their tasks. Chapter 3 is a study of the censors' most important task, the taking of the census, and its importance for the Roman community. Chapter 4 looks at the censors as guardians of the mos maiorum, and the activities through which this role was expressed. Chapter 5 investigates the censors' responsibility for letting public contracts of various kinds, and the impact this had on the Roman state and its economy. Chapter 6 focuses in more detail on the most significant and costly element of the censors' contracting duties – public works. It attempts to assess what contribution the censors made to the ever-changing face of the city of Rome, as compared to the other magistrates. Finally, Chapter 7 considers the lustrum, the sacred rite which closed each pair of censors' term in office. It asks both what the ceremony involved, and what its meaning and significance for the community might have been.

Ancient sources consistently identify a strong naval element to Roman military activity along the northern frontier from the earliest occupation campaigns to Late Antiquity. This element is formed by four established provincial fleets, the CLASSES BRITANNICA, GERMANICA, PANNONICA and MOESICA. The current understanding of these units, however, is disproportionate to their importance and some current interpretations are in urgent need of revision in view of new archaeological and epigraphic data relevant to the fleets. This study identifies and analyses the main theories and problems in the study of naval activity on the northern frontier on the basis of concrete archaeological and epigraphic evidence. In order to establish a reliable foundation for further research, every site on the northern frontier identified as a fleet base in current research is studied in detail to identify fleet related evidence. These surveys, one for each of the provincial fleets based on the northern frontier, constitute the four main chapters of the thesis. The evidence for each fleet is summarised independently at the end of each chapter to revise current understanding of the respective fleet. The concluding chapter draws on all four of these summaries and reassesses the current understanding of naval power on the northern frontier of the Roman Empire from the 1st-3rd century, highlighting several misconceptions that exist in current scholarship. As such, the study illustrates that there is substantially less evidence for the provincial fleets than is currently being assumed, while the evidence at hand is not being utilized to its full potential. It is shown that literary evidence for naval activity must be treated with far greater care than hitherto anticipated and that a number of difficulties in our understanding of Roman naval activity on the northern frontier are caused by a serious misinterpretation of the term classis. Although the “regular” fleets were evidently far smaller than currently believed and had a far more limited range of operations than assumed, the naval element in Roman military activity on the northern frontier was far more substantial than these four established classes: there is clear evidence not only for the use of ad hoc fleets, created and often requisitioned for specific military campaigns, but also that naval arms were maintained by both legions and auxiliary units. These detachments played a significant role in the control and safeguarding of the Empire’s northern frontier – probably more so than the established fleets, the CLASSES BRITANNICA, GERMANICA, PANNONICA and MOESICA.

This is a study of the Italian Black Bands, one of the most famous units of mercenary infantry of the sixteenth century, and of their relationships with their employer, the Florentine republic, from the death of their founder and first commander Giovanni de'Medici (1498-1526) to their disbandment after the surrender of the army of the League of Cognac, of which they were part, at Aversa, near Naples, on 30 August 1528. In order to establish an adequate framework, the figure and the myth of Giovanni de'Medici - in memory of whom his men wore permanently the black bands of mourning - are examined at the beginning of the dissertation, and his role and place in the tactical and administrative developments that characterised the end of the Italian Wars reassessed. Particular attention has been paid to the analysis of the peculiarities of the Italian infantry at the end of the Italian Wars, such as its reliance on arquebuses rather than pikes and its specialization in assault and skirmish instead of shock tactics, and to the problems that these peculiarities created for states like Florence, which sought, unsuccessfully, to invert the pike-to-shot ratio and to transform the Black Bands from an expeditionary force into a defensive militia. Eventually, the last part of this thesis has been dedicated to the siege laid by the army of the League to Naples in 1528, one of the most important and less studied sieges of the sixteenth century, whose dramatic outcome shattered the residual hopes of the pro-French party after the battle of Pavia (1525) and made possible the establishment of Imperial hegemony in the greater part of the Italian peninsula. With this dissertation I have tried to outline the changes that the organization and command of large bodies of mercenary infantry brought about not only in Florentine military and foreign policy, but, more generally, in Italian military entrepreneurship, and to explain how these latter changes contributed to the general European trend that brought about the birth of the Tercios and other regimental structures.

This thesis will focus on the battle of Actium and the ways in which the Caesarian regime represented and commemorated this conflict and turned it to Octavian/Augustus's purpose. It will be argued that Actium was relatively more important than Alexandria in the ideology of the regime, but at the same time that the two battles must be understood together, as part of the accomplishment of the assignment of the triumvirate (constituting the res publica to order and ending the civil war). The focus will thus be on the period between 43-27 BC. It will be suggested that the powers given back to the Senate and Roman people in 27 BC were in fact the powers of the triumvirate. The arrangements of 28-27 BC thus constitute the accomplishment of the triumviral assignment. It will be stressed that, according to the regime, Apollo had a major role to play in this development, helping Octavian to win the battle of Actium. There are many possible themes that could have been exploited, but the nexus of Actium, Apollo, civil war and peace all centre round the triumvirate and triumviral assignment. There is a generally held consensus amongst scholars that Actium was presented as a foreign war and that Octavian/Augustus tried to conceal that it was in fact a civil war. This thesis will reflect on the issue and challenge this consensus. Antonius decided to make war on his own country and thus a foreign war turned into a civil war. Similarly, it is more or less universally held that the battle of Actium was decided due to a prearranged battle plan by Antonius and Cleopatra; from the outset they wanted to flee. Instead it will be argued that it is much more likely that the battle was decided by Cleopatra's treachery.

By the beginning of the sixteenth Venice was an established maritime empire having achieved, not only the methodical restraint of the Ottomans' expansive aspirations towards European lands, but also solid control over the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas and the trade routes to the Levant. Internally Venice was a metropolis bustling with merchants, craftsmen, travellers and visitors, amongst whom a great number uf established foreigners. Nearly eighty per cent of the city's population was made up of these labouring poor, who contributed significantly to the economic stability and prosperity ofthe Republic, as they provided the workforce for many of its industries. Venice was home to the world renowned Arsena/e, the biggest 'factory' in medieval and early modern period. It was there where the great Venetian galleys were built, armed, and launched into water, contributing to the Republic's economic prosperity, commercial and territorial expansion, as well as its defensive purposes. This thesis focuses on two of the most distinct working class communities in the city, the shipbuilding craftsmen, commonly known as Arsena/atti, and the seafaring Greek community. Both these groups, the former in charge of building these vessels, and the latter serving in them as sailors and captains, or similarly employed in the . shipbuilding industry, were two of the most prominent working class clusters in late Renaissance Venice. This study will attempt to look into the way of life of the maritime folk outside their workplace, in order to assess their financial and social standing - taking into consideration the places in which they lived, their households, their [mances, the social networks which they formed, and their religious and charitable activities - at a time of considerable demographic, economic, and social adjustments for the city. The examination of the two groups, established in the same neighbourhoods and united under the same occupational activities, will show that despite any linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity, their situation in life was very similar, and demonstrative of the circumstances of the Venetian working classes as a whole. Keeping in mind that early modern Venice's papa/ani have been considerably neglected by contemporary scholarship, the ultimate objective of this thesis is to initiate a basic study on the socio-economic life of the lower classes in one of the most populous and celebrated cities in medieval and early modern Europe.

The Apostolic Order, a late medieval Italian mendicant order remains fundamentally little understood despite several centuries of research and writing devoted to their history. Much of the work done on the Apostolic Order (or Followers of Dolcino) has been focused on their leaders, taken as given the order’s heretical status, or presumed the marginalized status of those who supported the order. This thesis attempts to reconsider the order and its supporters by placing them as another mendicant order prior to the papal condemnation, and put forth the new perspective that the supporters were much like other medieval persons and became socially marginalized by the inquisitorial focus on the Apostolic Order. To support this theory, this thesis will compare the inquisitorial records of the Apostolic supporters found in Historia Fratris Dulcini Heresiarche and the Acta S. Officii Bononie—ab anon 1291 usque ad annum 1310 to those of another group of mendicants and supporters, the Beguins of Provence, which are found in Spirituali e Beghini in Provenza, Bernard Gui’s Le Livre des Sentences de L’inquisiteur Bernard Gui 1308-1323, and the martyrology in Louisa Burnham’s So Great a Light, So Great a Smoke: The Beguin Heretics of Languedoc. These two groups of data were compared using statistical analysis and network and game theory, and the results were that 1) the groups were similar; 2) most differences could be reasonably explained by the objectives of respective inquisitions or length of persecution prior to the inquisition. That these two groups are comparable suggests that there are patterns in mendicant supporter membership exemplified by Franciscan tertiaries and that the supporters of the Apostolic Order fit this pattern.

This study of legio XX Valeria Victrix combines a prosopographical and historical approach to the study of the legion as a whole. Epigraphic and historical evidence is presented for all those individuals known to have served with the Twentieth Legion in their various capacities. Sources are quoted, with translation, for each of these and significant details of the careers discussed. Further aspects of careers generally are considered at the end of the relevant sections. This corpus is supported by a number of indices - of nomenclature, origins, ranks, service and posts held in other units etc., as well as an index of primary sources. Other inscriptions attesting to the presence of the Twentieth legion and its activities in various quarters of the Empire are also collected and presented. This epigraphic evidence is drawn together with that of the archaeological and historical sources, along with the copious modem literature on the subject of the Roman Army, to present a history of the Twentieth Legion from its formation out of the legions of the civil wars of the late Republic, to its uncertain end in the changing conditions of the late third and fourth centuries. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of individuals and the light that their careers can shed on the history and activities of the legion. Studies on a number of other aspects of the history and organisation of the legion are appended.

This thesis investigates the sentence of exile in Rome from the years 58 BC to AD 68. Its central argument is that exile increased in severity from the end of the Republic until it had been turned into a despotic tool at the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. The thesis also aims to convey diachronically the sense of exile through an analysis of its experiential effect on those who suffered banishment from Rome, while taking account of legal changes and explaining the various forms of exile, aquae et ignis interdictio, relegatio and deportatio. Primary sources referred to include the exilic works of Cicero, Ovid and Seneca, the historical texts of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, as well as a wide range of other ancient writers. Additional research methods include the use of epigraphic and material evidence. A full bibliography of secondary sources and appendices on key moments and places of exile are included.

This thesis seeks to add to our understanding of Venetian society in the latter half of the fifteenth century by offering a new approach: an in-depth study of one of Venice's six districts (sestier1). My researches concentrated on the sestiere of San Polo, which embraced the Rialto. My intention in narrowing the focus of analysis is to reveal a cross-section of society. Fundamental to this inquiry is to discover the identity of this sestiere; to explore its little known social profile, trades and solidarities and to sharpen the images of its urban fabric. At the same time, it is an investigation into the significance and role of neighbourhood and local loyalties in Renaissance Venice. The opening chapter discusses the changing topography of San Polo and its definition over the following three centuries. Boundaries were blurred; parish disputes document how and why they were changed. Chapter Two introduces the three social orders recognised by contemporaries (patriciate, citizenry and artisans), tracing the sharpening of hierarchy, the growing cohesion of the cittadini originarii and the emergence of poorer neighbourhoods towards the city's margins. Chapter Three investigates noble and cittadini families in San Polo, through a number of detailed case studies. A complex and varied picture emerged, in which family structures and residential patterns amongst the nobility did not conform to rigid models. Chapter Four attempts to flesh out a collective portrait of the "little people", beginning with Rialto. Chapters Five and Six discuss property; initially through a massive survey after the Rialto fire (1514); Quattrocento sources are then used to examine property at Rialto, domestic housing, building activity and renting. The final chapter deals with neighbourhood, concluding that the sestiere was not an effective social unit and that local loyalties formed part of complex and changing webs of allegiance.