Understanding Plutarch’s Parallel Lives as a literary text is the focus of current scholarship. However, to this date, no one has looked at Plutarch’s Life of Cimon to analyze what it reveals about morality. My thesis endeavours to understand how Plutarch shapes Cimon as a literary character to bring to light the moral focus of this Life. It first investigates Plutarch’s life and the atmosphere in which he lived to understand what influenced his writing. Chapter One follows with a discussion of the composition of the Lives to understand how they are organized. The insistence on reading each book’s four parts (proem, Life 1, Life 2, synkrisis) to fully appreciate their moral relevance leads to Chapter Two, which dissects the main components of Plutarch’s moral mirror. This provides the necessary background needed for Chapter Three’s case study of Plutarch’s Cimon. Here, I argue that the main moral message contained therein is the importance of generosity and euergetism.

This thesis examines the Greek institution of proxenia and uses it to explore how inter-polis institutions functioned in shaping the behaviour of both individuals and communities in the ancient world. In response to continuing debate concerning the nature of proxenia, I demonstrate that, throughout the Classical and Hellenistic periods, it was defined as an honorific status by the practical intermediary role which it performed in facilitating interactions between different poleis. As such proxenia was a central element of a broader system of inter-polis institutions which constituted the dominant interstate discourse in the ancient Mediterranean. This thesis shows that Proxenia with its particularly rich epigraphic record allows us to explore how poleis made use of this institutional language of status and legitimacy to assert membership of an interstate system which was conceived of as a society of poleis. In Chapter 1 I propose a new model for reconstructing how proxenia was understood based on the expectations – of what proxenoi should be and do – which poleis communicated in their stereotypical descriptions of honorands in proxeny decrees. Chapter 2 then explores how this abstract understanding of proxenia worked in practice in the political realities of elite competition in the Greek poleis. In Chapter 3 I use proxeny lists to reconstruct the perspective of the polis on proxenia – in the networks of hundreds of proxenoi which even small poleis amassed as a result of constant interaction. Chapter 4 explores the role of proxenia, within a broader system of institutions, in the construction of communal identity within an anarchic interstate system. In Chapter 5 I develop quantitative methods to explore the epigraphic record for proxeny’s decline, arguing that proxenia, along with the other inter-polis institutions, disappeared because the Roman authorities at the centre replaced inter-polis connections as the source of communal identity and prestige.

Esta tese discute a produção do espaço urbano em Atenas de 200 a.C. a 14 d.C., analisando a interação entre práticas evergéticas, propaganda dinástica/imperial, e tradições e demandas locais. Após um extensivo levantamento dos estudos sobre o tema, assim como suas fontes e paradigmas, os capítulos que seguem discutem as intervenções espaciais em Atenas realizadas por ou em associação a reis helenísticos, potentados romanos e a casa imperial. Argumenta-se que estas intervenções formaram diferentes programas urbanos com lógicas espaciais específicas; e cada programa urbano deveria dialogar com os anteriores para afirmar sua própria lógica. Mais do que uma mera metáfora da história política, a história espacial de Atenas tardo-helenística e romana é tomada como parte da cultura material pela qual as estruturas políticas locais e imperiais se (re)produziam, no contexto de processos de integração mediterrânicos específicos. / This thesis discusses the production of the Athenian urban space from 200 BC to 14 AD, analyzing the interaction between euergetic practices, dynastic/imperial propaganda, and local traditions and demands. After a extensive survey of the studies on this subject and their sources and paradigms, the following chapters discuss the Athenian spatial interventions made by or in association with Hellenistic kings, Roman rulers and the imperial family. It is argued that these interventions formed different urban programs with specific spatial logics; and each urban program must dialogue with the earlier ones to assert its own logic. More than a mere metaphor of political history, the spatial history of Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Athens is taken as part of the material culture by which imperial and local political structures (re)produced themselves, in the context of specific Mediterraneans process of integration.

Esta tese discute a produção do espaço urbano em Atenas de 200 a.C. a 14 d.C., analisando a interação entre práticas evergéticas, propaganda dinástica/imperial, e tradições e demandas locais. Após um extensivo levantamento dos estudos sobre o tema, assim como suas fontes e paradigmas, os capítulos que seguem discutem as intervenções espaciais em Atenas realizadas por ou em associação a reis helenísticos, potentados romanos e a casa imperial. Argumenta-se que estas intervenções formaram diferentes programas urbanos com lógicas espaciais específicas; e cada programa urbano deveria dialogar com os anteriores para afirmar sua própria lógica. Mais do que uma mera metáfora da história política, a história espacial de Atenas tardo-helenística e romana é tomada como parte da cultura material pela qual as estruturas políticas locais e imperiais se (re)produziam, no contexto de processos de integração mediterrânicos específicos. / This thesis discusses the production of the Athenian urban space from 200 BC to 14 AD, analyzing the interaction between euergetic practices, dynastic/imperial propaganda, and local traditions and demands. After a extensive survey of the studies on this subject and their sources and paradigms, the following chapters discuss the Athenian spatial interventions made by or in association with Hellenistic kings, Roman rulers and the imperial family. It is argued that these interventions formed different urban programs with specific spatial logics; and each urban program must dialogue with the earlier ones to assert its own logic. More than a mere metaphor of political history, the spatial history of Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Athens is taken as part of the material culture by which imperial and local political structures (re)produced themselves, in the context of specific Mediterraneans process of integration.

Cette étude porte sur les fontaines monumentales ou nymphées dans les provinces de l’Afrique du Nord à l’époque romaine, sur une période allant du Ier au IVe siècle ap. J.‑C. Nous avons constitué un catalogue des monuments et un corpus épigraphique, à partir de sources bibliographiques et archéologiques recueillies par un travail de terrain. Après avoir rappelé l’histoire des recherches sur l’hydraulique de l’Afrique antique, nous étudions en détail les aspects techniques et architecturaux des fontaines monumentales. Nous proposons une synthèse sur les techniques de construction et le fonctionnement hydraulique, mais également sur la restitution architecturale et du décor sculpté, à l’aide de sources littéraires et iconographiques. Sans proposer de typologie, nous étudions les fontaines dans leur contexte, au sein de la ville et du réseau hydraulique. Nous mettons ainsi en avant l’insertion des fontaines dans la ville et le lien qu’elles entretiennent avec la mise en place des adductions et les programmes urbanistiques. Ces observations rendent possible une étude de la répartition des fontaines dans l’espace urbain et de son impact, décoratif et fonctionnel. L’étude des inscriptions nous permet de mieux envisager le fonctionnement de l’évergétisme, le comportement de la cité et des notables face à ces édifices. Elle est aussi l’occasion de revenir sur les problèmes de vocabulaire qui impliquent une réflexion sur l’appellation des édifices et leur fonction religieuse. / This thesis deals with monumental fountains or nymphaea in the Roman North Africa provinces from the 1st to the 4th century CE. We have made up a catalogue of the monuments and inscriptions, composed from bibliographical and archaeological sources compiled on-site. We first sum up the history of research on hydraulics in ancient North Africa and then we study in detail the technical and architectural aspects of monumental fountains. We offer a synthesis on building techniques and hydraulic system as well as architectural and ornamental reconstruction with the help of literary and iconographic sources. Avoiding to establish a typology, we contextualise the fountains both within the city and the hydraulic network. Thus we put forward the insertion of fountains in the city and their link with the founding of a new water supply or town-planning programmes. These observations make possible a study of how the fountains were spread out in the urban space and to what extent it had a decorative and functional impact. By studying inscriptions, we may better understand how euergetism worked, just as the behaviour of cities and notables faced with these monuments. We may also go back to questions of vocabulary which imply to think about the appellation of fountains and their religious function.

In the city centers of Roman Asia Minor, honorific monuments, which consisted of a portrait sculpture and biographical inscription, filled the agoras, aedicular facades, and colonnaded avenues. While some monuments were for Roman emperors and magistrates, the majority celebrated and memorialized the most important members of the local community, male and female, individuals who held public offices, sponsored festivals, and funded large scale construction projects. Honorific monuments were collaborative productions that involved civic institutions, the honored benefactor, and the family or friends of the honorand. Because of the multiplicity of actors involved in the honorific process, an examination of honorific inscriptions allows for a discussion of identity construction at different scales from the individual honorand and his or her family to an entire civic community. In a city in Asia Minor during the empire, the identities conveyed included Roman imperial allegiances, Greek cultural values, and ties to the local community, often combined in compositions that justified claims of status or fulfilled political ambitions. This dissertation investigates the honorific inscriptions from one city in Asia Minor, Aphrodisias, from the mid-1st century BCE to the mid-3rd century CE, which consists of 206 instances of honor for 183 local Aphrodisians. The analysis examines developments in elite self-fashioning and the evolution of the reciprocal relationship between a community and its benefactors, with particular focus on references to ancestry and familial connections in the language of the inscriptions. The evidence indicates that the Aphrodisian elite deployed epigraphic formulations that mention family background and Roman connections in order to construct composite cultural identities and to affirm their place among the city’s aristocratic factions. The contextualization of these texts in an historical and archaeological framework demonstrates that the observed epigraphic changes responded both to internal factors, such as demographic shifts, and external ones, such as the spread of Roman citizenship. This analysis highlights the internally-stratified and competitive aristocratic order that functioned in Imperial Aphrodisias and articulates how the elite employed references to ancestral background, local ties, and Roman familial connections strategically in ways that had tangible impacts on the landscape of the city. / text

Cette thèse étudie une question historique classique, celle de la transition entre l'évergétisme et la charité chrétienne, à travers l'étude des dons à la collectivité en Afrique du Nord tardo-antique, de la fin du IIIe siècle au VIe siècle. La recherche s'appuie sur les sources épigraphiques et littéraires africaines tardo‑antiques, et prend en compte les acquis de l'anthropologie du don. Pendant l'Antiquité tardive, l'évergétisme, pratique caractéristique des cités antiques par laquelle des aristocrates faisaient des dons à leurs concitoyens se renouvelle et disparaît progressivement. Selon l'interprétation couramment admise, cette pratique aurait été supplantée par un nouveau mode de générosité influencé par le modèle de la charité chrétienne. Devenus chrétiens, les habitants des cités africaines auraient tourné le dos aux modes de générosité propres à la cité antique pour se montrer généreux vis-à-vis de la communauté chrétienne de leur choix. À travers l'étude des discours et des pratiques du don, ce travail remet en question le modèle de la transition en montrant notamment que les deux modes de don ont largement coexisté durant les débuts de l'Antiquité tardive. Cette étude affine la chronologie des dons à la collectivité et montre que le christianisme n'est pas à lui seul responsable de la fin de l'évergétisme. Le travail revient sur l'expression « évergétisme chrétien », parfois utilisée dans l'historiographie pour désigner la permanence d'une logique évergétique au sein même du don chrétien. Sont également étudiés les usages du don à la collectivité : le don est autant source de lien social entre les acteurs qu'il est vecteur de conflit. / This dissertation addresses the problem of the transition from euergetism to Christian charity. The approach focuses on gifts to communities in Late Antique North Africa from the third century to the sixth century. The study uses epigraphical and literary documents and includes anthropological perspectives on gift-giving. During Late Antiquity, euergetism (public benefaction) changes and disappears slowly. According to most current theories, euergetism would have been replaced by a new form of generosity, based on 'Christian charity'. Progressively converted to Christianity, the Romano‑Africans would have given up classical civic generosity, turning instead to the Christian communities. This dissertation studies the discourse and practice of gift-giving and challenges the idea of a transition from euergetism to charity, showing that both types of gifts coexisted in early Late Antiquity. This theory clarifies the chronology of Late Antique generosity and analyzes the expression 'Christian euergetism'. Finally, the study examines the uses of benefaction and shows that gift-giving strengthens social bonds while simultaneously generating tension.

In this thesis we explore the period of renewal that Athens experienced during the second century AD. This century saw Athens at the peak of her cultural prominence in the Roman Empire: the city was the centre of the League of the Panhellenion and hosted a vibrant sophistic scene that attracted orators from across the Greek world, developments which were ideologically fuelled by contemporary conceptions of Classical Athens. While this Athenian 'golden age' is a standard feature of scholarship on Greek culture under Rome, my thesis delves further to explore the renewal of the urban and rural landscapes at this time and the relationship between that process and constructions of Athenian identity. We approach the renewal of second-century Athens through four lenses: past and present in the Ilissos area; the rhetoric of the Panhellenion; elite conflict and competition; and the character of the Attic countryside. My central conclusions are as follows: 1. The renewal of Athens was effected chiefly by Hadrian and the Athenian elite and was modelled on an ideal Athenian past, strategically manipulated to suit present purpose; the attractions of the fifth-century golden age for this programme of renewal meant that politically contentious history of radical democracy and aggressive imperialism had to be safely rewritten. 2. Athens and Attica retained their uniquely integrated character in the second century. Rural Attica was the subject of a powerful sacro-idyllic ideology and played a vital role in concepts of Athenian identity, while simultaneously serving as a functional landscape of production and inhabitation. 3. The true socio-economic importance of the Attic countryside as a settled and productive landscape should be investigated without unduly privileging the limited evidence from survey, and by combining all available sources, both literary and documentary, with attention to their content, cultural context and ideological relevance.