By providing a holistic viewpoint this thesis has gone some way to correct the imbalance in the secondary literature which has been dominated by coverage of the Mediterranean from either a domestic or international perspective. The thesis clarifies whether there has been a resurgence of regionalism in the Mediterranean since the end of the Cold War by examining regional dynamics in the area from five different perspectives. The first investigates the concept of regionalism in international relations. The second gives an historical perspective of regionalism in the Mediterranean. The third focuses on contemporary international relations in the Mediterranean. The fourth examines the influence of external actors in the international politics of the Mediterranean. The fifth provides a “reality check” of the Mediterranean in the post-Cold War world. Patterns of interaction in the Mediterranean area reveal that there are two neighbouring international regions that are very different in character: Western Europe and the Middle East, which include three subregions bordering the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, the Levant, and the Maghreb. Post-Cold War trans-Mediterranean political proposals resonate with older traditions. This research project investigates the substance behind such Mediterranean regional rhetoric. The conclusions of this analysis are that external actors have often influenced regional patterns of relations, but have not been able to alter the basic pattern of regional alignment and conflict within international regions. In addition, regionalising proposals are more accurately described as attempts to pursue particular national and subregional interests, and as boundary management devices rather than boundary transcending ones. A reality check at the end of the twentieth century shows that the Mediterranean is more of a frontier zone than an international region.

This thesis examines warfare, social power, and the state in central Italy for the period between 900 and 343 BC.1 The goal of this research is to better understand how warfare fit into the dialogue of social power in Etruria and Rome. This is achieved through the fulfilment of a number of aims. The first is to understand the patterns of warfare present in central Italy, as these can help us better understand the social aspects of conflict in the region. The project assumes that the practice of warfare is important for understanding its role in this dialogue, and thus an analysis of arms, armour, and tactics is also necessary. The second aim is to understand how warfare and politics affected one another. The condottieri paradigm is challenged and the strength of central Italian states asserted. The third aim is to explain the interaction between warfare and economic power, and the interaction between these two aspects of social power. The fourth aim is similar, and analyzes the connections that are visible between warfare and religion. Through these aims, this project creates a clearer picture of warfare in Etruria and Rome from the Iron Age to the Archaic Period. It argues that the exchange and dialogue of social power was not alienated from the state, and that independent warfare would have been of less value than it was probably worth. To this end, the Servian Constitution is re-examined and the idea of an early Roman hoplite phalanx, and single class army, is rejected. The original contribution of this work is in reasserting the position of the state in Tyrrhenian warfare and rejecting the idea that private interest was more powerful.

Since Ardashir’s victory over the Parthians in A.D 224 to his successors’ eventual defeat at the hands of the Arabs in 651 the Roman and Sasanian Empires had been bitter and deadly rivals. Throughout Late Antiquity the Roman-Sasanian relationship was dominated by competition; a constant battle for imperial prestige, military supremacy, cultural influence and economic advantage. In the course of their relationship Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital, was sacked by Roman forces, the Roman emperor Valerian was captured and taken prisoner, Julian the Apostate was killed by Sassanian forces in his infamous campaign of 363, and the great Roman city of Antioch had been captured and razed. Yet in this seemingly never-ending imperial struggle the fifth century stands out as a period of unprecedented peace between the imperial rivals. It is the aim of this thesis to analyse what made the fifth century a unique period of peace. This thesis seeks to expand on current scholarship on the fifth-century Roman-Sasanian relationship, which has focused on the investigation of specific and individual events, by taking a more holistic approach. In this regard, all aspects of the relationship, military conflicts, frontier zones, barbarian threats, religious issues, economic considerations and the development of diplomatic contacts, will be analysed in order to identify what pushed the two empires towards a peace and, more importantly, how this peace was maintained in the face of old hostilities and traditional antagonism. Viewing the Roman-Sasanian relationship as merely one part of the wider late antique world, not as something unique and separate, will also be a key component of this investigation. Central to the aim and approach of this thesis is the use of political realism, a theory for understanding international relations, to reveal the motivations and pressures that both empires faced in this period that pushed them towards peace. In this regard, it will be argued that the Roman and Sasanian overriding desire and goal of ensuring their own safety and security in an anarchic world in the face of the new and dangerous threats posed by the ascendant Huns, Hephthalites and Vandals was the underlying motivation behind the fifth-century peace. It was the threat posed by these groups that forced a shift in Roman-Sasanian relations towards the accommodation that both needed to survive the turbulent fifth century. As such, it was these new threats that stimulated the development of imperial diplomacy in the fifth century that allowed the two empires to mediate their traditional casus belli and maintain peace throughout this period. This diplomatic development allowed them to reach new and innovative diplomatic solutions to their problems in the frontier zones of Arabia and Armenia.

Water has always been a necessity for human beings. How individuals and populations have reacted to, adapted, and manipulated water is apparent in the archaeological record. Ancient urban water systems often utilized a number of components, including aqueducts, siphons, underground tunneling, and cisterns. This thesis proposes that Greco-Roman theaters were utilized as components of ancient urban water systems in specific environments, and that this theater type may be identified in the archaeological and literary record as a water catchment theater. The goal of my thesis was to define, describe, identify, and plot the distribution of water catchment theaters in order to compare their distribution with the environments where they were found. Previous research on Greco-Roman theaters has not focused on theaters as components of ancient urban water systems. Because of this deficiency, it was necessary to define what water catchment theaters were, describe the architectural traits that were found in water catchment theaters, and finally, using this information, identify water catchment theaters and look at their distribution throughout the Greco-Roman world. To meet my objective I created a new typology of water theaters based on extensive research and on-site visits to 30 theaters in five countries, surveyed and classified the 927 theaters found in Frank Sear's Roman Theatres: An Architectural Study, and plotted the distribution of water catchment theaters in relation to space, time, and climate. My study gives new insight into the uses of Greco-Roman theaters but also introduces new methods to examine these ancient buildings with relation to their potential roles in urban water systems.

This research was born out of a need for me to know, as a London-born Greek Cypriot, why the archaeology and history of my place of origin have no shades of grey. The history I learned at school – British school – was fluid, it was about how different actors felt, why they did things; we learnt role play and empathy. At home, and in Greek school, history was black and white, them vs us, Turks vs Greeks and this was the way it had been throughout history. I wanted to known and understand history, not have it ask me questions. I went to university to study archaeology, hoping that by studying the distant past I would find my answers, but I just found more questions. The central research questions of this thesis are: what effect do political events have on state representations of the archaeological and historical record? How can these be analysed? What effect does politics have on archaeology as practiced in Cyprus? This research has addressed these questions by focusing on state uses of the past in Cyprus from 1878 until the present through the analysis of education, the mass media and tourism. The central premise is that states are involved in the creation and maintenance of national and group identities and that by studying these, one is able to understand the uses to which academic areas of study have been put. My research provides an assessment of how the pasts of Cyprus have been used by the British colonial administration and the government of the Republic of Cyprus in attempts to create particular identities relating to colonialism and nationalism. In my analysis I have focused on the three moments that are repeatedly represented as being central to Greek Cypriot literature about the history of Cyprus: the late Bronze Age Mycenaean ‘colonisation’; the classical period; and the folk image. These have been assessed with reference to three media used by all states in the creation and maintenance of national identities: education, the mass media; and tourism.

From beginning to end, the epistle of 1 Peter is concerned with responding to the conflict in which the Anatolian readers have presently become involved. Nevertheless, throughout the history of Petrine scholarship the nature of this problem has generated significant disagreement. Within the most recent discussion, however, a general consensus has been reached. Virtually all commentators now tend to agree that this conflict is a kind of unofficial, local hostility which arose sporadically out of the disdain from the general populace and which was expressed primarily through discrimination and verbal abuse. Ultimately, though, this position rests on a number of undemonstrated contentions which have never been examined through comprehensive and detailed socio-historical inquiry. The present study is intended to take up the question afresh and to thereby rectify the significant missteps through which the topic has been previously approached. Our purpose is to determine the nature of suffering in 1 Peter by situating the letter against the backdrop of conflict management in first-century CE Asia Minor. To do so, we seek to understand the different means by which conflict was dealt with in Roman Anatolia and how the persecutions of 1 Peter fit into this larger context. Part of this goal is to examine how conflict affected different social groups within the community as a way of determining the various forms of suffering to which specific members may have been prone. Therefore, our efforts consist of an attempt to differentiate the readers’ troubling experiences by providing a detailed “social profile” of the letter’s recipients and to contextualize the conflict situation by locating the problem and its subsequent resolution strategies within the world of first-century CE Asia Minor

In 1755 Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys, Countess of Pomfret, donated a substantial collection of Greco-Roman statuary to the University of Oxford. Once part of a larger collection assembled under Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, the statues had descended to Jeffreys through the family of her husband, Thomas Ferrnor, having been purchased in 1691 for their country seat at Easton Neston in Northamptonshire. Oxford gratefully received this benefaction and it was publicly (and variously) commemorated. Emphasis on 'quality' and reliance on 'authority' have previously obscured the importance of the Pomfret statuary, subsuming it within Arundel's iconic connoisseurship. Interdisciplinary in approach, this dissertation employs new archival evidence to resituate the Pomfret marbles within larger historical and art-historical contexts and (citing contemporary images and texts) re-evaluates the collection's cultural significance. Adopting the approach of Dr. Carol Gibson-Wood, my work augments new scholarship concerned with reassessing the character of the early modern art market and its associated collecting practices. The primary concern in the dissertation is restoring the voice of Henrietta Louisa Jeffreys, whose motives for the benefaction have previously been misrepresented. Her personal response to social and cultural conditions actuated both her obtaining the statues and her dispensing of them. A second concern is to contextualize Oxford's status within the socio-political discourse of early Georgian England in order to demonstrate that the Pomfret collection was genuinely valuable to the Ufiiversity. The collection provided a collective symbol of vertu (which implied commitment to correct moral behaviour and taste) for that embattled academic institution and identified Oxford as a location of national importance. The dissertation's structure is provided with a third consideration which ultimately incorporates the other two - the provenance of the statuary. While proceeding chronologically from Arundel's acquisition through Oxford's reception, the historical details are augmented with analyses of how the collection was promoted and perceived. By revealing how ideals and ideologies of vertu informed the collection, its donation, its publicists, and its audience, this dissertation addresses the wider significance of the Pomfret benefaction in early modern England.

This thesis examines the changes forced upon the Roman elite in the evolving political climate of Ostrogothic Italy. It examines what mechanisms the Roman elite employed to renegotiate their position of influence within the state. The relationship the elite had with the past provides evidence for wider changes in society. I assert that, using the language and landscape of the past, the elite formed discourses which responded to, and which attempted to facilitate a realignment in, a changing environment. The education system still provided the Roman elite with a mechanism through which they could define themselves and prepare for what they considered to be the important aspects of the world outside the classroom. Religious discussions and debate in the post-imperial Italy of Late Antiquity were increasingly directed toward attempts to reunite the fractured Roman Empire through a unified empire of Orthodox faith. Having such a close relationship with the Roman Empire and its political and philosophical culture, education and religion are particularly suitable fields to reflect the changes to the political map of the Roman Empire. Focusing on the elite’s relationship with education and religion, this thesis will uncover examples of continuity and change which are implied by the construction of, and interaction with, discourses designed to facilitate the elite’s renegotiation strategies. Reconstructing the education of prominent members of the elite from their writings provides the evidence for such discourses. The emphasis on this part of the thesis is on discovering how the discourses circulating in relation to education responded to the political and philosophical problems through the language of the past and what these responses tell us about changes in the present. The religious discussion focuses on the attempts of the opinion formers in Italy to create and direct narratives designed to establish the superiority of one religious world-view over another. An examination of the language of tradition in the construction of these narratives provides evidence for the potency of the past in the decision-making process and ideology- forming strategies of the Roman elite. It also provides evidence for the changes in society to which the strategies were responding. A final-chapter case study provides an opportunity to see evidence of the effectiveness of these discourse-forming strategies. In this chapter we see a contemporary historical source interacting with those narratives and discourses we witnessed the elite employing in the education and religion chapters. It also provides an opportunity to see how the past is used to justify the actions of the Roman elite in Ostrogothic Italy to a post-Gothic audience (as the work was composed in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Ostrogothic Italy). This final consideration provides an instructive contrast which brings into sharp focus the extent and nature of continuity and change brought about by the Ostrogothic state.

This work is a textual study of the Gospel of John as it is preserved in the catena compiled by Nicetas of Heraclea. In part 1, a stemma is drawn up based on an examination of full transcriptions of all known witnesses: Gregory-Aland 249 317 333 423 430 743 869. Though some scholars have stated that G-A 841 886 1178 2188 contain the catena as well, closer examination shows they contain other works. The manuscripts of Nicetas are related as follows: 1) 249 333 423 are descendants of a common ancestor, β; 2) 333 was the exemplar for 423; 3) 317 869 are descended from a common ancestor, γ; 4) 430 is an independent witness with an idiosyncratic text; 5) 743 has a high degree of majority text contamination and an unclear relationship with the other witnesses. The second part of the study consists of a reconstruction of Nicetas’s text of John with a full apparatus.

This thesis considers the use of numismatic imagery in the Byzantine Empire during the period 610-867, with its main focus centred in the period 685-842. Though charting the iconographic trends and changes on the coinage of the period and the possible reasons behind them is the principal raison d’être of the thesis, it also tackles methodological issues such as the use and abuse of dies studies and ways of determining who decided what images appeared on coins. The main body of the text is arranged chronologically with the methodological issues appearing throughout. Exceptions to this format are the first chapter, which considers the economic context of coin circulation in the period and the gold purity of the coins of the period, and the third chapter, which considers the production at the mint of Cherson, which produced anonymous coins not identifiable by date, but still part of the context. Finally, the thesis contains two appendices, the first paper appendix presents a catalogue of the coins held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts for the period 685-842, and the second CD-ROM appendix presents the data from the All That Glitters ... project, testing the purity of Byzantine gold coins with x-ray fluorescence.