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The thesis examines the religious topography of Arcadia through two particular aspects: the built and the natural landscape, and how each relates to human communities, their places of living, and their understanding of the world around. It relies on the assumption commonly made in the field that, since ritual practice was of prevalent importance for the Greeks, cult sites are the most important places for the communities, and therefore they can tell us a lot about the people who built, visited and looked after them. The first part rests on the acknowledgement that sanctuaries are places of interaction for a certain community of cult (which can but need not overlap with a given polis) and explores how they can be indicators of social change, defined here as responses to changes with large impact on the human milieu. These changes and their response articulated in sacred space are identified in four chapters. The first sets the stage and surveys the known sacred sites of Arcadia at the end of the Bronze Age and during the Early Iron Age. The second looks at how the building of temples after the eighth century indicates a significant change in the way communities were structured in Arcadia. The third looks at how Arcadian sanctuaries responded to the increased religious mobility of the Classical and Hellenistic period. Finally, chapter four evaluates the impact of the Roman conquest on Arcadian religious sites. The second part explores how myths and rationalising discourses allowed the Greeks to make sense of the salient characteristics and numen of their surrounding natural landscape. Each of the three chapters departs from a situation observed in Arcadia by ancient sources and examines the responses articulated to explain it. Among the variety of topics to pursue, three have been selected because they exemplify a typical characteristic of Arcadia: its wetness. They also allow spatial areas that were less prominent in part one to be explored. The first chapter investigates the attribution of Mycenaean waterworks in Arcadia to Herakles in myth. The second chapter examines the connection made in ancient sources between Poseidon's lordship over the Peloponnese, earthquakes, floods and cults of Poseidon Hippios in Arcadia. Finally, the last chapter explores the apparent contradiction of having infernal rivers observable in the world of the living, such as the Styx flowing in the Aroania Mountains.

Black Figure Floral Ware is an understudied style of pottery which was produced in Boiotia and the nearby regions of Euboia and Phokis during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. Floral Style vases are painted with compositions formed predominantly of palmettes and lotuses rendered in black gloss without the incised details which are typically associated with Black Figure pottery. The corpus of Boiotian Floral Ware is divided into two sub-styles: the Northern Style and the Southern Style. The Northern Style is thought to have been produced in the area North and West of the Kopais while the Southern Style was chiefly produced in the Thespiai-Thebes and the Tanagra regions. To date our understanding of the development of the Southern Style has been based on systematically excavated floral evidence from Rhitsona (Ancient Mykalessos) and the Thespian Polyandrion and random vases from the Skhimatari Museum. Previous research incorrectly identified Tanagra as the primary source of Southern Floral Ware with little regard for Thebes as an important producer. Newly discovered ceramic evidence from four Theban cemeteries now indicates that Thebes was in fact a major producer of Floral Ware. The excavations have brought to light new floral groups and have provided evidence which indicates that vases previously identified as Tanagran or Euboian are more likely to be Theban. / This dissertation chronicles the morphological and iconographical development of the Southern Floral Style according to the systematically excavated floral vases from Rhitsona and the Thespian Polyandrion. Rim and base profiles from the Thespian Polyandrion, Thebes and Haliartos are classified and floral motifs from datable contexts are assigned to types. The evidence indicates that it is the overall shape of the vase and the decorative details within the compositions, rather than a specific rim or base type or compositional layout that identifies regional differences, if any. Newly excavated vases from Haliartos are presented not only to provide a contrast for the Southern Style Floral Ware, particularly in terms of their shape, but also in order to establish a bridge between this dissertation and any future studies of the Northern Style Floral Ware.

This thesis proposes to evaluate the impact of factors such as trade, circumscribed resources, and growing militarism upon the development of social complexity in LBA Argolis, and to what extent these factors may be invoked as triggering mechanisms--or prime movers--in the rise of palatial society in the Argive plain towards the end of the 15th century B.C., during the LH III A-B period. / It is argued that the most plausible model for the rise of palatial society in LBA Argolis is one which acknowledges the interrelations and processes of feedback between these factors, of which trade and militarism may have been original motivating factors. / Finally, it is suggested that the need to organize resource procurement and distribution were instrumental in the emergence of the Mycenaean palatial centers of LBA Argolis.

Zugl.: Univ. of Sydney, Diss. / Includes bibliographical references and index.