This dissertation investigates how the agents and organs of the Seleucid Empire explored, bounded, and endowed with meaning its imperial territory. I argue that king and court responded to the enormous opportunities and challenges of such a landscape with a range of ideological constructions and practical interventions, from border diplomacy to colonialism, ethnographic writing to royal parade. The first half concentrates on the kingdom's "pioneering phase" during the reigns of Seleucus I and Antiochus I. It examines the closing of the empire's eastern frontier in India and Central Asia and the role of court ethnographers in naturalizing the shape of this landscape. I then shift to the western periphery and investigate the founder-king's failed attempt to conquer Macedonia and the consequent relocation of homeland associations to northern Syria. In the second half of the dissertation the focus falls on the mature kingdom in the later third and second centuries BCE and on its declining agony. I look at the modes in which the bounded imperial landscape was articulated and ordered - the itinerant court and the ways it forged a sovereign terrain around the king's body, and the colonial foundations and their evolving importance within the kingdom. It is argued that the spatial practices and ideology that brought the empire into existence also generated the fault-lines along which it fell apart. In terms of method, the dissertation engages with spatial theory and cultural geography, and full use is made of archaeological material and textual evidence, literary and epigraphic, Greek, Roman, Babylonian, Jewish, and Persian. / The Classics

This thesis contrasts the Plotinean attitude towards transcendence at the cosmological level with that of certain Kabbalistic authors of the 13th-17th century. Special emphasis is placed on the different approaches taken by each of the two sides to addressing the origin of otherness. Following a brief introduction to the notion of the question of transcendence, the first major part (chapter II) is dedicated to an exploration of the Plotinean conception of metaphysical "descent" from the One to subsequent hypostases. The second major part (chapter III) focuses on Kabbalistic conceptions of the descent from the indefinite infinite to the finite (limited) realm. Finally, I attempt to illustrate the questions and concerns common to each of the two cosmologies. In so doing, I make use of semiotic concepts to clarify the contrast between the two models.

This dissertation demonstrates how the cross-disciplinary application of methods and tools from archaeology, philology, and engineering can yield insights into ancient water-supply systems and help to solve problems associated with their precise function and with their description in ancient literature. Conventional calculations determine the flow properties of seven ancient long-distance pipelines. Components of the water-supply pipeline at Aspendos are simulated with a commercially available Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software package (FLUENT® by Fluent Inc.) that is widely used in the design and research of complex flow systems. The application of CFD clarifies the interaction of water and air during the filling process of a pipeline. The project establishes a methodology using state-of-the-art computer simulation tools for the investigation of these systems. The combination of the numerical results with the insights derived from a comparison of Latin technical documents with ancient Greek medical texts answers conclusively some long-term questions that have been plaguing aqueduct research for a long time. The simulation makes visible the flow of water in the pipeline, disproving the long-term misunderstanding that entrained air will form bubbles in the flowing water column that lead to pressure transient. It is possible to explain the function of lateral holes in the sides of pipe segments. The calculated volume flow rates for each pipeline allow estimates about the population sizes for the cities supplies by the aqueducts. The creation of a computer-based methodology for the study of ancient aqueducts will enable scholars to investigate, compare, and catalogue a wide variety of ancient hydraulic systems.

Mythological figures play a number of roles in literature: they may, of course, appear in person as developed characters, but they may also contribute more indirectly, as part of the substratum from which rhetorical argument or literary characterisation are constructed, or as a background against which other literary strategies (for example, the rewriting of epic or the appropriation of Greek culture by the Romans) can be marked out. This thesis sets out to examine the way in which the figure of Penelope emerges from unknown origins, acquires portrayal in almost canonical form in Homer's Odyssey, and then takes part in the subsequent interplay of Homeric and other literary allusions throughout later Classical literature (with chapters focusing particularly on fifth-century Greek tragedy, Hellenistic poetry, and Augustan poetry). In particular, it focuses on the manner in which, despite the potential complexities of the character and the possible variants in her story, she became quintessentially a stereotypical figure. In addition to considering example where Penelope is evoked by name, a case is also made for the thesis that allusion, or intertextual reference, could also evoke Penelope for an ancient audience. A central point of discussion is what perception of Penelope would be called to mind by intertextual reference. The importance of approaching relationships between ancient texts in intertextual terms rather terms of strict "allusion" is thus demonstrated. The formation of the simplified picture is considered in the light of folk-tale motifs, rhetorical simplification of myth, and favoured story patterns. The appendices include a summary of the myth of Penelope with all attested variants, and a comprehensive list of explicit references to her in classical literature.

The aim of this study is to establish the existence of a distinct regional architecture on the Cycladic islands during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. It presents a record of materials and of certain constructional techniques, proportions and forms of Cycladic monumental architecture, from which it is possible to establish and explain the differences and similarities of Cycladic practice with other Greek architectural traditions. It is based on a close examination of all the known major buildings and many fortifications on the Cyclades and Thasos, a colony of Pares with certain similar architectural traits. The first section of the thesis (Chapters 2-4) treats the principal constructional techniques, with separate detailed examinations of the various materials employed, the types and nature of foundation, euthynteria and wall construction. The materials available to the builders played a major part in the nature of these parts, all of which display a pronounced conservatism in technique despite strong influences from outside the archipelago. The second section (Chapters 5-6) looks at a number of significant proportions within Doric colonnades and entablatures, principally outlining the Cycladic tendency for slender columns and a less well established tendency for relatively low architraves throughout the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods; accompanying tables and graphs detail and illustrate the proportions discussed. The final section (Chapters 7-8) studies two particular architectural forms - the tops of triglyphs and Ionic capitals; in the former, particular regional preferences of form are noted, while in the latter there are both conservative and innovative tendencies, as well as strong outside influences. There emerges from this study a local architecture that is conservative in many aspects of its architecture while being receptive to outside influences and even having a certain notable originality of its own. Appendix 1 lists many of the typical traits of essentially Archaic Cycladic architecture, some of which continue into the Classical period. Appendix 2 includes graphs detailing the effect of lower column diameter and column height upon column slenderness. A Catalogue of the Classical and Hellenistic Cycladic and Thasian monuments, together with their bibliography, is included at the end of Volume I.

The following dissertation sets out to explore the evolution of a handful of civic institutions in the Hellenistic era. The first chapter focuses on the institution of the ephebeia and citizen-training. It centres on three documents: the gymnasiarchic law of Beroea (I. Beroeae 1 [ca. 167 BCE]), the oath of the agelaoi of Dreros (I. Cret. 1.9.1 [ca. 200 BCE]) and the honorary decree for Menas of Sestos. It argues first that citizen training programs of the Hellenistic period had higher rates of participation than the Athenian evidence seems to suggest, and second that three virtues of gymnastic training, euexia, eutaxia and philoponia, were also political and social virtues. The second chapter focuses on Zosimos of Priene (I. Priene 113 [ca. 100 BCE]) and the connection between his two most important reforms: instituting a system of duplicate record-keeping and funding rhetorical training for ephebes. It argues that the speeches of envoys and ambassadors (presbeutic rhetoric) constituted the dominant mode of Hellenistic rhetoric; within that genre, arguments based on history and on official records were considered the most effective. The third chapter focuses on Fabius' letter to Dyme (Syll.3 684 [144 BCE]). It argues that the destruction of Dyme's public archives was not part of a 'socialist' revolution, but rather was a means of rejecting changes to the citizen body forced on the city by Rome. The final chapter turns to the island of Kos. It explores Diokles' decree (IG XII.4.1 75 [ca. 200 BCE]) as an example of how the balance between self-interest and communal interests were negotiated.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America. / Vita. "Select bibliography": p. [v]-vii.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1907. / Also paged: 477-517. Vita. "Reprinted from Historical and linguistic studies, second series, vol. II, part 5." Includes bibliographical references (p. 9) Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College Dept. of Classics, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Universität Göttingen, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 380-429) and indexes.