This dissertation provides a model for understanding the relation between shifting imperial and post-imperial geopolitics and cultural change in diverse local communities. Specifically, I offer a new perspective on the debate in ancient history regarding “Hellenization,” i.e., the adoption and adaptation of Greek cultural idioms by non-Greek communities. Despite recent advances in emphasizing local communities’ agency in the “Hellenization” process, scholars tend to maintain a rigid dichotomy of monolithic “Greek” vs. “local” culture, and do not offer a comprehensive model accounting for variations in changes, and continuity, by region or time. I propose such a model for the late- and post-Seleucid Levant, and offer significant insights into Hellenistic, Phoenician and Jewish history. I argue that following the Seleucid conquest in the early second century BCE, diverse local communities began competing against each other for imperial favor by often resorting to a form of particularistic ethnic discourse, which emphasized claims to ancestral, pre-Hellenistic identities. In a paradoxical process, however, competing communities often adopted Greek cultural idioms to support these particularistic claims. While it is shown how the specific Greek cultural idioms adapted, varied according to sub-region and period, leadership, and geopolitical situation, it is argued that the idiosyncratic competitive dynamic, fostered by Seleucid power, incentivizing both particularistic discourse and the adoption of new Greek cultural idioms, proved pivotal in allowing diverse communities to develop a Greek cultural “infrastructure.” The political-cultural analysis allows us to broaden and nuance our understanding of subsequent Seleucid disintegration. By better integrating the literary and epigraphical sources with a fresh approach to the numismatic evidence (including the study of some unpublished collections) and taking into account the dramatic archaeological advances of the past two decades, I propose a new model for Seleucid decline. The “concessionist” dynamic outlined by recent scholarship, according to which local elites exploited Seleucid dynastic rivalries to extract privileges, needs to be qualified. While describing well the situation in some communities, such as Hasmonaean Judaea, it is not adequate for cities on the Phoenician coast. Rather, I propose an alternative “loyalist-secessionist” model, stressing the greater importance of external actors, especially the underappreciated role of the Ptolemies and a new understanding of Rome’s indirect involvement. The cultural implications for this novel political-historical model come to the fore following a watershed in Seleucid political history, the death of King Antiochus VII in 129 BCE. In an anarchic late-Hellenistic world, smaller cities, such as Tyre and Sidon, upon becoming independent, sought new alliances by re-utilizing their Greek cultural “infrastructure” towards greater institutional and cultic homology with Greek peer polities. In the absence of Seleucid pressure towards particularism, by contrast, traditional elements were rendered obsolete or even counterproductive to these new efforts. Thus, only at this stage of independence from Hellenistic empire non-Greek cultural elements atrophied, explaining the loss of Phoenician language in this period and the decline in sites of native cult. In other words, it was not a long, linear process of “Hellenization” but concrete, largely contingent, historical factors that explain this development in the specific time and place. In the neighboring Hasmonaean kingdom, by contrast, a series of contingent events (e.g., the “Judaization” of the Idumaeans) created a power-multiplier that put the kingdom onto a different trajectory. Prioritizing imperialistic ambitions, and shifting their own Greek “infrastructure” accordingly, they were not incentivized to similarly abandon traditional language and cult. Rather, by adopting a new ethos of a Hellenistic court, the kingdom facilitated the coalescing of newly-Judaized elites around the Hasmonaean dynasty and Jerusalem, fostering a metrocentric imperialistic outlook which paradoxically complemented and cemented rather than replaced the Yahwistic cult and a sense of Jewish particularism. This, I argue, is a key, hitherto overlooked, factor in the continuity of particularistic Jewish identity, which may help historicize and elucidate the seeming Jewish “exceptionalism” in the region. Put differently, the observed cultural divergence between Levantine communities, clearly apparent by the Roman period, can, in fact, be traced to, and elucidated by a specific historical moment, the common experiences of Seleucid imperial domination and the contingent effects of it collapse in the course of the 2nd century BCE.

The Thesis "Philosophy and Early Christianity: Relationship Hellenism and Christianity in the works of Gregory of Nazianzus" attempts to look at the issue of dealing with the relationship between Hellenism and Christianity on the character of Gregory of Nazianzus. The work thus aims to show at the life, work and controversy Gregory of Nazianzus with the Emperor Julian the Apostate, one of the forms of searching solutions related to Hellenism and Christianity in the early church.

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This dissertation investigates the appropriation of material from one scientific field into another in the early Hellenistic period, 300-150 BCE. Appropriation from one science into another led to the emergence of new concepts in a community of scientists. Herophilus of Chalcedon’s appropriation of musical rhythms led to the emergence of the pulse as a materio-semiotic object for Rationalist physicians. Archimedes of Syracuse’s appropriation of mechanical concepts of weighing led to the emergence of the mechanical method as a scientific way of seeing for practicing mathematicians. But objects and concepts emerging from cross-scientific appropriation had ideological consequences for scientific methodology within individual scientific communities. Archimedes prioritized a formal Euclidean proof over that offered by the mechanical method because of the standards of proof demanded by the community of practicing mathematicians. The sect of Empiricist physicians rejected Rationalist medicine and promoted the individual doctor’s role and authority as a medical caregiver. The dissertation’s sum tells a story of increasing but limited strategies of naturalization within the sciences of the early Hellenistic period. / text

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Cette étude analyse la place et le rôle du mode de vie dans les discours et les pratiques politiques à Rome à la fin du IIIe siècle av. J.-C. et au IIe siècle av. J.-C. qui formaient un moment charnière. Le luxe faisait partie des pratiques de distinction de l’aristocratie à la fin du IVe siècle av. J. C. et au IIIe siècle av. J. C. À partir de la deuxième guerre punique, l’élite commença à s’inquiéter du rôle politique du faste et des menaces qu’il faisait peser sur le système oligarchique ; elle fit ensuite voter des lois régulant les festins pour éviter que ceux-ci ne servissent à gagner du crédit politique, mais sans évoquer franchement cette raison, par déférence pour le pouvoir et par souci de préserver sa légitimité. Le combat contre le luxe investit les discours, influant sur l’image que l’élite donnait d’elle-même. Les adversaires du luxe, comme Caton l’Ancien, mirent en avant une nouvelle qualité, la frugalité, correspondant à l’adoption d’un train de vie inférieur à ce que son rang permettait. Une représentation négative se structura autour du luxe, explicitement et définitivement associé aux vices, aux étrangers, en particulier aux Grecs, et implicitement considéré comme caractéristique des hommes inaptes à servir leur patrie ou aspirant à un pouvoir excessif. Une représentation antithétique se développa autour de la frugalité, qualité des vrais Romains fidèles aux mœurs de la campagne et soucieux des intérêts de la République, une image qui fut particulièrement appréciée par le peuple. Ces arguments connurent un immense succès dans les luttes politiques du dernier tiers du IIe siècle av. J. C. La frugalité était cependant difficilement applicable en toutes circonstances car elle heurtait les normes de l’élite : il importait de signifier à travers elle une position politique, mais il fallait aussi savoir recevoir convenablement ses amis. Le stoïcisme, qui se développait alors à Rome et qui prescrivait une vie tempérante, dut s’adapter à cette exigence. / This study analyses the place and role of the way of life in political speeches and practices in Rome in the late third century BC and in the second century BC, which formed a turning point. Luxury was a means of social distinction for the aristocracy in the late fourth century BC and third century BC. From the Second Punic War onwards, the elite began to worry about the political impact of this sumptuousness and the threats it posed for the oligarchic system. Consequently, the elite introduced laws regulating banquets in order to prevent hosts from gaining political prestige, without clearly citing this reason, out of deference for the government and in order to protect its own legitimacy. This fight against luxury spread in speeches and influenced the image of itself which the elite wanted to promote. The detractors of luxury, like Cato the Elder, proposed a new ideal – frugality, which implied adopting a lifestyle more humble than that which was allowed by one’s actual rank. A negative definition of luxury was proposed – it was explicitly and definitively associated with vice, foreigners (Greeks especially), and implicitly considered to be typical of men who were unable to serve their homeland or who aspired to excessive power. An antithetic representation of frugality was developed and was thought to be the quality of real Romans who were true to the values of the countryside and anxious to preserve the interests of the Republic. This image was highly valued by the people. These ideas played a significant role in the power struggles in the last third of the second century BC. Frugality remained nonetheless a difficult quality to adopt in all circumstances because it went against the standards of the elite – while it mattered for the elite to make their political position clear through frugality, it was also important to cater to one’s guests as befitted one’s rank. Stoicism, which was then developing in Rome and advocated a restrained way of life, had to adapt to this demand.

On démontre trois choses dans ce travail : 1) L’histoire politique de la Macédoine, sous les Antigonides, est à comprendre à partir du problème du charisme et de ce que Weber appelle sa « quotidiennisation ». 2) Ce processus dépend d’une forme de sociologie, qui fait s’alterner pente à la construction d’une bureaucratie et nécessité d’une remotivation périodique de l’institution monarchique. 3) Cette sociologie s’enracine enfin dans la nature même du social, tantôt pratique démotivée, tantôt réenchantée, comme on le vérifiera ici à partir du problème du culte aux dirigeants et de la croyance. / This Phd studies the relationship between kings and subjects in Macedonia. It has three goals. 1) To give a comprehensive history of the Antigonids, by using Weber’s concepts (charisma and routinization) on three topics (King’s body, kings and queen, the constitution of a bureaucracy). 2) To study the hesitation of this regime between pomp and simplicity (kolakeia, parrêsia, hellenistic palace). 3) To ling this structural feature with a reflection on the nature of the Kingdom (by studying the ruler’s cult : did the Greek believec in their divinity ? What is belief ?)

Cette thèse se propose d’étudier dans le cadre d’une mise en série les différents procès incorporés à la collection de papyrus communément appelée Acta Alexandrinorum, sorte de corpus inclassable regroupant plusieurs documents de nature administrative, judiciaire ou diplomatique ayant trait aux relations entretenues entre l’Empire Romain et la cité d’Alexandrie aux deux premiers siècles de notre ère. Au nombre de cinq, ces procès, retrouvés uniquement à l’état fragmentaire et rédigés en grec, souvent après un travail de réécriture trahissant le parti pris des auteurs alexandrins, apportent un éclairage inédit sur les tensions entre les deux entités politiques et posent quantité de problèmes juridiques, tant sur le plan du droit privé que du droit public. L’arrière-plan égyptien place en outre ces procès à la croisée de trois traditions juridiques pouvant s’influencer et s’imbriquer mutuellement. Ces documents illustrent par ailleurs les débats qui marquaient alors la pensée politique et philosophique véhiculée par la Seconde Sophistique puisqu’ils proposaient le plus souvent un affrontement direct, dans le cadre du procès, entre les intellectuels grecs attachés aux valeurs traditionnelles de l’hellénisme et le pouvoir romain incarné par l’empereur lui-même. Il paraît donc particulièrement intéressant d’analyser au prisme du droit et des sources juridiques ces procès, très politiques, qui n’ont jusqu’alors bénéficié d’aucune étude d’ensemble dans l’historiographie française, ni même par ailleurs d’une traduction complète, et qui ne connurent à l’étranger qu’une approche essentiellement philologique. / This thesis aims at studying the various trials incorporated in the papyrus collection commonly known as Acta Alexandrinorum, an unclassifiable corpus regrouping several administrative, judicial or diplomatic documents concerning the relationships between the Roman Empire and the city of Alexandria during the first two centuries AD. These trials, recorded in Greek, were found unfortunately in a very poor state of conservation, and are characterized by a process of rewriting which reveals the partiality of the Alexandrian authors. They bring a new insight to the tensions between the two political entities and cause legal problems both in terms of private and public law. Moreover, the Egyptian context places these trials at the center of three legal traditions which could influence and interact together. These documents enlighten also the debates around the political and philosophical thought conveyed by the Second Sophistic through a direct confrontation between the Greek intellectuals attached to the traditional values of Hellenism and the Roman power incarnated by the emperor himself. Therefore it seems particularly interesting to analyze these very political trials under the perspective of law, since these sources, which were mainly studied only by philologists abroad, have never been the subject of a complete study in France until now and even never completely translated.

Throughout the years the study of literary relationships has been a highly active form of research. There seems to be a perpetual interest in this field, with its matter of determining influences and comparing relationships and ideas. Certainly this is a logical interest. For on the assumption that literature is a search for truth, in what better way may we find that truth than through s study of the works of the world’s writers, searching for sources of their thoughts, and sharpening those thoughts through comparison and contest. Those Carlyle and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the authors under consideration here, have often been the subjects for this method of literary criticism. Much of this work has been done with the emphasis on influences, Indeed the influence of Goethe on Carlyle is now as widely recognized as any other like literary kinship, more so than most, perhaps, as the very vocal Scotchman was never one to hide his likes and dislikes in this world of man. The aspect of influence, however, is at best of an indirect importance to this thesis. The interest here is centered rather in the second kind of relationship, one in which ideas are dealt with irrespective of sources of origins. In general, this study is to be a comparison of some of the ideas of Carlyle and Goethe. More specifically, the problem is to discover just how the ideas of these two men are alike and how they vary, to what extent there is variation, and to find, if any, a common basis for the thinking of both authors. This research, in turn, will lead to the primary purpose of this thesis, that is, to see into the nature of Hebraism and Hellenism through the two works. Sartor Resartus and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.