This thesis uses the evidence for a wide range of phenomena relating to the exile of citizens, by judicial decision or through stasis, to investigate the political cultures of Greek poleis in the period c. 404-146 BC: the fundamental ideas about citizenship which were in circulation in poleis in that period. Political communication in the context of exile phenomena forced citizens to make explicit their fundamental assumptions about the criteria for civic inclusion and exclusion and about the extent and basis of civic obligation. Analysis of surviving evidence for that communication thus offers unique insights into prominent Greek ideas about citizenship. This method is applied, in chapters 1 and 2, to laws and discussions relating to, first, lawful expulsion and exclusion and, second, civic reconciliation and the reintegration of exiles; and, in chapters 3 and 4, to the political rhetoric, organisation and ideas of participants in exclusionary stasis and of exiled citizens. Wherever possible, ancient Greek philosophers’ arguments, rhetoric and assumptions are compared with those of non-philosophers. Study of the four different bodies of evidence suggests that most poleis’ political cultures were distinguished by their extremes, paradoxes, indeterminacies and contradictions. In particular, many poleis’ political cultures included very significant, radical norms of civic voluntarism, encouraging citizens to exercise extensive voluntary initiative in political contexts. Moreover, most poleis political cultures were dominated by two coexisting, radically opposed basic paradigms of the good polis and of good citizenship: these are defined in the introduction and chapter 1 as a ‘unitarian teleological communitarian’ paradigm and a ‘libertarian contractarian’ paradigm. In addition to revealing fundamental ideas of citizenship, some of the exile evidence enables study of the effects of those ideas in practice in this period: citizens’ political choices, claims and behaviour in relevant periods of stress, such as a bout of exclusionary stasis or a spell of political agitation while in exile, represent a well-defined and revealing case-study of the multiple, competing effects of those ideas on political interaction. It is argued that the exile evidence suggests that the same fundamental ideas of citizenship were conducive both to civic stability and flourishing and to destructive civic unrest.

This thesis investigates the nature of the relationship between cities and king in the late Classical and Hellenistic Macedonian kingdom. It will consider the cities from two main perspectives: the city as a community, and the city as a settlement. Section 1 re-examines the evidence most commonly used to argue for the Macedonian cities gaining substantial autonomy in this period. It will be argued that this evidence has less to tell us about the political autonomy of the Macedonian cities than their 'social relations' with other Greek communities: Macedonian cities engaged in international exchanges which did not represent any challenge to the authority of the monarch, but which could also be used to represent the relationship between king and city as cooperative. Such latitude was balanced, however, by forceful expressions of royal dominance in other arenas. Section 2 considers the position of the cities within the royal economy, and examines how, as a result of the king's monopolisation of Macedonia's resources, and the fact that the Macedonian elite was more interested in advancing their position at court than acting as civic benefactors, the cities were left economically subordinated to the king. Section 3 uses the increasingly abundant archaeological evidence to consider how royal building programmes served to project royal ideology into the localities. Royal palaces, large-scale urban development, and fortifications created an experience of urban space in Macedonia which emphasised the roles of the monarch as guardian, benefactor, and unifying figure. The picture that emerges is of a kingdom of civic communities which were engaged in meaningful exchanges with their peers outside Macedonia, but which were living in large and impressive urban settlements which stood as monuments to the extent and ubiquity of royal authority. Late-Classical and Hellenistic Macedonia was a kingdom of poleis, but that kingdom was first and foremost a royal space.

If as argued the Mediterranean consisted in Antiquity of a unity determined by similar environmental factors and crises which were mitigated through established networks of trade and exchange, the border regions of the Roman Mediterranean, particularly to the South and East, were characterised by a radically different environment. This thesis focuses on the development of three of the arid regions bordering the ancient Mediterranean, namely the Fazzan oases in the Libyan Sahara, the Eastern Desert of Egypt and the region of Palmyra in Syria. These arid regions have received considerable archaeological attention in recent years, and a review of them will highlight the factors which enabled these regions to interact with the Roman Empire through trading dynamics, but also through the development of local resources. Central questions within this thesis concern the extent to which the environment would have tailored the potential of these regions, and if the existence of trade routes and social networks both affected and were affected by settlement and exploitation patterns in the region. Trade was created by geographically much broader social requirements for foreign or exotic goods, yet was restricted by the possibility to pass through these regions. Developments were conditioned by the constant need for balance between the state as a power enforcing and representing peace and security and local entities, and what the local social organisation had to offer in term of rent and stability to the state as an institution. After an introduction (Chapter 1) delineating the aims of the thesis, Chapter 2 defines influential theories and models that will be considered for this thesis, namely environmental factors, social networks and institutional economics. The archaeological evidence is then discussed in each relevant chapter: Chapter 3: The Libyan Sahara; Chapter 4: The Eastern Desert of Egypt; Chapter 5: Palmyra. Chapter 6 discusses major factors that may work as explanations for the development of agriculture, the exploitation mineral resources, and trade in these regions. The choice of regions both inside and outside the Roman Empire also allows a discussion on the rise of economic activities linked to the imperial economy. As such, the thesis moves away from a romano-centric perspective and proposes to look instead for internal factors, such as the development of complex societies with organisational frameworks and social networks which enable them to overcome the challenges of their geo-climatic settings. This study concludes that the developments identified in each chapter were not a factor of environmental changes but human agency. The state, or private individuals or communities successfully organised the resources necessary to integrate the regions into wider networks of intense trade in the imperial period. These concerned both physical infrastructure, and the development of far-reaching social networks.

This thesis considers the geographical and chronological forms of ‘mirroring’ that offer a way of reading 'Annals' 1-6. It looks at how Tacitus’ depictions of non-Romans reflect back on Rome, and at the echoes of Rome’s past and future that can be discerned within his description of Tiberius’ principate. After an introduction that discusses key thematic and methodological questions, Chapter 1 shows that Tiberius’ accession and the Pannonian and German mutinies described in 'Annals' 1 echo Tacitus’ account in 'Histories' 1 of events of AD 69. Moreover, when the Romans attempt to conquer Germany, the Germans’ resistance to this and to other efforts to rule them shows up Roman responses to civil war and autocracy. Chapter 2 begins by examining potential similarities between Roman and both Parthian and Armenian history, and then focuses on Germanicus’ voyage in the east, recounted in 'Annals' 2. His actions associate him with many late republican and early imperial Roman figures, which suggests that there are continuities between those two eras. Chapter 3 extends this theme by discussing the echoes of Sallust and Caesar in the central books of the Tiberian hexad. Intertexts with Sallust’s 'Bellum Catilinae' especially hint that earlier civil conflicts are about to be replayed in some form, as the appearance of Sejanus, the ‘new Catiline’, confirms. Chapter 4 further considers Tacitus’ inferences about the overlap between republican and imperial history, and then examines anti-Roman revolts in 'Annals' 2, 3 and 4. Foreign rebels’ relative success in attempting to reclaim their freedom correlates with their distance from Rome, and this has clear implications for the status of Roman 'libertas' under Tiberius. Finally, the outbreak of ‘civil war within the principate’, and indeed within the imperial house, is analysed. Chapter 5 traces the continuation of this ‘civil war’, and proposes that the last book of the Tiberian hexad again looks directly to 69, as well as to the excesses of other Julio-Claudians. It also considers Tacitus’ account of Roman intervention in Parthia: this episode confirms imperial Rome’s propensity for autocracy and civil war. There follows a short conclusion in which some speculation is offered about how some of the themes discussed in this thesis with reference to the Tiberian hexad may have been represented in the lost central books of the 'Annals'.

This thesis examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as they were articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. As purity and defilement are especially suited for articulating difference, hierarchy and change, these concepts were essential for early Christians, shaping their understanding of human nature, sin, history, and ritual. In parallel, the major Christian practices embodying difference and change, baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, emoted and shaped as instances of purification. Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, were at the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was a substantive motivation: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion, and the integration of purity traditions and concepts into these worldviews and theories. The second was a polemic motivation: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking the purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagan or “heretics”) as false. I trace the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing food abstentions, death defilement, sexuality and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses. This thesis demonstrates three central arguments. First, purity and defilement are central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those current in contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.

The aim of this thesis is to examine changes in the status of traditional Egyptian religious culture during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, from 331 BCE to 313 CE. Four distinct categories of material culture are examined: monumental construction of temples and civic buildings, traditional hard-stone sculpture, Alexandrian tombs, and Roman coins. These bodies of evidence were chosen because each offers a unique perspective, reflecting respectively the personal inclinations and official attitudes of both the culturally Hellenic and indigenous elites, which have not previously been studied in this context. Examined together for the first time, these categories reveal commonalities that show clearly the progression of the status of indigenous religious culture. From this, it is argued that, despite being economically disadvantaged by the Roman administration, the high status of this culture persisted in Egyptian society under both the Ptolemies and the Romans. Patterns of Egyptian temple and classical civic building show that Egypt's indigenous elite controlled the resources allocated for temple construction under the Ptolemies, but that the Romans gradually transferred this land into the management of the culturally Hellenic elite. This resulted in a decrease in Egyptian temple building after the first century CE and a corresponding increase in classical construction from then on. The production of hard-stone statues is shown for the first time to reveal that the indigenous elite had the resources and cultural confidence to continue and develop their traditions under the Ptolemies, while the sharp decrease at the start of the Roman period reflects their diminution in autonomy and prosperity under Roman rule. New analysis of traditional elements and motifs in the tombs of Alexandrian elites shows that this group respected and adopted indigenous religious customs and beliefs, with a higher incidence of indigenous imagery in the Roman period compared with the Ptolemaic period. In a similar way, well-informed Egyptian religious iconography rendered in a classical style on Alexandrian coins demonstrates the respect of the Roman authorities for Egyptian religious cults and institutions at an official level. In sum, it is argued that indigenous religious culture largely maintained its privileged economic and social status throughout the Ptolemaic period, despite political upheavals. Under Roman rule, the individuals and institutions representing Egyptian religious culture were disadvantaged economically; however, its social importance and standing were preserved and it continued to enjoy respect.

In this thesis, I hope to demonstrate that what I call the magic contest tradition, that is the episodes of competitive wonder-working that appear in a wide variety of apocryphal and non-canonical Christian texts, made an important contribution to the development of Christian thought during the second to the fifth centuries CE. This contribution was to articulate ‘the way’ to be a Christian in a world which was not isolated from the secular, and not insulated from the reality of the Roman empire. First, I demonstrate that a tradition of texts which feature magic contests exists within the broader scope of non-canonical Christian literature (looking at this literature across communities, regions and time periods). Second, I identify what the major features of the traditions are, e.g. what form the narratives take, what the form for a magic contest is, and what the principles used to build the magic contests are, and how these principles feature in the texts. The principles I identify are power, authority, ritual, and conversion, as well as their use as historical exempla. Third, I discuss what the texts did in the context of the time period, and for the communities that produced and read them: in other words, how did the this tradition work? I show that they served multiple purposes: as tests of faith, religious truth and ways to proclaim such; as constructors and markers of group identity (and the perilous task of identifying the insiders and those who should be outsiders); as calls to unity within the overarching diversity of the times and places, and a unified front for the ‘battle’ against evil. I suggest that the texts present a model for how one could decide what the ‘true faith’ was and how one could practice it in the turbulent environment that early Christians faced both before and after Constantine.

The Tuoba's success in the making of the Northern Wei as a conquest dynasty in fifth century northern China will be argued in this thesis as a result of their ability to cross between the traditions and practices of the Chinese sphere and those of the Eurasian steppe, through the construction of a "dual presence" in the Pingcheng period (398-494 CE). A negotiation of material culture in this formative phase of state-building allowed for new notions of kingship, dynastic identity, and representations of daily life to be (re)created. This was manifested separately through the application of mountain-side stone sculptures, tomb repertoires, as well as the conception of Pingcheng as a capital city. The material cultural expressions explored in this thesis reflect significant changes in the socio-cultural atmosphere at this point in history. In effect, these ritual, funerary, and commemorative discourses wove together to create new notions of "Chineseness" in fifth century northern China. In the following discussion, we will come to recognize the Tuoba’s maintenance of a "dual presence", not only as "Son of Heaven" to the conquered subjects, but also carrying over practices that befit a Khagan in the Central Asian tradition, as an act of ingenuity.

The dissertation analyses the reliefs and paintings on thirty-one different tombs in Western Anatolia erected between 600 and 450 BC, in order to illuminate the ways in which non-Greek elites were identified on their memorials. The tombs from three areas are treated: Phrygia, Hellespontine Phrygia and Lydia, where the primary language groups were Phrygian, Mysian and Lydian. There is little literary evidence for these regions, and what there is tends to focus on political developments. Descriptions of people and society are few, and tend to represent them from an outside perspective, grouping them according to cultural characteristics which differentiate them from Greeks. It is clear, however, that the regions were important, prosperous places, controlled by illustrious grandees and land marked with a relatively high proportion of monumental tombs. Of these monumental tombs, there is a relatively high number decorated with striking and articulate images. There is much to be gained from examining the images on these tombs, as ‘indigenous’ sources for how elite Western Anatolians described themselves. Previous approaches to the tombs and their images have tended to look at them individually or in smaller groups, and to concentrate on the transmission and reception of Persian and Greek culture in the Achaemenid provinces. This dissertation contributes a broader comparative study of the decorated tombs, focussing on the kinds of statuses the images represent and the cultural forms these took. By comparing the various methods of self-representation, it clarifies patterns of identities in Western Anatolia and their relationship to historical circumstances. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. An introduction outlines the scope and sample, the historical background, previous studies of the monuments, the definition of ‘identity’ and the methods of analysis adopted here. Three case study chapters present the regions and the decorated monuments within them. A concluding chapter synthesises three aspects: social identities (roles and spheres of life represented); geographic and chronological patterns; and cultural affiliations and orientations. The dissertation concludes that a tension between Persian identities and local traditions is evident in some of the tomb images, which relates to the political upheavals in Western Anatolia and the Aegean at the time of the Persian Wars.

This research examines how, when and why the Romans assigned and defined the tasks of preparing and commanding fleets during the Republic. In doing so, it brings new evidence to bear on the wider debates about the nature of the prouincia and the institutional and administrative development of the Roman empire. The communis opinio is that a prouincia originally represented a functional “sphere of operation” that was allotted or assigned to a magistrate and that it only later developed a geographical meaning with territorial connotations through the process of “provincialisation.” This research challenges that view through an analysis of the evidence for the definition, assignment and practical use of the prouincia classis and other prouinciae connected with the command of fleets. Drawing upon and analysing the lists of administrative arrangements to be found in the “annalistic” sections of the surviving books of Livy’s History, it argues that prouinciae were defined in specific geographical and functional terms long before the development of permanent territorial empire. This offers a new perspective which points to and elucidates the flexible use of the prouincia as a means of separating magistrates and promagistrates in space or by function in space. It argues that the rationale for this was to limit conflicts between commanders over command and triumphal rights. By combining evidence from a wide range of sources after the loss of Livy’s History from 167, the research shows that the above rationale for demarcating prouinciae still applied in the first century B.C. However, it also demonstrates that there were significant changes with the assignment of vast Mediterranean-wide naval prouinciae in the first half of the first century B.C. It argues that the definition of these prouinciae was made possible by the development of a singular collective Mediterranean-wide ora maritima, which was brought about by the Romans’ increasing “acknowledgement of empire.” The negative political and institutional implications of these developments are also assessed. Finally, in discussing the above, this research also provides new insights into the role and auctoritas of the Senate, the function and freedom of magistrates, and the Romans’ conceptualisation of their empire.