This thesis presents a first archaeological introduction to the study of Byzantine ports, harbours and other coastal installations in the region of Thessaly. Thessaly not only constitutes an ideal region to gain equal information for the Early- to the Late Byzantine periods, but also to compare independent regional and imperial central building activities. However, in particular Thessaly’s maritime connectivity has never been studied in detail before. As such, a first step into a terra incognita, the thesis is divided into two main sections: In order to conceptualize the study of harbour sites, the thesis first sets up a framework for the definition, understanding and interpretation of the physical features of harbours and their function and purpose. Taking into account influencing environmental conditions, such as natural, economic, social and political components, this helps to determine an accurate hierarchical model and to illustrate the interrelationship between different types and forms of harbour sites. Subsequently, comprehensive archaeological investigations around the island of Skiathos and other harbour sites in Thessaly, executed in 2012 and 2013, are set against this theoretical groundwork. In contrast to the common approach of regional studies, where a first general overview is followed by individual detailed case-studies, the opposite methodology is undertaken in order to achieve a systematic study of the Thessalian harbours and the complexity of their network system. Consequently, the collection of data starts from the analysis of a distinct area of a region and continues with the broader regional picture of primary ports, secondary harbours and staple markets. Functioning as an important junction of the Aegean shipping lanes and being involved in regional as well as supra-regional trade and port networks, focus is therefore primarily dedicated to the island of Skiathos. A joint survey project in cooperation with the Greek Ephorate for Underwater Antiquities (EEA), the 13th Greek Ephorate for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and the 7th Greek Ephorate for Byzantine Antiquities was initiated by the author in 2012. A number of sites, including harbour installations and other coastal infrastructures, have been detected, documented and subsequently verified by geophysical prospections, using a Sub-bottom profiler and Side-Scan Sonar, in 2013. These have allowed to draw a clear historical picture of architectural developments, port networks and changes in the socio-economic connectivity of the area. Followed by a close investigation of further harbour sites throughout the entire region of Thessaly during two field seasons between 2012 and 2013, the detailed picture gained from the Skiathos survey project is brought to a wider context. This comparison finally allows an overall picture of the history and architectural developments of harbour structures and associated coastal sites, as well as general conclusions concerning the hierarchy and port network in the region during the Early to Late Byzantine periods. This has allowed a comprehensive understanding of the growth, use and decline of various ports, harbours and staple markets within Thessaly and has important repercussions for our understanding of wider social and economic changes that were occurring during these periods, such as the rise of the church as a powerful economic institution or the increasing activities of private entrepreneurs. In this way the submerged maritime heritage of Thessaly has provided a rich new resource with which to understand the cultural dynamics of the region as it emerged from its peripheral location to comprising major ports within the Roman maritime network and to stand out of the heart of the commercial route ways to and from Constantinople, as well as being part of the emergent networks of the western maritime states at the end of the period, such as Venice.

The Sermo antequam iret in exilium and the Sermo cum iret in exsilium are two homilies allegedly pronounced by John Chrysostom in Constantinople at the end of summer 403, some time between the verdict of the Synod of the Oak and the day he left the city for his first exile. The aim of the thesis is to demonstrate that a new critical edition of these texts is needed before any study of their literary and historical value can be conducted. Chapter one sketches the historical background to which the text of the homilies refers and a concise survey about previous scholarship on the homilies on the first exile, from the time of Montfaucon’s edition until our days. The problem of the authenticity occupies the last part of the chapter. Chapter two investigates the history of the texts and takes into account both the direct and indirect traditions. It discusses the existence of double recensions hitherto unknown and provides the prefatory material for the new critical edition of recensio α of Sermo antequam iret in exilium and of the Sermo cum iret in exsilium. Chapter three comprises the Greek editions of the two homilies, as well as a provisional edition of the Latin version of the Sermo antequam iret in exilium. Chapter four is divided into two parts, each presenting a philological commentary on the text of the new editions. Systematic analysis of all the most important variant readings is offered. The final chapter summarizes the new findings and assesses the validity of previous criteria used for discerning the authenticity of the homilies on the exile.

The thesis is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the manuscript Marcianus graecus 524, the second looks at the Greek text of the dedicatory epigrams on works of art from the same manuscript, and the third puts these texts in their context. In the first part, the compilation of the manuscript is analysed. I suggest that the manuscript was copied mainly by one individual scribe living in Constantinople at the end of the thirteenth century. He copied the quires individually, but at some point he put all these quires together, added new quires, and compiled an anthology of poetry. The scribe’s connection to the Planudean School and the Petra monastery in Constantinople is discussed. Although their relationship remains inconclusive, the manuscript provides evidence regarding the literary interests of late-thirteenth-century intellectuals. The second part contains thirty-five unpublished dedicatory epigrams on works of art. New readings are offered for the text of previously published epigrams. The third section analyses the dedicatory epigrams on works of art in their context. The first chapter of this section discusses the epigrams as Gebrauchstexte, i.e. texts with a practical use. The difference between epigrams intended to be inscribed and epigrams intended to be performed is highlighted. In the next chapter of this part, La poésie de l’objet, the composition of the dedicatory epigrams is discussed. The conventional character of the epigrams suggests that the poetics express the ritual aspect of the epigram. The last chapter considers the texts from a more pragmatic angle. After a short discussion of the objects on which the epigrams were written, the mechanisms of the twelfth-century art market are presented based on evidence taken mainly from the epigrams. At the end of this part, conclusions are drawn on the understanding of these texts in the twelfth century.

This thesis provides a fresh investigation of a collection of Roman imperial biographies conventionally known as the 'Historia Augusta'. The thesis supports the authenticity of the texts included in this corpus, in particular the claims they make about their dates, authorship, and scope, through philological, literary, prosopographical, and historical arguments. It shows that this corpus of texts, if the main conclusions are accepted, potentially improves our understanding of the tetrarchic-Constantinian era. It also explores the wider implications for the historiography of the fourth century; the transmission and formation of multi-author corpora in antiquity and the middle ages. It also suggests that the canon of Latin imperial biographies be widened. The thesis has two parts. Part I explores the actual state of the corpus, its textual transmission, and relation to other texts. It shows that the ancient and medieval paratexts presented the corpus as a collection of imperial biographies. The paratexts are compatible with the authorial statements in the main text. It then explores the corpus' medieval transmission, and the interest medieval scholars had in such texts. This part suggests that the corpus’s current state explains well the inconsistencies found in it. Finally, it shows that words and phrases, once thought peculiar to the corpus and the holy grail of the forgery argument, are intertextual links to earlier texts. Part II explores chronological statements and historical episodes relevant to the Diocletianic-Constantinan period. It establishes the actual dates of each author, and suggests that the confusion found in these biographies is similar to that of other contemporaries. The few apostrophes are shown to be authentic, and the historical and prosopographical passages are shown to represent, and improve our understanding of, the zeitgeist and history of the period. The final conclusion weaves the various arguments together, and emphasises the authenticity and significance of the corpus' texts. It suggests separating the composition of the texts from the disinterested formation of the corpus as a whole, as part of a new hypothesis and further lines of enquiry.

Ideas of kinship play a significant role in structuring everyday life, and yet kinship has been neglected in Christian ethics, as well as moral philosophy and bioethics. Attention has been paid in these disciplines to the ethics of ‘family,’ but little regard has been paid to the fact that kinship is not a given, but is culturally contingent. The thesis seeks to remedy the neglect in recent Christian theological ethics by drawing on resources from the history of Christian thought and practice. It uses social anthropology both to unsettle the accounts of kinship used in Christian ethics, and to expose elements in Christian traditions of thought and practice relating to kinship. Notions of shared bodily substance, the house, gender and personhood recur cross-culturally in giving shape to kinship. By examining these four notions as they inform Christian thought and practice, a theological account is developed. Chapters dedicated to each of these four attempt to provide, in the first instance, a descriptive account of how the notion has structured Christian thought and practice in relation to kinship. Each chapter then turns, in the second instance, to a critical mode, offering a theological treatment of the chapter topic as it bears on kinship. The thesis concludes that kinship in Christ should be considered normatively primary for the Christian, but also that there are ways in which Christians have honoured this kinship in Christ by organising and playing out kinship on a smaller scale. In detailing the distinctively Christian organising principles that structure some practices of kinship ‘in miniature,’ another common practice – the special privileging of the blood tie in structuring kinship – is singled out for critique.

L’une des questions primordiales dans l’étude de l’Antiquité tardive concerne le passage de l’ancienne religion polythéiste au christianisme. Or, les découvertes archéologiques faites dans la partie orientale du Bassin méditerranéen ont révélé de nombreux pavements chrétiens (ou juifs) tardifs décorés de riches mosaïques polychromes réutilisant des figures issues de la tradition iconographique grecque, parmi lesquelles des personnifications d’éléments cosmologiques. On rencontre ainsi des éléments du temps, comme les quatre Saisons (Tropai) ou les Mois (Ménès), la Terre (Gê) parfois accompagnée de ses Fruits (Karpoi), certains astres comme le Soleil (Hélios), la Lune (Séléné), parfois accompagnés du Zodiaque, l’Élément marin féminin (Thalassa) ou masculin (Okéanos, Abyssos) et les quatre Fleuves du Paradis (Géon, Phison, Tigre et Euphrate). Cette présente thèse se propose d’étudier chacune de ces personnifications, leur iconographie et leur symbolique, en contexte religieux, mais aussi profane, dans une analyse stylistique et comparative. Cette étude a ainsi pour but de mettre en relief la spécificité de cette partie orientale de l’Empire romain, entre le IVe et le VIe siècle, et d’insister sur la pérennité de la culture grecque et de ses traditions iconographiques, malgré un changement de religion officielle. / One of the primordial questions in the study of Late Antiquity concerns the transition from the ancient polytheistic religion to Christianity. The archaeological discoveries that have been made in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin have revealed a number of late Christian (or Jewish) pavements decorated with rich polychrome mosaics that reuse figures stemming from the Greek iconographic tradition, which include personifications of cosmological elements. In this manner elements of time can be encountered, such as the Four Seasons (Tropai) or the Months (Menes), the Earth (Ge) sometimes surrounded by her Fruits (Karpoi), specific celestial bodies such as the Sun (Helios), the Moon (Selene), sometimes accompanied by the Zodiac, the female marine Element (Thalassa) or the male (Okeanos, Abyssos) and the four Rivers of Paradise (Geon, Phison, Tiger and Euphrates). This thesis makes a stylistic and comparative analysis of each of these personifications, their iconography and their symbolism, in a religious context, but also in a secular one. The object of this study is to emphasise the specificity of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire between the Fourth and the Sixth centuries. And also to insist in particular on the longevity of the Greek culture and its iconographic traditions, despite an official change in religion.

L’épitaphe est porteuse de valeurs, au premier chef identitaires et mémorielles. L’espace étudié, l’Aquitaine Seconde et la Novempopulanie aux IVe-VIIIe s. se montre, en raison d’une romanité marquée, d’un christianisme naissant et des migrations wisigothiques et franques, un terrain de jeu idéal pour discuter les identités en termes de transformations, crises en encore constructions. Reste à savoir comment les inscriptions funéraires prennent part au débat, ce qu’elles révèlent, ou non, de ces bouleversements. Or nos documents n’amènent pas si simplement dans le champ de l’histoire évènementielle ni même dans celui d’une histoire de la christianisation. Les limites des sources (datation, dispersion, laconisme) conduisent au glissement des questionnements : ne pas s’arrêter à ce que l’épitaphe dit mais réfléchir à ses manipulations. Il s’agit, en évaluant les identités transmises, en estimant la portée mémorielle de l’épitaphe, de s’interroger sur les facteurs qui poussent une part de la société du Sud-Ouest gaulois à recourir à l’écrit lapidaire. Avant d’assumer une fonction, l’épitaphe relève d’une intention, déterminée en partie par un environnement, social et culturel, peut-Être par des habitudes. Ainsi pris, le tournant invite à une autre approche des documents, celle des pratiques, des gestes, des publics et in fine celle de la culture (des cultures) qui les produit. Ce travail, fondé sur un recueil des inscriptions des régions étudiées, défend une vision globale de l’objet épigraphique, vision qui repose sur des regards tant archéologique qu’historique qui convergent vers une question : le choix de l’épitaphe et ses usages entre Loire et Pyrénées, aux IVe-VIIIe s. / The epitaph carries values of identity and memories. The regions under study, the Aquitaine Seconde and the Novempopulanie between the IVth and VIIIth c., are a perfect playground to discuss the transformation, crisis and construction of identities. Romanitas, the emergence to christianism as well Frankish and Wisigothic migrations also play important parts in this context. The underlying question is to determine to what extent funerary inscriptions can be relevant to this debate, if they reveal, or not, these changes. Our epigraphic documents do not necessarily refer to evental history nor do they evoke clearly the christianisation of territory. However the approximate dating of these sources, their scattering and their terseness, encourage us to go beyond the script itself and rather to consider its usage. In other words, the aim is to evaluate identities which are passed and their remembrance value to understand what are the factors that have fostered the choice of the epitaph by a part of the society of the south west Gallia. Prior to assuming informative and commemorative roles, the epitaph is firstly a cultural and social practice, probably motivated by habits. This perspective calls for a different approach of the epitaph, which focuses on the environment, culture and practices that produce it. This work, based on a corpus of the inscriptions of Aquitaine Seconde and Novempopulanie, defend a global vision of the epigraphic object, since its creation to its reception by different audiences. This perception being on both historical and archeological point of views, animated by a common theme: the choice and the uses of the epitaph between Loire and Pyrenees from the IVth and VIIIth c.

Pendant l’Antiquité tardive, en Occident, les prisonniers reçoivent de l’aide pour supporter leur condition ou pour y échapper. Ceux qui sont détenus par une autorité judiciaire sont soutenus matériellement et psychologiquement sans restriction légale, mais leurs bienfaiteurs se heurtent à l’arbitraire de surveillants parfois corrompus. Le sentiment d’humiliation associé à la prison est nuancé au sein des communautés chrétiennes victimes des persécutions, car celles-ci attribuent à l’emprisonnement une signification religieuse. Les prisonniers de guerre sont rapatriés, notamment grâce à la pratique du rachat, et bénéficient du droit de postliminium qui leur permet de retrouver leur statut juridique antérieur à leur retour. Néanmoins, ils ont désormais l’obligation légale de rembourser leur bienfaiteur pour que s’applique ce droit et, à défaut, sont placés dans la dépendance de celui-ci. Quant au pouvoir romain, il fait du retour sans contrepartie des captifs une condition de paix impérative, signe d’une domination incontestée. La christianisation des sociétés impériale puis romano-barbares accroît l’intérêt pour la condition des prisonniers. A partir du Ve siècle, les efforts en faveur des prisonniers de guerre s’intensifient dans un contexte où leur nombre est multiplié en raison du recul et de l’effacement de l’Empire romain. L’Eglise intègre à son action charitable la libération et l’entretien des captifs de même que l’assistance aux détenus, qu’ils soient accusés ou condamnés. Désormais promu à un rôle de protecteur des cités, l’évêque assume cette fonction en portant secours aux prisonniers, et consolide ainsi son nouveau rang social et politique. / In the Late Antique West, prisoners are being helped in order to bear the bad conditions of their captivity or to be liberated. The inmates often receive visits and material as well as psychological support without any legal restriction. Yet, benefactors have often difficulties with the guards who take arbitrary decisions and are sometimes corrupted. Prison is no longer only a humiliating place because it is given a religious meaning by Christians during the persecutions. Captives are liberated, particularly by being redeemed, and profit from the postliminium legislation which allow them to recover their former juridical status. Nevertheless, they are from then on under the obligation to pay back their benefactor before they actually benefit by this right. If they can’t, they remain dependent on him. As for Roman authorities, they make of the return of captives without any compensation a non negotiable peace condition in order to show their total superiority. The progressive Christianization of the West make people show more interest for prisoners. From the beginning of the Vth century A. D., Captives, who become more and more numerous because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, receive more help. Redeeming captives and taking care of them is now a part of the Church charity work, as well as supporting inmates, whether they are accused or condemned. Being promoted protectors of cities, bishops are dealing with this responsibility by rescuing and relieving prisoners. Thus, they strengthen their new social and political rank.

Στόχος της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η εξέταση του δικτύου των σχέσεων, οι οποίες αναπτύσσονται εντός των σοφιστικών και φιλοσοφικών κύκλων που παρουσιάζονται σε δύο βιογραφικά corpora, στους Βίους Σοφιστῶν του Φιλοστράτου και στους Βίους Φιλοσόφων καὶ Σοφιστῶν του Ευναπίου, καθώς και του κεντρικού ρόλου που διαδραμάτισαν οι σχέσεις αυτές (κυρίως η σχέση δασκάλου και μαθητή) στη συγκρότηση των δύο συλλογών. Η μελέτη του δικτύου αυτών των σχέσεων στοχεύει στην ανάδειξη της μοναδικότητας των δύο συλλογών από άποψη δομής, η οποία καταδεικνύεται, επί παραδείγματι, από την ένταξη ορισμένων σοφιστών ή φιλοσόφων και τον αποκλεισμό άλλων. Ταυτόχρονα, διερευνάται πώς αυτές οι σχέσεις λειτουργούν ως μια βασική οργανωτική αρχή των Βίων και μας επιτρέπουν να διαμορφώσουμε μια σαφέστερη εικόνα για τη σοφιστική/φιλοσοφική ταυτότητα κατά την ελληνορωμαϊκή αυτοκρατορική περίοδο. Το πλέγμα σχέσεων που διαμορφώνεται ανάμεσα στους σοφιστές και τους φιλοσόφους, καθώς και ο τρόπος ταξινόμησής τους στα δύο βιογραφικά corpora μας επιτρέπουν να αναγνώσουμε τις συλλογές ως ρυθμιστικά, κανονιστικά κείμενα, τα οποία υπαγορεύουν και εξασφαλίζουν την επιβίωσή των βιογραφουμένων προσώπων για τις επόμενες γενιές. / The aim of this thesis is to examine the network of relationships developed among the sophists and the philosophers in two biographical corpora, Philostratus’ Lives of Sophists and Eunapius’ Lives of Philosophers and Sophists, as well as the pivotal role these relationships (especially those of master and student) played in the formation of the two collections. The study of the nexus of these relationships aims to demonstrate the structural singularity of these corpora, which is pointed, for instance, by the inclusion of certain sophists/philosophers and the exclusion of others; at the same time, these relationships are shown to constitute a major organizational principle of the Lives, allowing thus a sharper understanding of the sophistic/philosophical identity in the Graeco-Roman Imperial period. The two corpora are read as regulatory, canonistic texts, in the sense that they dictate and determine, to a great extent, the type of the biographised sophists and philosophers worth preserving for future generations.

Text in German / This thesis gives a short overview abont the anthropological term worldview and discusses various views of it. A historic resume of the situation of the metropolis Antiochia in Syria in the 4th century AD is followed by an analysis of some important aspects of the worldview of its inhabitants. A short account of the life and work of John Chrysostom is given and followed by an analysis of four of his homilies of the Gospel of Matthew. These are compared with own exegetical points of view of the same texts. The focus is directed to some topics where the influence of worfdview makes itself felt. In the last chapter some observations in connection with the influence of worldview on biblical interpretation ensue. The thesis closes with a short discussion of some missiological and hermeneutical consequences / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th. (Missiology)