This thesis is made up of nine chapters. The introduction offers some preliminary discussion of the subject of the period as a whole, and some consideration of existing modern sources upon it. Our modern concept of the ancient world is necessarily constructed from materials derived from reports, and from the various other sources which have survived to use. The purpose of Chapter 1 is to establish how the reports and sources which pertain to the fifth century BC will be evaluated and used in the following thesis. To this end, the work of the three main contemporary historians for fifth century Greece are examined and some concluding comments regarding our use of them for the study of fifth century Macedon are made. Alexander I of Macedon faced circumstances which were almost completely incomparable to those faced by any other king during the period covered by this thesis. The fact that he not only preserved the integrity of his kingdom during the titanic Persian Wars but went on to gain territory, increase trade and improve the Macedonian army to an extent that it could conquer and maintain a vast tract of land, displays a commitment to the wellbeing of his country and a level of patriotism which Chapter 2, alone amongst modern studies, identifies and explores. In his commentary on Thucydides, A. W. Gomme has this to say about Perdiccas’ frequent changes of allegiance: “he chopped and changed all his life, as far as we can see to no very good purpose, except that he kept his kingdom intact and his own throne.” (p201) From Perdiccas’ point of view, and in the context of the Peloponnesian war, during which Macedon itself became, at times, a military objective, keeping his throne and kingdom intact was, in fact, a “very good purpose,” and indeed no small achievement. Chapter 3 explores the dramatic fluctuations in Perdiccas’ foreign policy which allowed him to do this, and considers modern viewpoints upon it.

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Washington University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-151). Also issued online.

During the medieval period the order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem was one of the oldest, wealthiest and farthest reaching of the crusading military orders. Granted official recognition by Pope Pascal II in 1113, the Order of the Hospital expanded its original vocation of caring for the sick to include a martial function within the Holy Land during the course of the twelfth century. In support of its various activities, the Hospitallers were given vast estates both in the east and in Western Europe from which it drew continual supplies of men, money, equipment and foodstuffs. This dissertation seeks to expand the current understanding of the activities, nature and function of the military orders generally by providing a study on the estates of the Order of St John in Britain and Ireland, the regions physically farthest from the most active centre of traditional crusade activity, focusing on the period of time from the twelfth to the sixteenth century.

This thesis argues that archaeologists have ignored fundamental aspects of ceramic assemblage formation. The factors that are traditionally invoked to explain quantitative variation in ceramics are such things as distance from source, breakage rates and trade flows. These considerations are all perfectly valid. However, this thesis argues that it is essential that we also consider the effects of changing eating habits. Using the example of African Red Slip Ware (ARS), a particularly common late Roman fineware in the Mediterranean, it is shown that changes in dining practices can have had dramatic effects on the amount of pottery that would have been used at any given period in time. A model is developed for the circulation of ARS which takes these culinary changes into account. It is argued that the changes were related to the role of the ancient meal as a means of negotiating ethnic identities. Specifically, it is suggested that many of the observed changes can be related to the rise of early Christianity. This model is then used to challenge long-accepted views of the Roman economy and late Roman rural demography, both topics in which ARS plays an important role. It is argued that the traditional view of the Roman economy, as having undergone successive boombust cycles, is misguided. In large part this model is based on a misunderstanding of the formation processes of ARS assemblages, and so a new model is forwarded which allows for the effects of changing eating habits. Finally, ARS is commonly used as a guide to the density and spread of late Roman rural occupation. Traditional views cite massive depopulation in Late Antiquity. It is argued that, by re¬ examining the ARS sherds, it can be shown that this view is also misguided. This is demonstrated through an analysis of the British School at Rome's South Etruria survey ARS collection, and a critical reappraisal of the historical evidence.

By providing a holistic viewpoint this thesis has gone some way to correct the imbalance in the secondary literature which has been dominated by coverage of the Mediterranean from either a domestic or international perspective. The thesis clarifies whether there has been a resurgence of regionalism in the Mediterranean since the end of the Cold War by examining regional dynamics in the area from five different perspectives. The first investigates the concept of regionalism in international relations. The second gives an historical perspective of regionalism in the Mediterranean. The third focuses on contemporary international relations in the Mediterranean. The fourth examines the influence of external actors in the international politics of the Mediterranean. The fifth provides a “reality check” of the Mediterranean in the post-Cold War world. Patterns of interaction in the Mediterranean area reveal that there are two neighbouring international regions that are very different in character: Western Europe and the Middle East, which include three subregions bordering the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, the Levant, and the Maghreb. Post-Cold War trans-Mediterranean political proposals resonate with older traditions. This research project investigates the substance behind such Mediterranean regional rhetoric. The conclusions of this analysis are that external actors have often influenced regional patterns of relations, but have not been able to alter the basic pattern of regional alignment and conflict within international regions. In addition, regionalising proposals are more accurately described as attempts to pursue particular national and subregional interests, and as boundary management devices rather than boundary transcending ones. A reality check at the end of the twentieth century shows that the Mediterranean is more of a frontier zone than an international region.

This thesis examines warfare, social power, and the state in central Italy for the period between 900 and 343 BC.1 The goal of this research is to better understand how warfare fit into the dialogue of social power in Etruria and Rome. This is achieved through the fulfilment of a number of aims. The first is to understand the patterns of warfare present in central Italy, as these can help us better understand the social aspects of conflict in the region. The project assumes that the practice of warfare is important for understanding its role in this dialogue, and thus an analysis of arms, armour, and tactics is also necessary. The second aim is to understand how warfare and politics affected one another. The condottieri paradigm is challenged and the strength of central Italian states asserted. The third aim is to explain the interaction between warfare and economic power, and the interaction between these two aspects of social power. The fourth aim is similar, and analyzes the connections that are visible between warfare and religion. Through these aims, this project creates a clearer picture of warfare in Etruria and Rome from the Iron Age to the Archaic Period. It argues that the exchange and dialogue of social power was not alienated from the state, and that independent warfare would have been of less value than it was probably worth. To this end, the Servian Constitution is re-examined and the idea of an early Roman hoplite phalanx, and single class army, is rejected. The original contribution of this work is in reasserting the position of the state in Tyrrhenian warfare and rejecting the idea that private interest was more powerful.

Since Ardashir’s victory over the Parthians in A.D 224 to his successors’ eventual defeat at the hands of the Arabs in 651 the Roman and Sasanian Empires had been bitter and deadly rivals. Throughout Late Antiquity the Roman-Sasanian relationship was dominated by competition; a constant battle for imperial prestige, military supremacy, cultural influence and economic advantage. In the course of their relationship Ctesiphon, the Sasanian capital, was sacked by Roman forces, the Roman emperor Valerian was captured and taken prisoner, Julian the Apostate was killed by Sassanian forces in his infamous campaign of 363, and the great Roman city of Antioch had been captured and razed. Yet in this seemingly never-ending imperial struggle the fifth century stands out as a period of unprecedented peace between the imperial rivals. It is the aim of this thesis to analyse what made the fifth century a unique period of peace. This thesis seeks to expand on current scholarship on the fifth-century Roman-Sasanian relationship, which has focused on the investigation of specific and individual events, by taking a more holistic approach. In this regard, all aspects of the relationship, military conflicts, frontier zones, barbarian threats, religious issues, economic considerations and the development of diplomatic contacts, will be analysed in order to identify what pushed the two empires towards a peace and, more importantly, how this peace was maintained in the face of old hostilities and traditional antagonism. Viewing the Roman-Sasanian relationship as merely one part of the wider late antique world, not as something unique and separate, will also be a key component of this investigation. Central to the aim and approach of this thesis is the use of political realism, a theory for understanding international relations, to reveal the motivations and pressures that both empires faced in this period that pushed them towards peace. In this regard, it will be argued that the Roman and Sasanian overriding desire and goal of ensuring their own safety and security in an anarchic world in the face of the new and dangerous threats posed by the ascendant Huns, Hephthalites and Vandals was the underlying motivation behind the fifth-century peace. It was the threat posed by these groups that forced a shift in Roman-Sasanian relations towards the accommodation that both needed to survive the turbulent fifth century. As such, it was these new threats that stimulated the development of imperial diplomacy in the fifth century that allowed the two empires to mediate their traditional casus belli and maintain peace throughout this period. This diplomatic development allowed them to reach new and innovative diplomatic solutions to their problems in the frontier zones of Arabia and Armenia.

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Scholarship on late antique cities has largely conceptualized them as singular entities, either decaying or transitioning as Roman imperial power and economic structures shifted. Improved archaeological data from urban sites, accompanied by a number of broad synthetic studies, now allow for fresh exploration of the details of urbanism in this transformative era. This study examines the ways that a select group of public buildings were used and reused in the Mediterranean West between 300 and 600 CE. This examination is primarily carried out through the collection of a broad catalogue of archaeological evidence (supplemented with epigraphic and literary testimony) for the constructions, work projects, abandonments and reuses of key public monuments across the Western Mediterranean region—principally Italy, southern Gaul, Spain, and North Africa west of Cyrenaica. This broad survey is augmented with case studies on select cities. Such an analysis of the late antique histories of baths, aqueducts, and spectacle buildings (theaters, amphitheaters, and circuses) shows that each of the building types had a distinct history and that public monuments were not a unitary group. It also reveals unexpectedly few regional trends, suggesting that these histories were broadly common across the West. Further, this study shows that each building type was reused differently, both in terms of purposes and chronology. Finally, by considering economic, technological, cultural and legal factors affecting patterns of use, abandonment and reuse, this study establishes that the primary cause for the transformations to public building was largely a change in euergetistic practices in late antiquity. Cities with access to imperial or other governmental patronage used and maintained their public monuments longer than those without. Together these observations demonstrate the complexities of urban change in this period and prove that the idea of a single pattern of decline in late antique cities is no longer tenable.