The order Sirenia is one of only two mammalian groups to have completely forgone terrestrial life. While extant sirenians are confined to the tropical waters, the recently extinct Steller’s sea cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) evolved to exploit the frigid waters of the North Pacific Ocean. As limits on O2 availability during submergence and decreased tissue temperature impose severe constraints on oxygen delivery, the oxygen binding (globin) proteins of sirenians are expected to have evolved under strong selection pressures. My comparative molecular analyses indicate that selection pressures on two globin genes (HBA and HBZ-T1) increased in transitional sirenians. As these genes encode the α-chains of all Hb isoforms throughout sirenian development, the resulting functional consequences to adult sirenian Hbs were tested using recombinant Hbs of Steller’s sea cow, the dugong (Dugong dugon), their last common ancestor, and the Florida manatee (Trichechis manatus latirostris). These tests reveal that high affinity Hbs—exceeding those of other mammals examined to date—arose early in sirenian evolution, presumably to maximize O2 extraction from the lungs and limit premature O2 offloading during submergence. Moreover, I demonstrate that the Hb–O2 affinity of the extinct sub-Arctic Steller’s sea cow is less affected by temperature than other sirenians, safeguarding O2 delivery to cool peripheral tissues. However, while this phenotype has primarily been attributed to the binding of additional allosteric effectors to the Hb moiety, Steller’s sea cow Hb binds relatively few of these ligands. Instead, my results suggest the thermodynamic properties of discrete allosteric effector sites are altered by epistatic interactions, a phenomenon that appears to be a critical component to cold adaptation in mammalian Hbs. As the HBA and HBZ-T1 loci also encode sirenian prenatal Hbs, the functional properties these proteins were tested to reveal their O2 affinity increased in parallel to maternal Hb. Notably, Steller’s sea cow HbF has the highest reported O2 affinity of any mammalian Hb tested to date. As the HBA gene encodes the -subunit of both the prenatally expressed HbF and adult expressed HbA proteins, the molecular remodeling of this locus may have concurrently increased the affinity of each protein. / February 2017

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M.A. (Greek) / The three mutually divided parallels of space, time and the peoples who crossed the Mediterranean, transformed the militant disposition of the Greek people into the athletic ideal. This competitive spirit accompanies the Greeks since the Age of Mythology: it formulates their legends, is linked with their religion, is included in their martial acts, serves as the foundation of their education and is conveyed in all forms of their lives. Crete, the island where we encounter the first indications of the subsequent athletic Greek spirit, lies on the border between the eastern peoples and Egypt on the one hand and Mycenaean Greece on the other. When the historical fate of the Greeks scatters them in the most remote regions, the athletic ideal will compromise the conjunctive link amongst them, which is expressed by their involvement in the Pan-Hellenic games. The five days of the Olympic Games, which constituted a feast of the body and spirit and were manifested by the participation of citizens from all the Greek city – states, ensconced the idea of pan Hellenic unity. During the Hellenistic Age, when Hellenism rooted, the long-lived public institution of the games also deeply established itself. The Olympic Games presented the first signs of decline during the 4th century A.D. Ever since the subjugation of Greece to the Romans, having been cut off from the roots which gave birth to them, the Games progressively to began decline until finally they were abolished, while new ideological doctrines, such as Christianity, began to prevail in the world of the Eastern Mediterranean. During the 18th century, the deeper search of classic antiquity by traditional humanism, presents the demand of reconstitution of the Olympic Games by Baron Pierre de Coubertin. The Games are reestablished in Athens in 1896 and the Zappeia Olympics serve as the connecting link with the ancient Greek Olympic Games. Since 1896 up to this date, 28 contemporary Olympiads, which have traveled to various cities of the world, have taken place, having already completed 108 years of existence. Today the Olympic Games constitute the leading athletic event of our planet as well as the celebration of peace and coexistence amongst peoples. On the threshold of the 21st century, humanists, who for centuries have ensured the unity and universality of education, propose the introduction of the subject of ‘Olympic Education’ in schools. Today, in the dawn of the 3rd millenium, the Olympic Games which fulfill an ecumenical mission, returned to the country where they were born and to the city where they were revived. In the year 2004 Greece was called upon to elect the Olympic ideals, placing athletics in the service of peace.

There are three main scholarly approaches to the mechanisms by which the military record of Roman Republican commanders was disseminated in Rome: the ceremony of the triumph, the erection of monuments with their inscriptions, and finally the minting of coins. Alongside this ceremonial and material publicity this thesis investigates how and why more ephemeral media, as well as autobiographical texts, were employed to disseminate, promote and at times denigrate the Roman military record during the period of 219-19 BC. It encompasses five core chapters: introduction; oratory as praise; oratory as criticism; letters; and autobiographical prose. Chapter two argues that military achievements were orally disseminated in various contexts in Rome: it was a fundamental facet of the triumphal process; a regular part of attaining and maintaining military commands; and the military record was frequently employed in forensic defence speeches, particularly in the late Republic with the growth of the law-courts. Chapter three focuses on how and why the military record was criticised back in Rome in a variety of contexts, arguing that it was a key means by which the Roman elite regulated excessive claims of gloria. Owing in part to the increasing concerns about self-serving Roman magistrates, focusing on behaviour beyond the battlefield was a common means of undermining commanders’ military reputations. Chapter four details the heavy and regular dependence on dispatches for short-term, yet proficient, martial self-promotion. It emphasises the key role of letters in the triumphal process, including the passing of legislation aimed in part at regulating their exploitation. It also argues that private correspondence played a valuable role, particularly in the targeting of senators and other influential sections of Roman society. Chapter five investigates the role of commentaries, memoirs and historical literature in the promotion of military res gestae and how criticism alongside concerns about posterity influenced their composition. It addresses the influence of Greek biography on their composition as well as the Roman aristocratic practice of preserving correspondence and other documentation.

The new elements in "The Ancient Mariner" were partly responsible for the unfavorable early reviews which vary much from the high praise the poem receives today. The purpose of this study is to record critical opinion of the poem from the contemporary reviews of 1798 to the intensive critical analysis of the 1960's.

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.

Temples in ancient Egypt were confines of restricted sacred space. Only priests had access to the inner workings of the temples and their mysteries. During the great festivals, the gods that dwelled in these sanctuaries went on procession for everyone to see, travelling to other temples in barques of gold and wood. These barques were typical of furniture that was both religious and processional. Study of the lexicography, iconography, and function of ancient Egyptian ritual processional furniture could shed light upon the metanarrative of ancient religious practice. This research identifies the unique characteristics and lexicography of ritual processional furniture as manifest in ancient Egypt between the Old and New Kingdoms. A multidisciplinary approach is taken in regards to the data, utilizing both lexicographic and iconographic sources, to which a seven criteria conceptual framework is applied in order to select the appropriate data. The methodology used in this study is inductive and qualitative, and the conclusions are derived from primary sources. Objects that are discovered to be ritual but not processional are eliminated from further analysis. The analyzed data is synthesized and assimilated to expand the current paradigm of ritual processional objects into a new understanding. In this thesis three primary classes of ritual processional furniture are identified and examined in detail: chests, barques, and palanquin thrones. This project analyzed over sixty lexemes and three hundred fifty instances of iconography. The lexemes for twelve chests, six sacred barques, and six palanquins were found to have been used as ritual processional furniture. The iconographic study examined the pictorial instances by typology and locale. For sacred barques, the results attempted to resolve the ongoing problems concerning identification and inconsistencies between icon and text. The results for palanquin thrones showed that the iconography from sacred barques was appropriated and compressed elevating the king to a focus of religious adoration. This extensive study of Egyptian ritual processional furniture contributes to the ongoing dialogue regarding the material and cultural context of religious expression by synthesizing the paradigm of temple sacred space upon smaller physical objects. The contribution to knowledge has been to flesh out the identities of specific instances of ritual processional furnishing and to assimilate the architectural understanding of sacred space with the available data so as to arrive at a new understanding of the existing paradigm. The significance of these contributions is that they further develop our understanding of the religious cultural context of ancient Egypt.

In this doctoral thesis, I address questions concerning teleology, chance, and necessity in Aristotle's philosophy. These three concepts are closely related. Aristotle considers chance in relation to teleology, and contrasts his conception of teleology with his own and his predecessors' views of necessity. He explains accidental causation on the basis of the absurdity of necessitarianism. In Chapter I, I clarify Aristotle's definitions of chance events and chance in Physics B 4-6 on the basis of a detailed examination of 'coming to be accidentally' (196b23), 'for the sake of something' (196b21), 'might be done by thought or by nature' (196b22). I analyze accidental and non-accidental relations involved in the marketplace example. In Chapter II, I argue that Aristotle accepts that the regularly beneficial winter rainfall is for the sake of the crops in Physics B 8. I scrutinize Empedocles’ view as described by Aristotle and show that it is not a theory of natural selection. I seek to show that the rival view against which Aristotle argues is an amalgam of reductionism and eliminativism. In Chapter III, I analyze what Aristotle means by 'simple necessity' and 'necessity on a hypothesis' (199b34-35), and argue that, in Physics B 9, he only acknowledges hypothetical necessity. Scrutinizing the wall example and Aristotle’s reply to it, I clarify his view of the relation between teleological causation and material necessity. In Chapter IV, I clarify Aristotle's conception of accidental causes, while taking his presentation of the necessitarian argument in Metaphysics E 3 as a reductio ad absurdum. I criticize the view that Aristotle himself accepts necessitation in this chapter. In doing so, I argue that, although this point is not explicitly stated in Physics B, Aristotle thinks that what is accidental is not necessary prior to its occurrence.

This doctoral thesis aims to explore the underlying rationale of the (by modern standards) wide use of character evidence in the courts of classical Athens. Linking divergent areas of social sciences such as law, history, psychology and social anthropology, this interdisciplinary quest examines under a socio-political prism the question of legal relevance in Athenian forensic rhetoric. Specifically, I am concerned with an in-depth analysis of the surviving court speeches placed in their context in order to reveal the function of the Athenian courts and the fundamental nature of Athenian law. I explore the utmost aims of the first democratic system of justice and give a verdict as to its orientation towards the attainment of key notions such as the rule of law, equity and fairness, or social stability through utilitarian dispute resolution. My claim is that, although ancient and modern definitions of such ideals are in essence incomparable, the Athenians achieved the rule of law in their own terms through the strict application of legal justice in their courts. In such a legal system, no ‘aberrations’ or irrelevant ‘extra-legal’ arguments may carry significant weight. Central for my argument is the homogeneous approach to (legal and quasi-legal) argumentation from Homer to the orators, in a period covering more than four centuries. Close analysis of the dispute-resolution passages in ancient Greek literature exposes the striking similarities with the rhetoric of litigants in the Athenian courts. Therefore, instead of isolating (in time and space) the sphere of the Athenian courts of the mid-5th to the late-4th centuries, my holistic approach discloses the need for an all-embracing interpretation of the wide use of character evidence in every aspect of argumentation. I argue that the explanation for this practice is to be found (on a subjective level) in the Greek ideas of ‘character’ and ‘personality’, the inductive method of reasoning, and (on an objective level) in the social, political and institutional structures of the ancient Greek polis. Thus, a new exegesis to the question of legal relevance for the Greeks emerges.