Two explanations are proposed for the fact that classical scenes depicting a combat between a Greek warrior and an opponent are composed in a restrained way, in that the actual violence of maiming and killing is not explicitly represented. The first explanation is speculative as a visual parallel with the treatment of violence in classical tragedy, while the second is based on a formal, art historical explanation of a motif derived from Egyptian art. In a concluding section it is pointed out that in Hellenistic art violence becomes explicit in the depictions of war and combat.

This study employs as its primary source a codex from Uppsala University Library, Codex Upsaliensis Graecus 8. Its aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the Late Byzantine and post-Byzantine miscellaneous book. It is argued that multitext books reflect the time and society in which they were created. A thorough investigation of such books sheds light on the interests and concerns of the scribes, owners, and readers of the books. Containing some ninety texts of different character and from different genres, Codex Upsaliensis Graecus 8 is a complex creation, but still an example of a type of book that was common during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This study takes a comprehensive view of the book in its entirety, making sense of its different parts in relation to the whole with the help of codicology and textual analysis. With that approach the original idea of the book is brought to the fore, and the texts are studied in the same context that the main scribe Theodoros chose and the early owners and readers of the book encountered. Through a systematic codicological analysis, the overall structure of the codex is explored and suggestions are made concerning the provenance. The examination of the scribal work procedure becomes a means to profile this otherwise fairly unknown scribe. The texts are grouped and characterized typologically to illustrate connections throughout the whole book as well as in relation to the separate structural units. The role of micro-texts and secondary layers of inscription is also considered. From the perspective of usability the texts are divided into four categories: narrative texts, rhetorical texts, philosophical-theological texts, and practical texts. Three texts are studied in greater depth, as examples of the width of the scribe's interests and the variety of the book's contents.

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This thesis is a case study of early Greek poetry in comparison to the literature of the ancient Near East, especially Mesopotamia, based on a selection of hymns (or: songs in praise of gods) mainly in Sumerian, Akkadian, Hittite and Greek. Chapters 1–3 present the core groups of primary sources from the ancient Near East: Old Babylonian Sumerian, Old Babylonian Akkadian, Hittite. The aim of these chapters is to analyse the main features of style and content of Sumerian and Akkadian hymnic poetry, and to show how certain compositions were translated and adapted beyond Mesopotamia (such as in Hittite). Chapter 4 contains introductory remarks on early Greek hymnic poetry accompanied by some initial comparative observations. On the basis of the primary sources presented in Chapters 1–4, the second half of the thesis investigates selected elements of form and content in a comparative perspective: hymnic openings (Chapter 5), negative predication (Chapter 6), the birth of Aphrodite in the Theogony of Hesiod (Chapter 7), and the origins and development of a phrase in Hittite prayers and the Iliad of Homer (Chapter 8). The conclusion of Chapters 4–6 is that, in terms of form and style, early Greek hymns were probably not indebted to ancient Near Eastern models. This contradicts some current thinking in Classical scholarship, according to which Near Eastern influence was pervasive in early Greek poetry in general. Chapters 7–8 argue that such influence may nevertheless be perceived in certain closely defined instances, particularly where supplementary evidence from other ancient sources is available, and where the extant sources permit a reconstruction of the process of translation and adaptation. Hence this thesis seeks to contribute to the current debate on early Greek and ancient Near Eastern literature with a detailed analysis of a selected group of primary sources.

This thesis provides individual studies in and a comparison of the Atticistic lexica of the second and third centuries AD. Modern European classicists have looked at the lexicogra-phers separately, but never as a group or in direct comparison. German philologists of the 19th and early 20th centuries looked at them in depth, but did not draw conclusions for their social context, other than the supposed rivalry between Phrynichus and Pollux, while modern classicists of the late 20th century referred to them mainly as source to strengthen their theories for the broader social context of the Second Sophistic. Most extant Atticistic lexica stem from the second and third centuries AD, and it seems natural to concentrate on this period of time in this context. The first chapter of this thesis summarises the linguistic developments leading up to this period of time to provide a bet-ter understanding of Atticism. Atticism cannot be understood fully without special consid-eration of the Atticistic lexicographical movement and vice versa. Chapter II discusses Ae-lius Dionysius and Pausanias, the so-called “forefathers of Atticistic lexicography”, and establishes their neutral approach to the promotion of Atticism. Philemon and the Antiatti-cist are briefly introduced in Chapters III and IV, [but not discussed in length due to exist-ing literature and fragmentary character of the former and the unusual approach of the sub-ject matter and the weak manuscript tradition of the latter.] Chapters V, VI and VII form the core of this analysis with the discussion of Phrynichus’ feisty promotion of Atticism, Moeris’ close links to Phrynichus and his unusual tripartite criteria (Ἀττικόν, Ἑλλήνικον, κοινόν), and Pollux’ Onomasticon which provides us with a unique insight to the lexicog-rapher’s methods, intentions and readership. Chapter VIII reveals that there was harsh crit-icism of those who “over-Atticised,” and discusses who of these lexicographers might have fallen under this criticism. Just as there was no standardised approach to the imitation of Attic Greek, there was no standardised lexicographical approach to providing guidance.

This thesis discusses for the first time the reception of higher level Greek in everyday prose in second- to sixth-century Egypt. It offers insights into the strategies of composition in stylistically ambitious non-literary sources, and investigates the use of select high-level language varieties. It thus contributes to research on stylistic registers in post-classical Greek. In Chapter One, the objectives of thesis are set out, and the methodologies used in assessing evidence are outlined. Chapter Two explores competence as a prerequisite for good performance. The linguistic characteristics of grammar as taught in contemporary schools are analysed in detail to determine the constituents of language competence of educated individuals. Greek theories of the epistolary style are discussed at length to define the normative stylistic context within which well-educated individuals produced their correspondence. Chapter Three examines the impact of two high-level language varieties, viz. purism and poetic language. The phenomenon of severe puristic intervention is explored by analysing two test cases. The interaction between attitudes to extreme puristic variants and the weighting of non-puristic elements is discussed, and the existence of widely varied puristic profiles is demonstrated within each genre. Loans from poetic language are shown to be equally subject to various patterns of usage, depending upon either external determinants such as context or the writer's particular psychological motivations. Focusing on private correspondence, Chapter Four illustrates the main strategies of stylistic refinement from a selection of contemporary letters. The capacity of handling the tools of high level Greek is occasionally inferior to the writers' ambitions, and the selected strategies of refinement differed in conformity with the rhetorical norms proposed by known epistolary theorists. Compositional choices disagreeing with these seem to depend partly on rhetorically-motivated acts, partly on sheer ignorance of the requirements of rhetoric.