Esta pesquisa é um estudo comparativo entre os bagaudas gauleses e os circunceliões africanos, dois grupos revoltosos rurais da Antiguidade Tardia. Seu objetivo primário é descrever o caráter social de ambos os grupos, levando em conta os múltiplos relatos nas fontes antigas e as interpretações modernas divergentes a respeito deles, que vão desde multidões rurais sob domínio patronal, monges cristãos fanáticos, até rebeliões camponesas. A comparação histórica é composta por três perspectivas analíticas. A primeiraestabelece uma compreensão comparada das tradições de composição e recepção dos textos por meio dos quais a memória social sobre bagaudas e circunceliões se objetivou em vestígios textuais. A segundaexplora a hipótese de uma crise de hegemonia nasregiões rurais do Império Romano tardio, tendo como base as possíveis relações das revoltas com as práticas de produção e de reprodução das condições de existência, as relações de trabalho e as experiências de classe. A terceiraobserva as iniciativas e respostas das estruturas imperiais na Gália e na África às ações desses movimentos de insurgência. Tal perspectiva lida com a questão fundamental da ação do Estado imperial contra essas revoltas e o papel desse Estado na manutenção da Ordem social nas zonas rurais do Império Romano, tendocomo contraparte os horizontes de organização comunitária que podem ser encontrados nessas revoltas. Uma questão central está relacionada ao problema teórico do estudo e escrita de uma história das classes subalternas na História Antiga. Esta pesquisa buscou trabalhar com esses problemas não apenas no plano teórico, mas também a partir da investigação histórica prática. / This research is a comparative study between the Gaul bacaudae and the African circumcellions, two groups of rural rebels of late antiquity. Its first aim is to describe the social character of both groups, in view of the multiple accounts from the ancient sources and the divergent modern interpretations on them, which range from patronized rural mobs, fanatical Christian monks, to peasant rebellions. The historical comparison is composed by three analytical perspectives. Firstly, this research establishes a comparative comprehension of the traditionsof composition and reception of the literary texts in which the social memory of the bacaudae and circumcellions were incorporated. Secondly, it explores the hypothesis of a hegemony crisis in the late Roman countryside,basing on the practices of production and reproduction of the conditions of existence, working relationships and class experiences. Thirdly, it observes the initiatives and responses of the imperial structures in both Gaul and Africa to the actions of the insurgents. Such comparative dimension addresses the fundamental issue of imperial state action against these revolts and the role of thatstate in keeping the social order in the Roman countryside. It has as its counterpart the communal organization horizons that can be found on those revolts. Akey issue is related to the theoretical problems concerning the study and writing of the history of subaltern classes in ancient history. This research strived to work these problems not only on the theoretical level, but also from the practical historical investigation.

In this paper, I hope to do a small part to bridge the gap that has emerged in this scholarly debate between the historicist and Straussian views of Spartan society. To that end, this paper will analyze the Spartan Constitution according to the Straussian method. That is, I will engage in a close reading of the text, only referencing outside, secondary sources directly when necessary and appropriate. In other cases, their views will simply color this analysis and be referenced as supporting evidence in footnotes. Strauss chose to have only a superficial interaction with the existing scholarship at the time of publishing his essay, and I therefore believe it will be more beneficial to see what this approach would look like from the historicist perspective. When the same approach is taken, the heart of both camps’ arguments will be exposed, allowing them to be more easily compared. The paper will begin with a reading exploring the themes of Xenophon’s work according to a historicist perspective. After a brief aside explaining and motivating the Straussian esoteric argument to a greater extent, the paper will move on to a similar close-reading of the Spartan Constitution, following Strauss’ essay where appropriate and extending his arguments where necessary. Through this process, the paper aims to show that the perceived separation between the historicist and Straussian interpretations appears to be much greater than it, in reality, is.

Os estudiosos das casas de elite (domus) datadas da Antiguidade Tardia, em geral, têm como foco os usos das mansões pelos proprietários. Nessa perspectiva, considera-se que as mansões eram planejadas de maneira a possibilitar e maximizar o poder dos aristocratas em inúmeras ocasiões. Os demais usuários das casas, no entanto, são tidos como meros receptáculos passivos da hegemonia aristocrática. Essa dissertação, a partir de um estudo de caso da cidade de Óstia (séculos IV e V d.C.), leva em conta os usos das mansões enquanto formas de afirmação do poder dos proprietários, mas também suas apropriações pelos grupos subalternos. Analiso evidências arqueológicas, epigráficas e textuais com o intuito de ter uma visão mais aprofundada sobre o tema. / The scholars of the elite houses (domus) dating from Late Antiquity, in general, focus on the uses of the mansions by the owners. From this perspective, the mansions are considered to be designed to enable and maximize the power of aristocrats on numerous occasions. The other users of the houses, however, are regarded as mere passive receptacles of aristocratic hegemony. This dissertation, based on a case study of the city of Ostia (4th and 5th centuries AD), takes into account the uses of the mansions as forms of affirmation of the power of the owners, but also their appropriations by the subaltern groups. I analyze archaeological, epigraphic and textual evidence with the intention of having a more in-depth view on the subject.

In the year 589 Reccared, king of the Visigoths, called together leaders of the Catholic Church and the Visigothic nobility to meet at the Third Council of Toledo. That council marked a dramatic change in the Visigothic Kingdom and began a collaboration between the Catholic Church and the Visigothic royal government that would come to define the kingdom, and has forever colored our view of the history of Spain. This dissertation will attempt to place the events that occurred at the Third Council of Toledo into the larger context of the sixth century and will show that the union between the Catholic Church and the Visigothic royal government that occurred at Toledo III was the result of a connection between two longstanding forces in society: the efforts of a small number of provincial bishops to purify society through strict, orthodox Catholicism and the efforts of a few Visigoth monarchs to centralize the kingdom and create a political entity that would be the natural heir to official Roman legitimacy in the west as well as offer a counterbalance to the Eastern Roman Empire. Further, it will draw some connections between the work of the Catholic Church in the Suevic Kingdom, the other Germanic Kingdom that existed on the Iberian Peninsula during the sixth century, and the the Third Council of Toledo. Finally, it will show that in the immediate aftermath of the Third Council of Toledo the bishops were disappointed to find that the introduction of coercive power as a tool of instruction for bishops proved largely unworkable in the short term which led them to abandon some of their new found powers.

<p>Already in the second century, the Church Father Irenaeus warned against reading the Gospel of Truth that was used among the so-called Valentinians. For more than one and a half millennium GospTruth was lost until in the 1950s a Coptic text was discovered that could be a translation of that work both loved and hated.</p><p>Since the discovery scholars have tried to determine whether the Coptic text represents the one mentioned by Irenaeus, and whether its author might even be the famous Gnostic teacher Valentinus of Alexandria.</p><p>The text is very complex and the present study the first attempt to use text linguistic tools for analysing GospTruth. A new and sometimes radically different translation is presented, and an hypothesis of date of redaction and authorship is put forward. Previously Gnostic texts have usually been read in light of the reports of the Church Fathers. In this study an attempt is made to detect topics that were interesting for the Valentinians and that have so far been neglected. The analysis presents a new ethical debate among early Christians regarding the Biblical law, and a hypothesis of how the author of GospTruth wanted his or her community to act towards the neighbouring communities is elaborated. In addition my investigation draws attention to an interpretation of the crucifixion that seems to have distinguished Valentinians from others.</p><p>For a long time scholars depicted the Gnostics as evil opponents to the church. During the last decades this view has been criticized, and today many scholars abandon the term Gnostic altogether, and instead only use the term Christian. In my opinion such an approach risks to conceal the unique features of Valentinianism, and the results of the present study will hopefully shed new light on a branch of Christianity which still is relatively unexplored.</p>

Already in the second century, the Church Father Irenaeus warned against reading the Gospel of Truth that was used among the so-called Valentinians. For more than one and a half millennium GospTruth was lost until in the 1950s a Coptic text was discovered that could be a translation of that work both loved and hated. Since the discovery scholars have tried to determine whether the Coptic text represents the one mentioned by Irenaeus, and whether its author might even be the famous Gnostic teacher Valentinus of Alexandria. The text is very complex and the present study the first attempt to use text linguistic tools for analysing GospTruth. A new and sometimes radically different translation is presented, and an hypothesis of date of redaction and authorship is put forward. Previously Gnostic texts have usually been read in light of the reports of the Church Fathers. In this study an attempt is made to detect topics that were interesting for the Valentinians and that have so far been neglected. The analysis presents a new ethical debate among early Christians regarding the Biblical law, and a hypothesis of how the author of GospTruth wanted his or her community to act towards the neighbouring communities is elaborated. In addition my investigation draws attention to an interpretation of the crucifixion that seems to have distinguished Valentinians from others. For a long time scholars depicted the Gnostics as evil opponents to the church. During the last decades this view has been criticized, and today many scholars abandon the term Gnostic altogether, and instead only use the term Christian. In my opinion such an approach risks to conceal the unique features of Valentinianism, and the results of the present study will hopefully shed new light on a branch of Christianity which still is relatively unexplored.

This thesis investigates 1st-2nd century CE biographer and philosopher, Plutarch's, manipulation and construction of gender ideals in three sets of his Parallel Lives, Coriolanus and Alcibiades, Pelopidas and Marcellus, and Phocion and Cato the Younger in which he presented his particular version of the ideal man and route to manhood. Plutarch discouraged traditional paths to gaining masculine status and simultaneously promoted a type of masculinity that benefited other aspects of his identity, particularly promoting his social and economic position and ethnicity. He asserted throughout that martial men were not in control of their emotions and therefore were incomplete men. Plutarch then promoted the study of Hellenic education, or paideia, and philosophy as the route to ideal manhood. This sub-discourse served as a reaction to Roman rule and the position of Greek men in the Roman Empire. Although Plutarch wrote centuries after the Roman annexation of Greece, he and his contemporaries continued to negotiate and redefine the complex power relations that existed between Greece and Rome. Living and writing at the beginning of the Second Sophistic (60-230 CE), Plutarch's work reflects a wider phenomenon that was occurring within Greece between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE. This study is therefore multi-layered, investigating not only how gender ideology is constructed and redefined but also how it can be manipulated to suit social and political circumstances in order to participate in discourses about identity, authority and power.

This thesis addresses what cultural influences and social circumstances shaped the works of the Hippocratic Corpus and Soranus's Gynecology. This thesis will illustrate how these medical texts are representative of how women were viewed by men in Classical Greece and Early Imperial Rome, respectively. It deals additionally with how these gynecological works in turn impacted the way in which society viewed and treated women. In particular, these medical writers' changing views of the act of conception shed light on the differing attitudes of their cultures. Thus far research on these time periods and works has focused too narrowly on one aspect of society to do them justice, nor has there been an effort to separate Soranus's work from the Hippocratic Corpus as representative of a completely different culture and time period. Scholarship has not before discussed the importance of who controls power over conception, men or women, as the key to understanding why women were treated they way they were by men. Using a feminist approach, this thesis examines the culture, mythology, literature, history, and medicine of these cultures, employing cultural morphology to understand how and why they changed. Greek men feared the women in their lives because they believed that women controlled conception. Roman men did not fear the women in their lives but respected them as mothers, for the important reason that women did not control or contribute to conception. All of the cultural evidence examined inclines one to believe that the way women were treated and viewed by men in the Classical period of Greece and the early Imperial period in Rome, is related directly to who held the power over conception of children, men or women.

Land and water use at archaeological sites is a growing field of study within Mesoamerican archaeology. In Mesoamerica, similar to elsewhere in the world, landscapes were settled based partially upon the characteristics of the environment and the types of food and water resources available. Across Mesoamerica, landscape concepts were also important to religious beliefs and ritual activity in a manner that may have had the potential to influence the power dynamics of a site. This thesis focuses on the management of water at the site of Takalik Abaj in Guatemala during the Middle to Late Preclassic periods (c. 1000 B.C. - A.D. 250) in order to analyze potential ritual and political functions of the water management system. Using spatial data within GIS, this thesis examines the flow of water across the site as directed by its topographical features. The archaeological record of Takalik Abaj and comparisons to water management systems at other Mesoamerican sites are also used to investigate the functions of the water management system. Thesis findings suggest that the water management system of Takalik Abaj was multi-faceted and that ritual functions tied to the control of water may have contributed to the identities and power of the elite.

Notre travail montre l’urbanisme de la ville de Zadar en Dalmatie, soit le développement de ses contenus urbains de ses débuts à l’Antiquité jusqu’à l’an 1409. Notre analyse urbanistique repose avant tout sur les monuments et autres vestiges matériels. Les sources historiques pertinentes furent bien évidemment prises en compte. Nous avons présenté la construction architecturale au cours de quatre périodes : Antiquité, Antiquité tardive, Haut Moyen Âge et Moyen Âge central et tardif. Pour chaque période, nous avons présenté les constructions de Zadar en quatre catégories distinctes d’après leur type d’architecture : fortifications, architecture profane publique, architecture profane privée et architecture sacrée. Les vestiges matériels liés à l’infrastructure de la ville furent également présentés (chaussées, canaux d’évacuation, etc.) Le développement de Zadar, à savoir la transformation de son urbanisme, fut analysé au travers de plusieurs époques en lien étroit avec la périodisation des événements historiques survenus sur la côte orientale de l’Adriatique. La période protohistorique fut également prise en compte. Notre analyse montre que la période antique définit le réseau orthogonal de voies de la cité. La construction intensive du Moyen Âge donna à la ville une physionomie urbaine qui conserva sur presque toute la surface de la cité les éléments principaux de l’urbanisme antique / This dissertation presents an analysis of the urbanism of the city of Zadar in Dalmatia, the development of the city and its urban contents from its beginnings in Antiquity until 1409. The urban analysis is based primarily upon the various surviving monuments and remnants. Relevant historical sources have also been taken into account. The different elements have been classified and presented according to four historical periods: Antiquity, Late Antiquity, Early Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages. Within each period, Zadar's buildings are categorised according to four typologies: Fortifications, Public Secular Structures, Private Secular Structures and Sacred Buildings. The remains of the city's infrastructure (sidewalks, drainage channels, etc.) have also been presented. The development of the city of Zadar, through its urban transformation, has been analysed through the outlined periods while keeping the usual periodization of general historic events on the eastern Adriatic coast. The protohistoric period has also been considered. Analysis has also revealed that the regular orthogonal grid of the city was defined in Antiquity, and that despite intensive construction during the medieval period when the city developed its urban physiognomy, nearly all the principle characteristics of the city established during Antiquity have been preserved.