Abstract Not Provided / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In modern populations, adolescence is recognized as a pivotal part of the life course, but bioarchaeologists have not yet widely considered the experiences of adolescents in the past. This research investigates the biological and social changes during Roman adulescentia for individuals buried at Isola Sacra (1st-4th centuries CE; Italy) and Lisieux-Michelet (4-5th centuries CE; France). To investigate biological changes, this thesis identifies osteological indicators of pubertal timing and peptide analysis to assess biological sex for pre-pubertal individuals (n=264). Results demonstrate that adulescentia experienced an extended period of puberty, from nine to 20 years of age; menarche occurred around 15 years of age. Comparisons between the two archaeological sites demonstrate similar patterns of pubertal timing, suggesting similar exposure to Early Life Stress. To investigate the social changes, this research uses stable isotope analysis of incremental dentine sections in teeth, to investigate dietary change between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Incorporating literary sources, observed changes in diet are contextualized in relation to expected social age changes for middle-class individuals within the Roman Empire. At both sites, females exhibit a gradual dietary transition, reflecting a gradual social age change, or that diet is not an appropriate proxy for social age changes for women. For males, changing dietary patterns correspond with the beginning of adulescentia, when these young men took on new roles within their communities and underwent pubertal development. This research demonstrates that adulescentia was an extended period of biological and social change for males and females, which took on different forms depending on one’s sex/gender and social position. This research also demonstrates how investigations of adolescence can permit a more holistic interpretation of this transitional period of the life course and exposes the transitional experiences of these individuals as they come of age in the Roman Empire. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy / There are kids, and there are adults, but what about those in-between? When does one become the other? These are the questions driving this doctoral research, and in applying them to the Roman Empire, I examine patterns of puberty and changes in diet, to better understand when children started to look like and eat like adults in their communities. This research demonstrates that adulescentia (i.e., adolescence) was a period of extended biological development, with puberty occurring between 9 and 20 years of age. Changes in diet, however, occurred in different ways for males and females, and across space and time within the Roman Empire, suggesting that there was not a singular experience or definition of adulescentia, but that lived experiences were more variable and nuanced than ancient literary sources suggest.

No description available.

Thesis advisor: Angela K. Harkins / Romans 5:12-21 has attracted a variety of complex interpretations. It has been read (1) as a theological treatise of original sin (Augustine); (2) as a textual support for the doctrine of justification by faith alone (Luther and the Reformers); and (3) as Paul’s discourse of cosmic powers of sin and death that hold people in bondage and God’s salvific intervention to liberate human beings from cosmic powers of sin and death (contemporary “apocalyptic” school). Three major problems have arisen from reading the passage through these lenses. First, the passage is studied with lack of proper attention to the Roman imperial context in which the text was produced. Second, sin and salvation are over-spiritualized and personalized such that these concepts are rarely applied to concrete contemporary socio-political issues that affect the lives of people today. The result is not only a disjuncture between theology and ethics, but also the disconnection between the Christian kerygma and sociopolitical realities. Third, the rhetorical function of the text for its immediate audience is often underexplored. The implication is that theologians speculate on the themes of sin and salvation in Rom 5:12-21 without paying adequate attention to the concrete ideologies and behaviors that Paul was challenging nor the practices he was calling his audience to embody as a way of counteracting the systemic sins and evils. This study offers an alternative reading of Adam-Christ antithesis in Rom 5:12-21 in light of Roman imperial domination and Paul’s apocalyptic anti-imperial discourse using two contemporary frameworks—empire and postcolonial criticism. Using these frameworks, I read the Adam-Christ antithetical discourse in Rom 5:12-21 as Paul’s critique of the realities of sin and death as embodied by the Roman imperial power. Paul engages in this critique by means of typological reflection on Adam and Christ—the two historical figures whose actions reveal two contrasting ways of being in the world that result either in death or life. Read against the background of Roman imperial domination in the first century CE, I argue that Paul’s personification of sin and death as forces of domination, enslavement, and death-dealing in Rom 5:12-21 can be understood as the way that colonized subjects, such as Paul, give coded expression to the multifaceted experiences of colonial domination, as well as the culture of death that were prevalent within the Roman Empire. In Rom 5:12-21, Paul invites his audience to embody Jesus’ obedience and justice as a way of countering the sinful praxes that he traced their root to Adam. In this way, Christ’s believers can participate in the new age that God inaugurates through the events of Christ and the divine Spirit. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Habilitationsschrift - Universität Bern, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Historians have long struggled to conceptualise the Holy Roman Empire in the later Middle Ages. This thesis seeks to provide an interpretation of political life in the Empire which captures the structures and dynamics in evidence in the sources. It does so through a comparative study of the varied socio-political elites along the Upper Rhine between 1350 and 1500, with frequent reference to other regions of the Empire. The thesis is divided into three sections. Part I, consisting of four chapters, examines the shared and interconnective characteristics of several spheres of activity - the documentary, judicial, ritual, military, and administrative - in which various elites interacted through the same practices and conventions. Part II (five chapters) deals with the types of contractual association which emerged organically from these shared and interconnective structures and practices. It shows that these associations - leagues, alliances, judicial agreements, coinage unions, and others - were more common and more similar than typically assumed, that they regulated key judicial and military affairs, and that they reflected a shared ideology which emphasised peace-keeping and the common good within the Empire's framework. Part III of the thesis shows how the structures and dynamics explored in Parts I and II played out in specific situations by reference to three case studies in the 1370s-'80s, 1410s-'30s, and 1460s-'70s. All three demonstrate how the 'associative political culture' model can illuminate events which were previously considered to be moments of crisis or chaos, or the products of 'territorial' or 'constitutional' processes. The thesis concludes by arguing that, in light of this evidence, the Holy Roman Empire is best understood as a community of interdependent elites who interacted within a shared 'associative political culture'. This conclusion highlights the need for a new paradigm beyond those of the 'territory', the 'constitution', or the centralising 'state'.

Thesis advisor: Pheme Perkins / The recognition of Rome in the ciphered images of Revelation 13 and 17–18 is a hallmark of historical criticism on the Revelation to John (John’s Apocalypse). This dissertation examines Revelation’s use of scripture to characterize the Roman Empire like the nations God has already defeated. The prophet-seer John spurred his audience, the churches of Asia Minor, to abandon pagan practices of eating meat sacrificed to idols and participation in emperor worship, practices seemingly tolerated by John’s opponents, Jezebel and the Nicolaitans. Unlike the majority of contemporary Jewish and Christian apocalypses, Revelation uses neither ex eventu prophecy nor pseudepigraphic narration to authorize its message to “come out” of Rome. Instead, Revelation alludes to scripture hundreds, if not a thousand, times. When describing Rome in Revelation 13 and 17–18, John alludes some six dozen times to the defeated Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the nations of Babylon, Tyre, Nineveh, and Edom, and the justly punished Judah and Samaria. God showed his servants the prophets the downfall of these powers, and they all fell. Likewise, he has shown John the vision of Rome’s desolation and the things which will happen to it soon. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

O objetivo desta tese é defender que o afastamento do Imperador Tibério César Augusto em 26 d.C. representou um importante momento de inflexão política em seu governo (14 - 37 d.C.). Augusto, seu antecessor, lhe deixou como legado um novo sistema político que, embora tenha agregado precedentes republicanos, constituiu-se como um conjunto de experimentações processuais sem uma consolidação definitiva. Tibério deu continuidade a este sistema, uma delicada relação de manutenção do prestígio aristocrático, os precedentes de seu antecessor e a ascensão da corte imperial, novo cerne do poder em Roma. Todavia, uma vez que a autonomia e participação do Senado já não possuíam a mesma efervescência republicana, a definição dos limites de atuação e influência entre o Imperador e a instituição senatorial tornou-se cada vez mais complexa e conflituosa. A esta condição somou-se o ambiente de intrigas e disputas sucessórias entre os núcleos familiares Júlio-Claudianos, cuja rede de interesses ampliou-se com a participação de indivíduos oriundos da aristocracia, principalmente pelo desmantelamento do esquema sucessório concebido por Augusto com as sucessivas mortes dos jovens príncipes candidatos ao poder. Esta conjuntura de tensão politica agravou-se com a ascensão de Sejano, prefeito da guarda pretoriana, que exerceu uma influência inédita sobre os desígnios de Tibério e contribuiu para que este finalmente se retirasse de Roma. A ilha de Capri, na costa da Campânia, além de um retiro aprazível das preocupações políticas da capital, tornou-se também o novo cerne do poder decisório, percepção surpreendente e acrimoniosa para a opinião pública deste período. O Império continuou a ser administrado sem a presença cotidiana do Princeps em Roma, não obstante seu deslocamento tenha se constituído como um filtro que passou a condicionar a dinâmica das interações entre Tibério, a corte e o restante da aristocracia. Igualmente, a ausência do Imperador deu margem à exploração indiscriminada das condenações por traição à majestade (maiestas), um novo elemento ao tradicional contexto de competividade que marcou a história do Senado, o acirramento de disputas entre membros da família imperial em Roma e a interferência desmesurada de Sejano nos rumos da sucessão dinástica, em que inúmeros membros da aristocracia foram posicionados variadamente no interior deste conflito. A eliminação de Sejano não atenuou esta situação, e seu sucessor Névio Sutório Macro continuou a influenciar senadores e equestres, que nos últimos anos de vida de Tibério se viram divididos entre o receio de continuar ou não apoiando um Imperador distante conquanto ciente de suas prerrogativas de comando ou um potencial sucessor, Calígula. / The main purpose of this thesis is to assert that the departure of Tiberius Caesar Augustus in 26 AD characterized an important moment of political inflexion in his government (14 - 37 AD). As a legacy, his antecessor Augustus left him a new political system that had constituted as a set of processual experimentations without a definitive consolidation, although had he aggregated republican precedents. Tiberius had to give continuity to this system through a delicated relationship of maintenance of the aristocratic dignity, his antecessors precedents and the accession of the imperial court, the new source of political power in Rome. However, once the autonomy and Senates participation do not longer have the same republican effervescence, the definition of the boundaries of procedure and influence between the Emperor and the senatorial body became more and more complex and conflictuous. To this, it has added the ambience of gossip and sucessory struggles between the Julian-Claudian households, whose network of interests has expanded of the participation of individuals arising from aristocracy, mostly by the dismantlement of the sucessory scheme previously conceived by Augustus due to the successive deaths of the young princes as potential candidates to the supreme power. This conjuncture of political tension has aggravated with Sejanus accession, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, who has exercised an unparalleled influence over Tiberius designs and had finally contributed to his departure of Rome. The island of Capri on the Campanian shore, besides being an agreeable retreat from the political concerns of the Capital, also became the new core of decisory power, a surprising and acrimonious perception to the public opinion of this period. The empire continued to be administrated without the daily presence of the Princeps in Rome, despite his departure has constituted as a filter that started to conditionate the dynamic of interactions between Tiberius, the imperial court and the rest of the aristocracy. Likewise, the emperors absence gave rise to an indiscriminate exploitation of prosecutions for majesty treason (maiestas), a new element to the traditional context of competitiveness that has marked the Senates history, the worsening of the familiar struggles in roman imperial family and the immoderated interference of Sejanus on the path of dynastic succession, in which several aristocracy members were variously positionated whitin this conflict. Sejanus removal does not appeased this mood and his successor Naevius Sutorius Macro continued to influence senators and eques, that in the last years of Tiberius life found themselves divided between the fear to keep supporting or not a distant emperor although he was aware of his command prerrogatives or to support a potential successor, Caligula.

This thesis explores identity as it was portrayed, constructed, and upheld through court festivals within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in the period between the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and the coronation of Friedrich V, Elector Palatine, as King of Bohemia in 1619. The thesis is made up of five inter-related thematic chapters. Chapter I analyses the role of ‘Lineage, Legitimacy, and History’. This chapter acknowledges the enduring importance of lineage, genealogy, and history to noble legitimacy, and discusses the threats and questions posed by newly rising families. It demonstrates how competing claims and counter-claims to legitimacy were made as festival occasions attempted to weave their protagonists into the fabric of ‘German’ history together with an associated possession of ‘German’ virtues, and how these claims to legitimacy were buttressed by representations of popular acclaim. Chapter II discusses ‘Mortality, Masculinity, Femininity, and Mutability’. At festivals both the mortality of members of dynasties and gendered roles, ideals, and identities as noble men and women were visible. This chapter argues that the evidence of these festivals complicates any stark delineation between male and female identities, instead stressing the degree of mutability of these categories as well as the centrality of virtue demonstrated, primarily, through skill. The themes of mutability and virtue continue into Chapter III, which addresses ‘Nature and the German Land’. Festivals often incorporated performed claims to possession of, and endorsement from, the German land itself. The land and its topographical features could be represented within cities as part of festival occasions, or the journeys to, and between elements of, festivals could incorporate the landscape into the rhetoric of these spectacles. This rhetoric could be confessionalised and politicised, but representations of nature also served to bolster a universalising rhetoric of virtue through the skilled manipulation of nature to the whim of the ruler. Chapter IV deals with the theme of ‘Religion, Piety, and Confessional Difference’. It discusses the role which displays of piety, including humility before God and the Church, played in these occasions, and draws out elements of confessionalised rhetoric present. However, the analysis shows that directly antagonistic religious imagery and language, seen elsewhere in European festival culture, does not feature. Instead, the emphasis is on non-divisive language and a unifying notion of Christendom. This was, of course, set against the dipole of the ‘Other’ which is addressed in Chapter V, ‘Language, Custom, Othering, and Unity’. Festivals drew attendees from across Europe and often included performed representations of non-Christian ‘Others’ such as Turks, Moors, and inhabitants of the New World. While the foreign, even the Ottoman, could be seen as exotic and luxurious, a rhetoric of superiority nurtured through appropriation and trivialisation of the threat which the Ottomans posed again contributed to the creation of common notions of identity. Finally, far from being an impediment to common identity, the meeting and use of different languages at festivals also served to highlight skill, learning, and virtue in the rhetoric of identity at these occasions.

O objetivo desta tese é defender que o afastamento do Imperador Tibério César Augusto em 26 d.C. representou um importante momento de inflexão política em seu governo (14 - 37 d.C.). Augusto, seu antecessor, lhe deixou como legado um novo sistema político que, embora tenha agregado precedentes republicanos, constituiu-se como um conjunto de experimentações processuais sem uma consolidação definitiva. Tibério deu continuidade a este sistema, uma delicada relação de manutenção do prestígio aristocrático, os precedentes de seu antecessor e a ascensão da corte imperial, novo cerne do poder em Roma. Todavia, uma vez que a autonomia e participação do Senado já não possuíam a mesma efervescência republicana, a definição dos limites de atuação e influência entre o Imperador e a instituição senatorial tornou-se cada vez mais complexa e conflituosa. A esta condição somou-se o ambiente de intrigas e disputas sucessórias entre os núcleos familiares Júlio-Claudianos, cuja rede de interesses ampliou-se com a participação de indivíduos oriundos da aristocracia, principalmente pelo desmantelamento do esquema sucessório concebido por Augusto com as sucessivas mortes dos jovens príncipes candidatos ao poder. Esta conjuntura de tensão politica agravou-se com a ascensão de Sejano, prefeito da guarda pretoriana, que exerceu uma influência inédita sobre os desígnios de Tibério e contribuiu para que este finalmente se retirasse de Roma. A ilha de Capri, na costa da Campânia, além de um retiro aprazível das preocupações políticas da capital, tornou-se também o novo cerne do poder decisório, percepção surpreendente e acrimoniosa para a opinião pública deste período. O Império continuou a ser administrado sem a presença cotidiana do Princeps em Roma, não obstante seu deslocamento tenha se constituído como um filtro que passou a condicionar a dinâmica das interações entre Tibério, a corte e o restante da aristocracia. Igualmente, a ausência do Imperador deu margem à exploração indiscriminada das condenações por traição à majestade (maiestas), um novo elemento ao tradicional contexto de competividade que marcou a história do Senado, o acirramento de disputas entre membros da família imperial em Roma e a interferência desmesurada de Sejano nos rumos da sucessão dinástica, em que inúmeros membros da aristocracia foram posicionados variadamente no interior deste conflito. A eliminação de Sejano não atenuou esta situação, e seu sucessor Névio Sutório Macro continuou a influenciar senadores e equestres, que nos últimos anos de vida de Tibério se viram divididos entre o receio de continuar ou não apoiando um Imperador distante conquanto ciente de suas prerrogativas de comando ou um potencial sucessor, Calígula. / The main purpose of this thesis is to assert that the departure of Tiberius Caesar Augustus in 26 AD characterized an important moment of political inflexion in his government (14 - 37 AD). As a legacy, his antecessor Augustus left him a new political system that had constituted as a set of processual experimentations without a definitive consolidation, although had he aggregated republican precedents. Tiberius had to give continuity to this system through a delicated relationship of maintenance of the aristocratic dignity, his antecessors precedents and the accession of the imperial court, the new source of political power in Rome. However, once the autonomy and Senates participation do not longer have the same republican effervescence, the definition of the boundaries of procedure and influence between the Emperor and the senatorial body became more and more complex and conflictuous. To this, it has added the ambience of gossip and sucessory struggles between the Julian-Claudian households, whose network of interests has expanded of the participation of individuals arising from aristocracy, mostly by the dismantlement of the sucessory scheme previously conceived by Augustus due to the successive deaths of the young princes as potential candidates to the supreme power. This conjuncture of political tension has aggravated with Sejanus accession, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, who has exercised an unparalleled influence over Tiberius designs and had finally contributed to his departure of Rome. The island of Capri on the Campanian shore, besides being an agreeable retreat from the political concerns of the Capital, also became the new core of decisory power, a surprising and acrimonious perception to the public opinion of this period. The empire continued to be administrated without the daily presence of the Princeps in Rome, despite his departure has constituted as a filter that started to conditionate the dynamic of interactions between Tiberius, the imperial court and the rest of the aristocracy. Likewise, the emperors absence gave rise to an indiscriminate exploitation of prosecutions for majesty treason (maiestas), a new element to the traditional context of competitiveness that has marked the Senates history, the worsening of the familiar struggles in roman imperial family and the immoderated interference of Sejanus on the path of dynastic succession, in which several aristocracy members were variously positionated whitin this conflict. Sejanus removal does not appeased this mood and his successor Naevius Sutorius Macro continued to influence senators and eques, that in the last years of Tiberius life found themselves divided between the fear to keep supporting or not a distant emperor although he was aware of his command prerrogatives or to support a potential successor, Caligula.