History Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2778

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Classical studies

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Seeds of Discord: Extraordinary Commands and Constitutional Thought in the Roman Republic
    (2023) Cranford, Dustin Scott; Eckstein, Arthur; Lapin, Hayim; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Extraordinary commands remain a controversial subject in the history of the Roman Republic, especially regarding whether (or how) such commands contributed to the ultimate collapse of Rome’s republican government. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the definition of extraordinary commands or the criteria for identifying them in modern scholarship, without which historians are unable to discern the true significance of these commands in Roman history. This dissertation argues that extraordinary commands are best understood as deviations from the Roman constitution, wherein the socio-political norms and laws intended to regulate Rome’s magistracies were subordinated, through either senatorial decree or popular vote, in order to accommodate the creation of an otherwise illegal military command. Starting with a historiographical survey of the modern discussion surrounding extraordinary commands, the early chapters of the dissertation also focus on analyzing the socio-political norms and rules that formed the basis of Rome’s republican constitution, as well as a detailed examination of Rome’s political institutions, especially the development of its executive magistracies. Next, a philological analysis of the terms extra ordinem, extraordinarium, and their Greek equivalents examines how Romans and Greeks themselves perceived extraordinary commands. The final chapters of this dissertation argue that the identification of extraordinary commands ultimately comes down to three analytical perspectives: the potential legal criteria of irregular magistracies, the magnitude of their occurrence, and whether they represented a deviation from Roman constitutional law. Finally, the dissertation concludes with an overview of all exceptional and extraordinary commands occurring over the course of the Roman Republic (509-31 BCE), along with a statistical analysis of the changing trends and evolution of extraordinary commands over time. In the end, a proper method of defining and identifying extraordinary commands helps modern historians truly understand the significance of such commands in Roman history. A well-known facet of Rome’s constitution was its flexibility, which allowed the Romans to find innovative solutions to crises facing the state over time, but extraordinary commands represented the breaking point of this flexibility.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Egyptian Pagans through Christian Eyes
    (2016) Juliussen-Stevenson, Heather Ann; Holum, Kenneth; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Construction of Christian identity in Egypt proceeded in pace with construction of the Egyptian pagan “Other” between the second and sixth centuries. Apologies, martyrdoms, apocalypses, histories, sermons, hagiographies, and magical texts provide several different vantage points from which to view the Christian construction of the Egyptian pagan “Other”: as the agent of anti-Christian violence, as an intellectual rival, as an object of anti-pagan violence, as an obstacle to salvation, and—perhaps most dangerously—as but another participant in a shared religious experience. The recent work of social scientists on identity, deviance, violence, social/cultural memory, and religiosity provides insight into the strategies by which construction of the “Other” was part of a larger project of fashioning a “proper” Christian religious domain.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mapping a Late Antique Republic of Letters
    (2014) Conner, Elizabeth Mattingly; Holum, Kenneth G.; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This is a study of how the letters of Procopius of Gaza, Aeneas of Gaza, Synesius of Cyrene, and Isidore of Pelusium, created circuits of intellectual sociability and exchange transcending the territorial limits of Empire and thereby affirmed their participation in a common culture of Learning. The figurative model of a Republic of Letters provides a useful organizational heuristic that illuminates the social phenomena to which these letters point: intellectual sodality conducted through the medium of a classicizing sociolect regulated by strictures of genteel conduct and the shared perception of the morality of the pursuit of knowledge. Understanding these letters as forming a Republic of Letters, I contribute to the study of social networking in Late Antiquity by elucidating the specific communications mechanisms the letter writers deployed to build ever-shifting networks of friends and colleagues. I explore the topography of identities and affiliations that these long-neglected epistolographers developed through epistolary conversations, and examine how these discursive representations suggest the letter authors' participation in greater rhythms of change and continuity in the Later Empire.