Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons^™

Resistance To The Rise Of The Principate: An Analysis Of Literary Allusions To Augustus’ Rivals, Christina Mcguire Villareal

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation asserts that opposition to Augustus and the establishment of the Principate was pervasive and originating from all social strata. After examining incidents of political resistance and social unrest, the project analyzes literary allusions to those who were killed or exiled while challenging Augustus’ rise to power. Using maps, coins, and other artefacts to help explore topographical and contemporary references, this study maintains that coded depictions in literature may provide deeper understanding of events from the period, especially since many of our extant sources are biased, incomplete, or composed centuries later.

The case studies for the literary portion of …

Plutarch Reading Plato: Interpretation And Mythmaking In The Early Empire, Collin Miles Hilton

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

Plutarch of Chaeronea, an eminent figure among the Platonists of the early Roman Empire, built his philosophy by continuously drawing frameworks and models from Plato’s dialogues, both in his works dedicated solely to exegesis and his own lively philosophical dialogues. He both interprets Plato and adapts various models from the Platonic dialogues. Each philosopher was especially concerned with problems posed by myth, yet each also employed their own elaborate and imagistic narratives. In this study, I argue two main points. First, Plutarch’s treatment of mythic narratives, in their dangers and their potential uses, is carefully modelled after Plato. Both are …

‘The Oracular Tale’ And The Oracles Of The Greeks: Storytelling, Conjecture, And Oracular Ambiguity In Herodotus’ Histories And Its Historical And Cultural Context, Daniel J. Crosby

Bryn Mawr College Dissertations and Theses

In this dissertation, I investigate the belief in the power of prophecy in ancient Greece. More specifically, I study how the ancient Greeks used oracles, like those of the famous oracle at Delphi, to make their past, present, and future knowable. I analyze the stories about oracles from Herodotus’ Histories as well as Thucydides and the corpus of Greek inscriptions using a theory of storytelling called narratology. With this theory, I show that all stories about oracles are expressions of the same basic plot whether a narrator employs all of its typical episodes or leaves some of them implied. Further, …