Classical Studies

Who was Edward de Vere? He was the 17th Earl of Oxford, he was a courtier in Elizabeth's court; a poet, a playwright and a renowned trouble maker known as the "spear shaker" who some scholars believe wrote under the pseudonym William Shakespeare. Many Shakespeare scholars dismiss the claims that Edward de Vere could have been the author of the works attributed to William Shakespeare, but just how dubious are these claims? This paper dives into the connections between Edward de Vere and the most celebrated and damning piece of evidence against the orthodox story; The first folio of 1623.

Who was to blame for Pentheus' downfall in Euripides' The Bacchae? Was it Dionysus? Was it his mother Agave? Or, was it Pentheus' hubris that led to his ultimate demise? This paper analysis each character's part in Pentheus' downfall and deciphers who should shoulder the blame.

Iamblichus' On the Mysteries of the Egyptians is part of a larger Neoplatonic debate over the soundness of theurgical practices and Eastern ritual. The discussion of Egyptian practices in The Mysteries reveals the legitimating structures which underlie Iamblichus' argument, specifically, an Orientalizing discourse which contributes to a larger esoteric market of knowledge. This is figured both through stereotypes of Egypt as a site of ancient mysteries, but also from a very real inaccessibility of Egyptian religion to the Greeks. This emphasis on timeless, secret knowledge converts Iamblichan theurgy, a disputed new system of Platonic thought, into a unit of social currency which confers worth, prestige and power upon its creator and sets it apart from the dominant mode of philosophical rationalism.

The Roman historian Tacitus coined the phrase interpretatio Romana to describe his attempts to understand foreign religion within a Roman framework. This strategy of cultural translation, however, is abandoned in his discussion of the Judeans in book five of the Histories. Although Tacitus is confronted with several opportunities to bring Judean and Roman religion into sympathetic conversation, he instead draws an acrimonious picture of Judean ritual. This religious alterity is especially seen in his characterization of the celebration of Sukkot, a festival he describes as “absurd and filthy” in contrast with the joyous practices of the Roman god Liber. Using Sukkot as a lens for Tacitus’ discussion of the Judeans, this paper seeks to answer a significant, but often overlooked question implicit in Tacitus’ discussion: Why is Judean religion portrayed with such hostility? This paper argues that Tacitus’ rhetoric underscores the identity politics at work within this treatise, and moreover serves a larger political function which reflects unprecedented imperial goals in Judea. On the one hand, Tacitus’ rhetoric sits within a larger milieu of Roman discourse on the Judeans, but this discourse also held political possibilities: the unfavourable portrayal of the Judeans legitimated a uniquely religious conquest of the region as centered on the temple locus. By examining the historical context of religious alterity in the Histories we can better understand this puzzling turn in Tacitus’ portrayal of foreign religion.

This paper surveys the magico-religio-philosophical literature that circulated in the Roman Empire between the time of Apuleius’ Apologia and Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis. It positions Apuleius as a proto-theurgist, someone who held beliefs and engaged in practices which were similar to those that later came to be recognized as theurgy, a ritualized philosophy attributed to Iamblichus of Apamea. Theurgy viewed the use of ritual, divination, and sacrifices as a valid and necessary means of engaging the divine. This paper demonstrates that Iamblichus was not the first to utilize ritual or “magic” as a means of philosophical attainment. On the contrary, a similar thread of ideas is woven into the discussion of philosophy and ritual in Apuleius’ Apologia.

Stained with the scandal of the Bacchanalia and the mythology of a rabid god, scholarship on Dionysiac cult often characterizes these associations, especially those devoted to the Dionysiac mysteries, as being in opposition to the city. This paper, however, argues from epigraphic evidence that Dionysiac mystery cults were not marginalized in the Roman Empire, especially in the Roman east. Although Dionysiac mystery cults were fundamentally oriented towards the religious needs of their individual members, epigraphic evidence suggests that Dionysiac religious associations interacted with the public sphere in several significant ways. Moreover, these interactions suggest that being a member of the Dionysiac mysteries was viewed positively, not only by those who self-identified as initiates, but by the wider communities with which they interacted. Dionysiac mystery associations did not exist on the margins of acceptable society, rather they were visibly important contributors to the public good.

The first half of this paper concerns itself with methodological, analytical, and metacritical issues which inform this study of Dionysiac associations. My study importantly breaks with three dominant assumptions of Roman religion: the centrality of civic cult (or polis religion), the emphasis on communal religious expression (i.e. that there was no religious individual in antiquity), and embedded religion. In this respect, I make three important arguments. First, I argue that the Romans were able to distinguish between religious and non-religious phenomena and that religion was not embedded in antiquity. Moreover, I argue that we need to distinguish between religious and non-religious phenomena at a second-order level as a necessary prerequisite for the study of religion in antiquity. Second, I argue for a decentralized approach to Roman religion. Drawing off of Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory, I put forward a “systems within a system” model of Roman religion. This model premises an overarching system of religious communication patterns in which multiple expressions of those patterns co-existed with varying degrees of accommodation or exclusion. Third, I argue for the existence of the religious individual in antiquity. This religious individual was able to strategize and make religious choices based on individual needs in specific contexts. Importantly for this study, I engage modern sociological theory to argue that it is the religious individual who, through the adoption and display of a Dionysiac religious identity, acted as the link between the private Dionysiac associations and the public sphere.

The second half of this paper concerns itself with the epigraphic evidence for Dionysiac associations. Here I argue that private Dionysiac cults did not exist in contradistinction with the public sphere, but rather overlapped with the public sphere in significant ways. I identify three dimensions of overlap: locative, civic, and imperial. Each of these areas suggests that Dionysiac associations, especially those oriented towards the mysteries, led vibrant public lives. This can be seen in the monumentalization of Dionysiac identities on epitaphs, the public honours given to fellow members, dedications made by Dionysiac associations on behalf of the city, and the bestowal of honours on emperors, to name but a few of the ways that these groups and their members gained a foothold in the public sphere.

Although my main argument pertains to the status of Dionysiac groups in the Roman east, I make an additional sub-argument about the status of the Dionysiac individual. I argue here that Dionysiac cults were a positive locus for the fashioning of individual religious identity and that Dionysiac identities were valued outside of internal cultic boundaries in wider society. Building off of modern sociological identity theory, I demonstrate the ways in which an individual in the Roman Empire held multiple religious and social identities. Moreover, I demonstrate how the expression of a particular identity in a specific context reveals an individual’s expectations of that specific identity to be accepted in that particular circumstance. That an individual was able to negotiate social hierarchies using a Dionsyaic identity at all, I argue, is indicative of the relative acceptance and esteem accorded to Dionysiac mystery cults in the Roman east.

This study argues that being a Dionysiac in the Roman Empire was not marginalizing, but rather socially acceptable and even esteemed. Those who identified as Dionysiacs did so in the contexts of public honours and social projects that extended up to the highest reaches of social life. It is time that we stop seeing Dionysiac cults as the outsiders of Roman religion and recognize them for what they really were—important players in Roman society.

This paper surveys nineteen lead curse tablets from the sanctuary of Magna Mater and Isis in Mainz, Germany. Written in Latin, these tablets seek the divine help of Magna Mater and other deities in rectifying perceived injustices. When theorizing about cursing practices at the site, I argue that we need to look to the in situ context of the curse tablets and consider the other ritual deposits made at the sanctuary. Accounting for the co-presence of votary items alongside curse tablets can significantly aid our understanding of how the curse authors at Mainz viewed their practice. I argue that votive cult provides a compelling framework for understanding cursing at Mainz and the role of place in these materials. The curses at Mainz suggest that those who utilized cursing at the site made a strong connection between the figures petitioned in the curses and the physical site of the temple. The connection between the temple locus and cursing is illustrated by the uniformity of cursing rituals, the thematic content of the petitioners’ requests, and the sites of tablet deposition. Because of the close connection between votive cult and cursing at the site, I argue from the evidence supplied by the curse tablets examined here that we need to reconsider our formulation of cursing as a deviant or marginal religious practice and instead recognize all the ways that it fell within normative religious habits in Roman antiquity.

Soccer is more than entertainment in Germany—it's an economic powerhouse. The German soccer league, the Bundesliga, earned €4.01 billion (Approximately $4.5 billion USD) during the 2016-2017 season. Revenues during this period grew a whopping 368% from €1.09 billion in the 2003-2004 season (Deutsche Fußball Liga [DFL], 2018c). The Bundesliga’s domestic growth, however, has a ceiling. While football is popular in Germany, its potential for increasing revenues at home will likely stagnate. For this reason, international expansion is a key component of the league's continued development (McKinsey & Company, 2015; DFL, 2018c; Deutsche Welle, 2018a). This paper is concerned with the Bundesliga’s expansion into the U.S. market, which was properly initiated in the fall of 2018 with the opening of the New York Bundesliga office. While the U.S. offers significant growth potential for the Bundesliga in terms of new markets and income streams, it is an expansion that is not without challenges. The globalization of German soccer poses issues in its host country of the United States and its home country. In this paper, I identify three core challenges to American expansion: cultural attitudes towards soccer, competition with other sport franchises for media time, and the development of team loyalty in the absence of geographical factors. Within these categories, I identify avenues of strength for the Bundesliga and, using theories of brand development and consumer loyalty, suggest strategies for overcoming challenge areas. I argue that globalizing the Bundesliga is a goal that is not without its challenges, but with the proper market awareness, the Bundesliga could successfully tap into the North American market.

The retrieval and subsequent burial of the war dead in classical Greece was considered an important component of any given battle. Scholarship has observed how the retrieval of the war dead in the classical period could determine the outcome of a battle, as well as how the commemoration of the war dead functioned as a tool of civic identity, especially in the city of Athens. Although the above observations provide sufficient motivation for the recovery of the battle dead, this paper proposes an additional impetus for their collection: religion. Although scholars have often noted that Greek customs surrounding the war dead were motivated by religious concerns, what those religious concerns were have not been elaborated. This paper remedies this gap by exploring the relationship between the war dead and the gods. In this paper, I argue that the war dead were considered the property of the gods and were afforded special protections for this reason. Moreover, the proper burial of the war dead was necessary to transfer the war dead from the custody of the human world to the gods below. Such a transfer, I argue, maintained the relationship between the polis and the gods, ensuring its continued existence.

MA Thesis Abstract: This research explores the role that violent athletics and combat sports played during the Neopalatial Period (1750-1450 BCE) in Bronze Age Minoan Crete. A database of Minoan artifacts including seals, rhyta, cups, and frescoes has been created to analyze athletic and combat sport related iconography. The data collected, categorized, and catalogued has made it possible to understand that depictions of violent athletic competition are representative of real events in Bronze Age Minoan sport and society. This is attested through an archaeological and art historical analysis of artifacts, not limited to the archaeological and architectural evidence that present the potential for athletic activity. Practice theory, performance theory, and group identity theory serve as the core theories attesting this research. Moreover, this research demonstrates the sociology of sport from an ancient and modern anthropological perspective in order to draw realistic socio-cultural parallels of Minoan sport and society | 2024

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