The chronic food deficit of early modern Portugal : curse or myth?

Two historiographical currents have debated whether early modern Portugal was cursed by an excessive dependence on foreign food imports as a result of being unable to feed its population, or not. In this short paper, the first long-run systematic quantitative study of this question, we show that the former view is a myth and therefore could not be a curse. Throughout the entire period, a certain amount of grain was in fact imported but cereal purchases abroad never represented more than a diminutive percentage of total food consumption. More importantly, the country carried out a diversified trade in foodstuffs which was seldom seriously out of balance. Portuguese agriculture showed itself consistently capable of specializing in different foodstuffs for export. It was thus not hopelessly inefficient and succeeded reasonably well in meeting the basic nutritional needs of the population.

Representações de suicidas míticos na cerâmica grega: séculos VII-IV A.C.

Com a presente dissertação temos por objectivo problematizar, através da iconografia, as representações de suicidas míticos na cerâmica grega (séculos VII-IV a.C.). O corpus da pesquisa é constituído por 40 vasos com imagens de onze figuras mitológicas: Ájax, Alceste, Antígona, Ariadne, Cassandra, Fedra, Ifigénia, Macária, Medeia, Orestes e Políxena. Das 40 imagens analisadas, três são do séc. VII a.C., cinco do séc. VI a.C., onze do séc. V a.C. e 21 do séc. IV a.C. A dissertação é dividida em onze capítulos, um para cada figura mitológica, nos quais debateremos as fontes, a evolução do mito e a iconografia associada.